Not a Broken Promise

Two rounds of questions and answers.

His replies grew ever more concise.

Qi WuHuo rose, brought his hands together, and bowed. "Please teach me, old man."

The old man accepted his bow, then reached out to help him up, smiling as he said, "It seems this dream has done you a great deal of good, so I'll accept your bow."

"But I can't teach you what you seek."

"The Great Dao and eternal life are things you must find and seek for yourself. They're not like a teacher in the mortal world instructing a student, able to give you whatever you ask for. Nor are they like a book: you can't simply pick one up, read it, and know everything."

"Our fates are not bound together in that way."

After that, no matter what, he refused to discuss such things any further. Qi WuHuo was not the sort to press his luck or force answers out of someone, so he let the matter drop.

Once the old man had finished eating, he went back to the courtyard to brew tea.

Qi WuHuo closed his eyes and recalled what had happened in the dream.

The events of particular years and months had faded from memory, but a few insights he'd gained after major events still lingered. In the dream, the nations had vied for supremacy, and the Demon Race had been mighty. Yet when he thought carefully, it seemed the human world in the dream had no methods of cultivation. That made little sense. How could mortals wage war against demons?

In the end, it had been a dream. The world within it might have been connected to the world he believed he knew. Qi WuHuo had seen beasts become spirits and transform into demons, so the Demon Kingdom still existed. He knew about the imperial examinations and the books they required, so those had appeared too. But he had never believed in the way of the immortals, so that part of the dream had been especially hazy.

But why had Mountain God Qiong Yu appeared?

Qi WuHuo did not know.

How were the events in the dream connected to the present world?

Qi WuHuo did not know that either.

He simply sat with his eyes closed, his mind at peace, and his breathing long and even.

He seemed to sense the wind passing through the bamboo grove, and the snow melting slowly outside. He could almost hear the wind sweeping across the hills and country paths beyond town for eight hundred li. He seemed to see the Demon Kingdom he'd glimpsed in childhood, the tragedies of the human world, and the wretched seventy years of his own life—how in the end he'd been nothing but a pawn, never truly able to accomplish anything.

Yet if one road was blocked, there was always another.

Slowly, the furrow between Qi WuHuo's brows eased, and his expression grew peaceful.

A spark of spiritual light began to kindle between his brows.

The old man was brewing tea. He raised his eyes, looked over, and nodded slightly.

"His spirit has been cultivated to the point of becoming numinous—about fifty years' worth of spiritual cultivation. And now it can circulate on its own. It seems that even without meeting me, his insight would have led him to cultivation."

"Still, of his essence, energy, and spirit, one is strong and the other two are weak."

"Though he has set his heart on the Dao, there are hidden dangers. This is no good."

"If he's not careful, the City God might snatch him away and make him a Yin spirit."

"Before I leave, I should give him one more opportunity..."

The old man traveled the world, enlightening the people. Qi WuHuo had broken through his mortal heart in a single great dream, and that was enough for the old man. He would not force growth by pulling up the seedlings. Their fated meeting had reached its end, and he had been about to leave.

But he had not expected Qi WuHuo to do even better than he'd anticipated.

Everything Qi WuHuo had done in the dream had been true to his nature.

The kind remained kind; the wicked did not change either. It was a way of seeing one's own nature clearly, of seeing through an entire life. After receiving the cultivation method from the goddess, Qi WuHuo's fifty years of spiritual cultivation were scarcely different from having truly spent fifty years in hard cultivation.

And yet the spiritual cultivation of an ordinary person's fifty years

had been accomplished in a single dream.

No wonder the pillow had shattered outright.

The old man nodded.

Qi WuHuo sat upright, calm and composed, and before he knew it, he had entered a state that was neither dream nor waking. Somehow, his consciousness seemed to rise. He "saw" the area around the Household, "saw" people coming and going beneath the high, clear sky, and then suddenly "saw" a carriage stop outside the alley.

A man climbed down and headed toward his home.

Though the man was at least five hundred paces away, Qi WuHuo saw him at a glance.

"Is that Li Puyü?"

Li Puyü was one of Mr. Su's students.

The Li family was the richest household in town. They had arrived a few years earlier with a fortune worth thousands of gold pieces, and quickly acquired a great deal of property. They had also sent their child to study under a renowned scholar, and wherever he went, he was protected by martial artists. They looked every bit like local strongmen.

Qi WuHuo had never had much to do with them.

But Li Puyü was Mr. Su's student, and he seemed to have come specifically to see him. It would be discourteous not to answer the door, so Qi WuHuo decided to go open it. His mind stirred, and suddenly he seemed to drop, as if he were in a dream and about to get up. His body reacted of its own accord, naturally and without hesitation.

Li Puyü trudged forward, each step sinking into the filthy snow.

"Damn..."

"This road is awful."

This was the outskirts of town, where plenty of people lived and came and went. The dirt road was impossible to sweep clean. When the snow melted, it mixed with the dirt and turned black; then the black sludge mixed with the snow and ice. It was filthy, of course, but more than that, it was hard to walk on.

Li Puyü looked at the black, filthy snow clinging to his shoes, and his eyelid kept twitching.

