Chương 14: Lìchūn: Expansion 3

The red stone is already warm beneath Liu Yinhua's fingers. She keeps her hand light against it, two fingers resting on the smooth surface, and lets the thread of qi come slowly enough that it does not bite into her wrist. It wants to move faster. The warmth gathers where her fingers touch the stone, bright and insistent, and the sealed heat beneath her navel answers before she has fully drawn breath. She does not rush. The first few evenings had made rushing very tempting.

Qi feels easier when it is first caught, as if all that matters is drawing more and keeping hold of it. That had lasted until the heat lodged in her chest badly enough to leave her dizzy after practice, and until Elder Yun's gaze found her the next morning with no surprise in it at all. Liu Yinhua breathes out and lets the thread sink into her dantian. This time, it holds.

The vessel inside her has changed over the last week, not in any single glorious moment, but in small degrees that only become visible when she looks back at what had come before. At first, her dantian had been a hidden coal under ash, present only when she sat very still and held attention in the correct shape. Now, when the thread settles, the warmth remains. Liu Yinhua waits a breath longer than she needs to before she opens her eyes.

The lamp in her room has burned low, and the red stone has dulled by another fine degree. Not much. Enough. She folds the cloth over it, ties the knot, and sets it beside the bronze mirror she keeps face-down near her bedding. The week continues in the same narrow fashion, one effort pressed against the next until the days become difficult to separate. In the mornings, there is Elder Huan's terrace. He does not alter the work for her simply because she has begun to understand part of it.

Stances still make her thighs tremble. Steps still catch when she thinks too much about where her feet should go. By the fourth day of that week, he stops correcting her shoulder as often and begins correcting her hips instead, which Liu Yinhua takes with more restraint than she feels. Elder Yun's hall claims more of her attention. The next section of the First Ember Method sits open in her lap most evenings, its characters neat and unhelpful until practice makes one of them yield. She reads slowly.

Then she reads again. Some lines seem clear while she is looking at them and become much less clear when she is sitting with a stone under her fingers, breath uneven, heat gathering somewhere it should not. Tang Mingxia finds her frowning over one paragraph long enough for the tea beside her to cool untouched.

"You are reading the same line."

"I noticed."

"For some time." Tang Mingxia lowers herself beside the table and reaches for the scroll only after Liu Yinhua inclines her head. She reads the line once, then the lines before and after it, her expression settling into the focused severity she wears when something has been badly arranged in her opinion.

"You are taking this too literally," Tang Mingxia says.

"It does not mean press the qi inward. It means the vessel has to receive it cleanly. If you press, you are making the heat gather where it should pass." Liu Yinhua looks down at the characters. They remain the same characters, though they have become more irritating.

"That would explain the headache." Tang Mingxia turns to look at her.

"You gave yourself a headache and continued?"

"I wanted to be certain it was not part of the exercise."

"It is not."

"Now I am certain." Wu Cailan is stretched near the hearth with one arm over her eyes.

"Elder Huan's exercises hurt everywhere, and no one says that's wrong." Tang Mingxia does not look away from Liu Yinhua.

"Pain in muscle and pain from mishandled qi are different things." Wu Cailan's arm shifts slightly.

"Feels like pain."

"That is because your understanding of medicine begins and ends with whether you are bleeding."

"I know bruises too."

"Your range of expertise overwhelms me." Liu Yinhua keeps her eyes on the scroll even as a corner of her mouth threatens to move, and she does not permit it. Tang Mingxia's finger taps once near the troublesome line, drawing her attention back.

"Try again after dinner," Tang Mingxia says, and then moves back to her own tasks. The house continues around the work. Tang Mingxia has her own lessons, her own letters, and her own silences. Wu Cailan disappears before dawn on several mornings and returns with dust on her hem or a bruise darkening along one arm, giving no explanation beyond training. Liu Yinhua does not ask.

They do not ask why she sometimes sits awake until the lamp gutter has gone almost black, one hand over her lower abdomen, waiting for the heat inside her to settle. Small things move between them instead. Tang Mingxia leaves the First Ember Method on the low table after borrowing it to check a passage, rather than returning it to Liu Yinhua's room. Wu Cailan begins placing the pickled radish nearer Liu Yinhua when the evening meal is set out.

Liu Yinhua puts extra water over the coals before Wu Cailan comes home from physical cultivation, because Wu Cailan drinks quickly and complains if the water tastes stale, though she complains in the same tone she uses for most things and therefore gains little by it. By the end of the week, Liu Yinhua's dantian finally holds. She draws from the red stone, settles the thread, and waits for the familiar thinning at the edges. It does not come.

