Chương 36: B1 Chapter 36

"You're alive." Li Xun repeated for the third time. As if his words might make the truth more firm.

"Yes." Orange-crest agreed.

"And you're not dying."

"We're all dying. But I'm no closer than I was the last time you saw me."

"And last I saw you was two seasons ago."

"Just over six months, yes. Summer is already giving way to autumn. The end of year tournament, and the imperial's family visit, are less than two weeks away. Most other sects take initiates in the spring. A time of new beginnings. The Azure Mountain is unique in opening and closing the year in autumn. The patriarch started that tradition, but nobody seems to agree on why these days." Li Xun's mouth hung open for a moment, then closed.

"Sorry. I seem to have become used to having to carry the entire conversation myself. You were not very talkative, as a stone monkey." Orange-crest chittered in amusement. His brother had changed. But he also hadn't. Li Xun's eyes suddenly widened.

"Ten thousand hells." He swore.

"I'm going to have to repeat everything I told you as a statue, aren't I? You didn't hear any of it?"

"Nope." Orange-crest said happily.

"Will have to teach deaf-dumb monkey everything."

"Deaf, sometimes. When I say something you don't want to hear. Never dumb." Orange-crest squinted at his brother in mock-irritation. He always had to have the last word, even when the last word was nice. It was quite hypocritical of him. Orange-crest knew nobody who suffered from that particular form of selective deafness quite as severely as Daoist Cooks Himself. The monkey stared deeply at his brother, taking in all the small changes in his form.

The way his skin clung tighter to his wiry muscles, all the more apparent for his lack of fur. How little strands of hair stuck out from his normally sleek top-knot, new growth too short to be restrained by the metal implement he used to bind his hair. A messy shroud around his own black-crest. Replacements for the many strands that his brother had shed, after eating that Quaternary Heart-Fire Pill. The overall effect was an impression of ill-health, like a monkey suffering from mange-spots.

Orange-crest stared into his brother's eyes. A fire still burned in them, a blazing window into his qi. But his power was different now, even more restrained than usual. It reminded orange-crest of the way Li Xun had taught him to bank the flames of the hearth. To help it endure long periods of inattention by denying it the air it needed to rage and thrive. Diminished, but ever only a change of circumstances away from its reclaiming its furious glory.

Orange-crest wondered what exactly he'd gone through, these last six months. There was so much to say, but for the moment, they both held their tongues. It felt a little like home. Where they had needed to speak less, to communicate more. Like he and his brother were finally on the cusp of understanding each other. His brother stared back at orange-crest just as deeply. Orange-crest wondered what he was thinking about. What changes Li Xun saw in him.

"I think your fur has changed color." Li Xun said suddenly, answering his unspoken question. Orange-crest froze.

"What."

"It's darker now. More of a reddish-brown. Flecked with little specs that shine like gold. It reminds me a little of that time you got into Daoist Enduring Oath's joinery salts." Daoist Scouring Medicine lit a lantern, as orange-crest frantically inspected his fur. It was definitely darker. It was also definitely dusty, like everything else in the room. He beat at his arm, trying to see if the dull color would wipe away.

"Stop that!" Li Xun hissed on reflex. He paused, reconsidering.

"Actually, I suppose the room really can't get any more dusty. You really made a complete mess of my kitchen. Not that it was in a fine state before this. I'm glad I didn't wash all those cups tonight. I'd just have to do it again." Dust flew off orange-crest in great clouds, but his fur didn't brighten. The little glints of light, like tiny embers, did grow more apparent though. Orange-crest wasn't sure how he felt about those. They were kind of cool, but he'd liked his bright fur.

He couldn't be orange-crest if his crest wasn't orange! What would be become! Fire-fur? Stone-skin? Manly-monkey? Li Hou? They weren't bad names, but they weren't his! Well, Li Hou was his. But wasn't the same. It was a human sound. Teaching other monkeys to pronounce that would be annoying, and then he'd need to explain how he got it. Absolutely not. A good name was self-explanatory, like orange-crest. Orange-crest grabbed the crest atop his head and pulled, trying to bring a clump in front of his eyes.

It was too short! Located too far back along the crown of his head. He needed a still pond, or a human mirror!

"Only the crest atop your head is still a brilliant orange." Daoist Scouring Medicine continued blithely.

"If anything, it is even brighter than before. Like burnished copper, or fresh persimmons." Orange-crest sighed with relief. That was good. His name was safe. Formless-gleam wouldn't mock him mercilessly when next they met.