These boots had been custom-made at Tianzhi Workshop in the prefectural city.

At current prices, ten jin of white flour cost ten qian of silver.

Seven small carts of coal and earth for the winter cost only two qian and one fen of silver.

But this single pair of boots had cost him three taels of silver.

That was as much as a grain-store watchman earned in a whole year!

At a moment like this, he envied the martial artist his household had hired. The man's feet did not sink into the filthy snow, and his shoes and the hem of his clothes remained spotless.

"Phew..."

Li Puyü looked away and breathed out, forcing down his irritation.

He raised his eyes to the run-down house several hundred meters away.

Today, his second uncle had returned from doing business in the Capital City. In a few days, the family would hold a great banquet, but his father wanted to invite this down-and-out fellow who hadn't even managed to get through the teacher's door. Not only did he want to invite him, he wanted Li Puyü himself to come calling.

What was his own status, and what was the status of this poor kid before him?

If they'd sent any servant, the poor kid would probably have bowed and scraped.

And they expected him to come in person?

But his father's authority in the household was absolute. Li Puyü didn't dare disobey. Though he was unhappy, he still came obediently. Those five hundred paces had felt harder than five li on the main road. At last he managed to stop, let out a breath, and found a sheen of sweat on his forehead.

He patted his cheeks, forcing a kind, approachable smile onto his face.

He raised one hand to knock, while the other tugged at the cuff hanging from it.

His fingers had not yet touched the door.

With a creak, the wooden door swung inward, as if the person inside had known he was coming. Li Puyü's fingers just brushed against the door as it opened. In the courtyard, flowering branches stirred in the breeze. Petals mixed with snowflakes and settled on the shoulder of the young man who had opened the door. He wore simple clothes, his black hair was neat, and his calm, star-dark eyes rested quietly on Li Puyü.

He had been waiting a long time.

Li Puyü froze.

It took him a while to come back to himself.

Was this... Qi WuHuo?

For an instant, he seemed to see Master Su. It was like the calm, profound stillness he'd felt years ago, when as a boy he'd first entered the Capital City and gazed up at its towering walls. For a moment, he even felt a little timid; his body seemed to stiffen.

"Brother Li, what brings you here?"

Qi WuHuo spoke.

Only then did Li Puyü remember what he had come to do. He instinctively raised a hand, then stopped and hurriedly clasped his hands in a bow. Stammering, he said, "Senior Brother Qi, my—my father asked me to invite you to our home for a simple meal."

"That's all, just that."

"My uncle has returned from the Capital City too. You could talk with him about the sights and customs there."

Qi WuHuo had meant to politely decline, but at those words, he paused, recalling the Capital City he had seen in his dream. He did not know whether it had been real, and this would be a chance to ask. He stopped himself from refusing and returned the bow.

"...Then I'll trouble you."

Li Puyü let out a huge sigh of relief.

"Ah, no trouble at all. Not the slightest bit."

"If anything, I'm sorry for the trouble, Senior Brother Qi, having come all this way to see you."

Qi WuHuo stepped aside. "Would you like to come in and sit for a while?"

"No, no, I have other things to do."

"I won't trouble you any longer today, Senior Brother."

"Please don't see me off."

"Stay right there, Senior Brother."

"I'll take my leave!"

Li Puyü could hardly bear that inexplicable pressure. He fled in a panic. Just as Qi WuHuo was wondering what had gotten into him, his steps suddenly faltered. His head swam, and he nearly pitched forward.

A gust of wind curled around him and caught him. It spun back and set Qi WuHuo down beside the stone table. The old man, who had been brewing tea, shook his head and said, "You have good aptitude, and even better insight. But letting your [spirit] roam outside your body was far too reckless."

Qi WuHuo's forehead throbbed. "My spirit?"

The old man pointed between his brows and answered plainly, "Just now, you let your spirit roam outside your body, covering the area for several li. That strength came from what you accumulated in the dream, but your body is still weak and can't support such a great expenditure."

"All things possess a spark of true spirit."

"From one comes two: yin and yang, nature and life."

"Nature is the heart and spirit; life is the breath and flesh."

"Wherever the Great Dao lies, it requires the cultivation of both nature and life."

"Right now, your spirit is strong and your body weak. Though you can do things beyond the reach of ordinary people, I still have to warn you."

"If life does not endure, how can nature remain?!"

"Only when your body is strong enough can it sustain your mind and spirit. Otherwise, your spirit may grow so powerful that it drags your flesh down and kills you."

"That is the reason behind the so-called 'Heaven envies the gifted' in the human world. 'Deep feelings shorten life' and 'extreme wisdom brings harm' are much the same. You need to resolve this, or you may not live long."

The old man frowned at Qi WuHuo, then shook his head with a self-mocking smile.

"Never mind. I said I couldn't teach you."

"But I'll pass on one move before I go. That doesn't count as breaking my word."

"It doesn't count as breaking my word."

"Come here."

Second update.

The section on prices was taken from Shen Bang's Miscellaneous Records of Wanshu, written during the Ming dynasty.

The cultivation section was based on the Daoist Southern Lineage's Fifth Patriarch, True Person Bai Yuchan.