Chương 92: Chapter 90

The oil lamp flickers on the desk, casting its light over the book I have open in front of me, the same one Master Mu gave me a couple of days ago and which contains the complete method for making talisman paper, as I try to concentrate on it as I have been for a good while now. And here trying is the key word. Because every time my eyes trace a line, my mind decides it's a good moment to remind me that tonight I have plans. Plans that, if I'm being honest with myself, are making me more nervous than they should.

I reread the same sentence for the fourth consecutive time and finally close the book with a sigh of resignation. There's no point in continuing to pretend I'm studying when the only information my brain seems willing to process tonight is that of the plan I've gone over mentally some thirty times in the last few hours. I lean back in the chair and my fingers drum on the book's cover while I contemplate the box resting on the corner of the desk.

A small, discreet box containing a pair of earrings with pearls set in them that, to any casual observer, would be nothing more than an elegant trinket. Looking at them, a shiver runs down my spine that has nothing to do with the temperature, despite the fact that the light, simple dress I'm wearing is hardly the warmest thing in my wardrobe. But it's comfortable and disposable, and tonight those qualities are more important than elegance, especially given the task I have ahead of me.

I take my eyes off the earrings and open the book again more out of inertia than any real intention of reading it, but even the fascination its contents generate in me isn't enough to compete with the anticipation I feel in the pit of my stomach, because what I'm going to do tonight is going to change everything. A soft sound at the door interrupts my thoughts and, before I can say anything, the door opens with the silence that can only belong to one person.

Lianhua enters the study in complete silence and looks at me with an expression I know far too well. It is the expression of someone who has accepted they can't change the situation but wants to make it clear that they don't agree with it.

"All the Pavilion's staff have retired for the night", she tells me in a neutral tone that masks her true thoughts.

"It's the best time to move." I nod as I listen, noticing how the anticipation I've been holding back all afternoon transforms into something more concrete, something resembling determination. But Lianhua, as expected, isn't finished.

"Although I still think the entire plan is a very bad idea, Zhāohuán Wen", she adds, and the way she pronounces those words carries the note of someone who has repeated them several times and knows they won't make any difference, but who refuses to stop saying them on principle. I can't help smiling as I listen to her because her insistence, far from bothering me, feels reassuring in a way I couldn't quite explain.

"As I've told you before, Lianhua", I reply while closing the book and setting it aside on the desk.

"Sometimes it's better to ask for forgiveness than for permission." The phrase draws from Lianhua a reaction that, in anyone else, would be a snort of exasperation, but in her it manifests as a blink slightly longer than normal.

"I'll only tell my mother what Master Mu told me once I've already finished", I tell her, and my tone takes on the firmness of someone who has already made a decision and has no intention of reconsidering it.

"Once it's a fait accompli, it will be easier for her to accept than if I ask her beforehand and she tells me no." Lianhua doesn't respond, but the line of her lips tightens just enough for me to know she has an opinion on the matter that she's choosing not to share, which, coming from her, is practically the same as shouting her disagreement to the four winds. But I don't have time to debate, so I reach for the corner of the desk and take the box with the earrings.

When I open it, the lamplight draws a soft glint from the two pearls set in the silvery metal, and for an instant I stare at them with the feeling that I'm about to cross a threshold from which there is no going back. Which, come to think of it, is exactly what I'm doing.

"First you have to put the earrings on me", I tell Lianhua as I show her the box.

"So take out one of those sharp objects I'm sure you carry on your clothes and make the holes in my ears." Lianhua's reaction is immediate and, to my surprise, considerably more intense than I expected.

"I am not going to use a weapon to pierce your ears, Zhāohuán Wen", she tells me, and there is a note in her voice that comes dangerously close to scandalized.