"Crest." He tasted the new man-word. Fur atop the head, from context. How strange, that it had never come up in their months together, given that it was part of his name. He'd learned so many other words. But humans called the fur atop their heads hair, so he'd assumed that hair was also the word for fur atop a monkey's head. He'd always thought it was a little strange. Humans had so many words, sounds for every shade of difference and nuance.

It had seemed a little odd that all hair was hair, except for when hair was fur. But not quite odd enough to be worth further inquiry. Orange-crest. It would do. More accurate by far than persimmon-hair. He now understood why the daoists had found that name hilarious. It implied he'd smeared fruit all over himself. Very rude, really. Even as an uncivilized monkey, he'd never been that messy an eater. It felt fitting, that now his brother would know his name in truth.

"I am orange-crest." He said, trying the name out in man's tongue.

"Oh? Changing your name to fit your new fur?"

"No." Orange-crest said solemnly.

"It was always my name. Because I have the crest. And my fur was orange. Couldn't just be orange-hair. Quick-fingers also had orange hair. Would have been confusing. I just lacked the man-words to say it right." Li Xun brushed futilely at a table. He felt like he should have something to say to that. Better words to acknowledge the moment's significance.

"I'm glad you're back, orange-crest."

"I'm glad I'm back too." Orange-crest replied happily.

"It was weird in there. Strange dream. Too many monkeys who all thought they were me. Who wanted us to be a different me. Had to show them which me was boss-me." Li Xun blinked.

"You lost me again." The daoist said.

"You'll have to tell me about that from the beginning. Actually, first tell me how you feel. Do you feel stronger? Tougher? The bath should have strengthened your skin, and made your muscles denser. It wasn't really intended to refine your bones, but with that unexpected interaction with your wine, I'm really not sure what to expect. You seem healthy enough, but I really should examine you more closely soon."

"Is not complex. Weird dream. Little boy wanted me to take his hand, big drunk beast of a monkey helped me trick him." Li Xun's brow narrowed, but he refused to rise to orange-crest's bait. He was learning! The monkey stretched. How did he feel? Good, certainly. Like he'd had a great night's sleep. But was he stronger, tougher? There was only one way to find out. He clambered up on top of the kitchen's table, carefully brushing aside the dust covered dishes. It creaked ominously beneath his weight.

It'd never done that before.

"Climbing feels the same. Maybe I'm stronger? Definitely heavier, but it's not harder to move."

"That would be well within the realm of possibility." Daoist Scouring Medicine said excitedly.

"Earthen and metallic qi can both exert such an effect. We'll need to weigh you. If the increased strength and weight are proportional, we should be able to tell how much stronger you are. There are tables, for how much weight cultivators can typically lift at various levels of attainment. You should be even stronger than that, at least in battle, if you weigh more than you should. That added weight will make your strikes land far harder." Love this story?

Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work! Orange-crest found what he was looking for as his brother talked.

"I'm gonna stab myself now." He announced, knife in hand.

"Be careful." His brother said inanely. Orange-crest gave the daoist a look. No, he'd been planning on popping the knife right into his eye. Obviously he was just gonna give his thigh a little slice. Unless he was now a true stone monkey. Then he was gonna break the knife on his skin. Only the Monkey King could do something like that. Even big-butt, for all his power, had to be wary of human weapons. It didn't come up often, but it'd been the only time orange-crest had ever seen his older brother truly injured.

"I feel... Something. Think I can make my skin hard again."

"Be careful, if you turn into a statue again-" Orange-crest tuned his brother out and focused. Why worry? He was definitely going to try this at some point. Better he return to stone here, at his brother's side, than somewhere less safe. He'd turned himself back once, he had no doubt he could do it again. The strange feeling didn't want to move, but that was fine, because it was already everywhere in him. Except it wasn't. It was there, but not.

He sensed the strange power in much the same way that he felt his dantian. It existed just outside the world, yet was part of his body. The new power didn't really seem to dwell in any one place. If he had to pin it down, he would say it was in his back, or his belly. Or maybe his bones. If the qi in his dantian felt like a fire, this felt like a heaviness. A fire in his chest, and a heaviness in his bones. He couldn't tell where precisely it was, so he decided it was there.

