Chapter 10- The Use of a Sect

Tian and Hong spent a couple of days not-quite-bedridden. It was very easy to take things very easy, and they had plenty of medicine. Their body cultivation sped up the healing process, but broken bones were broken bones- not quickly mended. They had plenty to keep occupied with.
“I think this symbol means ‘argument.’” Tian guessed.
“Why? ‘Argument’ doesn’t even make sense in this context.”
“Yeah, but if you cover one half of the charicter with your thumb and squint, it kind of looks like the symbol for ‘woman.’ And when you lift your thumb it looks like there are two symbols for ‘woman’ smooshed together, and if you imagine an extra line coming out here, and this bit going more swoosh-”
“Now it does kind of look like the modern character for argument. If that’s the origin of that symbol I am going to riot.”
Tian nodded understandingly.
“You are thinking that I’m proving the ancestors right, aren’t you?”
“Never!” Tian lied.
Hong eyeballed him, then rolled her eyes and snorted. “Still doesn’t make sense in the context. Liar.”
Tian decided to display the magnanimity of a big brother and not quibble. “It kind of does if you read the previous passage as “Solar-Lunar air in ‘unknown’ to form the vast ‘unknown’ true qi, nine nails overcome all argument.”
“You just spent twenty minutes arguing that ‘overcome’ should be read as ‘fix,’ in the sense of fixing something in place.” The degree of stink eye from Liren intensified.
“I did, yes.” Tian nodded. “On the other hand, I’m just looking at pictures and thinking what other pictures they kinda-sorta look like and guessing, so I’m not too fixed on any particular reading.”
Liren groaned and covered her eyes with her hand. “I do not understand how scholars live like this. I don’t understand how they think like this. We are basically translating one type of character into another, and then trying to guess what those characters meant to their authors and translate that into what makes sense to us. If we don’t guess right, we could cripple or kill ourselves trying to use it.”
“Speaking of knowledge that could cripple us, Suneater mentioned something that I only heard Starsieve mention before- shen. You ever hear of ‘shen?’”
“Not before Starsieve, no. I’m pretty sure it’s what Daoist Steelshimmer called “Brainpower.” Liren closed the book firmly. “It would make sense. Vital energy for the body, qi for the, well, qi. The…” She groped for the words
“‘Animating breath’ is what Brother Fu called it.” Tian offered.
“Right, yeah, but that doesn’t really help me. I just tend to go with it and not ask questions.” Hong sighed. “It’s like the dao- in everything, nothing would exist without it, but unlike the dao, you can store some of it in a purified and condensed form inside of you and do stuff with it at the Heavenly Realm. Or something. I think.”
“That matches what I’ve picked up. So shen, or brain power, is, what, the mental equivalent of qi? That feels too… Qi is a big part of how the world works. Vital energy is the basis of our bodies, our physiques and from the sound of it, you could also say it’s the basis of our future potential. What gives shen the right to be put on that kind of level?” Tian shook his head.
They lapsed into silence for a bit ruminating. The sound of the stream running through the cavern had long since become ignorable background noise, but that didn’t mean it was silent. The rocks would groan or knock sometimes. They had no idea why. There didn’t seem to be anything wrong with them.
“This is why our seniors kept telling us not to try and learn about the realms above us, isn’t it? We are focusing on what’s too far ahead, and not figuring out what immortality is to us now. Not building our foundations.” Hong’s voice jolted Tian out of his reverie.
“You might be right.”
“We need actual experts on this to translate the text into modern characters. And to provide commentary on what the authors meant by it.”
“Yeah.”
“Good thing we have a sect right here, with experts.” Hong’s voice went soft.
“Yeah.”
A different sort of silence settled on the cave, gathering and pooling around them, pressing on them until it forced the word in Liren to overflow.
“You still want to leave. Even after Starsieve got rid of most of the worst parts of the sect.”
“Yeah.” Tian stared up at the stalactites. “There are so many good things here. So many good people. And I look at them and think ‘You were okay with killing families because they became weak. Because there was no one who could speak up for them. That’s the system you grew up in and supported. You decided that was the best way to look out for untalented descendants, or at least you decided it wasn’t worth taking a risk to try and stop.’”

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He tracked a spreading blue sea of lichen across a little patch of rock. He had read about oceans. He had been on some pretty big lakes. Maybe it was about the same? He still couldn’t swim though.
“It’s not that I hate them. I just… don’t want to carry that weight. I don’t want to hide the dead boy, or explain that I was born six years old. I don’t want to grieve for you, and I do. I don’t want to wonder how the brother I’m sparring with, who earned enough merit to get dragged onto the mountain, had somehow managed to balance out the sin of family extermination. And I know some of them must have, because Brother Fu is here, and so is Martial Aunt Bai, and Elder Rui, and other seniors who were certainly involved.”
“You are thinking of it like a swing arm scale- sin pushing down one side, merit the other. But I don’t think it’s like that. I think it’s like sacks full of rocks. You are carrying both, and you keep carrying them until you can set them both down. In this life or another.” Liren’s voice came out muffled. “It’s the Hell called ‘And.’ Balanced one way, they are saints. Balanced the other, they are villains. But nobody is all one thing, so I have to think about how my parents… out of love and self preservation…”
She couldn’t finish the sentence, but she didn’t have to. Tian knew what she was trying to say. Silence settled back in for another hour.
