Chương 35: Lìchūn: Connection 1

By the third day after Head Elder Zhen's announcement, the first-year disciples have begun rearranging themselves. No one calls it that, of course. No one stands on a table and declares loyalty, and no one with sense approaches another disciple in the open and asks to be owned. It is smaller than that, and because it is smaller, it is everywhere. A boy who used to stand alone in Elder Huan's field now warms up near Guo Meilin's circle, laughing too quickly when one of her followers speaks.

Two girls from no clan Liu Yinhua recognises have begun walking behind Jiang Wenhao after morning lessons, close enough to be included if he turns, far enough to pretend otherwise if he does not. A broad-shouldered disciple who had once argued over task slips now carries water buckets for three noble boys with his jaw tight and his eyes fixed forward. The sect had given them two months before recognised groups could be registered. Everyone had understood that to mean two months to begin.

Elder Huan does not care for any of it, or he cares in the way he cares about poor stances and wasted breath. He watches them from the centre of the lower training field while they run weighted loops around the packed dirt, his hands clasped behind his back and his face set in the same flat boredom he gives to almost everything. The morning is already warming, pale light spreading over the red trees and the stone paths above the field. Liu Yinhua's lungs burn by the fourth loop.

Her opened left leg answers when she draws qi through it, sun held in warm stone, but Elder Huan has learned the same lesson and adjusted the weights accordingly. Cultivation improves the body, and the sect promptly finds heavier baskets. She runs behind Tang Mingxia for the first half, then beside her when the path widens. Tang Mingxia's breathing is even, but her mouth has gone thin with effort.

Wu Cailan is several paces ahead, hair escaping its tie, expression fixed in the stubborn misery of someone who hates running and refuses to be seen losing to it. Across the field, Guo Meilin's people run in a neat cluster, none of them close enough to touch, all of them close enough to be counted. That is new. Liu Yinhua had seen noble girls gather before, but this is different from shared meals or easy conversation. Their bodies are making a statement before their mouths do.

Guo Meilin herself runs near the centre of them, robes tied back, hair still improbably tidy. Zhao Ruxue keeps pace at her shoulder. They do not look strained, though Liu Yinhua suspects that is more discipline than ease. Several lesser disciples run just behind. Not servants. Not yet. The sect would not permit that word here, and Guo Meilin is too clever to make use look like use before the proper time.

Still, when one girl stumbles at the turn, a boy behind her catches the fallen weight without being asked and returns it to her hands with his head lowered. Liu Yinhua notices that. She notices, too, that the boy does not return to his old place in the line afterwards. He remains behind Guo Meilin's group, breathing hard, and no one tells him to leave. The second large gathering is easier to see because Jiang Wenhao makes very little effort to hide that people enjoy standing near him.

He runs badly compared to the martial disciples, but with such good humour that the failure does not seem to touch him. Rust-red hair tied high, amber eyes bright, sleeves bound in silver cord, he turns discomfort into something sociable without ever quite becoming ridiculous. A disciple from a merchant family jogs beside him, speaking between breaths. Another, older-looking boy with a talisman-maker's ink stains on his fingers, trails close enough to listen. Jiang Wenhao does not command them. He does not need to.

He smiles, remarks, remembers names, and by the time the class moves from running to carrying stones across the yard, three more people have drifted into his orbit. That, Liu Yinhua thinks, is also power. The third group takes her longer to understand, which annoys her because it means she should have been watching sooner.

Ximeng Dai stands near the far end of the field, pale-haired and dark-eyed, with his training robe tied without ornament and his expression still enough that it almost vanishes into the background. He is not handsome in the way Jiang Wenhao is. He is not soft or polished in the way Guo Meilin is. He has the look of someone carved narrow by weather, all spare lines and quiet attention. A northern boy, though not merely northern.

Liu Yinhua knows the name Ximeng because everyone who has listened to enough history in the Blueglass Isles knows it. A great clan once. A great clan still, perhaps, depending on who speaks and how careful they are feeling. A clan that had challenged the imperial line in the old wars and been struck down so thoroughly that even saying the story plainly becomes a kind of choice.

Tang Mingxia had mentioned him only once, and only because Liu Yinhua had asked who the pale-haired disciple was after seeing two older outer disciples bow to him in the market path. Tang Mingxia had said the Ximeng remained a clan of weight in the north, though diminished, and then she had closed the subject with the neat firmness she used when a door was better left shut. Wu Cailan had not known the name. Liu Yinhua had pretended she did not find that interesting.

