The Fourth Wall - Chapter 19 preview

Rain had raised the rivers, brought much needed relief. Like any other boon, it came with its own misfortune. In this case, debris and thrash that had gathered on lowered river banks or on old runways were swept into the water, causing an impromptu dam further down the river. That, by itself, could have been handled by the cultivators.

What the captain, having pulled into their latest storm, was unwilling to risk was the stirring of new beasts and the floating logs that threatened to hole his vessel at all hours of the day. Too many others had set forth and the capsized and damaged vessels and the occassional floating body was evidence enough of the dangers.

Instead, the captain chose to take a few necessary days to give his men time off, to conduct repairs and sell goods, leaving the cultivators the choice of waiting or continuing the journey on foot.

Not surprisingly, Fung Wan took to the break with equinamity, having no need to rush. 

“The letters I carry will wait,” the wandering cultivator had explained, when queried. As a trusted messenger of goods too precious to be tasked to mundane merchants, his services were still not particularly in-demand. After all, other faster - and more trustworthy - methods of conveyance existed. 

But for the poor, for letters and documents that required no specific timeline, Fung Wan was a good alternative.

“Will you not wait too?” the man asked, eyeing their packed bags, the argument below as Yang Mu negotiated a refund from the captain. “It has been pleasant, having a fellow fisherman.”

“I would but I fear, my time itself is short,” Wu Ying replied. “Pleasant as this has been, we should continue our journey. If nothing more than to allow Yang Mu to acquire new contacts.” A slight quirk of his lips. “Even you know, when it’s time to move.”

“Then I wish you the best, Cultivator Long.” A bow returned and the pair parted ways. 

Wu Ying took the steps down gingerly, his body rested and healed - or as much as it could be. He was joined by Tou He on the docks, the former monk smiling at his friend as he regarded the small town they were in. 

“I wonder what the local delicacies are?” Tou He eyes lit up as he spotted a food stall not far away. He began walking towards it, slowed after a couple of steps and looked back to Wu Ying with a flicker of concern. It disappeared when Wu Ying followed after without an issue.

“Already? We just stepped off the boat.”

“It’s a new town, a new kingdom. Of course we should try the new food.” Tou He then lowered his voice and added. “I’ve been self-cultivating for weeks now. Let me eat something beyond gruel and congealed rice pills!”

Wu Ying laughed, nodding to the stall owner in greeting. “Four bowls of…?” He couldn’t even tell what it was, beyond a noodle dish. The noodles were on one side, the soup itself cloudy and smelling a little of stock and milk.

“Fish head noodle soup,” the old woman manning the stall said, offering a deep bow. “Honored Cultivator.”

“How much?”

“Nothing! Nothing at all. I could not take anything from an Honored Cultivator. Not two.” Hands moved with impressive speed and efficiency, her head lowered now as though she dared not meet his eyes.

Tou He frowned, looked at Wu Ying. The wind cultivator could only shrug, though he pulled at the winds. Asked them to tell him what he could. His friend was more direct and less subtle, his aura a touch less refined than the wind cultivators. Or at least, not his own aura before his injuries. That aura unfurled, spreading across the town, searching.

In a short while, the first bowls arrived. Wu Ying declined to take the first, allowing Tou He to consume his in quick slurps. As he waited - for his own bowl, for the winds - he watched the dock. Noted how the general populace avoided the cultivators giving them a wide space. Larger around Yang Mu who was still arguing with the captain, but they avoided the pair here too. Even those who wanted to near the stall avoided them.

He had seen signs like this before, experienced cities like this.

None of them ever good.

By the time the fourth bowl arrived, handed over to the waiting Yang Mu in this case, Wu Ying had ascertained a few factors. Firstly, the general populace was terrified of cultivators. Little blobs of open space traversed the city as cultivators, so few in comparison to the majority traversed the city, drinking, eating and conducting themselves in a method ill-befitting their station.

Secondly, part of the reason these cultivators were acting like young cocks newly introduced to a farm were because of the three sects within the town. Three, when such a small town should only have had – at most – a single sect overseeing matters.

Thirdly, like most young roosters, these cultivators had an overinflated sense of their importance and strength. The majority were barely above mid-Body Cleansing, a few of the more powerful seniors giving off the subtle twisting exhalation of power of Energy Storage. In the sects – small compounds, barely larger than Wu Ying’s own residence in the Verdant Green Waters – ‘elders’ lay, basking in their importance and teaching their students.

