Chương 29: Lìchūn: Tempering 8

The next few days pass in classes, practice, and preparation. Liu Yinhua works the spark whenever she has enough qi to spare. In the mornings, she cultivates before breakfast and tests the right hand route until the warmth reaches her palm without catching too badly at the wrist. After Elder Huan's lessons, she rests long enough to stop shaking, then practises again behind the house with Xie Lianqiu watching from a safe distance. By the second day, she can strike the post more often than she misses it.

By the third, she can make the spark smaller without losing it entirely, though it still stings her fingers and drains her dantian faster than she likes. The failed sparks teach her almost as much as the successful ones. Some gutter out at once. Some break apart in the air and fall as dull golden motes, too weak to scorch anything but bright enough to show the ground for a few steps.

Liu Yinhua spends an evening making that happen on purpose, flicking her wrist until the little scatter of light hangs long enough for her to count the fence posts by it. It is ugly, uneven work. It is also useful, so she keeps it. She keeps attending Elder Yun's lessons through it all. Formation characters begin to look less like decorative strokes and more like instructions laid over each other until the eye gives up.

She copies what she can, compares them with the marks she had drawn from the sealed gate, and understands very little beyond the fact that the same shapes appear more than once. A holding stroke. A guide mark. A sealing loop. Enough to know the gate was not a pretty ruin and not enough to know what it would do when opened. That is irritating, but familiar. Most things in the sect are like that. On the fourth afternoon, she decides she has delayed long enough.

She takes the bow Xie Lianqiu lent her, the jade slip for Golden Speck Lure, and the wooden token wrapped tight inside her sleeve. Wu Cailan lends her a small blade after looking her over for a long moment. It is plain, short, and sharp enough that Liu Yinhua handles it with more respect after nearly cutting the tie she uses to secure it against her forearm.

Tang Mingxia says nothing when she sees them preparing, which is almost worse than a lecture, but she checks the knot on Liu Yinhua's sleeve before stepping back. Xie Lianqiu arrives with her own bow, extra arrows, cord, two paper-wrapped buns, and the satisfied expression of someone who has decided this is exciting rather than alarming. Liu Yinhua is less willing to name the feeling in her own chest. The token has been warm all day.

Every time she turns toward the upper mountain path, it presses against her awareness like a hand at her wrist. They leave after the afternoon lesson and take the quieter paths above the novice grounds. The forest is the same and not the same. Liu Yinhua recognises the pale trunks, the roots crossing the dirt, the damp smell of moss and old leaves. She also sees more than she had seen the first time. The shadows under the trees are no longer a single dark mass.

They separate into bark, stone, fern, old fallen needles, the pale edge of fungus near a root. Cultivation has changed her eyes before she noticed it happening. When the path dips beneath thicker branches, she lifts her right hand and makes a small motion with two fingers. Qi draws from her dantian, catches at the wrist, then loosens into a scatter of faint golden motes. They drift ahead of her for a breath and light the ground in dull pieces. Xie Lianqiu glances at them, then at her, but says nothing.

Liu Yinhua is grateful for that. It is easier to keep walking when no one makes a moment out of it. The warning markers come next. The western ridge. The beast nesting grounds. The narrow path between them that is still not forbidden, which remains a poor comfort and the only comfort available. The token grows hot by the time they reach the stones.

The gate waits where they left it, half-hidden by moss and trailing vine, the small arch rising from the slope as if the mountain has grown around it and then forgotten to finish swallowing it. The grey surface behind the stone looks like mist caught behind glass. The carved character above the centre matches the one on the token, and the formation marks around it seem clearer now, though not clearer enough. Liu Yinhua stops several steps away and listens.

Nothing moves beyond the arch, the forest behind them is quiet except for leaves and distant water over stone. Xie Lianqiu checks the ground around the gate again, then the trees, then the old marks cut into the stone. Liu Yinhua sends one faint golden mote toward the arch. It drifts close to the surface and flattens there, light spreading thin across the grey like oil on water. The token burns in her sleeve. She takes it out.

For a moment, she only holds it in her palm, feeling the pull of the gate answer through the wood. Then she steps forward and sets the token against the carved hollow beneath the character. The grey surface folds inward without a sound. Liu Yinhua waits for something else to happen. A voice. A flare of light. A trap. The sect has not made her trusting enough to step into a strange hole in the mountain simply because the door has opened politely. Nothing comes out.

