Chương 87: B3 Chapter 1

It was a cool day on Mount Yuelu. The weather was not unseasonably bitter. But the day was a prelude, or an omen. A wind as dry as old bones whipped across the mountain, tearing golden leaves from the trees. The trees were not yet bare and skeletal to match the mood of the skies. But the winds whispered that it would not be long now, before winter visited once more in earnest. Orange-crest could almost have put words into Heaven's mouth.

"Enjoy these lazy days, for the winter of our discontent will be long and harsh." It was a strange habit he'd picked up, putting words to the intentions of nature. A thing perhaps alike to human poetry, and at once very much not. Orange-crest knew where the habit came from. His master had accustomed him to words. Words like grains of rice in his pantry, in quantity beyond abundance.

Words more numerous than the stars in the night sky, words in ink and tongue and brush, words like water, filling up his days with a different sort of home. It wasn't like there was nobody to talk to on Mount Yuelu. Gold-mantle even spoke the elegant tongue, when the mood struck him. And when he was drunk, which was really saying much the same thing. It just wasn't the same. Often, orange-crest had wandered forth from his master's well-appointed home simply because he was tired of talking and listening.

For many months, the only time Daoist Scouring Medicine had been silent in orange-crest's presence was when he was reading. It had taken a while, before it really sunk in, just how much who Li Hou had been was a product of that immersion. Winter had come and gone, since orange-crest had returned to the mountain of his birth. Summer as well. An entire year, an eighth of orange-crest's life. He'd changed a little, and not at all.

The ache in his heart had quieted, his grief burning low like a hearth banked, a mere ember of the loss that had left life itself feeling hollow. But it had begun to come in other places. Today, it was in his ears. In the words he heard, and those he didn't.

"Cold." Orange-crest opened his eyes. Shadow-tail was shivering. Orange-crest wasn't cold. The unseasonable chill of the day felt nostalgic to him, a brisk breeze that reminded him distantly of the Fathomless Well and the Centipede Cave. He stared more closely at his nephew, the little monkey of two years sitting in his best attempt at the Lotus Position. Shadow-tail was the child of big-butt and quick-fingers. His name was newly come by, but all agreed it was good.

His fur was dark and dappled, his tail long and elegant, and he liked nothing more than following other monkeys around, especially big-butt and orange-crest. It was widely agreed on Mount Yuelu that the best names were true in all meanings, and orange-crest found no fault with this. The little monkey was poofy. A tenebrous cloud with a small face poking out the center. He was much smaller than orange-crest, and not as cultivated. He probably was cold.

But, it had also only been a few moments since the littlest of the named monkeys sat down to cultivate. Orange-crest sighed.

"Cold, little-brother? Then go." Orange-crest was an uncle. It was a strange thought. Monkeys did not really have a word for it. Senior-brother, would be the closest man-speech to the way it was said in the true tongue. He tried his best to be a good one, but never really felt he quite lived up to the shining example Daoist Enduring Oath had placed in his mind. He could say something about the Fathomless Well.

Do his best to translate his master's words about letting the cold in, letting it settle into one's bones and transform them. But... He was not certain this was even the same sort of cold. Qi was thinner on Mount Yuelu than it was on the Azure Mountain, and whatever sort of yin drifted upon this wind was certainly not abyssal. And... Orange-crest had learned to temper his expectations of teaching monkeys to cultivate.

"Fire-food?" Shadow-tail begged, tugging at quick-fingers' arm. His mother slowly rose, shooting orange-crest a series of blinks and eye-rolls that were as much amusement as exasperation and apology.

"Fire?" Quick-fingers asked.

"Yes-fire." Orange-crest confirmed. It'd been going when he left it, at least. The others were getting better about keeping the fire going. Or, big-butt was responsible about the matter at least. Broad-back gathered wood for it, but he tended to be forgetful. And nobody let red-eyes or bitter-tongue tend the fire anymore. Mother and child left together. Shadow-tail no longer clung to his mother's back, but instead walked behind her, with a funny little scurry.

He'd taken to his name like a bird to the skies, and sought to keep himself within the spot of darkness for which he'd been named. And then there was one. Or, two, if one counted the teacher. Big-butt and snow-fur were both absent, and neither gold-mantle nor bitter-tongue had stopped by to watch today. Orange-crest sighed, and settled down to cultivate. It was rare that he cultivated himself during these classes. The questions and interruptions tended to be too frequent for it to be worth the effort.