Or they had been, before his friend’s aura had rolled out like a fog bank or the hint of smoke from a faraway fire. Drifting across the entire town, blanketing it and causing the Patriarch’s of these sects to emerge from their residences to converge on them.

Wu Ying finished his bowl with only minor undue haste, handing it to the lady along with a handful of coins as payment. A simple glare ensured that the proprietress took them. He would have taken more time, but it was best for the group to move aside, to stand at the most outlying of docks before the gathering storm clouds of sect heads arrived at his friend’s unsubtle challenge.

And they said he was reckless and impertinent.

***

Three heads of the sects, none of them powerful enough to rank among the top of the Verdant Green Waters. Each of them with a small entourage to showcase their importance, but barely with four or five layers of their Cores formed. A decent enough start for a sect, perhaps even a competent second-in-command but not heads of their own sects.

Or at least, not any sect of note.

Just as interesting, as they closed, was the hint of familiarity. In their scents, in their features and their movements. Two in particular, coming in from opposite directions – a man and a woman – cold have been brother and sister. Might have been, even. If so, it would be tragic, for they glared at one another with ill-concealed distaste. 

The third had not the markers of familial connection, but his aura and movements spoke of a shared martial heritage. Mostly easily spotted from the paired butterfly swords sheathed at the back of all three Elders, the swords much wider than even a dao but not much longer than a large knife. Wu Ying had studied those weapons – briefly – but had no deep understanding or liking for them.

Useful in close quarters and narrow streets, a weapon for those caught in the alleyways of badly constructed towns and villages like this one. Not particularly useful in the line of battle or in duels – or at least, in their pure form. How the trio would utilize their dao and their chi to adjust the basic martial dimensions of the weapon.

At the least, outside of the shared heritage and genetics, the trio had chosen very different colors and clothing.

“Honored Cultivators, I am Patriarch Qiao of the Eternal Blue Phoenix sect. Welcome to our fair city,” the first to arrive was dressed in blue robes, diaphanous in nature and layered such that the flesh and skin beneath were hidden. He offered a bow, only deep enough for courtesy sake between one peer to another. 

“Honored Cultivators, I am Patriarch Qiao of the Eternal Yellow Phoenix sect.” His sister announced moments later, pausing only long enough to shoot her rival an annoyed look at arriving faster. At the last moment, her brother had utilized a burst of qinggong to cross ground ahead of the other two such that he might be the first to greet them. “My greetings are extended as well. If there’s anything I may do to make your stay more convenient, you need only ask.”

The last to arrive, the man in red bowed low in greeting. Contrary to expectations though, his greeting was a little different. “Honored Cultivators, a pleasure to meet you. I am Patriarch Oh of the Phoenix Harvest sect. May I enquire, how long will you be staying?”

Tou He took the lead, bowing low to the group. He ignored the varying degrees of inclination of the others to them, the degrees of respect or disrespect shown. Wu Ying watched as the trio bounced their gazes across their own robes, drawing conclusions from the same simple black robes edged with green that demarcated their similar sect origins, though none seemed to recognise the sect seal stitched on the upper left. No surprise there. for the Verdant Green Waters and the kingdom of Shen were entire kingdoms away.

By the time Tou He had finished introductions on their side and Wu Ying had assessed the entourage of the sects, he had come to his own conclusions. Years of travel and interaction with smaller sects had given him an understanding of the politics of the jianghu in such remote locations, and given his own inclinations, he would have drifted on. 

There was nothing that he could fix, not in a short afternoon.

“To answer your questions, I fear I must ask one of my own.” Tou He’s gaze drifted pass the trio and the cluster of students, all glaring at one another to the watchful mortals in the background. Many were discreetly watching the event while others were packing up or leaving in fear of what might come. 

“Ask, of course.” Yellow Qiao as Wu Ying had earmarked in his mind said, brightly. 

“Why are the general populace of this city afraid of you all?”

Yang Mu, watching the entire proceedings winced. Even Wu Ying was surprised, though more by the ill-concealed disapproval in Tou He’s voice.

“Honored Cultivator...” Yellow Qiao began, looking to placate Tou He. She never finished as her brother interrupted her.