Now she watches three first-years cross the field to stand near him after Elder Huan orders them into stance drills. One is a girl with a spear callus on her hand. One is a thin boy Liu Yinhua has seen copying formation characters in the archive. The third is from an older year, not joining the class, only standing by the edge of the field with his arms folded and his gaze on Ximeng Dai as if waiting to be acknowledged. Ximeng Dai does not look at him for several breaths.

When he finally does, the older disciple bows first. That seems important. Elder Huan sends them into low stances with weighted poles across their shoulders, and the field becomes a study in suffering. Conversation dies. Factional drift becomes harder to hide when everyone's thighs are trembling and sweat is running into their collars. Guo Meilin's group endures with social violence, each disciple refusing to break before another does.

Jiang Wenhao's group suffers more loudly, but somehow the noise makes them steadier, little mutters and grimaces passed along like encouragement. Ximeng Dai's small following says nothing at all. They hold their stances until Liu Yinhua's own legs begin to shake badly enough that observation becomes more difficult. She lowers her breathing, draws a narrow thread of qi through her left leg, and holds. There are other currents too. Smaller ones. Common-born disciples joining whoever looks least likely to crush them.

Minor clan disciples trying to decide whether they have enough name to stand alone. Craft-focused students beginning to gather around task boards and workshops rather than training fields. A few stubborn fools still walking alone with their chins high, as if independence means more when no one has yet decided whether to punish it. Tang Mingxia has joined nothing. That bothers Liu Yinhua more than she wants it to. Tang Mingxia is not careless.

If she has not chosen, then either she is waiting for a better arrangement, or she knows something Liu Yinhua does not. Both possibilities are irritating. Wu Cailan seems to care very little, though Liu Yinhua suspects that is only true on the surface. Wu Cailan has set her eyes on the craft route and the inner sect candidacy attached to it. Factions may be another person's ladder to her, unless someone puts one between her and her ink. Xie Lianqiu and the Crimson Wastes group have stayed quiet as well.

Liu Yinhua has not trained with them since the announcement. There are reasons. Her hand route needs work. The bronze slip remains unread. The token sits in her box with a little sun burned into its back, waiting for water and courage and better judgement. All of these are true. None of them are the whole truth. Training with Xie Lianqiu had been simple before, or simple enough to pretend. Arrows, dodging, bruises, laughter, correction.

Now every hour spent with the Crimson Wastes circle will be seen through Head Elder Zhen's announcement. Every lesson will become a thread. Every gift will become evidence. Pale teal robes, a borrowed bow, Xie Lianqiu's easy hand at her arm, Chi Yanluo's steady corrections. Things Liu Yinhua had already known were not free now have a price written on them in clearer ink. Elder Huan walks down the rows. A boy near Guo Meilin's side trembles hard enough that the weighted pole slips.

Before it can fall, the same disciple who caught the water weight earlier shifts and steadies it with one hand. Elder Huan sees. Everyone sees. The boy in the stance flushes with humiliation, but he does not drop.

Liu Yinhua keeps holding her own stance and thinks of the Moon-Viewing Tower, of women who knew where to stand so they would be seen as belonging to the right room, of girls who learned which patron's sleeve to brush and which woman's temper to avoid, of debt and favour and protection, all dressed in silk until it looked almost like kindness. The sect is not so different. The currency has changed. Spirit stones instead of silver. Arts instead of songs. Meridians instead of painted cheeks.

Inner sect recommendations instead of patronage contracts. People still gather beneath power because standing alone is expensive. Her thighs burn. Her left leg route glows low and steady beneath the strain. Elder Huan passes behind her and does not correct her, which may be praise or may only mean her suffering is acceptable. Liu Yinhua keeps her gaze forward, watching Guo Meilin's group hold, Jiang Wenhao's cluster laugh through pain, Ximeng Dai's followers stand as if silence itself can become a banner.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. She does not know where she belongs in any of it. That, perhaps, is the problem. —-------- Elder Huan dismisses them with a flick of his hand and no further comment. For a few breaths, nobody moves quickly. Disciples straighten from stance drills one by one, shoulders stiff, faces damp with sweat, hands flexing around the phantom weight of the poles they have just been made to hold.

Liu Yinhua lowers her arms and lets the warmth in her left leg settle back toward her dantian, careful not to pull too hard. Her thighs ache. Her shoulders ache. The bruise across the back of one arm will be ugly by evening. Around her, the little groups begin to reform. Guo Meilin's circle gathers first, almost without visible effort. Zhao Ruxue steps in close beside her, and the others follow in loose order, a girl Liu Yinhua does not know offering water from a flask before Guo Meilin has to ask.

