Chương 125: Chapter 123

Lianhua undoes the last of the innumerable ties that hold the party outfit together and I let out a sigh so long and sincere that it almost embarrasses me, since I have spent the whole day stuffed into this thing designed with the firm conviction that the comfort of the one who wears it is a secondary detail compared to the duty of impressing the court.

Between her and Xia they free me from the prison of silk and, in a matter of minutes, the gala outfit ends up folded with care over the back of an armchair while an everyday dress much simpler and a thousand times more comfortable goes taking its place. And while Lianhua ties my belt, I let my mind review the party with the lazy satisfaction of someone who knows she has fulfilled the formality. Twelve years.

At last I have reached the age at which soon I will be able to demonstrate openly that I have finished the Body Tempering, although that also means that the time until the Celestial Fragment of the Sands opens and the threat of that piece of shit old man is fulfilled keeps drawing nearer. I am still with that thought when the door of my room opens and my mother enters directly, and behind her, a step behind as is habitual, is Lingxi holding between her hands a small chest of dark wood with bronze fittings.

I look at her with an eyebrow raised, because, frankly, I did not expect to see her again until tomorrow.

"Mother", I tell her as I finish settling against the back of the chair.

"What are you doing here at this hour?" My mother smiles, and it is one of her good smiles, of those she directs at me in a genuine way.

"I have a small surprise for you", she replies.

"A last birthday gift." I look at her with distrust, since the matter is beginning to seem strange to me.

"And what is so special about that gift that you couldn't give it to me at the party like all the others?" I ask her. My mother widens the smile a bit more, and there is something in it that tells me she is enjoying this.

"That it is your share of the profits from the mop and the books", she tells me. I blink as I take a second to be sure I have heard her correctly, and when I am, the confusion must paint itself on my face with such clarity that a small laugh escapes her.

"Mother", I tell her slowly, like someone trying not to accuse anyone of anything yet.

"We had agreed that those profits would be destined to attack the Fei Lan's businesses, and I renounced them."

"Not exactly", she corrects me softly, and her tone takes on an amused nuance.

"What I told you, Wen, is that you would have to renounce practically all of the income you would receive from your invention. Practically all of it." She makes a deliberate pause, letting the word settle, and then inclines her head barely with a gesture between affection and amused reproach.

"Did you really think I was going to leave my own daughter without a single profit from her own invention?" she tells me, amused. And then I remember the conversation with her exact words, which really were those, and I, occupied as I was in doing mental sums about how much that was going to delay the opening of my first gate, rounded directly down to zero and took for granted that I was renouncing everything.

A blunder that, coming from someone who prides herself on forgetting nothing, turns out to be especially humiliating for me to acknowledge.

"You are right", I admit after an instant, and I force myself to swallow my pride because it is only fair.

"You said practically all of it and it was I who understood it wrong by taking the rest for granted. I beg your pardon." And here I soften the tone, because the apology is only half of what I owe.

"And I thank you, Mother", I add.

"That in the middle of all your plans you should have remembered to reserve a part for my interests is more than I expected." My mother holds my gaze a moment, and her expression softens in a way I don't often see in her.

"It is the least I could do, Wen", she tells me simply. Then she turns toward Lingxi and removes the chest from her hands with care and turns again toward me holding it aloft.

"These are your profits", she tells me. I look at the chest, and for a couple of seconds a very specific part of my head, the one that has spent months doing sums about how expensive my particular version of a Pay to Win turns out to be, surfaces calculating how many spirit stones I could buy with that money despite the fact that I have not even counted it.

But I cut it off before it takes control, because there is something that matters to me more than the contents of the chest and it is the person I have in front of me, so instead of asking her to open it right there I point with my chin at the table that is pushed against the back wall and which I have occupied with several books I have not yet finished reading.

"Leave it on that table, please", I tell her.

"I'll look at it later." My mother stays looking at me for an instant as she smiles, but says nothing and limits herself to crossing the room and to depositing the chest on the table with care, moving aside a couple of books to make room for it.

"Rest well, Wen", she tells me when she finishes, turning toward me.

"You have had a long day."

"Rest well yourself too, Mother", I reply to her.

"And thank you again." She nods one last time, makes a slight gesture to Lingxi and the two of them leave the room with the same discretion with which they entered, leaving the door closed behind them. I stay looking at that closed door for a second longer than necessary, listening to how their footsteps move away down the corridor until they cease to be heard entirely.

And then, at last, a smile very different from all the ones I have distributed today begins to open its way on my face, because now we really are alone, so I turn toward Lianhua and let the smile widen entirely.

