032. THEORY AND PRACTICE

Theory and practice always differ, and Ming Shi spent the next three days exploring how wide that gap could be.

Day One began with Ming Shi arriving at his stall while the stars still gossiped faintly overhead. He'd beaten even the dawn to his stall and was the first vendor to set up and finish prepping. Then, armed with his  Breakthrough for Dummies, he sat down behind his counter to attempt the Honeybee Breathing exercise from page twelve.

“Visualize your meridians as golden channels,” he read aloud. “Feel your qi coating their insides like honey. Now, be the bee that gathers …”

He visualized. He felt. What he got was the spiritual sense of trying to pour honey through a cheese grater that had been run over by seventeen ox carts, set on fire, and spat on by vindictive spirits.

In the end, Ming Shi's only achievement was a splitting headache and the privilege of having to cook through it as the breakfast crowd swarmed in.

“You look unwell,” Chang smirked from across the street, ladling out bowls of porridge with flares of bronze qi. “Having trouble, Mortal Cook?”

Despite the headache, Ming Shi's response was a beatific smile. “Brother Chang! Your concern touches my heart!  Speaking of hearts...” He grabbed a slice of flatbread and started across the street. “I made this one with extra love, just for you!”

“You dare—!”

“Call me Junior! Say ‘Junior, you dare!’ Then open your mouth and say ahhhhh to accept this Junior’s humble offering.”

The flatbread made it halfway to Chang's mouth before the congee came flying. This time it was a minced pork and preserved egg variety.

The rich, salty goodness made Ming Shi's knees weak as he licked it off his cheek …

… and the qi-boost made his dantian wiggle and his face split into a big ol’ shit-eating grin. Colors sharpened. Sounds sweetened. The world smelled like possibility.

Ming Shi returned to his stall and wiped the rice porridge off his face with a clean cloth. He took a moment to calibrate and consider the consequences, then he allowed himself another lick and a half-grain of rice from the cloth.

“What are you up to now?!” hissed Old Man Zhen, who’d arrived just in time to see the congee hitting Ming Shi’s face.

“Courting death?” said Ping Guoshen. The juice cultivator had crossed the street to gossip with Mrs. Lin.

“Thank you, Ping Guoshen,” said Ming Shi, cheerfully. “Thank you for your blessing.”

“Brother,” declared Ping Guoshen, clasping his hands in a zhuoyi salute. “I like you. You take things the right way.”

Ming Shi returned the salute with great vigor. The qi-boost made him want to put extra oomph into everything he did.

“By the way,” said Ming Shi to Old Man Zhen in a lower voice, “why didn’t you remind me that I should break through to Qi Condensation before cracking open the Steady Flame Path: Beginner’s Manual?”

Old Man Zhen stared at him like he'd grown a very stupid second head. “Because it’s obvious? Didn’t you spend yesterday afternoon meditating with Miss. Luo? You can’t mean to say you were attempting cultivation techniques instead of trying to break through?”

“Kidding!” said Ming Shi. “It was a joke! Just kidding!”

He tugged Old Man Zhen closer by the sleeve and whispered, “But, er, how do you expect me to complete the necessary qi cycle for breakthrough with my meridians being the way they are?”

“ … by meditating!” Old Man Zhen whispered back. “The way all chefs heal their meridians, along with spirit-food supplements!”

“ … we can’t afford a healer on the miracle-doctor level, can we?” asked Ming Shi.

"We cannot, in more ways than one." Old Man Zhen frowned. "Temple healers are duty-bound to report injuries like yours to the authorities. And private healers? Ha! With meridians that mangled, none but this old man would risk treating you without an advanced healing array. Problem is, private healers all work with Ascension Cuisine Clinic facilities now. Can't blame them—healing arrays are expensive, and the clinics provide them for free as part of their charitable work down here."

“But why? What’s the deal with these Ascension Cuisine Clinics?” asked Ming Shi. His first twenty-four hours of resurrection had been so exhausting he’d forgotten this strange conundrum. Now, he recalled the baffling words of the Warden who’d stumbled upon them in the alley—the one Old Man Zhen had slapped with a cabbage before they fled to Boss Wu’s shop.

