Data-Driven Daoist

It was a day of gains and losses. He’d broken through the blossoming path mastery level and evolved the same art to the earth grade.

He lost his house.

At least he had his friends.

“We’ll know tomorrow,” Li Yao said. “Haven’t heard of no rookies getting chopped like Tubs did. Gong Muhua’s out and about, frolicking like a butterfly.”

They sat upon the open veranda on simple straw mats. Li Yao leaned back against an old pillar, one foot dangling over the edge, the other tucked close. He did his regular sword maintenance. Water wet the stone as he polished the weapon. The rhythmic rasp of metal on grit filled the air, accompanied by the cold scent of iron rising from the blade.

“I hate that guy,” Huang Niuniu said. “We should plant an explosive talisman in his outhouse!”

“He won’t be missed,” Li Yao nodded. “Knocked Tubs out like a carp. Did it before a festival’s worth of eyes. Not even a wrist slap.”

“They should be called clan enforcers,” Huang Niuniu said. “Not law enforcers.”

“That’s the thing, Cow-Girl.” Li Yao leaned against a pillar of the veranda. “Law’s made of coin. Sect Master’s got the most coin, see? It ain’t a bad thing to trust that he’ll keep his word. Tubs, you’re gonna live here now?”

“I spoke with Senior Wen,” Yu Han said. “It isn’t a problem. What do you mean, trust his word?”

“Orthodoxy, fairness, all that,” Li Yao said.

“I’d expect you to be the most distrustful of all that nice-sounding propaganda,” Yu Han said. He wasn’t usually this negative. But losing his hut was eating him up.

“I would, wouldn’t I?” Li Yao laughed. “Doesn’t do me good though. I’d rather live in a world where the big boys play nice. We’ll know tomorrow. See if Wang Daming gets his due, or the politics win.”

“What happens if politics win?” Huang Niuniu demanded. Her tone was aggressive.

“Commoners only get a slap on their wrists, don’t they?” Li Yao grinned. No one would think it was out of joy. “Tit for that, eye for an eye. We fuck them up.”

“We fuck them up.” Huang Niuniu pumped her fist.

Yu Han’s shoulders dropped, the tension leaving his stiff neck. Li Yao was right. If the thugs would take advantage of the system, what’s stopping them from doing the same?

He asked Fei Rui.

the crab said. He followed up with,

“What he say?” Li Yao asked. Huang Niuniu leaned in.

Yu Han repeated the first part of the crab’s answer word for word.

“He’s right,” Li Yao said. “I’ll ask Senior Shu.”

“I-I’ll ask Senior Feral Spot,” Huang Niuniu said. “D-Do we sleep in one roo---”

“Men and women have different resting quarters,” Yu Han said.

They said goodbye to Li Yao. The boy was worried about Fang Zhao, Yu Han could tell. He had also been more pissed about Wang Daming and the arson than he let on. Did he think Yu Han was his responsibility?

Huang Niuniu stood in front of the door to the women’s resting quarters. She called Yu Han over.

Soft arms wrapped around him and lips touched his earlobes. “You’re mad. I can see your sadness. It’s going to be alright. You have me and Fei Rui. And Li Yao. Fang Zhao and Mistress Miao too. You still have a home. I’m not going to leave.”

Yu Han couldn’t sleep. He dragged a bedroll to the veranda and gazed at the stars.

Home.

The Cadogan House.

An old mansion Johan had bought for cheap from a family in debt. He had spent millions renovating it. It had Japanese robo-toilets and RGB faucets. Was it home? He lived there. The only other people who spent the night were his one-night stands and on-and-off dates.

Dad visited. He’d sold Johan’s childhood home to pay employee salaries.

Johan bought it back after he earned his first pot of real gold.

He didn’t move in though. Because Dad wouldn’t. Mum wasn’t there. His siblings didn’t care. So was there a point?

Yu Family’s River Diner?

It started off as a seafood stall during Yu Han’s great-grandfather’s time. Passed down to son to grandson. Would’ve been his brothers.

His parents were saving money. To buy Yu Han a property when he got married, moved out, started his own life. His elder brother wouldn’t inherited the diner, but they would first starve than let Yu Han suffer.

I’ll get it back, Yu Han touched his face. It was wet. He wiped the tears with the blanket. It’s mine.