But red-eyes was sitting quietly in front of him, eyes clenched tightly shut, his forehead scrunched in an intense concentration that orange-crest suspected was counterproductive, but had never been able to convince his student to stop. And every so often, the thin flow of qi that enveloped the two of them shifted, as red-eyes made a splash in it. It was still so weird, seeing red-eyes sitting quietly.

Of all the monkeys of Mount Yuelu, he'd been near the last that orange-crest had expected to take to human cultivation methods. Orange-crest's mind was wandering. He gently surrendered the thought. The confusion and judgement fell away. A year of cultivation upon Mount Yuelu had taken him to the edge of the seventh stage of Qi Condensation.

Sleepless sessions at his master's side, shivering as he inhaled traces of the miasma Li Xun exuded still, hoping to cultivate a resistance that would let him touch his master without suffering harm. Infrequent, often inebriated, lessons from the Monkey King of Mount Yuelu, whose collection of lore was as profound and spotty as orange-crest's own, and centuries deeper. And thousands of hours of quiet contemplation beneath the trees and skies of his first youth.

In the end, orange-crest had come to the same realization he'd possessed when he'd set out. This would not be the place he became strong enough to save his master. But... It was good, that Mount Yuelu had become part of his cultivation, part of the mountain he was building in his soul. It had already been part of him, it was only fitting that it should be part of what would become his foundation. Orange-crest extended his qi outward and downward, carefully controlling it to avoid disturbing red-eyes.

That fine control had grown easier this past year. He drew it all to himself. The distant strands that travelled on the wind, tasting of smoke and man. The qi that rested upon the mountain itself, thin as the first frosts. And most of all, the qi of his kind, that nebulous thing somewhere between memory and power that always reminded him of home. All of it, he gently drew into himself. Driven by a whim, he abbreviated the usual cycling patterns of his Monkey Refining Law. This qi was thin and disparate.

But it was home, and it did not need to be dominated and stripped of its nature. Mount Yuelu was not the place for him anymore. But it wasn't tarnished either. Orange-crest had simply found new hungers. The monkey he was right now was not the sort of one that needed this place's lessons. But, though the place was not for him, he was a product of the place. Its qi drained easily into his dantian, like water pouring downhill. Orange-crest exhaled, and entered the seventh stage of Qi Condensation.

This time, there was no sudden change in the nature of his qi. It had slowly grown denser and more voluminous over time, as he crept closer and closer to his breakthrough, until there was nothing left to do but creep over the line. Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. And then something unexpected happened. Orange-crest felt his chest grow hot.

The character in his dantian, the 'false' that Grand Elder Tian's seal had impressed upon his cultivation base, began to vibrate rapidly. The boxy, house-shaped, character flitted about, emanating a strange energy that made orange-crest's teeth chatter. And then it stopped. Stilled, and gently drifted to the bottom of his dantian, its strange fit of mania expended. If orange-crest squinted the eyes of his soul, the character looked, or perhaps felt, a little fainter.

As if some of the substance of it had rubbed away. Orange-crest opened his eyes. He saw nothing out of place, just red-eyes staring at him with his mouth hanging open, lusty hunger on his face.

"You grew stronger."

"Yes."

"It works."

"You are here often." Orange-crest said, his brow furrowing. Almost every monkey that knew orange-crest had been interested, when he first broached the topic of cultivators and immortals. That interest had reached an almost feverish pitch when he had explained the Monkey King of Mount Yuelu was also a cultivator, an act that gold-mantle had been displeased about for weeks.

But even big-butt and snow-fur, who were among the calmest and wisest, had lost most of their interest in the matter after several days of orange-crest making them sit quietly and struggling to translate what he'd learned into something they could understand. Perhaps it would have been different if orange-crest had come with spirit stones or pills, denser qi to help open the eyes of his kin.

But Mount Yuelu had no spirit spring or other blessed ground for cultivation, and neither he nor the Monkey King knew an art to unseal Elder Lu's storage ring. Not that he expected gold-mantle would have helped. The king had held no enthusiasm for this pursuit when orange-crest had begun teaching these classes, five months ago. The king was amused by some of the shelters orange-crest had led the others to craft.

Pleased with the oft-burning fire orange-crest had established, and the many new and strange meals his people had invented upon it. He'd only needed to put out three wildfires since the pit had been dug. But on the matter of teaching the monkeys of Mount Yuelu to cultivate, orange-crest was beginning to see the wisdom of his king's position.