“Who are you, to criticise us?” he straightened up to glare at Tou He, but in doing so only showing the disparity in height. Since Tou He’s ascension, he had picked up a couple more inches to Wu Ying’s amusement. A minor alteration in body and form, as immortal dragon blood worked its changes on his friend. 

“So you do not deny that they fear you?” Tou He said.

“It is not due to anything untoward, Cultivator Liu.” Patriarch Oh interrupted the pair before they could dig deeper. “Some of our younger members might be a tad arrogant, prone to speaking out. But none of them terrorise the common folk. It is just that certain conflicts between our sects have... muted... the atmosphere.”

“Certain conflicts.” Tou He’s voice was hard as he continued. “Like the one outside the merchant’s stall in the northwest right now? Where your sect members and the Eternal Blue Phoenix have begun to shout at one another, unleashing their auras and thrashing the very tables at the merchant’s stall?’

“I…” Three auras extended unconsciously, racing across the town in the direction. All but one came short, Patriarch Oh’s aura barely managing to make it all the way there. He paled a little from the effort, but he spoke firmly. “We pay for the damage caused by our sect members.”

“Do you go back to pay the ones injured or do you expect them to come to you?” Yang Mu asked, mildly.

“You don’t expect us to trapise across the city ourselves to find mere mortals, do you?” the Blue Patriarch said, scandalized. “Of course they come to us.”

“Ah, and of course the general populace are well known for being daring enough to speak with cultivators. Especially cultivators who have already shown a disdain for them by destroying their hard work and demanding the best of everything, no matter the service.”

“That is our right,” now it was his sister who spoke, glaring at the trio. “We are the ones who protect them. Just last week we dealt with a herd of hungry demonic deer who sought to break into the city for our foodstuff. If not for us, the entire town would have been aflame!”

“Respect is earned and it seems you might have earned it.” A slow, careful pause. “But it can be lost too.” Yang Mu shook her head. “It seems it has been lost greatly, here. Your sects press upon the rules of the jianghu.”

“What rules?” sneered the boy Patriarch. He raised his chin, voice dripping with scorn. “We are the ones who protect them, and they act as though we are threats ourselves. They complain when we have our contests, complain that we ask too much of support or take too many of their children, leaving none to work the nets or grind the grain.”

“Just because the rules are unwritten does not make them any less important. If anything, these unwritten rules are more important, for in the upholding of these unwritten, unspoken codes of conduct that the fabric of our society is woven together.” Yang Mu lectured the group, shifting her gaze from one to another. “The code of the jianghu, it is what keeps our lives and those we serve balanced. Tilt them too far, and only tyranny lies at the end of that road.”

Patriarch Qiao snarled, yellow robes fluttering around her as her aura flickered out, “We are no tyrants.”

“Not yet.” 

The wind kicked up, churning the water and rattling the planks on the dock. They strained the bindings and the wooden screws as her chi poured out. Yang Mu was startled, turning to look at Wu Ying for they all recognized this rather uncommon chi aspect.

He sensed it more than the others, the way she literally tugged at his very being. He tilted his head upward, feeling the shifts as the winds danced to her demands. No friend of the element, but a demanding presence that required submission.

Before Wu Ying could act, Tou He raised a hand. His aura, unfurled but subdued till now came crashing down, the full might of a Nascent Soul cultivator bearing down upon their aura. It crushed her control of the rising winds, buckled the trio’s knees and affected none of the mortals on the harbor.

“Enough.” Anger emanated from the cultivator’s voice and flashed in his eyes. The word rumbled in the air, seeming to hang there. The trio reacted by reinforcing their auras and sought to throw him back, only for Tou He to push downwards.

Wu Ying dithered, uncertain if he should help. Concerned about his own injuries, whether he should act. By his side, Yang Mu’s hand was down by her side, twitching just a little. Only because he knew her so well, her aura, her demeanor that he knew she was pouring in her own dao understanding in aid of the monk.

Three core formation cultivators, crushed by a single Nascent Soul. 

Slowly, slowly, Tou He pushed down till the three crumpled, their auras flat against their skin leaving them vulnerable to any attack. Hands twitched towards their weapons but never reached them, wisdom arriving late.

Only when they stopped struggling did Tou He turn. Eyes dancing with fury, his voice only holding a trace of that anger. “Ah Ying. I fear I must leave you now for a bit. It seems there are some children who need educating.” 

If not for who they were, Wu Ying might have found some pity for the Elders.

If not.