029. I CAN DO ANYTHING HUMBLER THAN YOU

I knew it, thought Xiaoye. He is indeed a hidden master.

For hours, she had been excelling with peerless humility.

But every time she looked over, Ming Shi was humbler still.

The master heats without heating, burns without burning, and understands there is no stove. Therefore, what is the sound of flint striking nothing?

The answer to this classic meditation on the nature of excellence was standing before her.

It was this man who called himself Ming Shi.

The control he had over his aura and qi signature was incredible. She couldn’t sense a scrap of spiritual energy from him.

Yet the blood, sweat, and stoic tears he had shed over the past few hours left no doubt in her mind that he had been advancing his cultivation.

What frightening willpower. The way he cycles his spiritual energy … to push with such force and speed, not stopping to rest for a single moment! Yet I have not been able to sense the movement of his qi at all. Is he perhaps so advanced that he retreated into his Spiritual Kitchen to cultivate, thereby hiding his aura completely?

And that was only half of what made it all so impressive.

Ming Shi seemed to be cycling his qi without resonating with any Element, whether Primary or Elevated. In other words, he was engaging in the masochistic pursuit of tempering his qi’s endurance by cycling it without any external spiritual forces to sustain him.

He must be using some kind of visualization technique to push through, thought Xiaoye, marveling as she watched him stare grimly at the stove before him while his eyes streamed. He was so focused he paid no heed to his body’s physiological reactions. Every now and then, he let out a sort of strangled yelp that was quickly swallowed.

It seemed that weakness did not even exist to him, the way he immediately stomached pain.

Everyone knew that Old Man Zhen had once worked in the Upper District. This man who he claimed to be his relative had to have more to him than that. They were all looking the other way to give Old Man Zhen face, and he knew it too. Tacit, communal playacting.

“Fellow Daoist Xiaoye,” said Ming Shi suddenly.

She was midway through the third step of the Tea Falls Against Heaven technique when he spoke. It was a famously elite tea-cultivation method that had ten thousand, ten thousand, ten thousand steps. The Chef God Shennan had once used it to create a tea waterfall that flowed up from the Thousand Flavor Realm, past the Immortal Taste Domains, to the Celestial Kitchens that lay beyond.

It involved being upside down with water flowing up—or was it down?—from her feet to her hands while she balanced with one hand on a teacup.

At Ming Shi’s words, her concentration shattered.

She was barely able to gather the flow of water into a sphere, setting it down with a splash on the floor. The sphere was one hair too wide on the upper-right eightieth section to be considered a real sphere. She winced.

“The moves you’re doing are all cultivation techniques for Early Foundation Establishment,” said Ming Shi.

Xiaoye felt struck by lightning.

With a single sentence he skewered her humility and her excellence.

He had pointed out the obvious: that the techniques she purported to be from the Clear Water Path: Beginner’s Manual were, indeed, nothing of the sort. In doing so, he was finally, explicitly, admitting his own knowledge.

And he had done so with utmost humility.

Foundation Establishment techniques. No more, no less.

He could have named each one and engaged with her self-critiques, picking them apart even further. If she had allowed herself to unleash her full cultivation, she could have performed all of her techniques with ease. But the challenge was performing those techniques while making sure her qi and her resonance with Water did not exceed the power levels that might reveal her true cultivation. The Lower District had highly sensitive detection artifacts and arrays to catch those who exceeded Early Foundation Establishment and failed to repress their level as required by the District Boundary Protocols.

Even without the detection artifacts, the disruption to the ambient spiritual energy that a cultivator above that level would cause was enough to draw attention.

Every technique she’d performed had faltered at one point by a blink here or a breath there. She’d had to place deliberate choke points in her qi cycles and Elemental resonance to keep her cultivation in check.

But he said nothing about these stutters.

He simply categorized the techniques she had done truthfully. What could be more humble and excellent than the truth?

With his one sentence he had conveyed the following: I know those moves. They are what they are. There is no need for sophistry.

