***
It was on the fourth switchback that Wu Ying caught up with the group. He hurried to Li Yao and ducked his head to speak with her. “I’m sorry for what I said yesterday.”
And he was. Even if he did not mean to take back the content of what he said, he certainly understood her position and could have said his side better.
Li Yao looked at Wu Ying, sniffed once, then sped up to leave Wu Ying behind. A flash of anger ran through him at his rebuffed apology. He was not the only one who was wrong. Still… he decided to leave it alone for now. She would cool down at some point. Probably.
In any case, he had someone else to speak to. He dropped back, waiting until his target arrived. “Yin Xue, what are you doing here?”
“Why don’t you ask your girlfriend?” Yin Xue smirked. When Wu Ying’s fists clenched, it only made Yin Xue’s smirk grow even wider. Eventually, when Wu Ying felt as if he might boil over, Yin Xue relented. “Li Yao asked me, of course.”
“To speak with your father? Would that even help?” Wu Ying said.
After all, at least from Yin Xue’s perspective, he was the unwanted son. Of course, that might be a lie too. Or a misjudgment. Fairy Yang thought his banishment and presence here was now more a matter of hedging their bets.
“Better than an unnamed peasant who’s trying to steal his villagers, I would think.”
Wu Ying bristled but had to admit, that made some sense. He hoped they were right and that Yin Xu would be able to convince his father to let the village go.
As if Yin Xue had no desire to spend any more time with Wu Ying than he had to, he sped up and fell in line with the blacksmith apprentice. Wu Ying caught bits of their conversation as the pair introduced themselves. At least the group was larger, even if they had added personal drama to the entire thing. Safety in numbers. So long as they didn’t kill one another.
***
“Good to see you here again,” said the owner of the vessel the group had embarked on. He slapped Wu Ying’s shoulder, his face—deeply tanned from being on the water all the time—breaking into a wide grin. Wu Ying had to smile, as they seemed destined to leave on the same ship he had arrived on so long ago. “Will you be working the oars with us again?”
Wu Ying glanced over at where the sailors were, some of them ready to help guide the ship out on the rowing benches, while others rigged up the sails. Since they were going downstream, they would not have a full bank of oars out. Not like when they had to come to the Sect, rowing upriver against the current.
“No, I don’t think so.” Wu Ying gestured to the drum that dictated the timing. “I don’t think I would be able to match your tempo anymore.”
The captain eyed Wu Ying again, more carefully, and nodded. “Pity, but I understand.”
Having finished speaking to Wu Ying and having sent his vice captain to deal with the rest of the cultivators, the captain turned back to his men and the cargo he was loading. Wu Ying stood by as the captain disappeared, caught up in the work of their departure, before he walked to the prow of the ship. A trace of sadness was in him as he realized that he was pulling away from who he was and who he had been. Away from the mortal world. Even joining in on the oars would be difficult, requiring Wu Ying to match strength with those who were significantly weaker than him. Wu Ying couldn’t be certain that he could do so, and if he failed, then the craft would veer off course.
More than that, he realized, his scope of worry had grown. Saving one’s family was normal. Mortal. Saving an entire village was something only a cultivator could dream of. Something the boy he used to be could never dream of.
As Wu Ying waited for the ship to finish loading and for them to begin their journey, he could only hope for fair winds and smooth waters. If so, it would take them a week before they had to transfer from the ship and begin the overland portion of their journey.
Chapter 9
Wu Ying tossed and turned in the hammock, unable to fall asleep. Late at night, the ship was quiet, the creaking of old wood and the swish of sails the only sounds surrounding him. Giving up, he got off the hammock, making sure to move as quietly as possible as he left the common room, and went up to the deck. Below, the rest of the cultivators and the day crew slept. The deck itself was illuminated by lanterns to allow the night crew to work unimpeded. Up ahead, at the prow, a single lantern illuminated any upcoming obstacles. A lookout peered into the dark waters, doing his best to ensure that the ship would not run afoul of anything. It was only because the river flowed so quickly and was used regularly by other ships that the captain was willing to risk traveling at night. Unlike other waterways and canals that had less traffic, the main river that led from the Sect was always cleared of obstructions in short order.
To Wu Ying’s surprise, seated in a cleared space near the bow of the ship was Tou Hei. The ex-monk had his legs crossed and his eyes closed as he meditated. Wu Ying stretched out his senses, feeling Tou Hei’s aura and the ambient chi flows. He sensed the turbulence in the air as Tou Hei drew in the ambient energy of the world, a small vortex of chi that centered around his friend. Except there was also turbulence within Tou Hei himself. Wu Ying frowned. He had sensed his friend cultivate before, and it was nothing like this.
On consideration, Wu Ying chose to watch over his friend in silence, concern growing as Tou Hei’s breathing grew more erratic and the monk sweated and twitched. Concerned as he was, Wu Ying knew better than to interrupt the cultivator. Doing so would be, could be, as bad as letting him continue. Maybe even worse. Chi deviation was something that every cultivator worried about. At the lower levels of cultivation, that meant the gathered energy within one’s body stopped moving in the carefully prescribed patterns, creating a backflow into the wrong meridians, crossflows into overly burdened locations, and potentially, inflows to blocked locations. This would cause the chi to strike itself, creating turbulence within the body.
It was, in many ways, similar to the backlash Wu Ying had faced when he failed to break through to the next stage. It was why in the beginning, when one started cultivating, it was always recommended to be done in groups and under the watchful eyes of a teacher. The teacher would know the flow of chi within the students and block, divert, and fix the deviations before they became set in the student’s body, requiring even further, more complicated solutions.
Even so, Wu Ying did not think that a chi deviation was what Tou Hei faced at the moment. After all, Tou Hei was in the mid-stages of Energy Storage and was not a beginner cultivator. He should be able to avoid the mistakes young cultivators would make. Furthermore, Wu Ying knew that Tou Hei was not pushing ahead, instead focusing on consolidating his cultivation, which meant repeating known patterns. As such, Wu Ying was forced to watch, though he stood ready to forcibly stop his friend’s cultivation if necessary. Doing that would normally be dangerous, but the pair had shared their cultivation methods for such an eventuality.
Tou Hei continued to shake and shudder, beads of sweat rolling down his smooth face while Wu Ying watched. As suddenly as the shaking started, his friend stopped, jerked upright, and vomited a mouthful of black blood onto his robes. As Tou Hei slumped over, Wu Ying grabbed his friend and supported him with one hand while making a flask of water appear in his other. His friend took a swig of the water, leaned over, and spat out the remnant blood. He repeated the action twice more before grimacing at his robes. A quick wash with the water had the black blood flowing off, making Wu Ying twitch in envy. Even the monk’s robes were more expensive than his own. Then again, those robes were often the only thing a monk would own—and would be worn all their lives. It was probably more economical to own a single good set than multiple cheap robes.