Chương 16: Lìchūn: Expansion 5

By the time Liu Yinhua reaches the third turn of the lower path, her lungs burn less than they had the week before. The novice district has not altered. The morning path still rises in long stone-backed curves through damp grass and red-leaved shrubs, and the air still bites when it reaches the back of her throat. There are other disciples ahead of her, mostly boys from the western residences and a scattering of girls with their sleeves tied back, all of them running.

Her feet find the next step more easily than they did before. Liu Yinhua finds herself marvelling at the change in her body, even with just a week and spare change of such hard work. She breathes in through her nose, lets the air settle, and draws a thin warmth from the dantian beneath her navel. It answers at once now, a steady pressure low in her body that feels solid enough to use.

She guides it down into her thighs as Elder Yun had instructed, only a little, and the ache in her muscles washes away, erasing the fatigue from part of the run. Liu Yinhua keeps running. By the time the midmorning bell rings, her hair is damp beneath the pins and her robe clings unpleasantly at the back of her neck, but she is not stumbling. She slows near the washing court with the others, breath rough and shoulders warm, and watches a girl from the next house bend over with both hands braced on her knees.

A week ago, Liu Yinhua would have been beside her. Today, she stands upright at least and wipes sweat from her temple with the back of her wrist. Wu Cailan comes up behind her with mud on one sleeve and no visible sympathy.

"You're running better," she says, reaching for the water dipper before Liu Yinhua can answer, quickly rinsing her hands.

"So I have been told."

"By who?"

"My legs." Wu Cailan snorts, drinks, and wipes her mouth with the back of her hand.

"They'll start complaining when you sit down."

"They have been given many opportunities to complain."

"They'll find more." That proves true by the time they return to the house. Tang Mingxia is already seated near the low table with her hair pinned smooth, a cup of tea cooling beside her and a thin book open beneath one hand. She looks at Liu Yinhua's damp collar, then at Wu Cailan's muddy sleeve, and waits long enough for Wu Cailan to look down at herself.

"Training ground," Wu Cailan says.

"I had assumed you did not fall into a ditch for pleasure." Liu Yinhua takes the water basin before Wu Cailan can answer with anything more than a rude face, and sets it near the hearth. The house has begun to accept small routines. Wu Cailan brings mud in. Tang Mingxia marks the offence with silence or a sentence. Liu Yinhua finds cloth before the matter becomes large enough to occupy the whole room. It is not peace, but it has begun to resemble order, at the very least.

She washes quickly, changes the inner layer of her robe, and sits with breakfast while the warmth in her dantian settles back into itself. The vessel holds better now and every day, it feels less like a coal hidden under ash and more like a hearth built properly in stone. Qi enters and remains. When she draws it outward, some of it still scatters, but some of it obeys.

"What do you know about places where qi gathers naturally?" Liu Yinhua asks once Tang Mingxia has finished rescuing Wu Cailan's sleeve with a damp cloth and a sour expression. Tang Mingxia pauses with her cup halfway to her mouth.

"Naturally?"

"Spirit beast nests, old mines, spirit springs, places like that," Liu Yinhua folds her hands around her bowl and keeps her tone mild.

"I was wondering whether the Blueglass Isles had places like that, or whether disciples here ever make use of them."

"There are places like that," Tang Mingxia says at last.

"Every region has some, and it seems that the sect often keeps those on the outer sect hidden as a treat for particularly skilled or curious outer disciples."

"That was my suspicion." Wu Cailan leans her elbow onto the table.

"So steal from beasts, dig around in mines, or find a spring that isn't inhabited by something nasty? Good choices." Tang Mingxia gives her a look.

"If you wish to die, there are simpler methods."

"I didn't say good for me." Liu Yinhua looks down at her bowl. The rice has gone soft at the edge where it sits in the broth.

"You do not know any such place that could be reached by outer disciples?" It's not an entirely out of the blue question, knowing that her housemate has an older sister in the inner sect.