"Yes." Red-eyes agreed, drawing orange-crest back out of his thoughts. His mind felt especially clear after this breakthrough, though it was a tiny change compared to those that had occurred after his first few advancements.

"But... Didn't think it works? Yet do muchly?"

"Didn't know. Know now."

"Strangest brother." Orange-crest said, shaking his head. He paused, pursing his lips.

"Strangest monkey brother." He amended.

"Have human brother that is weirder. You would like." Red-eyes shrugged.

"No." He corrected.

"You are strangest brother."

"Fair." The click of a plum split down the middle.

"Not fair." Red-eyes denied.

"Not fair that your unearthly wonders can hold me." Orange-crest grinned, and red-eyes grinned back. Red-eyes shut his eyes tightly. They were not even pink these days, the dry air having a salutary effect upon them that none of orange-crest's fumbling attempts at medicines had managed. Orange-crest's student, who would definitely attempt to choke him if orange-crest were ever to call him that, began to cultivate with a vengeance, as if determined to match orange-crest's breakthrough on the spot.

Orange-crest let his mind return to the character in his dantian. It was such a strange thing, and neither his master nor his king had known what to make of it. He wondered what had provoked it into such a frenzy. It was clearly related to his breakthrough. But that odd sense of fate, that insight into the future, that he'd felt holding Grand Elder Tian's seal, felt much the same as it ever did. His command of the sense had faded since that fateful day.

But it still remained, and if it was diminished for the character's activity, orange-crest didn't sense it. He often meditated upon the character, seeking to comprehend what Grand Elder Tian had left behind, what he had unknowingly sacrificed so much for. Fate was strange here upon Mount Yuelu. Present. Inevitable. But somehow, it felt soft, in the same way a Nascent Soul cultivator was heavy. It was still a sharp and unyielding thing. But here, its teeth upon one's neck felt gentler, less cruel.

Orange-crest suspected he would need to venture forth to learn any more. To witness once more fate in blatant and unmistakable action.

"When it hurts, it hurts." Red-eyes' voice was low. More guttural than a whisper.

"Sometimes I like to feel. Sometimes I hate to feel. Feel to hate. The blinding burn. When all I want is red." Orange-crest stared inquisitively at the monkey that was definitely not his disciple. Red-eyes smacked his lips.

"I am not odd. You are odd."

"Okay." Orange-crest agreed easily. His brother was odd. Orange-crest felt like he understood big-butt better after their year apart. How he thought. What he treasured. But he definitely understood red-eyes less. He'd thought he was like Yang Wei. But he wasn't, not really. Their surfaces mirrored each other, but he was coming to suspect that their depths could not be more dissimilar.

After finishing his cultivation, not that this breakthrough needed much in the way of stabilization, orange-crest found the others by the shores of the great lake. It was a cold day after all, the fire pit was the place to be. Orange-crest had never gotten around to building his full vision. Nails had turned out to be both more important than he'd imagined, and far beyond his expertise in the arts of man to create. But a big shallow pit, lined well with stones and sand, that, he'd managed.

It had only taken a day to dig. Finding a way to start fires reliably on the other hand, had been the work of weeks. He could have just asked the Monkey King, or stuck a stick in the Ring of Fire, but that felt like surrender. His master's books had detailed things like fire pistons and quicklime, but he'd never managed to get them to work. In the end, it'd been his hair that solved the problem. Starting a fire by rubbing two sticks together was difficult.

When he pulled out a few hairs, and added them to the rubbing, the wood caught smoke far more quickly. Orange-crest wasn't sure quite why it worked. The five element cycle said that fire made earth, and not vice versa. But work it did. Alchemy was mysterious like that. And so now they had fire upon Mount Yuelu, at least so long as the others did not let it go out, or feed it too vigorously.

"Orange-crest." Big-butt grumbled happily, lying on his side. He held his youngest in one great paw, keeping the little monkey lifted above his head. The yearling was spitting and crying with amusement, flailing her skinny arms about vigorously, pretending herself a bird.

"Big-butt." Orange-crest almost called him lazy-butt, but that was much meaner in the true-tongue than it was in the elegant one. One did not lightly make a mess of another's name.

"Worm-stone-fruit!" Shadow-tail proclaimed proudly, thrusting a slightly burnt plum at orange-crest. Slightly burnt, with a coating of white ash on the bottom, and an absolute mess made of the top, where shadow-tail had seemingly dug the pit out to replace it with mashed up worms. Orange-crest inspected the fruit, frowning.

