Sky Pride

Chapter 18- The Preparations of a Frugal Daoist

Burning Heaven came with all her usual tact in the middle of dinner. Tian and Hong had brought dinner over to the Wangs, who, despite having four people on hand, seemed entirely overwhelmed by two babies. The babies were oppressively loud, smelly, demanding, and in his most hidden heart, Tian thought they looked kind of ugly. It was their scrunched up baby faces. They would stretch and inflate into normal human faces in time, he knew, and everyone goes through that unfortunate phase. It was just that it was a bit awkward to look at right now.

“He said that your extremely generous, unique in the wasteland, never to be repeated opportunity was coming soon, and wanted to remind you that if you didn’t bring enough supplies, there would be no one to cry to. Then I asked him what counted as enough supplies and supplies of what, and he said that was in the hands of fate and that one should measure with their heart. Which seems true, but I don’t trust the tone of his voice. Also he said I can come along if I want, but I need to be very careful about how I respond to that tall boy you found.”

That got a lot of blinks from around the table in the courtyard. She had landed in the middle of it, carefully avoiding the dishes as only a cultivating bird could, and deftly snagging a choice bite of fish before making her announcement.

“Hi to you too, Sister Burning Heaven.” Brother Wang’s cheek twitched.

“Does this kind of thing happen to them often, Sis’ Su?” Ming asked, idly rocking the cradle set next to her stool.

“Yes.” Su nodded, her own hand rocking an identical cradle with the identical cadence. “Brother Tian was notorious for having the most absurd fortuitous encounters in the Outer Court, and Sister Hong seemed to get dragged along behind him for half of them. Of course, the percentage is closer to a hundred percent now.”

“I would have thought they would settle down a bit. They just got back.” Ming glanced over at the two two with a teasing smile.

“Ah? Going away again? Impossible. I was sure Sis’ Hong would be pregnant by now. Lil’ Tian, didn’t you use the fan I gave you?” Mei’s wide eyes batted innocently at him, fooling no one.

“Sis’ is pregnant? I’ve seen Brother using a fan all the time!” Burning Heaven hopped into the air in surprise, nearly knocking over dinner. It seemed Mei had fooled at least one.

Dinner devolved into laughing chaos after that, with shouting, accusations and toasts made in equal parts malice and mirth. Then the babies woke up, and then that was all anyone could pay attention to. Even Tian and Liren got pulled into calming them. They had no choice. The Wangs were very clear. Little Wang Sheng and Wang Lingqi needed strong godparents with good hearts, and they could think of no one better than Tian and Hong.

“Besides, this is all your fault if you think about it. So take responsibility.” Brother Wang’s hand settled companionably, then increasingly firmly, on Tian’s shoulder. “My wives said it to me, and at long last, now I’m saying it to you. Or as Sis’ Su put it, ‘If you try to run, you will only die tired.’”

Tian and Burning Heaven had been absolute menaces to the edible and medicinal vegetation around the middle parts of the mountain. Carefully following the sustainable harvesting practices that had been etched into his bones by Senior Brother Wong way back in West Town Temple, Tian made sure their vegetable pantry would be overflowing with quality ingredients. In a fit of enlightened madness, he started carrying around planting boxes, carefully transplanting shrubs, bushes, even small trees. Then they went into the storage ring Voidcatcher gave him.

The ring was a treasure for alchemists and doctors, keeping plants alive almost indefinitely without water, fresh air or sun. It wouldn’t grow the plants for him, but it would let him keep them in perfect condition. He could just take the plants out and give them some sun, letting them grow as he traveled. They might not be Heavenly Realm ingredients, but they were all Earthly, and with his presence, care, and a qi gathering array, who could say what might happen?

“The only thing that’s missing is rice. I can’t bring rice paddies with me,” he complained to Brother Wang.

“There are supposed to be spirit rice fields opening up, but they have been saying that for two years now. None of the Heavenly People want to do it, and the fields run by the Earthly brothers and sisters are not the best I have ever seen. I keep thinking there is a market to capture there, but that would mean I’d have to take up rice farming, and why the hell are we cultivating immortality if not to avoid being peasants?” Wang ostentatiously polished the wooden ring on his finger. It broke. It had been a very thin ring.

“Ah! My treasure!”

“Be strong, brother!” Tian clasped his shoulder. “Be strong for the children!”

“But it was such a fine piece. Where can I find another like it?”

“On a heavily wooded mountain? Trust in the heavens to provide, and if no fortune comes, there is always the next life. Speaking of preparation, how is my special order? The one made of wood, I mean. I already have all the others.”

“Sister Ming knocked ‘em out in about five minutes. She said that you can give her an extra dumpling the next time we have dinner together to pay for the labor. No charge for the materials. Brother, I have to ask, you have some truly spectacular robes as a Direct Disciple. Crafter Ding hit the mark perfectly, you look like a banished celestial wearing them. He repaired those gold mermaid silk robes of yours too.”

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Tian nodded. Crafter Ding had also significantly improved them and removed a few things that “Aren’t sabotage, you understand, but points where, if you knew they were there and hit them just right, you would punch clean through the robe’s protection.”

Ding had chosen his words carefully. Tian had thanked him profusely while silently renewing his vow to collect Sweetdove’s thumbs at the first opportunity.

“Those are underrobes, soft armor. Not suitable to wear as an exterior layer.”