"I know rumours. That is not the same thing." Tang Mingxia sets her cup down.

"There are warm vents higher on the mountain, but they are within restricted cultivation grounds that need to be booked. There are old mine mouths below the western ridge, but I don't know any exact locations. There are pools in the lower forest where qi gathers after heavy rain, but every older disciple knows them, so they are likely crowded or well defended."

Liu Yinhua takes another mouthful of rice and lets the thoughts settle as she listens to Wu Cailan turn the conversation to asking about thoughts on a talisman she is attempting to carve and charge. After breakfast, Liu Yinhua unfolds the contribution slip she had earned from minor tasks and smooths it once beneath her fingers. The paper is thin, stamped at one corner with the mark of the lower archive. Tang Mingxia glances at the slip.

"You traded your points for archive access?"

"Yes." Tang Mingxia's eyes move over the stamp again.

"The lowest tier will not hold anything rare." This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

"I am not ready for rare," she admits.

"No, I suppose not," Tang Mingxia says, and then, after a moment, "Read the catalogues first. A bad art wastes more time than no art." Liu Yinhua folds the slip and tucks it into her sleeve, offering a little smile.

"Then I will try not to be seduced by the first carved stone that offers to make me immortal." Wu Cailan squints at her.

"Do the stones talk?"

"Probably only the expensive ones," Tang Mingxia says, turning back to her book.

"Definitely do not touch those." —— The lower archive sits beneath the eastern side of the instruction halls, half sunk into the mountain and cool even in the afternoon. Liu Yinhua presents her slip to a narrow-faced attendant in dark brown robes, who studies the stamp, then her face, then the stamp again. He marks her name into a ledger with a brush so fine that the characters look like insect legs.

"First floor only," he says.

"Do not enter the stairwell. Do not open anything bound with red cord. Do not carry food, oil, open flame or open ink.

"I have brought none of those." His eyes flick to her sleeves as if checking for hidden arguments, then he passes her a flat wooden marker.

"Return this when you leave. You may remove three items, which are expected to be returned within two weeks." The archive doors are heavier than she expects. They open without sound, and the clerk has already turned his attention away. Inside, the first floor stretches farther than the outer wall suggested, laid out in narrow passages between shelves that rise from floor to ceiling. Scrolls fill some cubbies, their ties darkened from handling.

Other shelves hold jade slips arranged in lacquered trays, each tagged by a paper label. Narrow carved stones lie in shallow drawers beneath the main shelves, dull grey, green, white, and red-brown, with titles etched along their sides in tiny script. The air smells of old paper, cedar, dust, and something mineral beneath it all. The light comes from glass lamps set high along the walls, steady and smokeless. Liu Yinhua stands just inside the door for a breath longer than she should.

The lowest tier is not rare, Tang Mingxia had said. Liu Yinhua believes her. It still contains more knowledge than she has ever seen gathered in one place. Foundation catalogues, meridian primers, historical summaries of the sect's early arts. Bestiaries with warnings written in larger characters than the description, thin scrolls on etiquette between allied sects.

Introductions to talisman paper, basic mineral handling, spirit-beast spoor, breath correction, novice injuries, contribution law, challenge etiquette, dormitory regulations, market conduct, and the price of damaging archive materials. She begins with meridians because Elder Yun's voice has not left her, and she knows she needs to open a meridian sooner rather than later.

Partly from the elder, and partly from the somewhat voracious jealousy she has found blooming in her chest when she feels the winter's cold stretching from Duan Xueheng's hands, the way the wind draws so very close to the motion of Chi Yanluo's hands as they spar. Liu Yinhua wants. She finds a shelf marked Introductory Channel Theory and draws out a paper slip only after checking the cord. It is cool against her palm. She lowers herself onto a reading cushion and lets her breath settle.

