Chương 37: Lichun: Connections 3

By the end of the week, Liu Yinhua has carried spring water up the mountain twice. The first time, Lièjìng does not appear at all. The token opens the gate only as far as the warm outer cavern, where pale stone sweats with mineral heat and the air hums thickly enough that her dantian answers before she settles. She leaves the water in the dry basin near the inner seam because it feels rude to do otherwise, then sits in the qi-rich chamber until her mouth dries and the warmth in her channels begins to sharpen.

The second time, she hears a faint, irritated voice from somewhere beyond the stone telling her the water is acceptable and that she is still breathing too loudly. It is useful. Not safe, exactly, but useful. Xie Lianqiu had tried to explain the first edge of drawing qi from the world rather than from stones, and the cavern makes the difference easier to feel. Spirit stones are dense and held, like biting into something hard. Natural qi is wider, less obedient, full of the place it comes from.

The heat beneath the mountain carries mineral dryness and old sun through it, and if Liu Yinhua reaches too greedily, it leaves her throat tight and her wrist aching. The first stage of Ninefold Shadow of the Purifying Sun is beginning to make a little more sense. Not enough, but still, the jade slip no longer feels entirely like a locked door pressed against her forehead. There is meaning underneath the words, something that arrives before language and leaves behind a taste of heat, shadow, glare, and correction.

The first fold is concerned with contrast, with heat gathered where light does not yet show, then released in a thin bright point. Liu Yinhua had wanted fire. What she gets, when it works, is smaller and meaner: a gold-white spark that bites rather than burns, a mote of hard sunlight that can sting skin, scorch bark, and make the air jump if she releases it too close to stone.

The first time she manages to send it from her fingers without losing the thread at her wrist, it strikes the practice board behind the house and leaves a dark freckle no larger than a grain of rice. Wu Cailan looks up from her talisman ink, studies the mark, then looks at Liu Yinhua with one brow raised. Liu Yinhua says nothing. By the end of the week, the spark comes more often than it fails, though it still costs too much when she rushes and falls apart the moment she tries to make it larger.

Dance of Falling Blossoms remains steadier. The second layer is still rough beneath her feet, but the wind has begun to answer in brief, uneven slips of movement. Her bow work improves slowly as well. She misses less. Progress is a rude thing. It gives just enough to make the next lack impossible to ignore. Elder Yun's hall is quieter now than it had been at the start of the month. The benches are not empty, but they have spaces where people used to sit.

The disciples who remain have learned to arrive early, keep their brushes in order, and stop whispering before Elder Yun looks up. The division between awakened and unawakened has vanished because no one left in the room is unawakened now. Liu Yinhua takes her usual place beside Tang Mingxia. Wu Cailan sits on Tang Mingxia's other side with ink on the heel of one hand and a small tear in the hem of her robe where she has probably caught it on a workbench and decided that fabric can suffer in silence.

Across the hall, Guo Meilin's circle sits close enough to be read as one thing without making it obvious enough to be rude. Jiang Wenhao sits a few rows back with two disciples Liu Yinhua has seen near the task board more than once. Ximeng Dai is near the far aisle, pale hair tied low, dark eyes on the front of the room. The Crimson Wastes group is split today. Chi Yanluo and Shen Yuanzhou sit together. Duan Xueheng is several seats away, apparently because someone has annoyed him before breakfast.

Xie Lianqiu catches Liu Yinhua's eye when she enters and inclines her head. Liu Yinhua returns it. Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit. Elder Yun begins with meridian return and qi waste, then moves into controlled release. The lesson is practical enough that Liu Yinhua's attention sharpens despite the ache left in her wrist from morning practice. Elder Yun does not speak as if they are children. She speaks as if ignorance is a temporary defect they should be working to correct.

By the second hour, half the class has been made to demonstrate a release into small copper plates set along the front table. Too much qi makes the plate ring harshly and glow unevenly. Too little does nothing. A proper release produces a low tone and a clean line of light around the rim. At the end of class, Elder Yun sets the copper plates aside and calls five names. The room shifts with a contained, hungry attention. It always does now.

Weekly rewards are no longer a surprise, but surprise is not required for envy. The first disciple receives a stoppered pill bottle. The second, a narrow jade slip bound in red thread. The third is given a folded letter sealed with Elder Yun's personal mark, and his face goes pale enough that Liu Yinhua cannot tell whether it is terror or joy. The fourth receives four red stones, darker than the ordinary sect allowance.