Beyond the arch is a narrow passage of dark stone, sloping gently down into the mountain. The air that slips from it is cool and damp, smelling of moss, old water, and something faintly mineral beneath. Formation marks run along both walls in shallow grooves, most of them worn smooth at the edges. Xie Lianqiu leans a little to peer past Liu Yinhua's shoulder.

"That is very inviting."

"It is a hole."

"A mysterious~ hole." Liu Yinhua glances back at her, and Xie Lianqiu gives her a bright, unhelpful smile. The bow is already in her hand, though, and one arrow rests loose between her fingers. She may sound cheerful, but her eyes keep moving over the stone, the threshold, the trees behind them, and the dark passage ahead. Liu Yinhua looks at the token. It has cooled in her palm, though the character on its face remains warm where her thumb touches it. She steps one foot closer to the threshold.

The passage answers with a faint pressure against her skin, like walking too near a sealed room full of incense. The first line of characters above the inner arch becomes visible only when she is close enough to touch the stone. Enter with what you carry. Leave with what you earn.

"That sounds like something Elder Xilan would make," Xie Lianqiu says after reading over her shoulder.

"I thought you liked sect traditions."" I like the ones with food." Liu Yinhua almost smiles, then steps through before she can think too long about the many sensible reasons not to. If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. The threshold passes over her skin like cold water. Her dantian tightens once, warmth pulled inward, and the token flickers in her hand. Xie Lianqiu follows half a breath later.

The grey surface closes behind them with the same silent folding motion, sealing the forest away. The dark settles around them. For a moment, Liu Yinhua can still see the outline of Xie Lianqiu's pale sleeve and the narrow shape of the passage ahead. Then her eyes adjust further than they should. The stone separates into shades. Wall, floor, hairline cracks, damp streaks running down from the ceiling. The world does not become bright, but it becomes readable.

She stands very still with one hand near the blade hidden in her sleeve. Cultivation has made so many small changes that she does not always notice them until she is doing something a mortal girl would have hated. Running up mountain paths. Feeling qi in wood. Seeing the edge of a stone step in almost complete dark. A month ago, she would have needed a lamp and a hand on the wall. Now she can see enough to know the passage bends left ahead.

"Can you see?" Xie Lianqiu asks quietly.

"Somewhat."

"Show-off."

"You cannot?"

"Not as well as that tone suggests you can." Liu Yinhua lifts her right hand. The motion still feels a little awkward, two fingers angled together, wrist loose enough not to break the route. Qi draws from her dantian, thin and careful. It catches at her wrist, then comes apart in a faint scatter of golden motes. They drift forward, duller than candlelight and warmer in colour, catching along the damp stone before beginning to fade.

The passage slopes down for perhaps twenty paces before opening into a small chamber. The ceiling is low, the walls rounded by age or design, and eight stone lamps sit in niches around the room. None are lit. Each lamp has a different formation character cut beneath it, and a shallow channel runs from each niche down toward the centre of the floor, where a circular plate of dark bronze has been set into the stone. The bronze plate bears another line of characters. Light the road without feeding the fire.

Liu Yinhua crouches near the closest lamp without touching it. The character beneath is one she has seen in Elder Yun's class. Holdi, she is fairly sure. The next lamp has a guide mark. The one after that looks like a return stroke, though the lower hook is different. She moves around the room slowly, copying the order in her head while Xie Lianqiu checks the floor.

"There are small holes near the ceiling," Xie Lianqiu says after a moment. Liu Yinhua looks up. Now that Xie Lianqiu has said it, she can see them: narrow black cuts between stones, angled toward the centre of the room.

"Arrows?"

"Maybe, or something like poison."

"Surely they're not going to poison first year disciples?" she asks, looking at her friend in no small worry now. She has been under the illusion that the sect wouldn't make this task a deadly one, but…

"Great Trees, no," Xie Lianqiu says, a touch of amusement in her voice now. Liu Yinhua looks at the lamps again, feeling a little tension drain from her shoulders with it. She could send a spark into one. It would light something, perhaps. It might also count as feeding the fire, and she has very little desire to discover what the holes near the ceiling do. She holds her hand over the first lamp and sends only a breath of qi into the carved holding mark. The lamp drinks it too quickly.

A red line flashes beneath the niche. Xie Lianqiu catches Liu Yinhua's sleeve and pulls her back as a needle-thin hiss cuts across the room. Something strikes the floor where her knee had been and cracks into a curl of pale smoke. Liu Yinhua stares at it. Xie Lianqiu releases her sleeve.