“Sure, sure, someone somewhere will believe you when you say that. My point is, even for one so progressed on the Dao of the Brokie, this seems a bit…”

“Thieves are everywhere. If I get robbed of my treasures, who should I complain to? Better to look like someone a kindly bandit might offer a meal to.”

“Doesn’t Sis Liren hate bandits almost as much as you hate heretics?”

“I’m sure she hates them more.”

“No, I don’t think that’s possible.” Wang shook his head. “You said that the only thing more satisfying to reduce to a red smear under your hand than a mosquito was a heretic. You said it during dinner, and you said it to the kids. I nearly choked on my meatball.”

“Did I lie? Better they start young. My brothers always said I came to the heretic killing a bit late, and I have regretted it. In any case, I’ll put Sister Ming’s hard work to good use.”

When the day finally came, they left without ceremony. They had already said their goodbyes, and didn’t want a fuss. The Disciplinary Squad did raise a fuss about their new squad leader suddenly vanishing for a year or however long it took, but she simply smiled and asked for a volunteer deputy head to do the work while she was away. Strangely enough, no one volunteered. The matter was quietly dropped.

Tian didn’t have even that much of a fuss with the doctors. When he had gone, months before, to see Doctor Pei about picking up some shifts, the doctor had just stared at him, then waved at the few convalescents lingering in the hospital. By Tian’s estimate, the doctor to patient ratio was approaching two to one. He still came by to visit, but he dropped any lingering delusions of practicing. He had made a polite goodby to his friends and regulars on his tea circuit, promised to collect any medicinal herbs, pills, books, bandages, bedding or anything that might by any conceivable stretch be considered a medical supply, and departed in peace.

Burning Heaven carried them up to Voidcatcher’s pond, where Heavenly Demon was waiting. In the span of a year, the tall man had become even more lustrous, the air faintly singing with power around him. His whole demeanor was elevated by at least one level, embodying his name- Heavenly Demon. A superior being, descended from the stars.

It was really quite satisfying watching his face crumple when they arrived.

Tian had asked Cruel Treachery whether she knew anything about the Stellar Descent Cult or Heavenly Demon. It was one of the rare times she expressed a visible emotion in the form of a dramatic sigh.

“Oh those… people. I know a little about them. Everyone in the Northern Expanse does. They are a top twenty military and economic power in the region. And before you say something foolish, the entirety of the Wasteland of Song would fit comfortably within the borders of the Northern Expanse, without crowding anything important. Technically, we are part of it, but everyone in the rest of the Expanse does their very best to forget we exist as one might willfully forget a particularly stupid, particularly impoverished, second cousin living deep in the mountains, far, far away.”

“None of our Kingdom Dominating Sects make the top twenty?” Liren asked.

“We don’t make the top hundred, and wouldn’t even if you counted us all as one group.” She snorted lightly. “The former Sectmaster likes to boast that he has ‘some little fame’ in the Northern Expanse, but it’s like a moderately successful hunter leaving the village and going to the Capital, then coming back and saying that everyone in the Capital knows his name.”

“So the cult is massively powerful?” Tian asked.

“By our standards? Incomparably powerful, and rich in a way you do not have any context for. The power they use is quite different from our daoist practice, so comparisons can be a bit tricky.”

“Well, where would someone like Heavenly Demon rank?” Liren asked.

“We don’t really have an equivalent position. Hierarchically, he could be considered something between an Inner Court disciple and a Core Disciple, working to become a Direct Disciple, with the understanding that, unless he stumbles along the way, he will almost certainly be the equivalent of an elder one day, and an eventual candidate for… we don’t have a word for it. They call it a transcendent. Someone so powerful, they quite literally, bodily, leave the world and venture out into the stars. A celestial immortal, is how I usually think of it.”

“Is that something that can really happen?” Tian was skeptical.

“They say it can, and since all the top organizations in the Northern Expanse say the same about their own hierarchies, including the Daoist ones, it’s very likely.”

“What kind of magic do they use, then? He said something about aura?”

“I don’t know. I always kept far away from them. They walk a bloody road. I will say that while the cities they rule aren’t nice, they aren’t awful either. The mortals do fairly well, and visiting cultivators or the equivalent can trade or rest with a bit of care. By all accounts, they don’t attack first, but are masters of provoking people into doing things that ultimately get them killed.”

“Like manipulating their greed, or their lust, wrath, envy, desire for advancement or power…” Tian started rapidly connecting the dots in his head.

“Exactly. I don’t understand the mechanism, but apparently their magics give them immense power over such provoked people. Be very careful, you two. Be very careful indeed. Anyone with the title of ‘Heavenly Demon’ will have received it standing on the top of thousands of corpses, many who would have been peers or friends, or family.” Her eyelids drifted down, like white clouds covering the blue of a summer day. “It is a warning. Heed it.”

“Grandpa?”

She isn’t wrong. About the fact they can transcend the world, as can other factions. In the broader world, that would be considered the minimum requirement to be a regional power. It’s too far away from you now, just be aware that it exists.

“And ‘Aura?’”

“Costs too much to explain, but you have most of the clues you need to know how to deal with him. Just keep on how you have been. Two people, sincerely devoted to each other, who can appreciate fine things without lusting for them and with excellent control of their tempers, are practically his bane.”

Which was why they met Heavenly Demon wearing the same old dusty traveling robes, and at Tian’s insistence, pins made of unpolished, unvarnished wood with the characters “Direct Disciple” hastily carved onto them. They were also, as was their custom, bickering.