041. WOOD, METAL

Ming Shi was sure his nose was blistering from the heat. He could feel the vibration of A’Nuan’s boiling–growling in his skull.

“Sorry,” he said, quickly. “Sorry, sorry, sorry.”

Clean thoughts. Clean.

He should have taken A’Nuan’s reaction seriously from the start. She was pure Cleansing-Intent. Poison was antithetical to her existence. Reading about Poisoning-Intent would have made him taste not just unpleasant but threatening.

“Fresh Thought Leaves,” said Ming Shi quickly, throwing out the first cleansing ingredient that came to mind. He gentled his voice and continued. “White Opal lotus roots. Seven Star cassia bark. Queen Mother peach blossoms—” He paused.

Madam Zhang had mentioned that A’Nuan emerged from a pot of peach gum and persimmon sweet soup.

“Aha,” Ming Shi said, realizing how to coax A’Nuan. “How about this? Purifying peach gum sweet soup with dried persimmons. First, soak some Queen Mother peach gum for twelve hours, until those amber tears of the tree are soft, expanded, and shining. Get some Autumn’s Smile persimmons, dried until they wear a coat of natural frost sugar ...”

A’Nuan’s growling softened to a rumble.

“Simmer with smoked rock sugar, a handful of goji berries that have never touched metal, and six jujube dates, pitted with a bamboo needle ...”

The heat radiating from A’Nuan diminished. She drifted down, no longer pressed against his nose.

“Cook until the peach gum turns to a golden jelly ...”

A’Nuan settled onto his lap with a contented burble, shrinking back to her original size. Her sage sprig drooped peacefully. Ming Shi reached for the book, but— “Nuan!” She perked up immediately, sage rising menacingly.

He sighed and began again.

“Purifying peach gum sweet soup ...” It took three full recitations before A’Nuan’s simmer-purr indicated satisfaction. Still, she would not permit him to return to reading. By the fifth recitation, Ming Shi found his own voice becoming hypnotic, and the warm weight of A’Nuan on his lap combining with the comfortable breeze through his window made his eyelids droop. The recipe became a lullaby, each ingredient nudging him toward sleep. He drifted off into peaceful, dreamless rest, A’Nuan’s contented bubbling in the background.

***

When he woke, the light had shifted to late-afternoon bronze, shading into early evening.

“Nuan!” A’Nuan chirped happily, tapping the book with her ginseng root. Her embroidered smile had returned to its cheerful curve. Clean now! Study time!

“As you command,” Ming Shi said, smiling back. He didn’t hold the sage-slapping against her. He’d stepped on the house cat’s tail, and like any good house cat, she’d forgiven him once he’d adequately repented.

A’Nuan made an upbeat rippling sound and waved her ginseng root at the title of the next section. The characters had a vibrant, reaching feel.

WOOD
The Source

“But, Master, cows aren’t made of wood!”

– Every Student Who’s About to Learn Something Important

The Wood element refers to the life spirit of all flora. It is found in all organic ingredients. That’s right. All of them. Meat included. After all, every ingredient you’ll ever cook began as plants drawing qi from the world.

[“Welcome to the existential crisis club” - VegetableMinded

“Wait until you realize we’re all just processed sunlight” - ZenChef420

“Please don’t start THAT debate again” - LandladyZhang]

Your steak ate grass and your caviar spawned from an algae-eater. Carnivores eat herbivores—it’s all plant essence, transformed. Everything you’ll ever cook is just plants wearing different faces.

[“So what you’re saying is...all cooking is technically salad?” - MeatIsLeaf

“I hate that this makes sense” - GrillMasterFlex]

Ming Shi laughed. In the Upper District they’d phrased this as “tracing source-essence genealogy” with charts and taxonomies. A few clans had cultivation techniques that were based on the complex art of refining ingredients through the food chain. For example, you could select specific plankton-qi to feed certain fish, which would then feed particular waterfowl, in turn producing a special strain of Elevated poultry-qi.

Down here, it was just “everything is salad,” and boiled down to Wood-qi.

