Chương 90: B3 Chapter 4

That had been a failure. A tangle of blind men who thought a monkey an elephant. Except the elephant was something big and scary. A demon-tiger, perhaps. Orange-crest remembered the proverb, but he still was not entirely clear what an elephant was supposed to be. The pictures his master had shown him were obviously exaggerated, no mortal animal could possibly look like that. It was not surprising that the blind men had been confused when encountering it. A comedy of errors, his master had once called such stories.

Funny. It did not feel humorous in the least, to live one out. It was not even the way they had roundly rejected him. Orange-crest had been rejected by humans plenty of times before. It always stung. The sting always faded. What truly bothered him was the way his words had entered one ear, and exited the other, without ever being heard. This Dong Zhu had almost listened to him. He'd listened closer than the others. But only to what he wanted to hear, the story he'd already told himself.

He'd thought that, now that he was strong, never more would his words be like a light breeze. Yet, asserting himself gently had only driven them to blinder panic, and he'd lacked the desire to do them any true harm. Orange-crest stood upon a hill that overlooked the smattering of buildings nestled in a copse of pines and willows. The light that spilled from the cracks in their shutters was warm. He could hear the children laughing, plying the returning party with questions.

The humans had spoken of the need for sleep, but believing orange-crest banished had filled them with life and energy.

"Their fire is not for me." The monkey turned away from the village. It was cold, in the dark of the night. But his fur was thick, and his eyes were sharp. This little village was remote. But even the most remote of human habitations had what he was looking for. A road. Just the one, weatherworn but unmistakable, leading to places unknown. Orange-crest let his feet carry him onward, the raucous noise of men seeking to drown out their small-minded fears fading into a dull murmur.

"They can't all be like you, master." He would try again. More carefully this time. Orange-crest followed the road for most of the night. He judged his direction by the moon, trusting its path to be roughly the same as that of its sibling. It carried him north at first, before wending to the east for a time. Orange-crest found himself hesitating, but eventually abandoned his initial heading. His master would have had a plan. Known where he was going. Remembered the maps better than he did.

Orange-crest had a road, and feet to travel it. He would just have to trust it to be enough. It was strange, walking the road at night. Beneath the light of the moon, familiar places cast familiar shadows. Even the foothills of Mount Yuelu had not been truly strange, dappled in shadow. Here, every new horizon was stranger than the last. Thick forests, caught between the morning and evening mists. Narrow bends skirting the edges of a mountain he did not know.

Towering walls of bamboo shifting with winds that did not budge his stony fur. All too soon, orange-crest found himself jumping at shadows. He knew he should have little to fear, save other cultivators. Yet, for all his wide-ranging explorations, orange-crest had not ever traveled this far from the places he knew by his own will. And this was a road! Not one of the sect's quiet footpaths. His master and uncle's stories about their adventures had featured no shortage of duels fought on secluded roads.

Orange-crest shivered. No, he wasn't afraid, he told himself. He was excited. He wasn't fated to meet some cultivator on the road. If such a meeting were to occur, the other cultivator would be fated to meet him! Orange-crest froze. There was a shadow in the distance, a smudge of soot where shadowed land met ink-washed sky. Several of them, clustered close, too still for creatures. There was a glimmer of orange light between them, so faint it was only visible to a cultivator's eyes at this distance.

The embers of a fire. Tents. The first signs of human life he'd seen since the isolated village. Orange-crest paused, then dipped off the path, sliding down the leaf-strewn bank at the side of the road. He crept through the dark, looking for a hollow tree or thick bush. His illusions would be no less effective as concealment in the light of day. And the behavior of the humans would be more illuminating. His master had warned him that many would fear or hate him at first sight.

That mortal men would be even less open to the unknown than daoists, sure in their strength. But orange-crest couldn't do this alone. This world was too wide and strange. He didn't know what sort of human he was looking for. But tomorrow, he was confident he would find them. Casting Dong Zhu's jacket over his legs like a blanket, orange-crest settled down in a leafy hollow. He could just barely see the stars above through the leaves. This land might be unfamiliar, but they at least were unchanged.