The warmth remains gathered low in her body, held against a surface that feels thin and bright in sensation, like glass warmed near a furnace but not allowed to soften. After that, the lessons change without any formal recognition of change. Liu Yinhua still sits in the same place. She still has the same half-dulled red stones that are slowly running out now, two of them completely empty of qi, the same bruises from Elder Huan's terrace, the same ignorance spread before her in every hall and courtyard of the sect.

Yet now, when she draws qi into her dantian, it collects. When she gathers enough, Elder Yun instructs her to guide a thread outward through the nearest channels, just far enough to brush the muscle and return. It is harder than sealing the vessel had been. The first time, the warmth shivers into her thighs and scatters before she can bring it back. The second time, she sends too much down her right arm and spends the rest of the lesson with her fingers prickling.

The third time, she moves slowly enough that the thread travels partway and returns thinner than it left, which Elder Yun accepts with a slight nod and no further comment. There is no grace in the work. Qi outside the sealed vessel feels less like a flame and more like oil poured through cloth too tightly woven for it. It catches in some places and runs too quickly through others. Sometimes it warms a muscle and leaves behind a brief, strange strength that vanishes almost as soon as she notices it.

Sometimes it does nothing useful at all, which might the worst part of the whole thing. Chi Yanluo notices before she tells him. They meet twice that week after Elder Yun's hall, though neither meeting is arranged in a way that allows Liu Yinhua to decide whether she has accepted anything. The first time, he falls into step beside her on the path toward the novice district, his hands tucked into his sleeves and his gaze on the mist resting below the rail.

"You have begun moving qi through the channels," he says. Liu Yinhua looks at him.

"Is that a question?"

"No."

"Then I suppose I do not need to answer." His mouth curves faintly.

"You are holding your right hand differently." She glances down before she can stop herself. Her fingers hang loose at her side. The prickling has not entirely faded. Chi Yanluo does not look pleased with himself for noticing. He only continues walking.

"It passed too sharply through the wrist."

"So you are familiar with this mistake."

"Yes." The answer is plain enough that she looks at him again. His sleeves hide his hands. There is nothing to see there, and perhaps that is why she thinks of old burns.

"If the heat reaches your fingers before the rest of the arm has warmed, stop," he says.

"Let it return. Do not complete the motion simply because you have begun it." Liu Yinhua considers that.

"Elder Yun did not say that."

"She may expect you to discover it."

"That seems unkind."

"It is effective." His voice does not change. Liu Yinhua cannot tell whether he approves of that or merely knows it to be true.

"Thank you," she says. Chi Yanluo inclines his head.

"It is a small thing." Small things may still bind. This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience. She carries that thought back to the house and says nothing of it. The second time, Shen Yuanzhou is with him. His help is warmer and less careful. He demonstrates the movement badly at first, laughs when Chi Yanluo corrects him, and then does it again with enough force that Liu Yinhua can feel the rough heat of his qi from several steps away.

He does not seem embarrassed by failure. He frowns, adjusts, tries again, and waits for correction with an openness that does not fit into any of Liu Yinhua's old categories.

"You pause before every movement," he says to her after a while. Liu Yinhua's hands fold inside her sleeves.

"Do I?"

"Yes." Shen Yuanzhou hesitates, then glances at Chi Yanluo as if looking for a better way to say it. Chi Yanluo does not supply one.

"It looks like you are waiting for permission." She grows quiet without meaning, and for a moment, the only sound is the faint movement of other disciples leaving the courtyard below. She does find it harder, even in this public place, not to bow by habit to the words and whims of men around her, even just boys her own age. it is old training, because what use is a pretty face if it disobeys the wallet supporting her night?

The thought still rankles, in the way that she cannot help but retreat further into the training, the mask every time she notices it is there. Shen Yuanzhou realises something has gone wrong. His mouth opens, then shuts, glancing to Chi Yanluo as if to ask for aid. There's very little aid, the blond a little awkward in his silence. Liu Yinhua looks back toward the practice yard.

"Show me again." He does, and they are equally quiet now. That evening, the warmth reaches her wrist without prickling and returns before it scatters. Progress, by any fair measure. It does not feel entirely like victory. The trouble with Chi Yanluo is that his assistance remains difficult to weigh. He gives advice without pressing gratitude from it. He does not crowd her. He notices when Shen Yuanzhou's honesty cuts too close and makes space around the wound without touching it.

If he wished to embarrass her, there are easier ways. If he wished to bind her with favours, there are clearer ones. Liu Yinhua does not know what he gains. That ignorance stays with her. It follows her through Elder Huan's terrace, through Elder Yun's hall, through the quiet of her own room when she guides warmth into her muscles and back again. She has known men who want praise, men who want softness, men who want debt, and men who want to be admired for kindness that costs them nothing.