This first text is dry enough to threaten to send her to sleep. It speaks of the twelve principal routes most novices study first, though it warns that sect arts divide and name them differently according to method. Leg routes for movement and grounding. Arm routes for striking, shaping, and projection. Spine routes for endurance and body refinement. Lung and throat routes for breath, voice, smoke, sound, and outward patterns. Heart-adjacent routes for presence, aura, resistance, and danger.

Eye and brow routes for perception, light, and illusion, though the text is very firm that only fools and geniuses begin there, and that the graveyards of cultivation history contain many more fools than geniuses. A faint sound comes from the next aisle. Not loud. A shift of paper, perhaps, or cloth brushing wood. She stills.

"Most people choose the arm or leg primers first," a young man says from beyond the shelf.

"They are easier to boast about." Liu Yinhua looks up. He steps into view with a scroll tucked under one arm and a smile already in place, as if they have been introduced and she has merely forgotten it. He is almost too pretty. Rust-red hair falls loose around a face made for painted screens and bad decisions, half tied with a gold clasp that catches the archive light.

His eyes are amber-gold, bright and warm, and his robes are not sect-issued grey but layered in cream, dark red, and soft brown, the fabric fine without being loud. Everything about him looks deliberate, from the fall of his sleeves to the ease with which he leans one shoulder against the end of the shelf. He is smiling at her as though delighted by the accident of finding her there. Liu Yinhua closes the scroll slip with care.

"Do they?" she asks, carefully mild.

"Usually." His gaze flicks to the label on her shelf, then back to her face.

"Movement lets people imagine escape. Striking lets them be a hero, after all."

"That sounds unpleasant."

"It is. I avoid it whenever possible." She does not smile, but it is a near thing.

"Jiang Wenhao," he says, with a small bow that is correct for a fellow outer disciple and polished enough to imply he can do far more when he wishes.

"I hope I have not disturbed you." Liu Yinhua rises enough to return the bow.

"Liu Yinhua. I was reading."

"A dangerous habit in an archive."

"So I was beginning to suspect." His smile warms. It is a practiced expression, for all it may be sincere. Liu Yinhua has known too many practised expressions to assume the two cannot sit together. Jiang Wenhao glances toward the scroll in her hand.

"Meridian theory?"

"Yes."

"Looking for your first route?"

"I am," she agrees.

"Though, perhaps I am more focused on making sure I don't cripple myself on the first one."

"A smart move," he praises as he steps nearer, still leaving the distance proper.

"Most people ask what will make them strongest" Liu Yinhua looks at him, then at the scroll under his arm.

"And what do you ask?"

"What will be useful when everyone else has exhausted their obvious answers."

"Have you exhausted many obvious answers, Jiang Wenhao?" she asks after a moment of muddling through that very useful answer.

"Some, but not enough to make me wise." He looks at the shelves with the fondness of someone who has spent more than one afternoon here.

"You are new to the archive."

"That obvious?"

"You still look as if the shelves might answer you honestly." This time, her mouth moves slightly.

"Should I expect them to lie?"

"Only by omission." He lifts his scroll.

"The first floor is very good at giving lucky novices a breakthrough, however, with a few annoying omissions." Liu Yinhua considers him across the narrow aisle, rust-red hair, amber eyes, and all that friendly ease. He is not like Chi Yanluo, whose help arrives with silence around it. He is not like Xie Lianqiu, who makes interest feel like a flower with a hook hidden in the stem. Jiang Wenhao is open, handsome, and smooth in a way that asks to be trusted because distrust would be rude.

Liu Yinhua has never trusted that sort of invitation. Still, this is an archive, and she has paid for one afternoon.

"Then perhaps you can tell me where the omissions begin," she says. Jiang Wenhao's smile deepens by a fraction, a laugh in his voice.

"Oh, we don't have nearly enough time for that, Lady Liu." She doesn't quite hide her cheeks behind her slip, but she is under no false impressions the heat in them went unnoticed.