Jiang Wenhao remains near the practice posts, laughing at something one of the talisman boys says, his rust-red hair damp where it has come loose at his temples. Ximeng Dai leaves the field with two first-years behind him and the same older disciple waiting near the path, the older boy's head lowered by a fraction before he turns to walk with them. Liu Yinhua watches for a moment too long. Then she bends to gather her things.

Tang Mingxia and Wu Cailan have already started toward the residences, Wu Cailan gesturing with one ink-stained hand while Tang Mingxia listens with her mouth pressed flat. Liu Yinhua intends to follow them, but the cloth around her right wrist has come loose during the last set, and she stops to retie it. The route beneath the skin is warm where the spirit had touched it days ago, the bad hinge clearer now each time she sends qi toward her palm.

She is still working the knot into place when Xie Lianqiu steps into the edge of her sight. The other girl does not arrive loudly. She rarely needs to. Her pale green ribbon is tied properly today, though a few strands have slipped loose near her cheeks, and there is a clean strip of cloth wrapped over the cut across her hand. Her bow is over one shoulder. She looks less tired than she should, which Liu Yinhua finds unfair but not surprising.

"You are getting better at the low stance," Xie Lianqiu says. Liu Yinhua pulls the knot tight before answering.

"That is a miserable thing to become better at."

"It is." There is a pause, small enough to ignore if Liu Yinhua wanted to. Xie Lianqiu glances toward the path, then back.

"Are you going straight home?" Liu Yinhua thinks of the small clay jar wrapped in cloth inside her sleeve, taken from the kitchen before class with the vague excuse of wanting water later. She had meant to go to the springs after training, to collect spring water that did not come from the kitchen barrel or the washing basins.

"No," Liu Yinhua says.

"I have something to do at the springs." Xie Lianqiu's face brightens a little too quickly.

"Good. I was going to ask you to come with me."

"How fortunate."

"It is." Liu Yinhua gives her a look. Xie Lianqiu smiles and starts walking, giving Liu Yinhua the choice to either follow or stand in the field looking stubborn. Liu Yinhua follows, because she had wanted the water anyway, and because refusing would make this more of a statement than agreeing. The path to the springs is quieter than the main road. Red leaves scatter over the stone steps, dry at the edges from the warmer weather, and the air changes slowly as they approach the eastern side of the novice grounds.

It grows damp first, then warmer. Liu Yinhua can feel the water before she hears it, a faint pressure in the air, steam and mineral heat tucked behind bamboo screens and stone channels. For a little while, Xie Lianqiu says nothing. That is how Liu Yinhua knows the invitation was not truly about the springs. The silence pulls long enough that she nearly speaks first, then refuses to give the other girl that victory. Xie Lianqiu gives in eventually, though she does it lightly, with her eyes on the path ahead.

"Everyone has been strange since the announcement." Liu Yinhua steps around a loose stone.

"They have been ambitious."

"They were already ambitious." The words come out before Liu Yinhua can soften them. Xie Lianqiu's gaze flickers to her, not offended, and Liu Yinhua looks ahead at the curve of the path. She has not trained with them since the announcement. There are reasons for that, and excuses, and the difference between the two grows thinner every time she thinks of it. The bronze slip still needs reading. The hand route still needs work. Elder Yun's lessons do not wait.

Elder Huan seems determined to see if they can be rebuilt through suffering alone, and— Every hour spent with Xie Lianqiu and Chi Yanluo's group means something now. It had meant something before, of course. Liu Yinhua is not foolish enough to pretend otherwise.

But Head Elder Zhen has given the meaning a public name, and all at once the borrowed bow, the pale teal robes, the training, the hot springs, the trial beneath the mountain, the easy jokes and small corrections, all of it sits where other people can count it. Xie Lianqiu is quiet for several steps.

"Chi Yanluo has not asked anyone yet." Liu Yinhua looks at her then. Xie Lianqiu's expression is mild, but the line of her shoulders is not. She is choosing each word with care, and Liu Yinhua understands the effort because she is doing the same.

"No?"

"No. Some of the others think he should move sooner. Shen Yuanzhou is more patient. Duan Xueheng thinks everyone is being irritating, which is not very useful but is probably true." Her mouth twitches briefly, then settles.

"Chi Yanluo does not like collecting people just because they are afraid."

"That is admirable." Xie Lianqiu looks pleased by that, then sobers.

"Guo Meilin will not wait forever. Jiang Wenhao has already started, and Ximeng Dai is not gathering many, but the ones who go to him mean it."

