Data-Driven Daoist

Shu Boyan led them through another corridor, heading again from the bustling temple square towards the inner, quieter courtyards. It was a different direction from where the troupe had practised their play. Fewer temple-goers and more temple-workers crossed their paths.

After several turns and intersections, disciples who were obviously part of a security body started popping up. They had their weapons out and glares levelled at everything, with tokens of the Ritual or Suppressing Demon halls displayed as the first layer of warning. Shu Boyan had to have clearance to come and go as he pleased, but Yu Han and Li Yao didn’t and thus received suspicious gazes.

Is this how Olajuwon felt in Richter’s place? The Nigerian was filthy rich and the American hosted wild parties in a gated Florida community. Johan had always scoffed at Olajuwon’s retelling of prejudiced experiences in the states. How could someone who had so much money possibly face bullying from the poor, right? Olajuwon was what the newer generation called a dick, but at least now, Yu Han could empathise with the guy’s experience with security guards. Maybe that’s why his personality had turned out so nasty.

They entered a winding gallery bordered by gardens so immaculate they looked painted. Disciples in Ritual hall robes tended to the fountains as though performing a ceremony, not gardening.

The flooring was cleaned. Scrubbed spotless and wiped so smooth Yu Han might slip. In some places, vines from the gardens would creep in. A pale mountain sparrow hopped among the vines, its feathers glinting silver-blue. When it pecked, the vine recoiled like a snake, curling back into the garden’s shadow.

The conversation shifted from mortal essences to recent demon hunts. Shu Boyan launched into a story as if stepping onto a stage, of him slaying a tribe of cannibal practitioners in one of the islands.

“It was a moonless night,” he recalled, “and the rain fell like knives. I tracked the flesh-eaters to their mountain hollow under the guise of a travelling peddler. They opened their stone doors, each of them smiling with reddish teeth shadowed by the orange glow of the lantern when they welcomed me in.”

They would give shelter to travellers in mist and the squall, their village located in the deep mountains between two bustling mortal cities.

The price of shelter was the travellers’ meat and blood. But of course, Shu Boyan’s flesh was too tough to chew. The tribe had choked on it and perished.

Yu Han half-listened. The tale sounded rehearsed, too polished. But he didn’t doubt that it was real.

His mind wandered to that night. The night he regained his memories. When that buffalo-mask wearing cultivator had upturned reality as he knew it. The demon dogs, the half-eaten corpse of his niece, sister-in-law, brother, his father and mother. The wet crunching. The stink of incontinence. The fire.

Dad was big on never taking risky matters into his own hands.

He would have called the police before crossing a dangerous street. Johan might have claimed he and his lean bod could have taken on ten guys at once, but more likely he would have also called the sheriff.

The Suppressing Demon hall, they were basically the demon police, weren’t they? Was it Yu Han’s moral duty to let them know of the demon attack?

No. Gong Muhua. Sima Yan. Too many masks, not enough faces.

He didn’t trust the sect. Would the higher ups even care about some mortals dying?

But that was in the past. He met Tan Ruoxuan and Wen Liujie, Elder Chang and now Shu Boyan. Not every noble, every higher-level cultivator was a jerk. Would it be different now? Duan Xiaolong was a sadistic menace, but did not come off as malicious.

From Shu Boyan’s stories, the cultivator did seem to care. If not for mortals, then at least for demons. His tales had a flourish to them, like the creative liberties of a storyteller adapting from book to cinema. How much of his personality itself was accurate, and how much was exaggerated?

Yu Han didn’t trust Shu Boyan. He barely knew the guy. But he trusted Li Yao. Trusted him enough.

Yet he hadn’t even told his closest friends about his family.

Not Huang Niuniu, nor Fang Zhao and, yeah, not Li Yao either. Fei Rui knew, but that’s because the crab cared little for Yu Han’s dream privacy. He was the perfect surveillance tool, wasn’t he? The crab had a talent for dream policing. All that was left was writing a philosophical book about why dream policing was bad and Fei Rui could probably start a crab-religion.

As long as he didn’t hold masses in Yu Han’s dreamscape, he was fine with it.

In rare moments after his dreamscape practice, after he had truly fallen asleep, he would dream of his past. Past life and past memories as both Yu Han and Johan. The crab dreamt with him. Sometimes he’d dream of the good times. The slurping and gulping of ramen in a Tokyo izakaya. Other times he’d have nightmares. Of past lovers and loved ones and them pointing angry fingers and Johan’s face for yet another emotionally inept joke.

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They exited the garden gallery, the covered walkway turned back into an indoor corridor within a three-storey tower. It looked like a four-sided pagoda. On the tiled layer roofs, wooden statues looked in each of the cardinal directions. A crane, a monkey, a fish, and a worm were on the first layer. On the second there was a snake, a dragon, a bird, and a wolf. And finally on the third layer were a bull, a ram, a goat, and a horse.

Shu Boyan pressed his token against a heavy wooden door. A series of latches clicked open, and the door swung inward to reveal a paper sliding door behind it. He pulled it aside and stepped into a room lined with shelves down the centre and cabinets along every wall. A breath of sandalwood and ink hit Yu Han’s nostrils. Glowstones arrayed the ceiling, motes of dust drifting in their light.

