Chương 12: Liuhe Completion

The talismans themselves were small rectangular strips of yellow paper with ink characters Lin Che couldn't read. It wasn't that he was illiterate, to the best of his knowledge, but more that looking at the words gave him a minor headache which wasn't worth the hassle of fighting to read a couple of lines. Shen Yue had written them in her study with a brush she'd produced from one of the drawers in her desk, and he was to fold a talisman and tuck it in his wallet every morning before work.

He'd asked how they worked, but she didn't elaborate much.

"They mask the signature slightly," she said.

"Not by much, but more than enough for your current output and then some." He'd taken the talismans and put one in his wallet and thought no more about it. That had been on Tuesday. By Friday, he had got used to this routine of grabbing a talisman from the study before work so that he could passively circulate on the metro and in the office. He circulated through morning briefings and data validation tasks, and throughout lunch at his desk.

Pang Wei had even commented twice this week that Lin Che seemed much calmer. He didn't think he had a reputation for being irritable, but that must have been the implication there. Lin Che simply said that he was trying a new herbal tea to help get him through the long days, to which Pang Wei promptly asked for a brand name, causing Lin Che to scurry away from that conversation as soon as possible.

His sticking point was still the fourth harmony: he could hold the passive circulation for much longer stretches now — stretches of twenty, thirty seconds before the awareness collapsed back into attention, but the transition was still effortful rather than natural. He understood, in abstract, what the man in the video had meant about it accumulating on its own, and he was simply not yet at the point where it had accumulated sufficiently.

He had assumed he would have been over the fourth harmony by now, as passive circulation was intended to be one of the outcomes of achieving it, but that wasn't the case for him. Just thinking about actively acting passively without noticing it did his head in — it was utter contradiction, after all.

On Saturday morning, Shen Yue knocked twice on his bedroom door at nine and told him to get dressed. He came out to find her already in her coat, bag over her shoulder, and keys in hand.

"Pharmacy," she said.

"I need to pick up something, and Hu Baolin should take a look at where you are with the method."

"I was going to practice this morning."

"You can practice after," she said, shooting him down, whilst simultaneously producing a talisman from her bag and sticking it on Lin Che's forehead.

"We're leaving."

The bell above the pharmacy door rang as the couple entered. Hu Baolin was, naturally, behind the counter, frozen in that position as he tended to be. In each and every loop, he appeared in the same place and posture, which, given how time loops tend to work, was not surprising whatsoever. Still, to Lin Che, he always imagined Hu Baolin as you would a video game merchant with the same voice lines and actions always found in the same location regardless of time of day.

"Miss Shen," greeted Hu Baolin.

"And Mr Lin, as well." Hu Baolin immediately jumped out of his seat, clearly glad he was free from his boredom, and moved to one corner of the room to place various herbs in a paper bag. He then walked over to Shen Yue, completely disregarding her husband, and placed it in her hands.

"Already paid for."

"Thank you," said Shen Yue, eyes scanning the various herbs scattered around the room.

"I have one more request, if you will."

"Certainly, anything for Miss Shen," he grinned back, his pupils transforming into dollar signs.

"My husband here has been practising the Liuhe method, but the fourth harmony is giving him some resistance," she said.

"I thought you might be able to help with the bottleneck." Hu Baolin studied Lin Che for a moment and scratched his chin. Shen Yue reached her hands in Lin Che's pocket and took his wallet, causing Hu Baolin's eyes to light up in understanding.

"Come here," he said, and gestured for Lin Che to approach the counter. Lin Che came forward, and Hu Baolin reached across and placed two fingers at the inside of his wrist, the way you'd take the radial pulse, except he was feeling for something else.

"Your consolidation points are all open," Hu Baolin said, half interested.

"Third harmony is clean." He was quiet for a moment.

"How long have you been practising?"

"Since last Saturday," said Lin Che. Hu Baolin removed his fingers and looked at Shen Yue.

"One week?"

"I know," she said.

"Third harmony in one week."