The Warden’s earnest insistence that Ascension Cuisine Clinics treated injured chefs for free made no sense to Ming Shi. His uncle was the most powerful and experienced Ascension Cuisine chef in the Upper District. He’d always said that Ascension Cuisine was about survival of the fittest. The faction of Ascension Cuisine chefs he led backed those words up with blood and blade. Why would they be running clinics to help the weak and crippled?

“Is my uncle even involved with these clinics?” Ming Shi searched his memory again and came up empty. “I’d never even heard of any Ascension Cuisine Clinics until yesterday.”

“He keeps an eye on them. It’s complicated. But even if we took the risk of getting you a healer, you’d still need to meditate to stabilize their qi-manipulations.”

“Right, yes, of course,” said Ming Shi, discovering a sudden urge to change the subject. “Okay, well, have a wonderful day. I’ve got customers to feed!”

And so he did.

Three of them had wandered over from Chang’s long line of regulars.

Ming Shi’s neck developed a rash in minutes.

***

When the market closed, Ming Shi joined Xiaoye again for another warehouse training session.

“Brother Ming Shi, you seemed to enjoy wearing your breakfast this morning,” Xiaoye observed.

“It's a new fashion trend,” Ming Shi replied. He was sitting in the lotus position. The qi-boost from Chang's congee thrummed through him. He hadn’t used any of it at all—what with his qi being unusable.

Xiaoye demonstrated another impeccable Water technique while he stared at his manual and wondered if Sugar Melt Meditation was supposed to feel like drowning in spiritual molasses while mosquitos invaded his skull.

***

Day Two saw escalation.

“BROTHER CHANG!” Ming Shi hollered as soon as the market filled with the first rush of morning customers. “I've been thinking about you all night!”

Chopsticks froze halfway to mouths. A dog barked once, then stopped.

Every single head on the street turned to stare.

Chang's face turned red, then purple. “You—what are you—”

“Your congee yesterday was so delectably dazzling, I couldn't sleep! I have composed this poem in your honor!” Ming Shi flung his arms wide, nearly knocking over his wok. “Oh Chang of the Rice Pot Glory, your rice porridge makes my heart tell a story—”

The congee that hit him this time had shredded chicken and ginger. The qi-boost delivered just as deliciously: his vision sparkled with disco-dance exhilaration and his spine tingled with pleasure. As Ming Shi wiped his face, relishing the umami, he heard a voice say, “Three coppers on the kid.”

Ming Shi turned, porridge still dripping from his chin, to find a small crowd gathered around Mrs. Lin’s stall. They all been openly spectating, with a great view of today’s action.

“You're betting on me?” Ming Shi asked, delighted.

“We're all betting,” said Sister Bing, counting out some coins. “Come on, we weren’t born yesterday. We know what you’re up to. You’re after a free lunch, eh?”

“Breakfast.” Ming Shi corrected her. “Free breakfast. The timing’s important. Anyway, what’s on the books?”

“Five to one that Chang will restrain himself tomorrow,” said Niu Meiren. “And maybe even demand payment for the qi-boosts that Ming Shi’s gotten.”

“Seven to one he doesn't,” added Tofu Ku, stroking his beard. “Pride blinds even the great.”

“I’m betting on the new guy,” said a short, mustached man. Ming Shi recognized him as the pastry vendor whose egg tarts had hatched flaming chicks during his musical introduction to Riverback Street Market.

The pastry vendor slapped some coins on Mrs. Lin’s counter and pointed at Ming Shi. “Don’t let me down, yeah? I’m Gui Dan, by the way. Haven’t introduced myself. I’d have bet on the old Chang of yesteryear, but these days the man just can’t control himself. So go on, get your benefits.”

He grinned and sauntered off before Ming Shi could reply.

“It’s a little sad, really,” mused Ping Guoshen. “Sure, Chang’s always been prone to frothing rages, but he’d still behave somewhat logically. And that’s coming from me, of all people.”

“Well, he changed after…you know,” sighed Mrs. Lin.