"Were worms already in stone-fruit?"

"What?"

"No bother. Gratitude for shadow-tail." Orange-crest cast his eyes over at fish-fingers, who was fussing over a spitted carp, holding it well away from the merrily blazing fire.

"Fish?" He mouthed at the grumpy old angler.

"Wine?" Fish-fingers pantomimed back, making a guzzling motion with his free hand.

"Try? Good?" Shadow-tail pressed, before orange-crest could promise his senior wine later. Orange-crest chose to trust, and was disappointed. The ash was the worst part. The worms weren't all worms either. He'd definitely bitten down on a small rock. But it was sweet, and warm, and food, and probably not rotten.

"Good." He agreed, patting shadow-tail. Orange-crest settled down next to his largest brother. Big-butt shifted his shoulders, lining them up so that he couldn't actually see orange-crest, as his eyes faced the lake. His arm dipped low, and the yearling descended, squawking joyously. The little monkey grabbed at orange-crest's crest, struggling with it like a deer pecking at an especially stubborn clump of grass. Orange-crest wove his head to and fro, making the little one work for it.

"Good." Big-butt said suddenly, depositing his child upon his hip.

"Good?"

"Yes." Big-butt agreed.

"Good season. Good year. Good pack."

"Good." Orange-crest agreed, leaning back. Oh. That was where quick-fingers had gotten off to. She was scampering through the trees above, hunting for the last good plums of the season. Orange-crest watched as she found one, and tossed it down at her mate. Big-butt did not even flinch, though it landed hardly a pace away from his head with a solid thump. Big-butt liked fruit. Especially the best, ripest, fruit. But he was far too big for many trees.

He could always shake a meal free, but he usually did that only when he wished to make a messy feast for many. Orange-crest rolled over, sliding closer to the fire. He watched as pie-bald begged fish-fingers for a bite of his roasted carp, patting at his sizable belly as if he were a starveling, moaning dramatically. It was a good pack, big-butt's. A good mountain, his king's. Orange-crest stumbled back to his master's cave well past dark. He'd not been drinking.

It was just a long and lazy evening, he'd taken more than one nap, and hadn't felt the need to ever really return to full wakefulness after. Staggering and stumbling about in the dark was just fun sometimes. He sobered up the moment he stepped into the cave, smelt the metallic tang of his master's toxic sweat. Orange-crest would tell gold-mantle tomorrow. He was certain the king already knew. He often seemed to, the mysterious senior that he was. But he'd left Mount Yuelu once without words, he'd not do so twice.

Carefully, orange-crest stepped over the Ring of Fire that separated him from his master. Still, orange-crest had not found a way to feed Li Xun. Food still rotted away in his mouth, and he did not easily swallow when orange-crest massaged at his jaw. He took water though, and that had given orange-crest an idea. After months on the mountain, he'd had more than a few fully fermented wine trees prepared. He'd not been able to find any ginsengs of appreciable age, nor any other spiritual treasures of worth.

Deficient in both qi and alcohol, his wine was yet the only thing he had to offer his master. Wine at least seemed to spoil more slowly than an unfermented mash of fruit. He could only hope Li Xun was deriving some sustenance from it. This nightly ritual left him with precious little of his own wine to drink. But seeing his master stir, even in this smallest of ways, left orange-crest with ten thousand times as much joy as the wine could have brought him.

Carefully, orange-crest tipped the copper gourd Han Jian had forged for him into his master's mouth. His palms itched, the first warning sign of the angry blisters that often followed, as he tilted his master's hairless head and worked his tight and withered jaw.

"Sorry, master." Orange-crest muttered.

"Your disciple is weak and slow. But today he became a little less weak. And tomorrow, he won't be so slow." Orange-crest would need to explain this to the king, if he didn't already know. He trusted his brothers and sisters, but this was too important to trust to them. A year had passed, and not a single day had his king failed to arrive to renew the Ring of Fire that sustained his master. It was asking much, to impose yet another task upon a monkey that orange-crest already owed his life three times over.

But orange-crest knew gold-mantle would do it. His king did not shy away from burdens. The words the old monkey spoke about averting his eyes from tragedy were just that, words.

"One day, you'll teach them. You'll teach them better than I ever could." Orange-crest promised his master. He grinned, and leaned close to Li Xun's ear.

"You're going to hate it."