Knowledge and restraint. Unbelievable.

And it struck her now that he had bested her beyond even her first shallow understanding.

While she had been aspiring to humility by performing obvious Foundation Establishment techniques under the nominal mantle of the Clear Water Path’s manual, he had been truly humble.

He had actually been practicing the Steady Flame Path: Beginner’s Manual.

No.

Not practicing. That was the point.

“I’m not holding back,” he had said. “I just can’t get past the first exercise of the Steady Flame Path: Beginner’s Manual.”

This is wu wei! 無為!

Wu wei. Action through inaction. A fundamental principle of the Dao, it was cooking as a state of existence rather than conscious performance.

He had been practicing not-practicing his beginner’s exercise. On purpose.

He had been intensely cultivating through demonstrably failing to light his stove!

This was the ultimate humility!

She had to equal it or lose face forever.

The words he spoke next hit even harder.

“Is there something you’re trying to tell me?”

She was stunned.

What am I trying to tell him?

Her internal tactician promptly submitted a report.

Greetings Luo Ye,

This subordinate submits that you are trying to tell him that you would be a worthy ally. That your powers seem aligned. That your interests appear compatible. That this could be an arrangement of mutual benefit and selective blindness, where you help each other while asking no inconvenient questions about why a dishwasher from Three Carrot Province knows restricted noble techniques or why a maid practices Water cultivation techniques that require decades of training.

Yours sincerely,

Strategist Luo Ye

But even as she reviewed her own submission, something gnawed at her.

She looked into his eyes. Again, they were clear—if somewhat watery—and guileless.

Humility is truth, she thought. And truth is excellence.

What am I really trying to tell him?

She closed her eyes and looked inside.

You are hungry. What are you hungry for. Why?

The safest thing would be to practice no techniques at all. To let her cultivation rot until she truly became the Early Qi Condensation beginner she pretended to be.

But she couldn’t help it. She couldn’t help who she was. Her cultivation was more essential to her than breathing. To lose what made her herself would be worse than death. So she practiced her cultivation techniques in secret.

And whenever she did, she got greedy. Her appetites stirred.

You miss it. You miss training around people who understood what you really were. Where being not-excellent meant you died, but that in itself meant you lived. Where some of the strikes that knocked you down came from hands that stayed outstretched, and if you were strong enough to reach back and take hold, those hands lifted you higher.

You miss the sound of another voice during cultivation. Someone to correct your form, to compete with, to share insights. To best you and better you with their excellence.

She respected the chefs on Riverback Street Market. But her competitive Dao-heart missed being humbled so much it hurt.

Which meant that what she was really trying to tell him was …

Oh.

Xiaoye was enlightened.

“Fellow Daoist,” said Xiaoye, “I am indeed trying to tell you something.”

She took a deep, humbling breath. She stood tall—in a humble way. Then, meeting his gaze with utmost humility, she humbly raised her chin and pronounced:

“If a tea leaf falls from a living plant into hot water …”

She saw the profundity of the moment echo in the widening of his eyes and felt a rush of joy.

“… and no one is around to drink it …”

His eyes were glistening now. His lips were trembling with emotion. She felt tearful herself, with enlightenment.

“… did it brew tea?”

She closed her eyes and smiled.

This is the Dao.

*********

Ming Shi didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

He didn’t even know what to say.

He was quite sure the Dao was trolling him at this point.

Even if he sucked at meditation, he was good with people, right? Or Luke was, at least. He’d thought he could make progress with befriending Xiaoye.

He’d thought they could have that thing called a conversation. Straightforward human connection, no meridians needed.

He’d always found it helpful to talk to a friend when stuck on a problem. He’d been hoping they could try tackling his situation together.

But Heaven forbid he have it easy. She’d replied in a gong-an, a meditation riddle, instead.

What the hell was he supposed to say?