It just sounded better in his head than saying 'a heaviness in his back'. That just sounded like he'd grown old. But how was he supposed to use it? He stoked fire, let it flow along his meridians. The weight in his bones didn't feel like it was supposed to move. Instead, he relaxed. He let the weight settle upon him, like a blanket of stone. The world went black. Orange-crest felt himself moving, but distantly. His vision was dim, and the sounds of words and crashing were distant. His limbs were so very heavy.

Too heavy to move. He wasn't a statue. He could feel his limbs bending, but under their own weight, not because of the commands of his muscles. He shrugged the blanket off. Pressed against it with his qi, lifting it up with a wave of spiritual force. It was heavy. The amount of spent qi was noticeable. He could probably do whatever he'd just done no more than ten times, before he'd no longer have enough qi to return.

"You've barely been back for half an hour!" Li Xun shouted.

"Will you please stop destroying my godforsaken kitchen!" Orange-crest looked around. He was surrounded by the remains of Daoist Scouring Medicine's table. There was something sharp digging into his back. A broken cup? Part of the table? He shifted carefully, digging it out. It was the tip of a knife, broken free from the rest of the blade. He hadn't even gotten around to trying to cut himself, he'd just fallen on it, and it had shattered beneath his weight.

"Sorry." Orange-crest muttered sheepishly.

"You can turn back to stone at will." His brother said breathlessly, eying orange-crest like he were a rare plant.

"That's incredible. Heaven-defying. Impossible. True elemental transmutation of the body is a core formation level power. No, not just core formation. Mid stage core formation and above. I've never heard of a cultivator below the level of a sect elder doing that."

"I can't move when I do though. Or hear. Or see. And it's hard. Takes a lot of qi."

"Gah!" His brother grabbed at his hair, then immediately regretted it, when it made his precarious top-knot even messier.

"Will you never cease complaining about the limitations of your impossible feats! Two advancements in a week is slow? You can't move when you turn yourself to stone? What sort of beast core did you put into that centipede wine! Were your parents some sort of legendary spirit beasts?" Orange-crest thought about his brother's questions. He hadn't had much time with his parents. His mother had died when he was two, during the lean year. Tree-dancer had taken a risk trying to pick fruit in a wolf pack's territory.

Red-eyes had found her bones days later. The young orange-crest had raged for days, before big-butt had taken him up in a single great paw and shaken him until he quieted. Big-butt and quick-fingers had looked after him, after that day. Orange-crest had never known who his father was. He was from another pack, the others said. Hard-eyes, they'd named him.

"No." He finally answered, covering the questions in order.

"A centipede the size of three tigers stuck together snout to tail. And also no. They were monkeys."

"I didn't actually expect an answer to that. You were so cagey about where you got the core, at first. But now I have even more questions. Like how you killed such a thing." Orange-crest shrugged. He liked that motion. He would definitely be introducing it to his pack, whenever he returned to Mount Yuelu. He still couldn't tell his brother about formless-gleam. But he trusted him enough to mention her in the abstract.

"I stabbed it, until it bled out. Bugs have bad senses. Big ones can't turn very well. I had help."

"Help?"

"Can't tell you. Not my secret. One day, I hope. They fear humans."

"Every time you open your mouth, I'm left with more questions. But dawn is already almost upon us. I need you to do something for me. It's important."

"What?"

"Can you stay out of sight of the other disciples today? Completely. I'll explain why tonight."

"No humans?"

"Yes. No humans, except Daoist Enduring Oath."

"Okay."

"The Medical Pavilion expects me. I need to petrify another set of rats for Elder Weeping Lotus."

"Now I have the questions." Li Xun snorted, and he and the monkey shared a smile. Something had changed between them, something deeper than just the revelation he'd been getting the monkey's name wrong for the better part of a year. Orange-crest still danced around his secrets. But then, he hadn't exactly told the monkey about the other things he'd been doing with the worms orange-crest had introduced him to.

And he had no doubt the secrets in his own past eclipsed the mystery of the monkey's parentage a hundred times over. They both had secrets. Sometimes, trust ran deeper than mere honesty. If orange-crest thought this spirit beast was safe to interact with, he would trust his disciple's judgement. Orange-crest had trusted his about the safety of the bath.

"Meet me at Daoist Enduring Oath's home at sunset, and I'll explain everything that's transpired then." Orange-crest chittered happily in agreement.

"It will be good to see big-shiny. Show him I'm a flesh-monkey again. Maybe I bring him a gift. I'll be there."