"Wait a moment." And without giving me time to respond, she leaves the study with a speed that leaves me staring at the closed door, the box with the earrings still in my hand and an expression I imagine must be fairly ridiculous. The minutes that pass until she returns seem longer than they probably are, but finally the door opens again and Lianhua enters holding a needle between her fingers with the delicacy of a surgeon who has just selected her instrument.

"This is more appropriate for that task", she tells me as she shows me the needle, and her tone has recovered that professional neutrality that indicates she has found a solution her conscience considers acceptable. Seeing the needle, I look at Lianhua and nod in agreement. It is fine, pointed, and, to be honest, probably much better suited than anything Lianhua keeps hidden in her clothes for purposes considerably less friendly than piercing earlobes.

"Perfect", I tell her.

"Do it." Lianhua approaches me and, after carefully pushing aside a lock of hair covering my left ear, positions the needle against my lobe. I can feel the cold metal against my skin and I brace myself mentally for what's coming, though part of me can't help thinking that, of all the things I'm going to do tonight, piercing my ears should be the one I'm least worried about. The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

But then Lianhua pushes the needle and the pain draws a hiss through my teeth that I can't quite contain. It's not just the prick itself, which is unpleasant enough on its own, but the force Lianhua has to apply for the needle to pierce my skin.

Because my skin, tempered by cultivation, is no longer the soft, vulnerable skin of a normal child but something considerably more resistant, and that fact turns what should have been a quick and simple procedure into something that requires the strength of a cultivator of Lianhua's level to complete. The needle finally pierces the lobe with a wet snap and, before I can fully recover, Lianhua moves efficiently to my right ear and repeats the process.

This time I'm more prepared, but the pain is the same, a sharp prick aggravated by the pressure needed to pierce skin that was tempered, ironically, to resist exactly that sort of damage.

"Done", Lianhua tells me as she withdraws the needle and sets it aside.

"Let me put the earrings on you before the holes start to close." I nod quickly, because that is a possibility I hadn't considered and that is perfectly real. Lianhua takes the earrings from the box with care and, with precise movements, inserts them into the freshly made holes.

I feel an annoying sting as the metal of the earrings comes into contact with the raw flesh, but it is bearable, and when Lianhua finishes placing them she steps back to examine her work while I notice the pressure of the earrings against my lobes.

"Then it's time to move", I tell Lianhua with a determination that sounds more confident than I actually feel.

"Carry me in your arms. The noise of the chair's wheels could draw attention." Lianhua nods as she hears me, then approaches and lifts me from the chair, gathering me into her arms with ease. It's a gesture she has repeated countless times, but tonight it has a different nuance, something clandestine that makes me feel like the protagonist of a spy film, except that instead of infiltrating an enemy base, I'm infiltrating my own cultivation room to do something I've been explicitly forbidden from doing.

Well, technically it's forbidden because doing it would have killed me, but I no longer have that problem, and the earrings also solve the issue of anyone finding out, so from a certain point of view I'm not disobeying but rather using my resources to optimize my cultivation and the time I spend on it. Although I already know that argument isn't going to work with my mother when I tell her, at least it sounds good in my head.

And while I get lost again in useless thoughts born of my nerves, Lianhua leaves the room making as little sound as possible, but the silence of the Pavilion at this hour of the night is so absolute that even the rustle of her clothing as she moves seems deafening to me. We travel through the corridors in silence, with Lianhua advancing with that feline grace that seems to make her feet barely touch the floor while I go in her arms, my thoughts now shifting to imagining what will happen if someone discovers us.

Fortunately, the Pavilion is deserted, and in just a few minutes we reach the room I set up to hold the Qi-gathering formation. Lianhua opens the door with one hand without setting me down and we enter the familiar space, lit only by the dim light of a lamp positioned to one side of the door.

But there is something that wasn't here the last time I was in this room, because right at the center of the formation, where normally there is nothing, there sits a kind of low, solid, unadorned chair, placed with a precision that suggests someone has measured the distance carefully to ensure it doesn't interfere with the formation.

