Chương 58: Lìchūn: Expansion 9

Liu Yinhua spends the next few days learning what an opened meridian changes. Her left leg answers now. The route from hip to sole no longer feels strange in the way it did on the first night, and by the second morning, the rawness has settled into something steadier. When she draws qi through it, the warmth is no longer only heat, but something closer to sun held in stone after a long summer day. It gathers low, passes through the leg, and returns to her dantian with a little more order each time.

Dance of Falling Blossoms remains difficult, but the first layer is no longer only theory. She practises it in pieces whenever she can: a step beside her bedding before dawn, a turn in the yard behind the house, a careful shift of weight after class when the path is almost empty. The art asks her to move with the space around pressure rather than against it. The qi that carries it feels less like flame than breeze against warm skin, light enough that she loses it if she becomes eager.

Her dantian grows slowly through it all. Every morning, it feels a little more solid beneath her awareness, though never as full as she wants. She learns to take qi from her red stones more carefully after Tang Mingxia shows her how much she has been wasting. The trick is not to pull at the first warmth she feels, but to hold her awareness around the stone until she can sense the denser qi within it. Once she finds that, the thread draws more steadily into her palms and settles deeper into her dantian.

Less of it drifts away into the room. Less is lost between breath and vessel. The difference is small at first, then less small the longer she repeats it. Her days narrow into a rhythm. She rises, runs, attends Elder Huan one day, listens to Elder Yun the next, eats quickly, studies, takes minor tasks when she can find ones worth the time, and practises until the light fails. Xie Lianqiu lends her the plain bow, and Liu Yinhua uses it behind the house at dusk, aiming at a chalk mark scratched onto a storage board.

Most of her arrows strike low. Several strike the fence. One vanishes into a shrub and is discovered the next morning set beside her breakfast bowl, with the dirt still on the shaft and no explanation needed. The bow teaches her something different from the Dance. The Dance asks her to move through danger already coming. The bow asks her to stand still long enough for intention to leave the body in one direction. She dislikes it at first, but it grows on her.

There is honesty in the draw of the string, in the roughness against her fingers, in the way the arrow does not care how composed she looks if her elbow is wrong. Wind qi is harder. The manual says Dance of Falling Blossoms does not require a wind affinity, only an understanding of how wind moves. Liu Yinhua spends one afternoon on the lower path with her eyes half-lidded, feeling air pass over her sleeves while older disciples go by and glance at her without interest.

Wind slips around trees, bodies, stone lanterns, and roof corners. It changes when it meets resistance. It does not need to break what stands before it to pass. When she sends qi through her opened leg route and steps with that thought held in mind, the movement changes by a breath. That is enough to keep her practising. By the end of the week (and she is somehow nearing the start of her third week), her left leg answers without hesitation. Her dantian is larger, though still far from enough.

One red stone remains mostly whole, the other has dulled at the edges. She has memorised the first layer of Dance of Falling Blossoms well enough that the footwork comes to her when she is not thinking of it, and she can draw the bowstring without fighting the weapon each time. It is progress. It is still only a beginning. Elder Yun begins the lesson by dismissing six disciples.

She does it before taking her place at the front of the hall, while the class is still settling and the morning light lies pale across the mats. Her gaze moves over the unawakened side, stopping on each of them in turn. Some seem to have expected it. Two look as if they have not slept. One girl begins crying before Elder Yun speaks. A noble-looking boy near the second row sits very straight, jaw tight, his robe too fine for the novice halls and his face dark with anger.

"Stand," Elder Yun says. For a moment, no one moves. Then the first boy rises, and the others follow. The noble boy is last, standing with a stiffness that makes the movement look like a challenge. Elder Yun does not react.

"You have not awakened your lower field. You are not prepared for this class, and you have wasted my time." The crying girl makes a small sound and covers her mouth with one hand. The noble boy's hands curl inside his sleeves.

"Elder, my family has sent additional resources. If I am given another week, I will show proper result."

"You were given this week," Elder Yun says.

"My constitution is not suited to crude instruction."

"Then you should be relieved to leave it." The hall goes quiet enough that Liu Yinhua can hear someone's breath catch behind her. The boy's face flushes, but he bows. She can't believe he argued back. Liu Yinhua keeps her eyes lowered as the six leave. The doors open behind them with a low scrape. Elder Yun waits until the silence settles.

"Congratulations," she says.

"You have reached the lowest level at which this lesson is useful."

"Awakening is the start. Opening one meridian is the start. If you stop here, you will fall behind within the month." Her voice remains even.

"You are being taught because you have shown enough progress to be worth teaching. Keep showing it." Liu Yinhua listens with her hands folded in her lap and her left leg warm beneath her robe. She has never shied away from work. Work is simple, in its own way. You do it or you do not. You endure what it costs, or you learn what failing costs instead. Elder Yun turns to the board behind her and lifts one hand.

Red light marks the outline of the body again, less detailed than the archive diagrams and clearer because of it.