The fifth is called forward and given a small black token marked with a character Liu Yinhua cannot read from her place in the hall. Liu Yinhua watches each disciple return to their seat. Her name is not called. She tells herself she had not expected it, which is true. She tells herself Elder Yun does not reward mere effort.

She has improved this week, but much of that improvement has been private, scattered between a spirit's opened chamber, an art she barely understands, and a wrist route still too unreliable to trust under pressure. Elder Yun rewards what she chooses to reward. Liu Yinhua already knows this. It still sits unpleasantly beneath her ribs. Elder Yun lets the last disciple return to his bench before speaking again.

"In two weeks, you will have the opportunity to undertake the Lower Valley Trial." The hall stills.

"You will do so in teams," Elder Yun says.

"Four to six disciples. Teams must be registered by the evening before the trial. Those who do not register with a team will be assigned one." A few disciples glance sharply sideways, but no one speaks. Her voice remains even, and after the first few lines, the explanation becomes less a speech than a set of facts laid down in order. The Lower Valley Trial is not only a combat exercise.

Combat is part of it, because the sect has no interest in disciples who can circulate qi beautifully while falling apart the moment something bites. The valley holds low-grade beasts, formation constructs, terrain hazards, and marker points that must be found, activated, defended, or abandoned according to circumstance. Some markers require controlled qi input from more than one disciple.

Teams will earn merit through survival, completed markers, gathered tokens, controlled use of qi, treatment of injuries, route judgement, and the ability to act as a group without requiring an elder to save them from their own poor decisions. Deliberate killing remains forbidden, permanent maiming remains forbidden. Theft of another team's carried tokens is permitted if no forbidden injury is inflicted in the process.

Destroying valley formations, damaging monitoring arrays, or attempting to flee the sealed boundary will result in disqualification and punishment. Liu Yinhua writes quickly, though most of it will be posted later. She does not trust later when she can have now. Rewards will be granted to the highest-performing teams. Elder Yun does not name them. Pills, stones, jade slips, access tokens, instruction, task privileges. The usual possibilities, which means everyone in the room will imagine the one they want most.

Performance will also be recorded. That last point does more than the mention of rewards. Liu Yinhua can feel the room understand it. A trial recorded by elders is not only a chance to earn pills. A disciple who leads a team well becomes someone worth following. A faction that fields several strong teams becomes more than a cluster of pretty promises around a bench. Unattached disciples become desirable. Weak disciples become liabilities unless they carry some other use.

Craft, medicine, formations, archery, scouting, endurance, and simple obedience all become things people will weigh in the next few days. The factions have been forming slowly. Elder Yun has just given them a reason to harden.

"Full rules will be posted by tomorrow morning," Elder Yun says.

"If you cannot read them, find someone who can. If you misunderstand them because you did not bother to ask, that will be treated as your failure." Her gaze moves once across the hall.

"Dismissed." No one rises at once. For a breath, the room remains caught between obedience and calculation. Then benches scrape, sleeves rustle, and the low sound of voices begins before half the class has even stood. Guo Meilin's circle gathers tightly around her, faces turned inward. Jiang Wenhao is already smiling at someone in the aisle, hand light on the other boy's shoulder as he speaks. Ximeng Dai remains seated while two disciples come to him instead. Tang Mingxia closes her notebook with care.

Wu Cailan leans over to look at Liu Yinhua's notes without asking, reads three lines upside down, and makes a soft sound through her nose. Liu Yinhua tucks her brush away. Her first thought is that she should speak to Tang Mingxia. Her second is that she should speak to Xie Lianqiu. Her third is that everyone else in the room is already deciding who she should speak to, and the pressure of that makes her want to leave by a side door. She does not.

By the entrance, Xie Lianqiu waits with Chi Yanluo, Shen Yuanzhou, and Duan Xueheng. Xie is the one who steps forward when Liu Yinhua reaches the aisle, but not close enough to make it look as if she is taking her by the arm. Not this time. Her gaze flicks once toward Tang Mingxia, then back to Liu Yinhua.

"If you have time," Xie Lianqiu says, "we should talk."