“I’d go with you if you left. I would try to persuade you to stay, but I’d go with you.” Liren’s voice shattered the air, clear and strong.
Tian smiled. “I’d stay, for you. Though I’d try to persuade you to go.”
When they were feeling fit enough, they started properly exploring the grotto. There weren’t any other grottos in Fireflow Valley, so presumably there was a reason Suneater chose it. He didn’t seem the sort to care much about aesthetics in the face of benefits.
“Anything over there?” Tian controlled the urge to shout. Even with the ear cuffs, the instinct was hard to control. The crane sent a memory of the whole valley from above. Nothing particularly stood out, and Tian got the distinct impression the crane was wondering what they were still doing in that hole in the ground.
“Nope.” Liren’s voice was clear in his ear.
Tian thought for a moment, then rapped his skull. “Hey, Sis? I’m going to thump the ground. Use your perception arts and do the same. Let’s see if there isn’t a hollow area underneath or something. Or a hollow wall. Something.”
“Ugh. That’ll be tedious.”
“Let’s start with where he was sitting and go from there.” Tian urged.
“He was in his death seclusion or whatever we are going to call it. Why would he hide something? Why think he had any more treasures than what was in the ring?” Liren groused, but she was stomping very deliberately as she made her way over to the prayer mat Suneater had been sitting on.
“He was a petty man.” Tian didn’t bother stomping on the way over and instead went straight for the prayer mat. He examined it hopefully for signs of magic, found instead signs of permanent staining, and threw it directly into his new ring. He bent over and started examining the ground carefully.
“Petty? Because he insulted your tea?” Liren grinned.
“Because he called you a troll, and I would hate him for that even without all the other things.” But Tian kept those words in his heart.
“Think about how he acted. The second he decided we were easy to bully, he moved to eat us. Fearing the strong, preying on the weak, and constantly condescending to us. What could he be but a petty man? I would bet anything you care to wager that he was just another face in the crowd amongst the True Disciples. The kind that’s always off adventuring, but never making real gains because he never staked his life.”
Liren nodded. “Now that you say it, I see it. Powerful as hell to us, but nobody to his peers.” She snickered. “How humiliating, an expert once in the Heavenly Realm died from his own incompetence, then died again at the hands of Earth Realm juniors with a fraction of his skills or experience.”
“And a petty man…” Tian stomped a few times on the ground. It looked like solid stone, and was silent as stone underfoot, but the vibration sensing skills Three Nights Hwang and trained into him years ago were as sharp as ever. He switched over to Thunderous Palms and started slowly breaking up the rock floor. “Would have a hidden stash, but wouldn’t dare go far from it. Even facing death, he was scared of being robbed.”
“Not of being robbed. Of benefiting someone else with no profit for himself. Shove over, I’ve got a pickaxe.”
“A pickaxe? You packed a pickaxe?”
“We were going to explore a cave, of course I picked up a pickaxe. You didn’t pack a pickaxe?” Hong rolled her eyes and her shoulders at the same time, before swinging down with an immense “CRACK!”
“And you call me a packrat.” Tian muttered.
“Not like you denied it. Oh, oh, what’s this?”
Brilliant yellow light seeped through the broken rock. Tian and Hong quickly reached down and started pulling the stones away. A chest, made of some frosted, translucent material that was neither metal nor jade slowly revealed itself, the long-dead enchantments still etched into its sides.
“Gently, gently. I’ll do it.” Tian’s hands dove in and gently lifted the box out. “Any active enchantments? All I’m getting is yin and yang qi, all jumbled together.”
“Such pure yang qi. That yin qi is something else too. You could use the yang qi, and I can use the yin, and we would balance ourselves out. Perfect, perfect. Thank you Elders!”
“Awesome! Let’s see what it is.” Tian clapped and reached to open the box, then paused. “Ah, do you want to do the honors?”
“Nah, you do it.” She grinned at him.
Tian grinned back and gently lifted the lid up. Inside was a fist sized rock, roughly pyramid shaped but one slope was closer to vertical and the others covered with little bumps and protrusions. A little crackling cloud of lighting floated around the top of it. Leaping around the rock was a tiny tiger, wreathed in cold air, battling an equally diminutive dragon. There was a brief pause in their battle when the lid of the box went up, and the two humans felt a sudden rushing in of the elements, funneling down into the stone and the two spirits. Like an ember suddenly given air and roaring back into life. Tian didn’t wait to find out what would happen when they fully restored themselves and slammed the lid shut.
“They are pressing against the lid.”
“What?”
“They are getting stronger. I can feel qi leaking in through the lid. All the enchantments that sealed the box are dead and opening the box broke the last of them. Whatever they are, they want out.” Tian grunted. It was manageable for now, but the pressure was getting stronger.
“Call the crane,” Liren said. “We are flying back to the sect. Now!”