Orange-crest took a small sip from his gourd. The exterior of the copper bottle was slicked with dew, leaving its contents pleasantly cool. He exhaled, gently unwinding his qi, careful to keep its tendrils far from the tents he'd seen. New currents flowed through this strange place, thin winds of metal and flame, descending from the north. It was difficult cultivation.

Orange-crest managed to gather enough qi to replace half of the portion he'd spent tossing about Dong Zhu's men, but making forward progress in his cultivation, pushing his dantian toward the eighth stage, seemed outright impossible. No matter how careful he was, even if he spent a day and a night fully recovering his qi, orange-crest couldn't imagine transforming these strange, sparse, currents into qi dense enough to push himself forward. Not even if he spent weeks cultivating.

The qi here rejected him much as the humans did. Some of it slipped from his grasp, or fought against him. But most of it simply... Ignored him. Did not respond to the rising cycles of the Monkey Refining Law. The earth answered him, but the churning storms of yin and yang metal that drifted over him did not. Instead, after a few hours, orange-crest set aside the Monkey Refining Law. He cleared his channels, pulling the majority of his qi into his dantian. His master had warned him against what he was about to do.

It risked deviation, experimenting with multiple methods, even if he did not fully incorporate the result into himself. Once, his master had allowed him to read Elder Lu's Scripture of the Golden Order. It had left an impression, even if most of the specifics had been too profound for him to retain. Orange-crest stirred from his cultivation for a moment, wincing. The manual he'd actually chosen from the Hall of Dawn, the Drunken Phoenix's Breath, had been lost with his master's storage treasure.

But there was nothing he could do about that now. His breathing slowed once more, and the monkey dove deep into memory. There were threads of gold, beneath these steely heavens. Orange-crest reached out to them with fumbling fingers. Elder Lu had written that gold connected men, and bound them, in fear and purpose. That great concentrations of the metal, and the wealth it represented, had a life and pull of their own.

Orange-crest struggled to see them, these hidden commandments, written somewhere above the earth, but beneath the stars. He pushed and pulled, surrendered thin strands of his own qi to the current, seeking to bait the aloof power like a coy carp, reel it into his meridians. The threads of gold ignored him, as lonely in their pride as the unfeeling moon. Despite their terrestrial origin, they felt no obligation to the Stone Monkey's crude call.

As the first lights of dawn tickled his eyelids, orange-crest gave up the cause. Gave it up for the moment, at least. At least he'd failed so thoroughly he didn't even have to worry about deviating his own cultivation. Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on. Orange-crest could hardly trust men with his identity, for fear of the wrath of the Azure Mountain. He couldn't imagine trusting one with a ring that might contain wealth beyond imagination.

So he would master what Elder Lu had cultivated, that one day, he would open it himself. Orange-crest rose and dressed with the dawn. Dong Zhu's garb was much simpler than a robe. It had leg holes for legs, and arm holes for arms, and no layers with an order to them. It was still a trial. For starters, there was no tail hole, he'd needed to rip one into the seat of his trousers with his nails, trying not to do undue damage.

He'd destroyed enough robes to know how it began, with a single small rip that would grow every time one moved. Getting the garment on was easy enough, getting it to stay up and closed was the real challenge. There was a single sash for the whole ensemble, and no matter how orange-crest fiddled with it, it just wouldn't fit right. Either it was too loose, and his pants threatened to fall off, or it was too tight, and his jacket would pull against his stiff fur in a way he feared would one day lead to tearing.

Eventually he gave up, tied the belt loose, and clenched his butt, holding his tail stiff to help keep up his pants. He considered trying to find a pond to examine his reflection, but decided against it. These clothes didn't really make orange-crest feel like preening. They were no daoist's robes, nor the big hat that'd already seen a hundred different incarnations in his mind's eye. It was funny. He'd escaped the robes his master dressed him in again and again.

Yet right now, there was nothing in all the world he'd rather be wearing than one of his master's spare garments. The humans in the tents had already struck camp and moved on by the time orange-crest returned to the road. That was fine. Pouring out qi, orange-crest split his existence. His visual aspect wandered off the road, his clone's insubstantial body having no trouble at all with the thick underbrush. Meanwhile his real body could walk the road, unseen. It took a great deal of focus, travelling this way.