"Too much?"

"I barely gave it anything." Liu Yinhua gives her a look that Xie Lianqiu meets with the same seriousness, then returns to the lamp more cautiously. The red line has faded, and the room has gone still again. She studies the character beneath the niche, then the channel running down from it. The lamp had not wanted qi poured into it. Holding. She thinks of Elder Yun's lessons on return.

Qi left in a route becomes stray heat, stray heat becomes swelling, swelling becomes poor movement, and poor movement becomes damage. The lamps are not asking for fuel. They are asking her to complete a route. She sits back on her heels and traces the channel with her eyes.

"The centre plate." Xie Lianqiu follows her gaze.

"You think it starts there?"

"I think the lamps are the wrong end to start from," she admits. Her friend merely hums, following her lead. Liu Yinhua moves to the bronze plate, the surface is cold beneath her fingers, etched with rings of marks too fine to read fully in the dim. There are eight shallow grooves leading outward to the lamps. If she pushes qi from one lamp, it breaks. If she sends qi from the centre, perhaps it moves through the path in the correct direction. She places her palm against the plate and breathes.

Her dantian is not full, but she takes only a thin thread of warmth and sends it down through her arm, careful. Heat reaches her palm, presses into the bronze, and spreads into the first ring. This time, she does not push toward a lamp. She lets the plate take the qi and follows where the formation pulls. A line glows dull gold in the groove before her. The nearest lamp catches, not with flame but with a small pearl of light suspended above the stone cup. Liu Yinhua exhales. Xie Lianqiu lets out a soft sound.

"Better."

"One," Liu Yinhua says, more to herself than to Xie Lianqiu. The second lamp takes less time. The third catches too sharply, and the holes near the ceiling hiss once, but no dart comes. Liu Yinhua stops at once, waits for the glow to settle, then continues. By the fifth lamp, sweat has gathered at the back of her neck. The thread of qi is small, but maintaining it through the plate takes more concentration than she expected. Each channel wants a slightly different shape. Holding. Guide. Return. Bind. Separate.

Join. She knows some of them and guesses the rest by the way the formation tugs against her hand. The seventh lamp refuses her. The line glows halfway, flickers, then dies. Liu Yinhua tries again and gets the same result. The lamp stays dark, the groove cooling under her palm. Xie Lianqiu steps closer, careful not to cross any of the channels.

"That one has a crack." Liu Yinhua follows her gesture. The stone beneath the seventh niche is split by a fine dark line, almost hidden under old moss.

"Can you reach it?"

"Without stepping on anything?"

"Preferably." Xie Lianqiu studies the room, then takes one arrow from her case. She does not nock it. Instead, she crouches and uses the arrowhead to scrape moss from the cracked mark beneath the lamp, her sleeve held tight against her wrist. A second character appears beneath the first, smaller and newer. Mend.

"That was hidden," Xie Lianqiu says.

"Yes."

"I dislike hidden things."

"You dislike everything," Liu Yinhua says with a huff, head aching a little with maintaining her current focus. She sends qi into the centre plate again, guiding the thread toward the seventh groove. This time, when it reaches the crack, she holds it there instead of pushing past. The smaller mark warms. The split in the stone fills with light, thin as a hair, and the seventh lamp catches. The eighth follows. When the last pearl of light appears, the bronze plate clicks beneath her hand.

All eight grooves brighten at once, and the room changes. The wall opposite the entrance shudders. Dust falls in a thin curtain from the ceiling, and a seam opens in the stone, revealing a second passage, narrower than the first and lit by the eight lamps behind them. On the floor before the passage, three characters burn briefly in gold before fading into the rock. Proceed with care. Xie Lianqiu looks at the words, then at Liu Yinhua.

"I preferred the theft philosophy." Liu Yinhua lifts her hand from the plate. Her palm is warm, not burned, and her dantian is lower than she would like but not emptied. She flexes her fingers once.

"Do you think it will let us leave if we turn around?" Xie Lianqiu glances back toward the sealed entrance.

"Probably." Neither of them moves. The eight lamps sit quietly in their niches, lighting the room with soft gold. The passage ahead waits. Liu Yinhua adjusts the bow over her shoulder, checks that Wu Cailan's little blade is still secure in her sleeve, and closes her fingers around the wooden token. Then she steps forward.