"Today, you will continue tracing opened and unopened routes. Those with one meridian open will learn controlled return. Those without will continue to locate the first gate. Those who opened poorly will remain after class." Several disciples stiffen. The technical portion of the lesson begins from there. Elder Yun speaks of return first, and Liu Yinhua pays close attention because return is where most of the waste happens. Sending qi through the opened route is tempting now that the path answers.

It is easy to enjoy the warmth moving down the leg, the strength that gathers in the sole, the sense that her body has become more willing to obey. Returning it properly is slower and more important. Qi left in the route becomes stray heat. Stray heat becomes swelling. Swelling becomes poor movement, and poor movement becomes damage. Liu Yinhua settles into meditation with the rest of the class.

The hall quiets around her by degrees: breath, cloth, the faint scrape of someone adjusting their seat before Elder Yun's gaze stops them. She finds her dantian, fuller than it had been a week ago, and draws a thin thread down through the opened route in her left leg. The route warms easily now, sun on stone, and she lets the warmth reach the sole before guiding it back. At first, it wants to linger.

She draws it upward with her breath, keeping the thread narrow, letting it return to her dantian without spilling into the muscle. Elder Yun passes behind her.

"Again," the elder says. Liu Yinhua does not know whether that means she has done well or poorly. She does it again. The second return is smoother. The third catches at the hip before she corrects it. By the fourth, her attention has narrowed until there is only breath, route, return, and the contained warmth in her lower field. Around her, the others work through their own quiet failures. A boy near the front exhales too sharply and receives a tap of Elder Yun's sleeve against his shoulder.

A girl to Liu Yinhua's right warms the room around her enough for Liu Yinhua to feel it. Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original. By the time Elder Yun rings the bronze chime, Liu Yinhua's dantian has thinned, though less than she expected. The leg route remains steady beneath her awareness. That is something. She holds onto it for one breath, then lets it go before it becomes satisfaction. Elder Yun waits while the class opens their eyes.

"Last week, I said improvement would be rewarded," she says.

"I will not reward haste. Haste is easy. So is injury." A few gazes drop.

"At the end of each week, those who have improved in a way worth encouraging will receive a boon suited to their training. It may be instruction, access, a resource, correction, or work, depending on what I judge useful. Do not ask for rewards. Do not bargain. If you have earned one, you will be told." Liu Yinhua keeps still, though her attention sharpens at the word access. Elder Yun's gaze moves across the room. It does not pause on her, or on Chi Yanluo, or on anyone long enough to give hope somewhere to settle.

"For now, continue as instructed. If your route feels unstable after practice, stop. If you cannot tell whether it is unstable, you are not ready to practice without supervision." Tang Mingxia finds Liu Yinhua with three scrolls open across the floor, one slate tablet balanced against her knee, and a brush held too close to her mouth. She stops in the doorway for long enough that Liu Yinhua looks up.

"That is going to stain your lip," Tang Mingxia says. Liu Yinhua lowers the brush.

"I was not eating it." Tang Mingxia steps inside after Liu Yinhua moves one scroll aside to make room, lowering herself onto the mat with her tea held carefully in one hand. She looks over the notes with the slightly pinched expression she usually reserves for crooked hems and Wu Cailan's idea of stacked firewood.

"What are you trying to do?"

"Understand cultivation realms," Liu Yinhua says.

"The archive text explains them as if I should already know half of it."

"You should." Liu Yinhua gives her a mild look. Tang Mingxia pauses, then sighs through her nose. Tang Mingxia reaches for the slate and studies the copied characters. Her brows draw together slightly.

"You have the order mostly right, but this scroll is making it more complicated than it needs to be. The first proper realm is Awakening. You sense your lower field, your qi begins to respond, then you can draw qi in and hold it on purpose. That is all."

"That is all," Liu Yinhua repeats.

"For the explanation," Tang Mingxia says.

"Not for the doing."

"That is a relief. I was beginning to think I had been very dramatic about something simple."

"You were," Wu Cailan calls from the next room. Liu Yinhua turns her head slightly.

"Were you listening?"

"No." Tang Mingxia closes her eyes for a moment.

"She was."

"I am always listening when people are wrong near me," Wu Cailan says. Tang Mingxia ignores that with effort.

"After Awakening Realm is Condensing Realm. That is where we are. It has three courts: Essence Court, Breath Court, and Spirit Court. Each court has early, middle, late, and peak. Early Essence, Middle Essence, Late Essence, Peak Essence, then Early Breath, and so on." Liu Yinhua writes the words down.

"So I am Early Essence."

"Yes."

"Barely?" Tang Mingxia looks at her. Liu Yinhua looks back.

"Yes," Tang Mingxia says.

"But it is an achievement for an unsupported mortal to have gotten this far."

"That is kind of you." Tang Mingxia takes the brush from her before Liu Yinhua can put it near her mouth again and writes the three courts in a neat vertical row.

"Essence Court is mostly the body learning to handle qi. Your dantian thickens, your first meridians are opened, and your body stops reacting to every little bit of qi like it has been poisoned or set on fire. Breath Court is when circulation becomes more reliable. You can use techniques without emptying yourself at once, and your affinity begins to show more clearly. Spirit Court is when intent starts mattering properly." Liu Yinhua glances at her.