But as long as orange-crest didn't get distracted and pop the illusory clone, it didn't take much qi. His mastery of the nameless illusion technique had grown by leaps and bounds over the last two years. What had once required a moment of drunken enlightenment to even attempt, he could now manage almost effortlessly. He would catch up to the men in no time, and spying upon them unseen, learn what sort of men they were, and how best to approach them! Two hours later, orange-crest found he'd been overly optimistic.

His plan was working, mostly. But mostly wasn't enough for a full day's travel. Ironically, his clones seemed to manage best at straying far from the road whenever he didn't pay much attention to them. When he looked over in the direction he knew the clone to be, and saw the terrain it must traverse, he found himself instinctively wondering how exactly the clone was traversing it.

And his stubbornly dubious mind would immediately conclude that it was not, at least, not without pushing aside thick sections of undergrowth, and the clone would promptly pop, wasting his qi, and dropping his true form back into visibility. Orange-crest had already lost four clones, and about a tenth-share of his qi, in this manner, each time sheepishly scampering off into the undergrowth until he could conceal himself anew. But the fifth clone was holding up!

Orange-crest kept it a little behind himself, and tried not to look at that side of the road too much, letting the ground remain easily traversable in imagination. Now that he finally had his technique stable, he'd been able to accelerate to a light jog, catching up to the men he'd seen in a hurry. There were six of them. They spoke little, moving in disciplined silence. Four of them wore armor, jackets of scales like those of a serpent, wrought in steel.

Mortals they might be, but they were clearly well fed and well trained, broad of back and wide of arm. No threat to him, but easily capable of bringing down a cultivator of the second or third stage of Qi Condensation. Orange-crest crept round them silently, barely resisting the urge to reach out and run his fingers along the remarkable material. He'd seen armor before, but only rarely, and never this close.

A few of Yang Wei's men wore it, as had one of the initiates who'd advanced far in the tournament, but never fought orange-crest. He wanted some. Later. When he had a ring to put armor in. The two men who did not wear armor rode horses. Both of them wore robes, two-layered constructs of black and dark blue. And around one of them, orange-crest felt traces of qi. Not much, but he wasn't trying to hide his cultivation at all. The first stage of Qi Condensation.

Maybe at the cusp of the second, if orange-crest was being generous. Yet, surprisingly, he did not seem to be in charge. Instead, he deferred to the robed mortal, riding slightly ahead of him. Orange-crest wasn't sure what to make of them. It was rather hard, when they were not speaking much. Slowly, he crept even closer. The cultivator stiffened.

"I sense something." Hands leapt to the hilts of swords. The party's advance slowed, as the cultivator pulled his horse's reins gently, but did not stop. Orange-crest froze where he stood. One of the steel-clad men walked right past him.

"Apologies, Assistant Magistrate He. I thought I felt a presence." Assistant Magistrate He snorted humorlessly, returning his gaze to the road ahead. Orange-crest relaxed. Okay, the cultivator's senses were terrible. But not that terrible. Good to know. He wasn't even sure what he'd been about to do. Root through their saddlebags to look for papers? There was no way they'd not have noticed that. Orange-crest left the assistant magistrate's party behind, rushing ahead.

At some point in the night, the road had grown into something more than a mere winding trail. It was not paved like a courtyard path, but it was wide, and well defined. It only took him a quarter of an hour to come upon the next candidates. Two men and a woman, travelling with a boy too young to become an initiate. Orange-crest skirted around them. They reminded him a little too much of the people of the little village. Humans seemed to get aggressive, rather than fearful, when their young were present.

Understandable, but disheartening. The next party was large. Seven men, all dressed as shabbily as orange-crest, some bearing implements of metal. One sword, several hand-sickles, and a fork with four prongs. Too many. Too armed. Orange-crest was starting to picture who and how he would approach the humans next. He would find one alone. Ideally one who carried no sharp weapon. Edged iron certainly seemed most desirable to humans of certain temperaments. The Yang Weis and Xiao Longs alike.

