Fate Destiny

Dusk was falling when Chu Bai pushed open the wooden door of his home.

The room was dim. A yellow oil lamp stood on a lame-legged square table, its wick crusted with char. Every so often, it gave a soft pop.

"Brother, you're back!"

His seven-year-old sister, Xiao Man, was crouched in a corner playing with little figures she had made from mud. The moment Chu Bai came in, she shot toward him like a tiny cannonball and wrapped her arms around his leg.

Their brother, barely two years old, babbled beside her, trying to join in.

"Go wash your hands. They're covered in mud." Smiling, Chu Bai ruffled Xiao Man's dry, yellowing hair. Then he took out two wild fruits he had picked on the way home and placed one in each small hand.

By the stove, his mother, Li, set the last dish of salted vegetables on the table, along with a basin of brown-rice gruel so thin it reflected their faces.

His father, Chu Xianglin, sat on the threshold. He knocked the pipe he had used for countless years against the sole of his shoe, then looked up at Chu Bai. A faint smile squeezed its way onto his deeply lined face. "You're back? Let's eat."

The family of five sat around the lame-legged table. The only sound was the slurping of thin gruel.

Holding a chipped earthenware bowl, Chu Bai drank in silence. It was only brown rice, but while he was still growing and training his blood and vitality, every grain was precious.

Li watched her eldest son wolf down his food, pain flickering in her eyes. She tipped the few solid grains in her own bowl into his and asked softly, "My boy, these past few days at the academy... have you been keeping up?"

"I have." Chu Bai took another mouthful of gruel, his reply muffled.

Li hesitated. She glanced at her husband, who was smoking with his head down, then back at her son. "You'll be leaving the academy in six months. I was thinking I could ask Auntie Wang next door to find you a match... You're grown now. If you started a family early, we'd have another pair of hands at home."

In Li's eyes, her son had already been blessed by smoke rising from the ancestral graves: he had studied for two years and learned a few characters. As for the elusive path to immortality, it was far too distant. Marrying a wife, having a child, and living a steady life seemed much more real.

"Cough, cough..."

Chu Xianglin, still by the threshold, suddenly coughed twice, cutting Li off.

He tucked his pipe into his belt and said sternly, "What do you know of it, woman? Marry and have children, then scratch a living from the dirt all his life like me?"

Chu Xianglin turned to Chu Bai, stubborn resolve shining through his clouded eyes. "My boy, if you get the chance... you still have to try for the Dao Academy."

"Look at Ergou from Zhao Family Village next door. Didn't he get into the Dao Academy a few years back? Sure, he failed that 'Heavenly Examination' later and never became some grand official, but he still got a job at the county office. Now his whole family's moved into town. They're living off government pay!"

To Chu Xianglin, getting into the Dao Academy was the only chance to change one's fate.

Silence settled over the room.

Chu Bai put down his bowl and chopsticks. Seeing the hope and conflict in his parents' eyes, he sighed inwardly.

After a moment, he finally spoke. "Father, Mother, Tutor Liu asked me to stay behind today."

"Oh?" Chu Xianglin's eyes lit up, and he straightened without realizing it. "What did the tutor say?"

"He said I have a talent for cultivation," Chu Bai said calmly. "With a complete cultivation method, I might reach the first level of Qi Refining within three months."

"Really?!"

Li cried out, nearly dropping her chopsticks onto the table. Chu Xianglin was so excited that his hands trembled, his face flushed red.

"I knew it! I knew a son of mine wasn't born to stay stuck in the mud!" Chu Xianglin sprang to his feet and paced the cramped room.

But Chu Bai's next words fell over that excitement like a bucket of icy water.

"But Tutor Liu charges tuition for the extra lessons... ten taels of silver."

"Ten..."

Chu Xianglin froze midstep. The smile slowly stiffened on his face, leaving him almost blank with shock.

Li drew in a sharp breath. Ten taels? It was an astronomical sum.

The air in the room suddenly grew oppressive. Even his younger brother and sister seemed to sense it and fell quiet.

Chu Xianglin sat back down on the threshold. His hand shook as he reached for his tobacco pouch, and try as he might, he could not light his pipe.

For a long while, the only sound was the click of flint striking steel.

"We've only just finished the spring sowing..." Chu Xianglin's voice was hoarse, as though forced from deep in his throat. "Seeds, that damned spirit fertilizer... they've emptied everything we had. Forget ten taels. We couldn't put together even one right now."

In that moment, the back of the man who had always tried to be the pillar of this family seemed to bend. He felt ashamed. He knew his son had promise, but as his father, he could do nothing.

The sight of his father's hunched back made Chu Bai's heart ache, but he smiled easily. "It's all right, Father. Tutor Liu said it's only a chance. There's no guarantee it would work. I'll keep figuring it out myself. Maybe I'll understand it without spending a coin."

He did not want this burden to crush his family.

The night grew still.

Chu Bai returned to his cramped room and lit a candle stub no longer than a finger.

The yellow flame flickered, casting his shadow against the mud wall, now large, now small.

Instead of going straight to sleep, he sat cross-legged on his hard plank bed, closed his eyes, and went over the key points Tutor Liu had taught that day.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

"Inhale—exhale—"

As his chest and belly rose and fell in a steady rhythm, Chu Bai felt a faint warmth move through his limbs and bones.

The soreness in his muscles ebbed away, replaced by a sense of strength filling them.

That was the physical strengthening brought by the Minor Qi Gathering Technique.

But that was all it could do.

When he finished a full cycle, Chu Bai opened his eyes and shook his head helplessly.

He still could not sense the so-called "qi."

It was like a bottle filled to the brim. No matter how much more water he poured in, it would only spill over. Not another drop could be added.

"As I thought. Without the accompanying mental formula, breathing alone can only take me this far."

At a thought, Chu Bai fixed his gaze on the empty air before him.

The next moment, a pale blue screen visible only to him slowly appeared.

[Name: Chu Bai]

[Realm: Mortal]

[Acquired Fate Pattern: Toil Without End, Labor Without Rest]

(Note: Heaven rewards diligence. Any art practiced day after day is bound to bear fruit, bypassing bottlenecks and coming to fruition in due course.)

[Skills:]

[Minor Qi Gathering Technique (Incomplete): Beginner (100/100)—Maximum reached. Cannot improve further.]

Chu Bai studied the familiar panel, his gaze lingering on the [Acquired Fate Pattern] for a long time.

He had not been born with this panel. It had suddenly awakened half a year ago, after he spent day and night working the fields while secretly learning all he could at the academy and practicing like mad.

At first, it had displayed only his skills. The Fate Destiny had appeared later.

"'Toil Without End, Labor Without Rest'..." A self-mocking smile tugged at Chu Bai's lips. "That does fit a life of endless work like mine."