"Intent?"

"What you mean to do with the qi." Tang Mingxia frowns, searching for a simpler phrasing.

"Anyone can be angry and make qi flare if they have the affinity and poor control. That is not the same as making qi obey a method. Spirit Court is when the difference becomes obvious."

"That sounds like the stage where people become very annoying."

"It is. Especially boys with spear arts." Wu Cailan makes a sound from the next room.

"Only spear arts?"

"Boys with sword arts are annoying earlier," Tang Mingxia says. Liu Yinhua lowers her head to hide her smile and keeps writing.

"After Condensing Realm is Foundation."

"Yes. Foundation Realm has the Eight Pillars. Rooting, Cleansing, Channeling, Circulation, Harmonising, Inscription, Vessel-Making, and Sealing." Tang Mingxia names them easily, without the careful effort Liu Yinhua has to use to remember the order.

"That is the first realm most people outside cultivation families actually understand as status. If someone reaches Foundation, they are not just a promising disciple anymore. They can hold proper duties, represent a house or sect in minor matters, and be treated seriously by officials who would ignore a Condensing disciple." Liu Yinhua keeps her brush moving.

"Foundation gives a title."

"Here, yes. Different kingdoms handle the exact wording differently, but yes, Foundation changes how people can speak to you." That is the part Liu Yinhua had cared about. Tang Mingxia notices. She always notices more than Liu Yinhua would like in the small rooms of their house. She gives her a flat look, but there is less bite in it than there might have been two weeks ago as the other girl drops it.

"A bad Foundation will follow you for the rest of your cultivation. Clans spend ridiculous amounts on the Eight Pillars for a reason. A rushed Foundation can still make someone stronger than a Condensing disciple, but it gives them problems later. Sometimes problems that cannot be fixed without resources most families will never see."

"What comes after?"

"Core Formation," Tang Mingxia says, and her tone shifts a little. Not reverent, exactly, but more careful.

"That is the fourth realm. Early, middle, late, peak, unless someone is using older poetic names. Seed Core, Bright Core, True Core, Perfected Core. People argue about which sounds more proper. It is a stupid argument."

"Have you heard it often?"

"My uncle and cousin argued about it through an entire meal once."

"Who won?"

"The rest of us, when they stopped." Liu Yinhua smiles properly this time. Tang Mingxia looks pleased for half a breath, then pretends not to.

"Most cultivators will never reach Core Formation. Most will never come close. A good number will not reach Foundation either. People in sects talk about the higher realms because those people exist and because the sect must teach the road as a whole, but for most disciples, fourth realm is already a mountain peak they will only ever see from below." The brush stills in Liu Yinhua's hand. It is one thing to know she is behind.

It is another to understand that even the path she is chasing has cliffs inside it, and that most people spend their whole lives somewhere below the height others speak of as if it were only the next hill.

"What are the names after Core Formation?" she asks. Tang Mingxia takes a sip of tea.

"Soul Emergence, Soul Formation, Integration, Domain Formation, Tribulation, Ascendant Refinement. You do not need the details yet."

"That sounds like a polite way to say I would not understand them."

"You might understand enough to become troublesome."

"You say that as if I am not already."

"You are mildly inconvenient. There is room for growth." Wu Cailan laughs from the next room, and Liu Yinhua looks down at the slate again, mouth curved despite herself. After a moment, she asks, "What realm are you?" Tang Mingxia's expression tightens with the faint offence of someone being asked something discourteous, but she answers.

"Middle Spirit."

"And Wu Cailan?"

"Peak Essence, though her talisman control is better than it should be for someone who writes characters like she is threatening them."

"I heard that," Wu Cailan says.

"You were meant to."

"And I am Early Essence," Liu Yinhua says.

"Barely," Tang Mingxia says. Liu Yinhua sets the brush down carefully.

"Thank you for explaining." Tang Mingxia looks at the mess of scrolls again and reaches into her sleeve, drawing out a folded piece of cloth.

"I also brought this." Liu Yinhua takes it when offered.

"What is it?"

"A sleeve guard. Your bowstring keeps catching your cuff. I saw the tear." Liu Yinhua looks at the neat stitching, then up at her. Tang Mingxia's face stays composed.

"It was untidy."

"Of course."

"And dangerous."

"Naturally."

"If you make that expression, I will take it back." Liu Yinhua closes her fingers around the cloth.

"I would not dare."

"You would. Tie it properly." Tang Mingxia rises with her tea and leaves before Liu Yinhua can thank her again. In the next room, Wu Cailan says something too low to catch, and Tang Mingxia answers sharply enough that Liu Yinhua suspects she has just been mocked and defended in the same breath. She sits with the slate on her knees and the sleeve guard in her hand, looking over the rows of characters until the ink begins to dry.

The road is longer than she had known, but as she figures out how to tie the sleeve guard before heading to train with Xie Lianqiu, it feels just a little less lonely.