Yes, objectively, if one defines tea as “leaves plus hot water”? In which case a wild tea bush whose foliage dropped into a hot spring probably made a very large cup of tea?

But subjectively, no, if one considered tea a culinary construct involving the deliberate steeping by a human being of picked, processed tea leaves in hot water?

She was probably hoping for a more philosophical answer. Something involving the eternal nature of the idea of a thing.

Or was it the ephemeral nature of a thing representing an idea?

Both?

Fortunately, with her next words, Ming Shi felt hope return.

“Fellow Daoist, a question such as this cannot be answered in words. To conclude our training for today, I propose that we practice some cultivation exercises so humble that they are used by cultivation cripples to rehabilitate their meridians. My young mistress practiced them to engage her dantian after some meridian fractures caused qi-atrophy.

“Through such simple exercises, suitable for those even in the most humbled circumstances, one may discover great insights into the Dao. This Xiaoye dares suggest that she lead us in one of these techniques together, if you are willing.”

“Yes,” said Ming Shi. “Oh Heavens, yes. That’s a great idea. Fantastic. Wow. Yes. Please. Please lead me through it. Lead me as slowly and as thoroughly as possible. Pretend that I am five years old even.”

Xiaoye looked at him very strangely when he said that last part. He decided not to dwell on it.

“Let’s get started,” he said happily. He had a bit of qi-boost left and was determined to use it well.

Xiaoye nodded and sat down in a lotus position. He did the same.

“Close your eyes,” said Xiaoye. “Let us begin the All is Tea and Tea is All exercise.”

Ming Shi obeyed.

“Feel for your qi. Cradle it in your dantian. Let your qi simply be, like tea leaves steeping in water. Do not push or pull. Instead, become the water in which tea steeps. Thus, as water enters the tea leaves naturally, so do you enter your qi.”

This is … actually pleasant?

No longer was Ming Shi being rejected by his qi, as he had been when he tried to force it into motion. Letting himself sink into the still warmth of his dantian, he felt it respond and open, welcoming his approach.

“Now you are one with the tea leaf. You possess its life force and memories. Fall into what is and what always will be. You are a tea leaf, reaching forever for both root and sun.

“You exist between Heaven and Earth, drawing from both, forcing neither.

“The breath in your body, spanning your qi and Intent, encompasses this existence.”

The warmth of his dantian was growing and making him so, so sleepy. How odd. It was consuming him and at the same time burning away his consciousness, setting him adrift.

His eyelids felt as if they as if they had expanded, inflated by hot air to seal shut. His heartbeat was very loud, throbbing in time with his temples. Two drumbeats, hypnotic in their synchronous rhythm.

“Breathe in, hold, and out. Then breathe deeper. Hold it longer. And out. Now, connect your heartbeat to your breath, and feel how your qi stirs as a tea leaf unfurls in water to release its own flavors. Feel how it wishes to span the spaces within you … Encourage your meridians to become the currents that allow this desire … Breathe and allow what is to be … "

With every breath he fell deeper into himself, and each exhalation fanned his dantian to a greater warmth that felt so soothing.

His thoughts drifted dreamily to that moment—in both lifetimes—when he would walk into the kitchen as a child.

That instant when he took a deep, deep breath and held it, as if doing so would make that second of perfect happiness last forever. All the smells of food, the sound of his parents’ laughter as they cooked—the same moment, across time and space, the same breath in both bodies, so full of care and belonging and love.

The world tilted.

For one strange, beautiful moment, Ming Shi felt something shift deep in his core—a key finding a lock in the dark. His dantian pulsed once, hard enough to make his broken meridians shudder with remembered power. But instead of flowing through the shattered channels, the energy rushed outward, like roots breaking through soil or frost spreading across a window.

Pain.

Or was it pleasure?

His vision went black even as he felt a supernova flare within him.

The last thing he heard was a yelp of alarm, followed by the sound of his own body hitting the ground, discovering gravity.

He passed out.

Once more unto the—

And something nameless awakened.