Chi Yanluo may want any of those things. He may want something else. She dislikes that possibility most. On the seventh evening, while Tang Mingxia mends a loose seam at her cuff and Wu Cailan sharpens her knife on a stone she insists is not the good whetstone, Liu Yinhua asks whether the Chi family is known for taking protégés. Tang Mingxia does not answer immediately. Wu Cailan looks up.

"That's the blond one?" Liu Yinhua keeps her gaze on the scroll she has not been reading.

"Yes."

"The polite one."

"Yes." Tang Mingxia draws the thread through the cloth and smooths the seam beneath her thumb.

"The Chi family is known for military service, old command posts, and surviving political changes that ruined less careful families. Patronage, yes, in the way martial families collect obligations. Not in the way a merchant house might sponsor a promising clerk." Liu Yinhua turns one page of the scroll.

"What way is that?"

"Service. Loyalty. Risk shared at the correct time." Tang Mingxia glances at her.

"Sometimes blood." Wu Cailan lowers the knife to her lap.

"That sounds cheerful."

"It is not meant to." Liu Yinhua looks at the characters on the page until they cease meaning anything.

"If someone from such a family offers help, should it be refused?" Tang Mingxia's needle pauses in the cloth.

"That depends on what help is being offered and who witnesses you accepting it, considering the history of the Crimson Wastes."

"Instruction."

"Then you should ask why he is willing to be seen giving it." Liu Yinhua says nothing. Tang Mingxia resumes sewing.

"There are kind people, Liu Yinhua. That does not make their kindness simple." Wu Cailan's voice is quieter than usual.

"Some help is just help." Tang Mingxia does not contradict her. The next morning, Liu Yinhua does not ask Chi Yanluo any questions. He does not ask why she is more careful with him than before. By the end of the week, her dantian holds well enough that she can guide qi through the lower abdomen and into the muscles of her thighs without immediate scattering. It is clumsy, and the warmth returns thinner each time, but when she stands afterward, the ache from Elder Huan's terrace has less bite.

Her next stance holds three breaths longer before her legs begin to shake. ——— The storehouse courtyard is busier than usual after the afternoon meal. A steward has posted new task slips beneath the covered board, and disciples gather in small knots near the steps, reading over shoulders or pretending not to. Liu Yinhua comes to look. Wu Cailan comes with her, arms folded and expression sour, before they have even reached the shade of the covered walk.

"Most of the good ones will have gone," Wu Cailan complains.

"They were just posted today."

"They were posted where we could see them today." Liu Yinhua looks at the board. Copying work. Herb sorting. Kitchen duty. Sweeping the lower shrine steps. Carrying sealed messages between outer offices. Feed preparation in the beast pens, marked with a warning in dark ink. Several slips on the better rows are already taken. Others have names written beside them with the clean confidence of people who knew to arrive before the crowd. A soft laugh rises behind her. It is not loud.

The courtyard is crowded enough that it may have belonged to any conversation. Even so, several disciples near the board turn, then look away too carefully. Wu Cailan turns first, and Liu Yinhua follows a moment later. Three girls stand near the edge of the covered walk. A robe the shade of rising sun, pale pink and golds, a golden sash sits perfectly. Her sleeves fall in clean pale folds.

A pink ornament rests in her hair, delicate enough to avoid reprimand and fine enough to show that reprimand has never been a serious concern. She is pretty in a soft, cultivated way, with peach-toned hair arranged high and a small smile that makes the girls beside her seem like part of the arrangement. The taller girl at her right has red hair half-bound with gold and a cool expression. The third girl stands slightly behind them, eyes quick, hands folded tightly in front of her.

Liu Yinhua knows none of their names. The girl in pink looks from the board to Liu Yinhua. Her gaze lingers on Liu Yinhua's face, then travels down to the undecorated knot of her sash.

"You are Liu Yinhua, aren't you?" she asks. The question carries gently through the small space that has opened around them. Liu Yinhua bows by the correct measure for a fellow novice whose standing she does not know.

"I am." The girl's smile warms a little.

"I thought so. I heard someone mention your beauty." Wu Cailan shifts beside her. Liu Yinhua keeps her hands folded inside her sleeves.

"That is generous of them."

"Oh, I do not know about generous," the girl says.

"People sometimes don't know quality." The red-haired girl's mouth moves, not quite a laugh. The third girl lowers her gaze, hands fiddling with the string of a string ornament.

"I am afraid I have forgotten your name, Sect Sister," Liu Yinhua says, forcing herself not to bristle with the words.

"Guo Meilin," the girl says, her smile a dazzling thing. It is a pretty name. It also lands with a small change in the courtyard, as if the people pretending not to listen have been given a reason to continue. She also recognises the name from a few nights ago, when Tang Mingxia had deemed it suitable to continue her education, and to try and wrangle Wu Cailan into something half respectable. This girl belongs to a noble house. Guo Meilin turns her hand slightly toward the girls at her sides.