His sister, did the money reach her? Her husband was a giant of a man, both in heart and body. Yu Han had been wrong about Jie Tong. Was he wrong about his brother-in-law? If the Sima Clan looked for them, would he hand over his wife or protect her with his life?

They didn’t have a child. This was a savage world.

Old world. Old moral codes. No democracy or human rights.

Wasn’t rare for the rich to have multiple wives and concubines. They could buy one from a brothel if the only thing they wanted was a convenient womb for siring the next generation.

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The money was meant for his sister. He specified it in the letter and the instructions for the familiar.

Would she give it to her husband? What would he do then?

Huang Niuniu joined him. She leaned on his shoulder, then used a blanket to wrap them both up. They exchanged no words.

The sun rose.

“It’s better to register at the truth, ritual, and administration halls,” Wen Liujie said. “They give you a token, benefits, an art, and when the time is due, a medical hall pass.”

“Register what?” Yu Han asked.

“As dao companions,” Wen Liujie said. “If you do it now, and one of you dies, the other gets spirit stones. For whatever reason, one cannot cut the other off from their life without justification and a price. The rituals to do so are complicated and expensive. They will evoke memories and emotions, forcing the dissolving couple to at least try and fix their relationship before severing it. Even with that, a tribunal would be required to finalise. It will give you stability in marriage as official recognition, stable ground under your feet, and stability of mind that the other won’t just leave. They can’t. The ancestors won’t allow it.”

“That’s quite modern,” Yu Han said.

“Perhaps needlessly so, not to mention the expenses,” Wen Liujie said. “When the Sect Master first commissioned the grand formation, it caused an uproar among the disciples. They said it would have been enough to nurture a refined talent to the nascent soul realm. The Sect Master pushed through. The orthodox sects employ similar social benefits. So he would too.”

“Senior Wen doesn’t sound too happy with it,” Huang Niuniu said. Under the blanket, she lightly pinched Yu Han’s index finger. “I bet Senior Tan wouldn’t like it if she heard you.”

Wen Liujie glared at the girl. “Don’t make me take away your occupational skincare benefits---”

“I was wrong!” Huang Niuniu apologised.

“Good that you know,” Wen Liujie huffed. He sighed. “It is not one ancient family, sect, and empire that have been lost to the rage of vengeance, indifference of sorrow, and bite of guilt and heartbreak throughout history. The matters of the heart can sway even immortals. Provably so. Heart demons and inner demons can turn a cultivator into a calamity. I do not disagree with the sect master’s vision. I know from hearsay that every orthodox sect, no matter how weak, has systems in place to ensure that the thread of filial piety from one generation to the next is maintained. But dao companionship is different, no? The sages say that a man and woman are as the sky and the earth, or the sun and the moon. They are the two halves of a single breath, distinct in nature but inseparable in purpose. To put an array in what should be a marriage of purpose is too artificial. Too unorthodox, even for orthodoxy.”

“Is all structure wrong then?” Yu Han argued back. “I see no problem in following rules laid down after generations of observation on what works and what doesn’t. The orthodox sects should have a good reason to not follow what the sages say by the word. It’s a fallacy that just because things are older, they are better. The sages can be wrong, and of course so can we. But I’d rather have contracts in place to protect my rights and protect me from my own greed, than to trust blindly somehow that ‘things will magically work out.’”

“Harsh, though not wrong,” Wen Liujie said. “It is not about structure, but finding the proper place. The role of a man is to be the firmament, the Yang. He is the outer wall, the strength that provides the frame and faces the world’s storms. His virtue is found in his ability to provide stability and protection, to be the unmoving pillar upon which the roof rests.”

“The woman,” he continued, glancing at Niuniu, “is the soil, the Yin. She is the inner sanctum, the deep well of nourishment and the governing spirit of the home. Her virtue is the power of cultivation. She takes the raw resources the man brings and transforms them into life, legacy, and peace. It is not a matter of one being ‘above’ the other, but of right placement. A mountain does not try to be a river, and a river does not try to be a mountain. If the river tries to stand still, it stagnates. If the mountain tries to flow, the world collapses in a landslide.

“This registration ... this officiated and magically sealed contract of dao companionship, or more properly, this accord,” Wen Liujie sighed, “it treats marriage like a business transaction. It assumes that without the threat of a tribunal or the promise of spirit stones, a man would forget his duty to protect, or a woman would forget her power to sustain. It seeks to enforce through law what should be a natural harmony of souls. In the old ways, the bond was held together by the heart’s alignment with the dao, not by a pass to a medical hall.”