"Good", I tell her.

"Now that there is no one else, it is time for me to give myself my own gift." Lianhua raises an eyebrow barely a millimeter, just enough to signal that she is listening.

"I have been delaying this on purpose for days precisely in order to be able to do it today", I continue, and I notice how the excitement I have been containing all day begins at last to filter into my voice.

"So take me to the formation room." Lianhua makes no question, she limits herself to positioning herself behind my chair and to pushing it with the usual softness toward the door while Xia, who has witnessed the entire scene in a silence improper of her, hurries to follow us closely. The trip to the room is short and silent, and as soon as the three of us are inside I turn toward Lianhua before she has occasion to settle me in the center. If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen.

Please report the violation.

"Lianhua", I tell her.

"Bring me the jade tablet with the technique of the Dragon's Grip." Lianhua stops, and although her face barely changes, there is a flash of something resembling doubt in her eyes.

"Would it not be more prudent to begin with the technique of the Myriad of Hands, Zhāohuán Wen?" she asks me.

"It is a more versatile technique and of more immediate use." The question does not surprise me, because it is exactly the kind of pragmatism one can expect from her, but for once prudence is not what is going to decide.

"I have already told you", I reply to her without losing the smile.

"This is a gift I am giving to myself, and that is why it is going to be the Dragon's Grip." And before she can object anything, I raise a hand to settle it.

"In the end I will end up learning both anyway", I add.

"And a few days more or less in the Myriad of Hands are not going to make any difference." Lianhua looks at me an instant more, weighs my words, and finally yields with a brief gesture of the head after which, without saying anything more, she turns around and leaves the room in the direction of the place where she keeps, well hidden, the tablets with the techniques and the rest of my things.

As soon as the door closes behind her, I turn toward Xia, and I find her looking at me with those eyes that shine each time she is about to witness something that is going to thrill her, holding herself back with an almost physical effort. Because she has not said a single word during the whole conversation with Lianhua, not one.

And for me, knowing her as I know her, that silence makes everything clearer than any confession, since it definitively confirms what I have been suspecting for some time, which is that all that setup I obliged her to follow after my last birthday, the cultivating every morning in this same room and cleaning her impurities afterward in the adjoining bath, has made her realize my true level of cultivation, so I decide to stop beating around the bush.

"Xia", I tell her.

"Now that I have turned twelve, I have to ask you to repeat the same thing I asked you after my previous birthday." I don't need to specify more, since she surely knows perfectly well what I am referring to, but her reply is not the one I expected.

"I have no problem at all, Wen", she replies without hesitating, and then she adds something that catches me completely off guard.

"In fact, I have not yet begun to cultivate the Tempering of Bones and Tendons, since I have been leaving it on purpose precisely to wait for this very moment." I stay looking at her a second, processing what she has just said, and then I realize something I had not noticed, which is that since she turned years older, she has not at any point asked me permission to advance to the next step of her cultivation despite the fact that the previous year she did do so.

And that small gesture, that silent act of patience and of trust, reaches me deeper than I am prepared to admit out loud to a girl who looks at me as if I had just said the most natural thing in the world.

"Thank you, Xia", I tell her, and I make sure it truly shows. She limits herself to shrugging her shoulders with a small smile.

"It is the least I can do", she replies to me. And just at that moment the door opens again and Lianhua enters the room, closes the door behind her while she draws the bolt that I had installed precisely for these occasions, and approaches me. Once in front, she slides her hand among the folds of her clothing and extracts the jade tablet she was carrying hidden, handing it to me in silence.

I take it with care, and upon doing so my eyes settle for a second on my own hands as I cannot help thinking that, for this in particular, perhaps I should have put on a pair of black gloves. I discard the thought almost immediately, although it costs me a bit more than I would like, and I concentrate on the tablet.

"Would you like me to repeat to you how to use it?" Lianhua asks me.

"There's no need", I reply to her, and without further preamble I bring the tablet to my forehead. Next I direct a part of my mind toward the Qi that floats around me while I employ the capacity to move it that I gained the day I finished opening the Yang gate and I use it to activate it. The effect is immediate, since I notice how a great deal of knowledge appears all at once in my mind, sprouting out of nowhere as if someone had engraved it into it.

And the sensation that accompanies it is one of the strangest I have ever experienced, because although I have the absolute certainty that an instant before I did not possess this information, the way it settles within me is not that of a new piece of data, but that of something I have always known, as if this technique had been with me all my life and only now had I remembered that I had it.