"I know," she said again. Hu Baolin looked back at Lin Che with an expression that turned more into an assessment, and this time with complete interest.

"You must have made significant progress into the fourth harmony," he began.

"Since you were that fool broadcasting his Qi signature for the world to see on Monday… I assumed it was a newcomer without backing." Lin Che chose not to confirm or deny this.

"It was him," said Shen Yue. Hu Baolin exhaled through his nose in slight laughter.

"Well," he said, "at least the signature is accounted for. There were one or two people who noticed it, but nothing that should concern you."

"Who?" asked Shen Yue before Lin Che could chime into the conversation that was all about him.

"Old Wen mentioned it, but no one is really concerned about a low stage Qi signature. You don't need a beware of dog sign for a home with a pug, after all." He paused.

"Still, an unaffiliated signature in this district is the kind of thing that raises questions. Particularly at the moment."

"He's affiliated," said Shen Yue.

"He's family."

"I know that, and you know that, but the question is: who else knows?" A pause.

"I have a suggestion," said Hu Baolin.

The suggestion, as it turned out, was the pharmacy.

"Weekends," Hu Baolin said.

"A few hours, and nothing particularly demanding. Heaven knows I need a hand with organisation and the odd delivery. The point is to have presence: if you're here, you're known. People who come through this shop are the people who matter in this district, so you'll become a familiar face." Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon. Lin Che opened his mouth—"He has a job," said Shen Yue.

"Weekends," Hu Baolin repeated.

"I'm not asking for the week." Lin Che had been following this conversation with the feeling of someone watching two people negotiate the terms of a lease on a property he was currently living in.

"I don't mind," he eventually managed to get in. Both of them looked at him.

"I mean, if it helps. I'd like to learn more about it anyway, you know, how the cultivation world works." Hu Baolin and Shen Yue exchanged a glance of understanding as the deal between the two of them came to a close.

"Good," he said, as he picked up a small brown bottle from the shelf behind him. He set it on the counter directly in front of Lin Che.

"For the bottleneck: three drops in warm water this evening before you practice. Don't take more than three."

"What does it do?" asked Lin Che.

"It relaxes the threshold between active and passive awareness. If you use any more than three drops, it'll act as a tranquiliser, so don't do that. Or do it; I'm not your doctor. Regardless, you've been trying to let go of the attention and this makes the letting go easier." He slid the bottle across the counter.

"It wears off in a few hours, so don't get dependent on it, and don't get addicted either. Think of it as training wheels."

"How much—""A gift," said Hu Baolin, already moving back into his original position.

"Consider it a welcome to the neighbourhood."

They walked home with the prescription bag and the brown bottle. The morning was cool and bright and the slow rise of the weekend meant the streets were not too busy with people.

"So who is Old Wen?" asked Lin Che.

"She has a bookshop a couple of streets down." Shen Yue's hands were in her pockets.

"And no, before you ask, they are regular books. She likes to read."

"And the others he mentioned?"

"Probably not a problem." Lin Che looked at her.

"The talisman covers it," she said.

"And, after tonight, you should be far enough along that you will naturally understand the sealing technique."

"You think I'll finish tonight?" Shen Yue simply shrugged.

He took three drops in warm water sat at the kitchen table whilst Shen Yue watched with the eyes of a lab supervisor — she was present but in her own world. The liquid was faintly bitter and then immediately not bitter, which was a much welcome change in flavour compared with the elixir he'd repeatedly consumed previously. Lin Che went to the office and lit the replacement candle Shen Yue had placed on the mat. He sat down beside it, behind him Shen Yue in the chair by the desk.

"Whenever you're ready," she said. He closed his eyes. The difference was immediate and strange. The circulation came up as it always did, and he moved through the first and second harmonies into the third with more cohesion than expected. When the loop was stable, he tried, as he had been trying all week, to let his attention move away from it. It went. The circulation kept running.