After pulling a few scrolls and books at random from the shelves with the ease of a man in his own home, Shu Boyan flipped through them quickly before tossing them to Yu Han and Li Yao.

“That should suffice,” Shu Boyan said. “A travelogue and an autobiography of sorts. Young Li should memorise the divine invocations of the dramatist, for many a play is based on the strange adventures of this senior of the Ritual hall. Junior Yu, since you are so interested in mortal chants, the travelogue should mend your curiosity. It is of a mortal scholar, who roamed the land of Southwest Kingdoms in search of the divine. He recounts the strange tales he heard, of gods and demons and spirits and immortals.”

“Can we take this home?” Yu Han asked, pleasantly surprised. “We aren’t part of the Ritual or Suppressing Demon halls.”

“They are texts of little value, and I suppose it would be helping out the sect Master to spread knowledge,” Shu Boyan gave a thoughtful nod. “But it matters not. You are not the first to look into mortal chants. There was once a senior who fell deep into the rich history of battle drums and war cries. Are you hoping to practise military command? Exorcism? Or perhaps arrays? Ah, arrays it is. Yes, the minute essence leaked out does help in the activation. A bit, a tiny bit. There are better ways, and those I unfortunately cannot share. You do not have an array-writing brush?”

“I have. I’m looking into this out of personal interest,” Yu Han said.

“There is no need to defend your choices,” Shu Boyan said. “All that you experience in life can one day pave new cobblestones in your path to immortality. As long as you do not get unhealthily attached to this direction, waste your prime years not cultivating but trying to find the dao through strange chants, then all is well. Or, I suppose even if you do meander, who knows, maybe you can still make something of yourself? Fate works in strange ways. Who am I to write your story for you?”

“Do we need to return these?” Li Yao asked.

“Good point. Bring back the texts in two weeks’ time. Make copies if you desire, or share them in your boasting at the Barfing Dragon Tavern,” Shu Boyan then pointed to the nearby shelves. “Our sect has hundreds, if not thousands of similar texts on divine invocations mortals use to pray for good fortune and unreciprocated love. There are rituals for the autumn equinox and the day of the parade of a hundred thousand ghosts. Young Li must learn more about this, if one day you want to move the heart of a thousand others with the power of your words and performance.”

“I’m just trying it out you know?” Li Yao said. “I never said I’d join---”

“You will. There is no way you will not,” Shu Boyan gave him the most confident smile he had seen in the past week. “It is set in stone, like how the morning sun feels like a mother’s embrace on your face.”

“Since when were the inner temples of the Ritual hall open to attendants?” The voice came before the figure.

Soft footsteps echoed, and soon a woman entered, her sharp gaze penetrating Shu Boyan but utterly ignoring Yu Han and Li Yao. She was tall, straight-backed, wearing robes of pale blue trimmed in silvery-white. Her ebony-black hair was bound high with a jade-dragon pin, a few loose strands framing a face of regal beauty.

“Why have you brought them inside, Shu Boyan? Having them wait outside should have been plenty.” Her tone was cool, level, and without haste. The faint gleam of a sect emblem rested at her waist, yellow strokes and an unfamiliar character Yu Han had seen the Ritual hall disciples wear.

Nothing in her bearing invited familiarity.

“Junior Fuyu, what a pleasant surprise---”

“We are equals, Shu Boyan. Dispense with your flourishes. Answer my question. No, better to leave directly,” the woman named Fuyu said. “Unless they have permission from the elders to remain. I assume they do not.”

“Have you given thought about my earlier request? The river-demon in Wild Carp Town is a particularly tricky one. We could use the help of a stellar array master, with talents of one such as yourself.”

The woman eyed the two texts Yu Han and Li Yao held. A pressure had descended on the room that perhaps only those two felt. The pressure of foundation building, like that of Duan Xiaolong and Elder Chang. It did not feel oppressive. He could still move and breathe, and perhaps if he desired, he could walk out.

The lady would not care.

Whoever she was, she utterly ignored his and Li Yao’s very existence.

“Do you waste your time writing another play?” The woman named Fuyu said. There was the barest hint of disappointment in her voice. “Why do you concern yourself with mortal matters?”

“It’s a carp demon. The legend of the town is that once it had been caught on a particularly cruel net, one that used metal barbs. It escaped, a hundred ripped scars on its body a constant reminder of the humiliation. Now it terrorises the waters, gulping down fishermen as though they were no bigger than shrimp.”

“This room not only contains frivolous writings, but texts of personal secrets of past greats of the five clans, Shu Boyan. They are not matters of outer disciple standings. I will not repeat myself. If your need has been met, leave. Take them to the archives of the Suppressing Demon hall if you must.”

What the hell are they doing? These two core disciples didn’t know the rules of conversation. Yu Han wanted to give these two a good lecture. There was nothing stopping him. The sheer strangness of the situation had overwritten any fear he should have felt.

Yu Han kept his mouth shut though. He stood very still, clutching the text to his chest. The two core disciples spoke as if he and Li Yao were furniture. Grown-ups talking in riddles, pretending the kid couldn’t hear.

A flush crept up his neck. His jaw locked.

He tightened his grip on the text, unwilling to hand it over.

Mine!