"You have been watching."

"So have you." That is a fair observation. They reach the spring pavilion before Liu Yinhua has to answer. A senior disciple sits at the entrance with a ledger, hair pinned high, chin propped on one hand. She glances over them, recognises Xie Lianqiu, and waves them through without much interest. The smell of mineral water grows stronger beyond the screen. Steam rises from the lower pools in pale coils, blurring the edges of bamboo and stone. Liu Yinhua does not head for the bathing pools at once.

She stops by the side channel where warm spring water runs through a carved stone trough before splitting toward the washing basins. The water is clear enough to show the pale bottom, and little threads of steam lift from its surface. Xie Lianqiu watches her draw out the clay jar, and as she dips it into the warm water. Liu Yinhua seals the jar carefully when it is full, watching as the cloth darkens where water spills across it, and she wipes the side with her thumb before tucking it back into her sleeve.

It sits heavier now, warm against her forearm. Xie Lianqiu waits. Xie Lianqiu is good at stepping around a thing until the thing steps toward her on its own. She is also good at leaving space, when she decides to. Liu Yinhua does not know which skill is more dangerous.

"I do not know what I am doing yet," Liu Yinhua says at last.

"With the spirit?"

"With any of it."

"It is better than choosing because someone else reached first." Liu Yinhua breathes out through her nose, not quite a laugh.

"You mean Guo Meilin."

"I mean Guo Meilin. I mean Jiang Wenhao. I mean Ximeng Dai. I mean us." Xie Lianqiu's mouth presses briefly into a line.

"I would rather not pretend otherwise. It would be insulting to pretend otherwise, and I do not think you would believe me."

"No."

"No," Xie repeats, softer.

"You would not." The spring water runs between them, steady over stone. Somewhere beyond the bamboo, girls laugh in one of the larger pools, their voices softened by steam and distance. Liu Yinhua thinks of the training field and the way people had begun to move without being told. She thinks of Guo Meilin's soft face. Jiang Wenhao's bright smile. Ximeng Dai's older disciple lowering his head. Tang Mingxia saying nothing.

Wu Cailan pretending not to care because if she cared, it would become another thing trying to take time from her hands.

"I am not opposed to Chi Yanluo," Liu Yinhua says carefully. Xie Lianqiu does not move, but something in her attention sharpens.

"I am not opposed to you," Liu Yinhua adds.

"But that is not the same thing."

"No," Xie Lianqiu says.

"It is not."

"If I stand with someone, I risk that otherwise will take my loyalty as intent."

"They will."

"You are not going to tell me I am wrong?"

"I said I was not going to insult you." Liu Yinhua glances at her, and this time Xie Lianqiu does smile, though it is smaller than usual.

"I want you near us," Xie says.

"I think you know that. I also think you know why. You are useful. You learn quickly. You notice things. Chi Yanluo respects effort, and Shen Yuanzhou respects discipline, and Duan Xueheng likes people who do not faint when struck. I like you, which is less strategic but not entirely irrelevant." Liu Yinhua looks away first. Xie Lianqiu's voice quiets.

"I do not want you frightened into our group." Liu Yinhua's hand tightens on the edge of her sleeve.

"Or grateful to us," Xie Lianqiu says.

"I know we are not an easy choice." For a moment, Liu Yinhua only listens to the water. She has always understood debts. She has always understood that kindness could be another kind of hook, and that a person did not need to intend cruelty for their help to become expensive. Xie Lianqiu is looking at her now with no joke between them, and Liu Yinhua hates a little how much that helps.

"I am grateful," she says.

"I know." They go to the smaller pool beneath the plum tree after that, silence carrying their thoughts. The water is hot enough that Liu Yinhua has to lower herself in slowly. Her legs ache from Elder Huan's drills, and her right wrist twinges when she rests it on the stone edge. Xie Lianqiu sits opposite her, hair pinned up with less care than usual, the pale green ribbon wound around her wrist to keep it dry. For a while, they talk of easier things.

Elder Huan's apparent desire to make them carry half the mountain one basket at a time. The reed-fibre cord Xie Lianqiu means to take to a bowyer. Whether the sun spirit would accept water from the springs or find a way to complain about it being the wrong kind of wet. The faction conversation does not vanish. It sits under the water with the heat, waiting. But Xie Lianqiu does not press again, and when they leave the springs later, the warm jar rests in Liu Yinhua's sleeve, heavy against her arm.

Xie Lianqiu walks beside her without trying to take her hand or link their arms.