He sat very still for a moment, certain he'd imagined it, but the Qi was there, moving in its loop, and he didn't have to focus to know the exact position of each wisp of energy within. It was, as expected, extremely similar to his passive circulation, only with much greater resolution and granularity in his understanding of where exactly his Qi was within his body. He couldn't let the momentum die.

He moved through the fourth harmony and into the fifth — the intention as a single thing rather than a sequence, and the whole path willed at once. It didn't come immediately, but it came sooner than he expected, and the Qi moved not as steps but as one continuous directed thing, start to finish, as naturally as writing his own name. Then, he found the sixth harmony, and noticed at exactly which points his Qi wavered or slowed and by how much.

He noticed that when his concentration was divided, the root gate was the first thing to become inconsistent, and gained some understanding in the quality of what his Qi was. Lin Che couldn't be certain what his Qi quality was, since he had no words for it nor point of reference, but he was sure that that was what he had peered into. He opened his eyes.

"All six?" said Shen Yue.

"I think so." She was quiet for a moment, figuring out how best to phrase her thoughts.

"You should do something to celebrate," she said, eventually.

"Take the rest of the night. I'll go through the records and figure out your next steps." Lin Che looked at her.

"Where are you going?"

"Rooftop. I haven't had a proper session in a few days." He nodded slowly.

"I'll have something set up when you come back down." She didn't ask what he meant and simply left the room. Lin Che heard the front door open and then the stairwell door, and then nothing. He blew out the candle in front of him and went directly to the living room.

Lin Che ordered from the place near the metro — pizza, a couple of portions of excessively loaded fries, and a small selection of snacks and drinks suggested by the app, and justified the amount of food as "enough for leftovers". Whilst he waited, he arranged the sofa cushions into something more comfortable for two people, sort of like a child's pillow fort, and found the electric blanket Shen Yue kept folded on the second shelf.

He arranged it on the side of the sofa with the control at the near end so that she could reach it without adjusting. Once the food arrived, he put the fries on the coffee table alongside the two pizzas he ordered: one painted with meat, and a "healthier" option with fried vegetables and mushrooms. He dimmed the lights to a level that required more experimentation and fiddling than he'd like to admit, and found the documentary he'd been meaning to show his wife a couple of deaths ago.

dinner's ready One minute later, the front door opened, and Shen Yue came in and stopped at the doorway of the living room. She looked at the blanket and the coffee table for a brief moment, before taking off her coat and hanging it by the front door. She sat on her side of the sofa and pulled the blanket over her lap without saying anything, and reached forward to grab one of the bowls containing fries.

"Blue Planet," she said.

"Blue Planet," he confirmed, and pressed play.

"That's not a real jellyfish," she complained partway through the documentary as it focussed on the Portuguese man o' war.

"It's so freakish-looking. Nothing like the elegance of a proper jellyfish," he agreed, remembering that they had not visited the aquarium this loop round. Now would be the best time to ask her out there again— The credits rolled.

"I've found three directions," she said, instantly going back into cultivator mode.

"Depending on what you want to build towards."

"What are they?"

"The first is internal arts, so refining the Qi itself, which is the foundation for more advanced techniques and for longevity practice. It's slower to show results, but everything else benefits from it." She scrolled down on her phone.

"The second is external arts, which is more direct application of force, usually as physical reinforcement, but you could also project your Qi outwards. It's the fastest to show results, and more relevant if your priority is immediate defensive capability."

"And the third?"

"Mobility arts," she said.

"Movement techniques, but I'd advise against them. We don't have much space for you to practice them, and I know for a fact you would use them to catch the train when you're running late for work."

"I so wouldn't." The documentary credits shifted to a bright scene of the ocean, casting a low blue light across the room.

"Can I have until tomorrow to decide?" he asked. Shen Yue placed her phone face down on the sofa.

"Yes," she said.

"But, Lin Che." He looked at her.

"Think carefully about which you choose. Each one of these changes what the next year of training looks like, and, whichever you pick," she reached for the light switch and the room immediately brightened.

"I'll hold you to it."