"Lianhua", I say as I look at the chair with curiosity.

"When did you put that there?"

"Just before I came to get you", she replies in that tone she uses when she does something on her own initiative and doesn't want it to seem important.

"I thought it would be more comfortable for you to use, even if afterward it has to be disposed of." I look at her from her arms and feel something warm in my chest, because it is one of those gestures of Lianhua's for which she neither asks for nor expects any thanks, one of those details that shows that despite telling me every five minutes that this is a bad idea, she has taken the trouble to make sure I at least do it comfortably.

"Thank you, Lianhua", I tell her, and I make sure the words carry the sincerity I feel.

"Now you only need to place me." Lianhua takes me to the chair and seats me with that methodical care she always has when moving me, making sure my back is well supported and that my dress doesn't catch on anything.

"I make one last plea for you to reconsider this whole matter", she tells me as she finishes settling me.

"This is the best moment to turn back." It's her last attempt, and I know it because I know her well enough to tell the difference between her routine warnings and this final line.

"I'm not turning back", I reply with a firmness that emerges from me more easily than I expected. Lianhua looks at me for an instant that stretches long enough for me to read in her eyes a mixture of resignation and something that, if I didn't know her better, I would say was pride. Then she lets out a sigh that says more than any words and finishes settling me while I prepare myself mentally for what is coming.

"How much time does the formation have left?" I ask her.

"A little more than half a day remains", she replies without hesitation.

"Then that's more than enough time", I tell her.

"Activate the formation." Lianhua nods one last time and steps out of the formation's area to stop beside the activation runes that border the perimeter, where I see her lean down, and an instant later the runes on the floor begin to glow with an intensity that spreads in concentric waves from the edge to the center, where I am seated. And seeing this, I close my eyes. The world disappears around me and, in its place, the neutral Qi specks appear, floating around me in a slow, hypnotic dance.

I can see how the formation is beginning to do its work, drawing in the ambient Qi and concentrating it within the area marked out by the runes. The density of specks increases rapidly, filling the space around me as though someone had opened the floodgates of a dam and the water were flooding an empty hall. I extend my mental hands and grab eight specks… and here I stop for an instant, because there is something I've been meaning to correct for a while.

Master Mu calls them Qi particles, not specks, and if someone with her level of knowledge calls them that, it's probably because that is their more widely accepted name. It's time to stop using the terminology invented by a five-year-old child, so from this moment on, it's better to call them Qi particles. I grasp the eight Qi particles firmly and draw them toward my body, where they are absorbed with that warm and familiar sensation I've experienced countless times before.

And with that first absorption, I officially begin the Tempering of the Nerves several months before my eleventh birthday. I admit that I'm a little nervous. Until now, every step of my cultivation has been limited by the restrictions everyone has and that, in all honesty, made perfect sense when I didn't have the Dantian formed. But now that, according to Master Mu, I have the Dantian and I also have the earrings as protection, I set aside all the precautions and throw myself in.

I grasp Qi particles at full speed, eight at a time, with the efficiency of someone who has practiced this movement thousands of times until it has become as natural as breathing. I draw them in, absorb them, and grasp more in a cycle that repeats over and over while I feel my cultivation rising with each rotation, a progress I can physically sense. And then I begin to notice the impurities. It's a sensation I know too well and that, despite the experience, remains just as revolting.

A viscous, dark, nauseating liquid that begins to seep from my skin, soaking into the dress I'm wearing and sliding down my arms and legs with the consistency of something between oil and tar. But I don't stop, because the sensation is familiar and bearable, simply another step I have to go through in order to complete Body Tempering. The minutes pass, or perhaps they are hours, and my mind begins to wander.

It's something that often happens to me when I cultivate, that tendency of my brain to seek stimulation when the task at hand no longer requires its full attention. And this time, the place it takes me is to an idea that arises out of nowhere with the clarity of a lightning bolt. The idea of testing the Qi Resonance.