"Zhao Ruxue. Lin Shuangshuang." Zhao Ruxue inclines her head by a fraction. Lin Shuangshuang dips hers quickly.

"A pleasure," Liu Yinhua says. Zhao Ruxue studies her for a moment.

"Is it?" Guo Meilin glances at her, something almost playful in the censure.

"Zhao Ruxue." Zhao Ruxue's eyes remain on Liu Yinhua for another breath before she looks aside without an apology. Guo Meilin steps closer to the board. No one tells the disciples in front of it to move, but the space clears all the same.

"Are you choosing work?"

"I am considering it."

"That must be difficult when one does not yet know which tasks are worth taking."

"It has its difficulties," Liu Yinhua says. Guo Meilin's smile holds, a pretty thing. Liu Yinhua would rather kiss a snake than trust it.

"Of course. We all have to begin somewhere." The words are mild, but Liu Yinhua feels Wu Cailan tense beside her, and that is enough warning to keep very still.

"I have found the sect very generous with instruction," Liu Yinhua says diplomatically, far too aware of the eyes on them.

"The sect is generous," Guo Meilin agrees.

"Still, instruction and guidance are different things. Those of us who had family to advise us are fortunate."

"Yes," Liu Yinhua says.

"You must be." The silence that follows is brief, but it is not empty. Zhao Ruxue looks directly at her now. Lin Shuangshuang's eyes widen before she lowers them. Guo Meilin's expression does not change enough for anyone else to accuse her of displeasure.

"You speak very neatly," Guo Meilin says.

"For one I've heard comes from the coast."

"When I can," she demurs.

"How fortunate," Guo Meilin says.

"Some girls from the cities are not taught much care in their speech." Wu Cailan takes half a step forward, but Liu Yinhua's sleeve brushes her wrist, light and deliberate. Wu Cailan stops.

"I would not know," Liu Yinhua says.

"Suzhou is large."

"It must be." Guo Meilin looks again at the task board.

"The outer medical hall is still looking for hands, I think. It is tedious work, but clean enough if one is careful. The pay is poor, but for someone beginning, perhaps you might find some value in it." Liu Yinhua looks at the lower row of slips. Herb sorting is still there, tucked between kitchen ash disposal and feed preparation for the outer beast pens. The handwriting is smaller than the other notices, the reward listed in red chips rather than stones.

"It does sound useful," Liu Yinhua says. Guo Meilin's smile softens.

"Good. I would hate for you to be discouraged so early. The sect can be… difficult for those who arrive without preparation."

"That is kind of you to say." This time, Tang Mingxia's earlier warning sits clear in her mind, and Liu Yinhua hears how gratitude changes the shape of the air. She lets it remain small. No lowered lashes. No extra warmth. Guo Meilin studies her for a moment.

"Not kind," she says.

"Only honest. We should all help one another understand our place." Wu Cailan's hand closes at her side, and Zhao Ruxue's gaze flicks to it. She looks faintly amused. Liu Yinhua does not move.

"Then I will remember the advice, Guo Meilin."

"I am glad." Guo Meilin turns as if to go, then pauses with one hand resting lightly against Lin Shuangshuang's sleeve.

"I admit, I was curious to meet you. It is not often someone so new draws attention so quickly."

"Have I?" She asks, mild as milk. Lin Shuangshuang glances up, then down again. Guo Meilin's smile remains pleasant.

"Chi Yanluo is not known for wasting time." Liu Yinhua keeps her hands folded inside her sleeves. The cloth feels warm against her fingers, and it is far easier to hide her emotions when her hands don't twitch or clench.

"I have found Sect Brother Chi courteous," she says, sticking to the more formal naming, because she doubts she can afford to entertain any such rumours.

"Courteous," Zhao Ruxue repeats, but Guo Meilin does not look at her, merely flaps a hand to silence her.

"That is a good word for it. Courtesy from a scion of the Crimson Wastes is worth noticing, even when one does not know enough to notice it properly." The words are light, and almost helpful. Wu Cailan shifts again beside her, but Liu Yinhua has already settled into stillness.

"I will try to be more attentive," Liu Yinhua says. Guo Meilin's gaze lingers on her face.

"I expect you will. You seem very attentive when it is within your skillset." She steps past then with a shallow bow, Zhao Ruxue moving with her and Lin Shuangshuang following a half-step behind. The space closes after them slowly, disciples returning to the board and to their conversations with voices lowered around the edges, and Liu Yinhua bows as she passes.

"I don't like her." Liu Yinhua looks back at the task board.

"No," she agrees as the paper comes free of the board with a soft rasp beneath her fingers. Across the courtyard, Guo Meilin says something too quiet to hear, and Zhao Ruxue laughs.

"No, I don't believe I do either, Wu Cailan."