The path that led to formless-gleam's cave had never felt so small. So short. Orange-crest had seemingly put on a few fingers worth of height in the bath. He now stood closer to Daoist Scouring Medicine's navel, than he did his hip. He wasn't quite sure how that worked. He'd turned into a statue apparently, but he was definitely bigger than he'd been. Had he put on all that height in the moment he'd burst free? Or had the statue grown slowly, without his brother's notice? Orange-crest might never know.

However he'd acquired it, the added fraction of a chi of height was not unwelcome. But it was not the what was making the road disappear beneath his foot-paws. That was the terrible, glorious, power that now dwelled in his limbs. Orange-crest felt sturdy as the mountain below, powerful as the heedless landslide. Like no earthly force could stop him, once he surged into motion. Every step propelled him onward, eating up the well-worn path beneath his feet.

Orange-crest had thought he understood what bodily refinement meant. But knowing the words was not the same as living the reality. He had risked much for this. He still wasn't sure how much, it was difficult to pierce through the haze that shrouded that strange dream he'd had within the stone. And his brother had suffered much, in his mistaken belief that orange-crest was trapped, and only he could save him. It was not for him to declare his brother's suffering worthwhile. But his part of the cost? It was worth it.

A thousand thousand times so. A place where the path cut away rose up in front of him, a gap of two monkey's height he'd have circumnavigated before, eschewed for a less steep path. Orange-crest leapt into the air instead, his tail streaming out behind him as he screeched with joy. The rush of wind still pressed his fur flat, and drove him to squint his eyes. But it felt thinner now, or lighter. He watched the ground rise up beneath him, and braced his legs. And then he got hard.

His senses dimmed, but even shrouded in stone, orange-crest felt the impact in his bones. At first, he'd planned to release just after he hit the ground. But then he tumbled head over heels, and didn't stop. He held on, for fear he'd break a bone if he pushed the stone away now. Enough time for three or four breaths passed, before orange-crest came to a stop. Huh. He didn't feel any need to breathe, while he was stone.

When orange-crest finally released the transformation, he found himself at the bottom of a ditch of his own making. Clouds of dust slowly settled to either side of the deep furrow. Well. Apparently he was extremely heavy when he turned into a stone monkey. Heavier than he'd expected, even accounting for the broken table. Orange-crest wondered how he could make use of that. It certainly seemed like a terrifying weapon.

If he jumped on a disciple's back and held tight, how many of them would be in any shape to move when he returned to flesh? He didn't think the answer was many. As he got up, he resolved to take stealth more seriously. His master's cottage was well away from the more trafficked paths, but formless-gleam's cave saw disciples cultivating in its entrance occasionally. Neither wolf nor man accosted him, as he made his way to the cave. That was a bit of a pity.

Orange-crest had his knife back where it belonged, tucked into his jade band. But he was really looking forward to seeing what exactly a stone punch could do. The timing might be tricky, but there had to be a way to make it work. Disciple Chang had demonstrated a number of staff techniques that culminated in kicks. Maybe he should focus more on crane stance, when he returned to class. Rise high vaulting on his staff, then descend to earth like a cliff detaching from a mountain. That sounded fun.

So many glorious possibilities. He needed to do something nice for his brother. His master, maybe. The word had so many connotations among men. He still wasn't sure, if that was what Daoist Scouring Medicine was to him. A master seemed a fine thing, but was it any finer a thing than a brother? He was not convinced. Perhaps he could be both? Orange-crest pressed his head to the stone, and listened for the sound of breathing. He didn't hear any. It was hard to feel qi here, with how much emanated from the earth.

He poked his head out. Empty. He wondered what formless-gleam would say about his new stone-power. He'd find out soon enough. The climb up was tighter than it had been. Those few inches of height left the initial tunnel even more uncomfortably claustrophobic. Only the fact orange-crest knew it widened with every crawl kept him going. The climb up was easier though. Now he could press his limbs against the front of the shaft as he braced his back against the rear.

Between that and his newfound strength, it was as easy as climbing a tree.

"Formless-gleam! I'm not dead!" He hooted happily. There was no reply. Orange-crest looked around carefully. He didn't see a fox. Shed fur, and a tiny pile of old droppings delicately arranged in a distant corner were the only signs the fox had ever been there.

"Are you sneaking up on me invisible? It's not as good a prank if you wait this long. Not funny. Just scary." The silence that answered him was deafening. Orange-crest's stomach churned. There were many different reasons why the fox might be gone. He suspected most of them were not good. For the fox, or for someone else.