“I am so confused right now, Han’er,” Huang Niuniu said. “Does Senior Wen want us to register or not?”

Wen Liujie offered a thin, cryptic smile, unbothered by the contradiction.

“I want you to register,” Wen Liujie said, his voice dropping an octave into a tone of practical certainty. “Because we live in a world of falling mountains. Even if I find the Sect Master’s methods clinical, it is likely that the protection of a contract is better than the vulnerability of a promise. But do not mistake the safety of a cage for the freedom of the sky.”

Yu Han shifted his weight. The talk of “natural harmony” and “pillars” was all well and good, but he’d seen enough of this world to know the harmony was usually tilted.

Ruined homes. Broken friendships. Burnt huts.

“What about the shape of this so called harmony?” Yu Han asked, his voice tired and sleepless. “You say the man is the pillar and the woman is the soil. Does a pillar support only one roof? I’ve seen the lords in Riversong city. Some have a dozen ‘soils’ tending to their legacy. Bastards and all. Is that part of the old sage’s design too?”

Wen Liujie exhaled. The wind swept past, rustling the stray hay sticking out of the bales.

“It is,” Wen Liujie said. “Though perhaps not for the reasons your heart suspects. Consider the nature of the source and the vessel. A single sun can illuminate many valleys, and its light is not diminished by the number of flowers that bloom beneath it. A man, as the Yang, provides the spark, the lineage. He is the active force that initiates. Therefore, it is considered within the natural order for a man to extend his protection to multiple wives or concubines, provided he has the strength to be a pillar for them all.”

He paused, looking directly at Huang Niuniu, then back to Yu Han. “But the earth, the Yin, is the foundation of purity. A single field can only bear the crop of one master at a time. If you pour the waters of ten different rivers into one well, the water becomes muddy. You no longer know which river gave life to the bucket you draw. For a woman to take multiple husbands would be to sever the thread of filial piety. The lineage would be lost in the fog. Chaos would follow, for no man would know his own son, and no son would know which ancestor to burn incense for.”

“So, a man’s straying is just ... weather?” Yu Han’s jaw tightened. “But a woman’s is a calamity?” Johan would love this logic. But Dad loved Mum and only Mum his whole life. Yu Han’s father would die first before taking a concubine.

They had made homes. Not ... whatever it is the sages made.

“Precisely,” Wen Liujie replied, seemingly blind to Yu Han’s growing irritation. “A man who frequents the tea houses or keeps a string of pearls in a side courtyard is merely exercising his nature, provided he does not let his primary roof collapse. It is seen as a vice, perhaps, but not a crime against the heavens. But for a woman? To be promiscuous is to shatter the vessel. She becomes a ‘broken pot.’ No longer a foundation, but a ruin. It is the way of the world, Junior Yu. The law enforcers will look away from your dalliances, but they will sharpen their blades for hers. For thousands of years this has been the case, and the world has been stable in its own cycle of yin and yang. Calamity and rebirth. Do you not hear the rumours in the marketplace? The rise of talents so unnatural in number? The frown of the elders speak volumes, as do the demonic forces hidden in the Great Barrier City. It is now the great age of genius, where prodigies appear like drops of rain in monsoon. The Limitless Era. The Infinite Present. The Great Age. The balance of the world is broken, and only by heeding the words of the sages can we return back to peace.”

Huang Niuniu’s grip on Yu Han’s finger tightened until it hurt. She didn’t look confused anymore. She looked cold.

Yu Han thought of his sister again, and the money he’d sent. In this natural order, her husband was a giant who could protect her, or a man who could legally replace her if she failed to provide a pure heir. The contracts of the Sect Master suddenly felt a lot less like a cold business transaction and a lot more like a shield.

“Will you then take another spouse should Senior Tan fail to ... nurture your legacy?” Huang Niuniu asked.

“I am no sage,” Wen Liujie said. “Nor am I a hero destined to fix this crooked world. I am at peace with my sins. My sun will only have one flower till I dim into the night.”

“A wise choice,” came a voice. Tan Ruoxuan jumped down from the roof. “I was about to turn your yang into yin.”