“Good. Your sect, most sects, believe the only way to immortality is by hard work. Hard work in different styles, in different cultivation methods, but hard work. You put in the hours, you train, you draw in chi, and you work at progressing your cultivation. Hundreds, thousands of years perhaps to reach one’s goal.” Lady Pan spoke softly, her eyes fixed upon Wu Ying’s.
He reluctantly nodded, for what she described was true. There was no progress without hard work.
“But why?” When Wu Ying moved to answer, she placed her fingers on his lips briefly, leaving a tingling sensation, a burning warmth that left his heart beating faster. “Why do that? When we have so many examples, so many stories, of those who have achieved immortality without taking that path?”
“You’re talking of Lan Cai He and Quan Zhong Li[11],” Wu Ying said.
“Them, and many others. How many have found immortality because of a lucky item, because of their deeds, from of a gift from those above? Fortuitous encounters, peaches of immortality, even the help of other immortals. So many roads, and yet, the sects only choose one.”
“But that’s because…” Wu Ying wasn’t sure why. He thought about it, sipping on his wine as he did so.
Lady Pan smiled at his furrowed brows while she turned to manage a few other matters her employees drifted over to discuss with her.
As he set down his cup, Wu Ying spoke up. “That kind of immortality—a lot of it isn’t true. It isn’t… theirs.”
“Because they have no dao? Or they find their dao later?” Lady Pan nodded in acknowledgement. “Mostly true. Some though, they find their dao later and become as strong, if not stronger. And really, immortality is immortality.”
Wu Ying grimaced but nodded. “Still, you can’t control the other options. There is no way to harness destiny and luck.”
“True. But are they better?” Lady Pan stood, tapping Wu Ying on his shoulder. “Think about it. Talk to the others. You are young now. You’ve only just started your journey. Sometimes, the path can be circuitous.”
Leaving Wu Ying to think about the matter, Lady Pan went to speak to her other guests. Wu Ying nursed the wine bottle, turning her words over and over in his mind. A different path, a different way to the heavens. In some ways, it was intriguing. Even if intuition told Wu Ying that this was not entirely for him, there was something to what Lady Pan said.
Sometimes, the way ahead was circuitous.
***
It was late in the night, as the sun was beginning to peek over the horizon, when Wu Ying made his goodbyes. He clapped Bai Hu on the shoulder, thanking the talisman master and slipping the talismans he’d purchased into his jacket. If he hurried, he’d make it to the contribution points store before they opened, beating the lines. There was a lot to do still, and if the army was removing itself, Wu Ying had a lot to plan. But if there was more than one way to cultivate, perhaps there was more than one way to steal a manual.
Chapter 20
The next morning, the army withdrew. Preparations for it had taken place all through the night, meaning that the army required only a few hours to get itself together and leave. Not that the entire army left at the same time, for a section of it stayed behind to keep an eye on the city, ensuring they were not attacked while they were moving. Even so, as Wu Ying sat on his horse, watching the divisions march away, he could not help but notice the waste.
Not just of the bodies, which littered the field from the night before. This time around, the army had not bothered to clean up after itself. Nor the various pieces of last night’s antics. The corpses that drew incessant wails and cries from those inside the city were just a portion of the waste he saw. For the city still burnt, smoke curling up from the fires that had ravaged the city all through the night. Even with the help of the cultivators within, the army had managed to set on fire a number of the neighborhoods, leaving the city ravaged.
Furthermore, in front of the city walls lay the shattered masonry and the remnants of the siege weaponry. So many trees, so many yards of rope and hundreds of nails left to rot before the city. Every single siege engine, every trebuchet, assault cover, and sky ladder had been destroyed last night—at the cost of lives. All of it, a waste.
Wu Ying turned his head, spotting the nearby hillsides that had seen their fields destroyed, the water left to drain out, the trees that provided shade cut down. Small huts, used for rest, for cooking midday meals, and storing farming implements, had been burnt down.
All destroyed.
Wasted.
Wu Ying shook his head, staring at the remnants of the siege. He did not understand the point of all this, this battle, this war. He understood the Sect leader’s rumored dao, but he didn’t understand why the king felt the need to expand. His kingdom had food, water, and land. Yet he was forcing his kingdom to fight.
Beside him, Li Yao sat, her thoughts hidden behind an impassive mien. In silence, the pair watched the troops go by, tasked with keeping an eye for enemy cultivators. They were on a hill, overlooking both the city and the army as troops passed them to the south. In a change of pace, Wu Ying’s group had been assigned to the northern portion of the encampment.
This was their last task for the army, for they would leave soon after. That discussion had not gone well. But luckily, Chao Kun, in his role as the leader of the cultivators, had intervened, allowing them to continue with their own mission.
As for Li Yao and Wu Ying, things had been strained. As it should be, considering how twice now they had fought over the very same mission. The strain from the disagreements had told on their burgeoning relationship. Neither of them knew how to step back from their positions. How to apologize and forgive. Especially when neither of them thought they were wrong. It was a clash of priorities rather than of morality, for both agreed the other had a point. In such a situation, neither party knew how to approach the subject, so they continued to avoid it. They focused not on their relationship or what there was of it, but on the job at hand.
That was the smart thing to do. It was the responsible thing to do. They weren’t the only ones on this mission. Or at least that was what Wu Ying told himself
“Do you have a plan?” Li Yao asked, finally speaking up.
“Yes,” Wu Ying replied.
Before Li Yao could ask for further details, the pair of cultivators froze and turned almost in unison. The change in the ambient flow of chi was so great that neither of them could miss it. It was also a highly familiar change in the environmental chi, especially in the sect.
They turned and saw the rigid form of Yin Xue on his horse, his hands down by his sides, his reins dropped and forgotten. Luckily, the animal underneath him had also sensed the change and was turning his head from side to side in curiosity. This was not a bad change; it was, in fact an opportunity. Not just for the man sitting on the horse, but the horse itself. In such close proximity to enlightenment, the change in chi and the world itself could provide the creature an opportunity to progress its own cultivation. And so, man and horse meditated, one upon the glimpse of a universal proof, the other upon the way the world flowed.
Wu Ying shook his head, staring at Yin Xue, and said, “That pig-footed man.”
But he said it softly, for even a Six Jade Gates sect member might pause in his attacks when another cultivator faced enlightenment. They all sought these small glimpses of the universal truth, the Dao. They searched and fought for the heavens’ benediction on their understanding, their wisdom. To break another’s trance, to take away an individual’s opportunity to advance, was something only hated enemies and those in the middle of battle might do. As for everyone else, they honored the moment.