The discomfort of that contradiction runs through me for a second, that struggle between what I know to be true and what my own mind insists on feeling, but it passes quickly. And when I lower the tablet and look at it, I verify that the characters it had engraved on its surface have disappeared completely, as if they had never existed.

I lift my gaze and realize that Xia seems about to burst, since she has shining eyes, her mouth already half-open and her whole body leaning forward, in that unmistakable posture of someone about to let loose a salvo of questions without pause to breathe.

"One moment", I request out loud before she manages to begin.

"First I have to check how it works exactly." And I close my eyes to concentrate better. Focusing on the information I have just received costs me no effort, since the sensation is practically identical to the one I have when I want to retrieve some text from my memory, so I examine it like someone leafing through a book they already know, and the first thing I feel, as soon as I understand the true functioning of the technique, is a pang of disappointment.

Because it turns out that, when I lift something or someone, I do it by grabbing it as a whole. I cannot discriminate, I cannot select a concrete part of a body or of an object and grab only that. Which means that the Darth Vader style, the one of lifting someone by the neck without touching them, is ruled out for the moment. I sigh internally at that loss, but I do not give up, because right afterward I notice the three mental seals that have also appeared in my mind together with the rest of the knowledge.

Three seals, which I suppose are identical to the ones Lianhua had with her techniques and which correspond to the different stages of mastery of the technique. And I deposit my hopes in them, because if Lianhua gained vision in the dark upon advancing in the Vision of Horus, it is not far-fetched to think that what I want, the capacity to grab a part and not the whole, may be waiting for me behind one of those seals. With that consolation, I open my eyes and look at my two spectators.

"In theory I can lift about one hundred Catty", I announce to them. And then my gaze falls on the low chair that rests in the center of the formation, the one I use to cultivate, and I decide that it will be my first guinea pig.

I raise my hand in a deliberately dramatic gesture and feeling again, even more strongly, the remorse of not having put on a black glove for the occasion, I concentrate on gathering the Qi of the surroundings to employ it next just as the technique indicates to me that I should do it, and the chair lifts into the air. Without tremor, without apparent effort, it simply floats a span above the floor as if an invisible hand were holding it in the air.

I cannot contain the smile that rises to my face, and immediately I begin to move it from one side of the room to the other, up and down, in circles, reveling in each movement while a little victorious voice reminds me that I have just fulfilled, at twelve years freshly turned, the dream of millions of people from my former world. And in the background, Xia's muffled exclamations confirm to me that the audience of this world is also more than satisfied.

After a while, however, I return the chair to its place with care to look next at Lianhua, evaluating her, and I discard the idea almost instantly, because it is crystal clear that she weighs more than fifty kilos and, therefore, remains well above what I can lift for the moment. So I turn my head toward Xia, who keeps looking at me with those eyes lit up by what she has just witnessed, and I smile at her.

"Xia", I tell her in an innocent tone.

"Would you like me to lift you like the chair?" Her reaction is instantaneous and absolutely predictable.

"Can you make me fly?" she asks me, and the excitement overflows from her face in a way I find it impossible not to find adorable.

"That is exactly what I want to test", I reply to her. Xia is already positioning herself in the middle of the room, volunteering herself with an enthusiasm that admits no turning back, when Lianhua intervenes.

"Perhaps it would be better to leave that test for when you are more familiar with the technique, Zhāohuán Wen", she tells me with her habitual prudence.

"Don't be a spoilsport", Xia throws at her with a total lack of respect that surprises me, and then she turns toward me.

"Make me fly, Wen." I look at Lianhua and dedicate to her a reassuring smile.

"Don't worry", I tell her.

"To use the technique offensively, to press or crush that which one has grabbed, it has to be done in a completely premeditated manner, it is impossible for it to happen by accident." Lianhua lets out a sigh, of those short and resigned ones she reserves for when she has decided that protesting more would be wasting saliva, and says nothing.

So I turn toward Xia, who keeps standing in the center of the room trembling with pure contained excitement, I make the dramatic gesture with my hand again and concentrate on her. Xia rises into the air, her feet lifting off the floor of polished wood, and as soon as she realizes she is floating she lets out a shriek of pure joy.

"I'm flying!" she shouts, waving her arms.

"Wen, I'm really flying!" Smiling from ear to ear, I begin to move her with care from one side of the room to the other slowly, without jolts, strolling her through the air while she laughs and shrieks as she tries to swim in the air with her hands.

And while I watch her spin suspended over the floor, laughing as only a girl laughs whose impossible dream has just been fulfilled, I cannot help my mind wandering and beginning to think that perhaps, if Anakin had chosen the right path, this would have been the use he would have given to the Force Grip with Luke and Leia.