Wood cultivators understand that at the heart of food and flavor is existence, interconnected. They comprehend the Dao through the substance and form of life itself. In this way, they bring out the best in their ingredients.

If Water is the governor of flavor, Wood is the mother of it. To master Wood is to master not just the handling of your ingredients but the truth of what they are.

PRACTICAL EXERCISE

Pick up a vegetable, any vegetable, even one that is wilted. Try feeling its life force with your qi. That deep, wordless tug that signifies existence: that is Wood essence. Now try it with dried mushrooms—see how the essence is concentrated, waiting to be reawakened? Get good enough and you’ll be able to read the story of its life: the season it was sown, harvested, and more.

[“Warning: Do NOT try this with spirit-mushrooms until you’re ready” - ShroomSage

“Story time?” - CuriousNewbie

“I thought I had Ascended. I had not Ascended. My spirit-mushrooms proceeded to Ascend without me.” - ShroomSage

“Is THAT what’s growing on the second floor ceiling?” - Sweet Lin

“No, that’s from YOUR candy experiments going airborne” - CulinaryPolice

“Those ARTISANAL SWEETFLIGHT CRYSTALS now sell for a LOT OF SILVER thank you very much” -HoneyPhoeniiix]

REMEMBER: Wood corresponds to the sour flavor. Think that’s a stretch? Bite into raw wood sometime. (Don’t actually do this. It’s not necessary. There was a cultivator once, who ... never mind.)

[“I did it anyway! :D” - Sweet Lin

“Of course you did.” - CulinaryPolice

“FOR INNOVATION!” - HoneyPhoenix

“For the emergency tooth fairy visit, you mean?” - LandladyZhang

“Worth it! Now I know exactly how NOT to candy tree bark” - HoneyPhoenix

“Do you know the right way yet?” - CuriousNewbie

“I implore all future tenants to AVOID the mistakes of Tian Lin, aka Sweet Lin, aka HoneyPhoenix, not ENCOURAGE them.” - CulinaryPolice]

A large, exasperated arrow pointed to a formally stamped addition:

[“OFFICIAL NOTICE: due to Recent Events, attempting to candy random objects without an emergency Fellow Daoist on call is now expressly forbidden by building policy.” - Management]

Below that someone had scrawled a warning in dark, rusty-red ink:

[“NEXT UP: BLOOD AND TERROR!”]

Ming Shi squinted at it. “That’s chili sauce, right?”

A’Nuan shook her head gravely, her herb-hair rustling.

“Wait, actual blood?”

“Nuan.” She nodded.

Ming Shi turned the page cautiously. A sheet of paper bearing Madam Zhang’s seal had been clipped over the next section:

MANDATORY READING BEFORE PROCEEDING TO METAL SECTION

Dear Tenant,

If you are currently either

·       angry at anyone

·       holding a knife

·       within reach of a knife

·       thinking about knives, or

·       having violent thoughts about vegetables,

please take a break and return later.

- Management

The paper was thin enough that Ming Shi could see the shadow of text underneath. The character for Metal had sharp, distinct edges. More dark stains decorated the margins.

He hesitated. Metal had always been his least favorite favorite. He liked it a lot, it just tired him out in a way the others didn’t.

Ming Shi patted A’Nuan. “Should I be concerned about the next section?”

She looked at him, her embroidered face wrinkled in consideration. Finally, she raised her ginseng root and sage and nodded.

“Nuan!” she smacked the page with the sprig of sage. Her action and vocalization conveyed clearly:

CLEAN THOUGHTS. IS GOOD. PROCEED. YOU HAVE MY SAGE.

“My hero,” Ming Shi said, and lifted the sheet to see what terrible secrets Metal was hiding.

As expected, the character for Metal was written with sharp, crisp strokes, embodying the Element it represented. It flashed as he shifted the page, reminding him of his silver block as a child.

Without thinking, Ming Shi reached out to trace it—

“Nuan!” A’Nuan swatted at his hand with her sage sprig, but it was too late.