“He has to come to his senses tomorrow,” said Niu Meiren, “There’s no way you can get so mad that you end up benefiting your enemy so many times in a row.”

“We’re not enemies,” said Ming Shi, happily. He was too wired from the qi-boost to speculate on what unknown event had caused Chang’s anger to break through to Self-Sabotage Realm.

“We’re future friends.”

***

That evening at the warehouse, Ming Shi's meditation attempts were even more disastrous. The accumulated qi-boost made him feel like a kettle about to whistle. Every breathing exercise just left him more aware of how much pressure there was, with nowhere to go.

“Perhaps you should try the Transcendent Tea Goddess’s Mantra,” Xiaoye suggested gently, watching him twitch and fidget. She had been openly concerned about him—in private—ever since he passed out in their first training session. He felt bad for distracting her from her own cultivation.

“Great idea,” said Ming Shi, through gritted teeth. “I’ll do that right away. That will definitely help. For sure.”

It did not help.

But the other exercise she’d taught him, the one that had made him black out …

The one that made him sink into his own qi, falling with his held breath into that memory-flash of his former selves …

The one that woke the nameless thing.

All is Tea And Tea is All. That’s what she called it.

Ming Shi practiced that instead.

He couldn’t complete the full meditation. He had to stop before the point of failure—the part when you had to imagine your qi moving in currents to start qi-cycling. But that was okay. He just had to grasp the first part of the exercise.

Theory and practice were different, after all.

***

Day Three arrived with Ming Shi having not slept in forty-eight hours. Not working off two qi-boosts will do that to you. His eyes had developed a manic glint that made early morning customers edge away from his stall.

But they came back anyway. His stuffed flatbread smelled too good.

“You look terrible,” Old Man Zhen said bluntly, arriving with his toolbox. “I hope you know what you’re doing, sitting on your qi-boosts. Please, let it be so.”

“I'm great,” Ming Shi replied, his hands shaking slightly as he rolled out dough. The accumulated qi-boost made his words come out real fast and funny sounding. “Never better. I did a folding thing, it’s fine. Did you know that dawn tastes purple? And noon sounds like copper bells.”

“ ... I will pretend that made sense,” muttered Old Man Zhen. “I will pretend you are referring to some obscure noble cultivation technique that you learned in your former, over-educated life.”

To Ming Shi’s credit, the folding thing did make sense. And to Old Man Zhen’s credit, his speculation was kind of right, too.

See, Ming Shi knew that his fleshly body could only contain so much boosted qi. He also knew that his upcoming plan would require as much boosted qi as possible.

So, he’d tried something and been surprised when it worked. He was still failing miserably at meditation, but during his warehouse sessions, he’d spent time pleating his now cooperative qi into the shape of dumplings in his dantian.

He’d done this a lot, as Liu Baozi. With all the fancy spirit-food he ate, it was inevitable that he’d end up with perpetual qi overflow. To prevent spiritual indigestion, Liu Baozi had developed this trick: folding excess qi into the shape of dumplings with his Intent. It compressed the spiritual pressure, making the reshaped extra qi sit more comfortably in his dantian, leaving room for more.

He had been unsure if he’d be able to do this as a Mortal Cook. It turned out he could. It seemed that the problem with his qi was specifically that it could not be cycled or channeled to perform cultivation techniques. As long as it stayed in his dantian, it was pliant and amenable to his Intent origami.

In this way, he was able to pack down and store his boosted qi in a hoard of spiritual-dumpling-batteries.

Still, there was a limit. The spirit-indigestion was real. He could probably only fit in one more serving of Chang’s benefits.

So, after yesterday’s training session with Xiaoye, he had made his penultimate preparations.

First of all, he borrowed a teacup from Xiaoye.

Secondly, he purchased a blank scroll as wide and as tall as himself. It came with a discount on an ink and brush set, which was clearly a sign from destiny.

Thirdly, back in his room, he counted out a few piles of coins. He put them under his bed with handwritten notes slipped beneath them.

Finally, he stayed up all night.

Now, on this fateful Day Three, Ming Shi was ready with his ultimate masterpiece.

This was it. This was the ticket.

One-way. No return.