His ideal human would be both peaceable and fearless. And uninclined to spread too widely rumor of their encounter with a talking monkey, if things went poorly. Half an hour later, orange-crest found him. The man sat at the edge of the road, enjoying the shade of a tall mulberry tree. One that still bore many of its leaves, despite the lateness of the season. He was old. Not ancient, he hardly looked like Elder Lu, all liver-spots and papery skin.

But he looked older than Li Xun, which made him old in orange-crest's book. His robes were shabby and stained with dirt, and his hair was a frazzled mess of snowy steel, contrasting his wispy beard, which was small and well-contained. He had a staff like orange-crest's at his side, albeit far less straight and white, with a pair of sacks tied to each end of it. A wooden bowl sat at his side, half a dozen copper coins and a small crust of bread filling it.

But he just looked peaceful, sitting there beneath the white-gold leaves of the autumn mulberry. Like he wasn't in a hurry to arrive anywhere in particular. Orange-crest gently pulsed his qi, probing at the man. It was difficult to feel beneath the surface of another, even if they were not a cultivator. A cultivator's qi did not typically enter another's body, not without great and deliberate effort. His master had told him there were techniques for it, most of them the exclusive domain of doctors, or demons.

The restful man did not react to his probing. Either not a cultivator, or one uncommonly restrained. His eyes were not fully closed. But they were more than half-lidded, drifting beneath wakefulness and slumber, like a blood-drunk cat. Orange-crest gently crept round him, finding a seat of his own a few paces away, on the far side of the tree, where the bulk of his invisible form would be doubly concealed. Despite his best efforts, some of the leaves crinkled underfoot. And under-butt.

The carefree old man opened his eyes at the noise, turning round to inspect his surroundings. His eyes passed cleanly through orange-crest, and soon closed once more. It was very strange staring through himself at the leaves beneath him. So strange his clone wavered at the sight of it, until orange-crest looked away. He shifted, finding a spot where his unseen body did not disturb the landscape. It was surprisingly difficult.

The act of carefully apprehending his own position seemed almost inherently corrosive to the stability of his clone. There was a secret there, one orange-crest could not yet grasp. There was something of truth and falsehood in the art formless-gleam had taught him. The art that had so far departed from the original form she'd shown him that it was hardly fair to call it the same technique anymore. It would need a name of its own soon.

Beneath the mulberry tree, sitting next to the strange human, orange-crest meditated upon his techniques. Golden leaves, and golden qi, imperial fortune flowing unseen through the skies. Falsehood, beneath the secrets of his arts, and writ upon his very qi. The simian nature he refused to discard when offered the chance, yet now sought to conceal. The destiny of all great monkeys that Sun Wuming had spoken of. The fate of Wukong, who had stood against the world, and both won and lost.

The fate of his master, who had found only defeat in the same furious rebellion. The fate of Daji, whose story he still hardly knew, and her tragic blood. So many lives trodden underfoot like autumn leaves by Heaven above. And no fewer, he suspected, threshed apart by this Empire of Xiao, and the sects that his master had loved and hated, upon the earth below. It was all too much. Orange-crest just wanted to do something that was unambiguously good, something that didn't make him second-guess himself at every turn.

To learn the secrets of medicine and cure the ailing, perhaps. A stepping stone that would help him cure his master, and perhaps red-eyes as well. He would learn faster by doing than he could hope to through books alone. Yet what human doctor would teach a monkey? He'd found one master so open-minded, he doubted he would find a second. Orange-crest had just wanted to see past the horizon. To stand joyous and free. Yet every thoughtless step had drawn him deeper into a world of hidden depths.

He thought he'd known who he wished to be, but now, without Li Xun, he was unmoored anew. Orange-crest cracked his eyes open. This man, beneath the mulberry tree. He didn't seem like the sort of fellow who was troubled by all of these heavy thoughts. He looked so peaceful that even the orange-crest of Mount Yuelu would have envied the skill with which he dozed away the day.

As orange-crest struggled to fit together the many fragmented truths he hoped would one day set into his foundation, he waited to see what the other humans would make of this restful wanderer. To see if he could be what orange-crest sought.