“Ow!” He felt a sharp sting on his fingertip the moment it touched down. A drop of blood welled up and fell onto the page as he snatched his hand away, joining the constellation of dark spots decorating the paper.

So this was the secret behind all the bloodstains?

A’Nuan made an exasperated bubbling sound. She’d tried to warn him!

“It’s all right.” He sucked on his cut finger and laughed.

METAL
The Conductor

Some say metal cultivation is mastered only by smiths and crafters. Those pundits have never felt their cleaver become an extension of their qi, never experienced the resonance between blade and ingredient, never understood why some chefs treat their cookware like Dao-partners.

[“Friendly reminder that your knife has feelings.” - CulinaryPolice

“And sometimes those feelings are ‘murder’” - ZenChef420

“That’s why you don’t steal other people’s knives!” - ActuallyTryingToStudy

“I was borrowing it, you tightass! Your shitty knife is as wound up as you are!” - ZenChef420]

Ming Shi laughed again. His toy kitchen tools had been like that, temperamental and high-maintenance. Each one had its own personality that he couldn’t quite put into words. It boiled down to a feeling conveyed through their Metal-qi, a sort of essential wok-ness or knife-ness or pot-ness that he had to align with before they’d even let him pick them up.

Which was why Metal had been his least favorite favorite. He was an impatient child who just wanted to cook things, not conduct emotional negotiations with his spatula.

But once he did manage that alignment, once he picked up the tools and got going, excitement would tingle all the way through him.

It was that jingle-bell feeling from his silver block, amplified. His enthusiasm fed into the tool, bouncing it back doubled, tripled, quadrupled, until the joy of cooking rang through him so intensely that his whole body shivered with vibrations.

The joy of cutting became CUTTING!

The satisfaction of stirring became STIRRING!

Everything got sharper, vivider, flashier—

And then he’d crash. Hard. Little Liu Baozi would often be found passed out in his toy kitchen, still clutching whatever utensil had knocked him out this time.

Metal is an advanced Primary Element to cultivate when crafting cookware. It requires the chef to refine inedible materials while never losing sight of their culinary purpose and destination. The difference between a murder weapon and a vegetable peeler lies in the Intent of its wielder. One off-topic thought from the crafter during creation and things go very wrong. Metal cultivation is also bloody expensive, what with all the spirit ores you’ll need.

With such constant psychological and financial pressure, it’s unsurprising that Metal cultivators top the charts when it comes to qi-deviation. It should also surprise no one that Metal corresponds to the spicy flavor: sharp, biting, pungent, and potentially very painful.

The chefs who master Metal master conduct in more ways than one. Their discipline is immense, as is their command of Intent and qi-resonance. This is why the sages say, Know yourself to know Metal.

PRACTICAL EXCERCISE

Your knife has qi. Your wok has qi. Even your humble soup spoon has qi. Hold one and shut up for a moment to hear what it has to say. At this stage, you’ll only be able to detect its basic mood. Learn to harmonize your energy with your tools and they’ll work with you instead of just for you.

Ultimately, Metal is a conductor. Competence will greatly enhance your efficacy in the Kitchen. Incompetence will exhaust you.

Did you cut your finger on the Metal character, by the way? Good. Let this be your lesson. If your mind was elsewhere—thinking about that cute grocer down the street, worrying about rent, fuming about yesterday’s argument—you probably got a deeper cut.

When handling cookware, be mindful. Be present, or bleed.

[“BUILDING POLICY UPDATE: Cooking following a relationship breakdown must be preceded by filing Form 27B/6: ‘Intent to Have Feelings Near Kitchenware’” - Management]

“Sounds sensible,” said Ming Shi.

“Nuan,” agreed A’Nuan. You’ve no idea the cleanup I’ve been through, said that one syllable.

There was just one Primary Element left now. Earth—the Element that always felt like collapsing into bed after the exhausting excitement of Metal.

“What comes after that?” he asked A’Nuan.

“Nuan!” she replied. “Nuan! Nuan!” The secrets of Heaven cannot be revealed.