Chương 15: Chapter 72: The Second Lee Brother

Lee Taeyang stood outside the village at the edge of the walls, letting the last driblets of rain fall upon his umbrella. The rains had begun to let up a short while ago, but it was a brief thing. The monsoon season lasted a solid two to three months depending on the strength of the Everstorm's qi, but that didn't mean a solid two months of rain. Sometimes it was just aggressively damp. The faintest light of the sunset peeked through the clouds, heralding the change of day to night.

Taeyang liked it; it matched his mood.

"Just as the sun sets upon my life in Changpo," Taeyang said, practicing his poetic enunciation.

"The sun sets upon Nakjo." There was a roar of laughter and animated conversation from within the city walls, and Taeyang sniffed. He, Lee Taeyang, was suited for a higher calling in the imperial courts, amongst his fellow men and women of culture. Not stuck here in the provinces, one small step above the peasantry. Not for the last time he bemoaned his Sign, which marked him as a barbaric Unorthodox cultivator. If only he'd had the presence of mind to deny it, or been from a branch family.

But he'd been young, and eager for his family's approval, and it did beguile the ladies. Of course, that was before he'd beheld the mindscape of the Great One. Before he'd taken a piece of it into himself. Taeyang shivered, and not from the damp rivulets cloying at his hem. That dark forest, filled with untold numbers of screaming goats. The eyes that stared out at him from the dark, and the insatiable urge to throw off his humanity and run into the wilds. Not for the first time, he cast the thoughts away. No.

He was a man. And he would exemplify what it meant to be a man. Culture. Society. Art. These were what set them apart from beasts, and what kept him sane in the dark when his nightmares brought him back to that place.

"Head of stone. Heart of steel. Hold your tongue. Hide your thoughts." Taeyang took a few deep breaths and centered himself.

"The Great Ones are the form of the world, and we are but its beholders," Taeyang spoke the words of his favourite philosopher. And Lo, there was so much to behold! Overhead, a flock of cranes flying south before winter winged down through the evening mists to land a short distance away at the rising waters. Their long snowy necks and black-and-red caps bobbed up and down as their beaks darted into the newly formed streams, pecking at slugs and other small animals driven up by the waters.

Changpo flowers floated on the waters, spinning like tiny pink boats until they sunk or were carried away by the wind. Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

"Beautiful," Taeyang sighed. In the depths of Nakjo there were only rugged stones, endless plains, and small stubby beasts. No graceful cranes, or enormous pandas, or strange pangolins. How was he supposed to be poetic with such measly teachers as marmots and jackals? He quickly pulled out his notebook and began writing, his charcoal elegantly spinning across the page. He spoke aloud as he wrote.

"Wild Cranes Feeding, Beneath Civilization's Shade, A Muddy Courtly Dance." He added a little flourish at the end for his future biographer and nodded appreciatively. Not his best work, but it would do. The juxtaposition of the themes were perfect for a traditional three character classic. He knew that there were those who preferred the four line style being popularized by Scholar Lei Feng, but puzzling out the ideal ancient characters was half the strength of classical poetry!

And don't even get him started on modern songs, which only cared about rhyming. A sudden thought occurred to Taeyang, and he reached into one of his pockets and pulled out a wrapped piece of simple fried dough that mother had given him for an afternoon snack. He slowly approached the cranes, crumbling the bread in his fingers as he did so. When he could see that they were growing nervous by his presence, he stopped and gently tossed pieces of bread onto the water to be swept towards the big birds.

Then he clapped his hands together and bowed his head in prayer.

"They say the white-naped cranes of Lemuria are lucky, so I beg you, spirits of air and water, grant me luck in Chengdu! Let an Imperial official hear my poems and bring me to the capital to recite before the Emperor. Or if that's too much, then I'd accept a jade beauty taken by my captivating appearance. Or – or – if someone would read my book of poetry! Even just one person!" He tossed the last of the bread onto the waters and clapped his hands thrice before bowing once more.

"I, Lee Taeyang, beg you for luck!" There was a loud, rude sound not unlike a 'tsk' from the cranes. Taeyang looked up in shock. Had he misheard?

"What is this cheap offering," one of the cranes clacked, stepping forward from the flock.

"Your bread is as poor taste as your poetry." The other birds moved aside, bowing their heads to the magnificent specimen. It was the ultimate expression of crane – the gleaming feathers, the shining crown of its crest, the deep blood red of its face, and a slate coloured body seemingly speckled with stars. Taeyang was struck by the spectacle. He needed to write it down! Immortalize this moment in text! But words utterly failed him in that moment. No – words were insufficient for the majesty before him!

No woman, no jewel, nothing mortal could match the beauty of this crane! He felt like gibbering and throwing himself before the beast just for the opportunity to behold its feathers for even a moment longer. But then cold reality came crashing down, as it always did for Taeyang.

"C – Co – Co – " Taeyang gasped, desperately backing up. But his knees betrayed him, depositing him on his butt in the mud. His scream turned into a gasp in his throat.

"Core –" he wheezed. The crane stepped oh-so-gracefully until it towered over Taeyang. It lowered a wicked beak towards his eyes, to pluck them out for daring to behold it. When its beak was a mere fingerspan away from his cheek, it spoke once more, in a delicate whisper.

"Nobody will ever believe you." And then with a flutter of wings it was gone, leaving behind an ACK! *ACK! ACK! in its wake. Taeyang's screaming nearly brought out the whole village. As it turned out, nobody believed him.