Shitou

Sixty li north of Holy Soul Village was a place called Green Grain Town. Shitou lived in three earthen houses at the eastern end of town.

For the first month after they returned from Nuoding City, his father told everyone he met that his son had awakened a Martial Soul, and had reached level five Innate Soul Power, too. The villagers congratulated him to his face, but laughed behind his back. "What good is level five? His Martial Soul is a puddle of mud. No matter how high his Innate Soul Power is, won't he still end up farming?" When word reached Shitou's father, the man silently smoked his dry tobacco for half the night. The next day, he shouldered his hoe and went to the fields as usual, but he never boasted about his son in front of others again.

Shitou saw it all.

He began getting up even earlier every day. At the first gray light of dawn, while the town was still shrouded in the mist that came before the roosters crowed, he would run to the barren slope behind his house. Following Ning Buhui's instructions, he ran laps, did squat jumps, then found a crooked tree and did pull-ups.

He released his Slime, which sat limply on a blade of grass like a breathing pool of blue water. It didn't make a fuss, only crawled slowly across the grass in the direction Shitou was running. After the dew soaked it, its body swelled a size larger and glistened.

After training his body, Shitou would sit at the top of the slope, hold the Slime in his hands, and try to "talk" to it with his mind. Ning Buhui had said his Martial Soul was very special, and Shitou had always remembered that. Later, he looked through some materials and learned that ordinary people's Beast Martial Souls couldn't leave their bodies, and he felt that his Slime had a consciousness of its own, that it was a separate individual. He didn't understand what talent meant; he only knew he could sense the Slime's feelings-it trembled slightly when it was happy and curled into a little ball when it felt wronged. So he talked to it every day and raised it like a younger brother, sprinkling a little water on it even at mealtimes.

A month later, he began to get the hang of it.

One day, while he was idling on the slope, he poked the Slime with a finger. It didn't dodge; instead, it crawled up his finger. An idea struck Shitou, and he flung the Slime onto a tree branch. Rather than slide off upon contact, the Slime slowly spread out and wrapped around the branch like a layer of glue. Shitou tugged at it, and it took him a great deal of effort to pull it off. His heart pounded as he tried a few more times, and he gradually discovered that as long as he let the Slime absorb enough water before making a move, it became both tough and sticky. It could briefly coil around a thick wooden stick, and could even envelop a bluestone and slow its roll downhill.

The discovery made him so happy that he ran three full laps around the slope. Finally, he lay faceup in the grass, clutching the Slime and panting.

But when he hurried home to tell his father, the man merely squatted on the threshold, lowered his head and tapped out his pipe bowl. "So can you beat Sanwa now?"

Shitou froze.

Sanwa was the son of the hunter who lived at the entrance to the village. He was half a year older than Shitou, with a wild dog Martial Soul and level three Innate Soul Power. A few months earlier, he was the one who had pushed Shitou to the ground in public and mocked his Slime as "a lump of mud even dogs turn their noses up at."

The next evening, Shitou and Sanwa fought in the clearing at the village entrance.

More precisely, Sanwa pinned Shitou to the ground and beat him up. Sanwa released his wild dog Martial Soul and pounced, clawing and scratching. The little bit of stickiness Shitou's Slime had was useless in the face of overwhelming strength. Three bloody scratches appeared on his face, and the corner of his mouth split. He lay facedown on the ground for a long time, unable to get up. Sanwa straddled his back, patted the back of his head and laughed. "Where's that lump of mud of yours that turns into taffy? Bring it out! Let's see if it can stick my dog claws together!"

Shitou didn't cry. He buried his face in the dirt and dug his fingers into the ground without making a sound. When Sanwa got tired of laughing, he led a bunch of half-grown kids away.

That night, Shitou didn't go home for dinner. He crouched beneath the crooked tree on the barren slope, holding the Slime to his chest like a cold, constantly trembling piece of jelly. The Slime burrowed into his arms, its body shrinking to half its original size, as though it knew he was upset too.

"I wish I hadn't fought him," Shitou whispered.

The Slime stirred but gave no response.

Shitou looked up at the sky. The crescent moon was so thin it looked like someone had stuck a fingernail clipping onto black cloth. He remembered the morning Ning Buhui had left. The fog had been thick, and the boy about his own age had stood on the steps and said, "Go back first and build a solid foundation. Don't rush to prove yourself to anyone." He had quickly agreed at the time, but he hadn't truly understood what "don't rush to prove yourself" meant.

Now, with his face burning with pain, he suddenly understood.

"I was too impatient." Shitou crushed the clod of dirt in his hand. "I shouldn't have fought him. I couldn't beat him, and I embarrassed myself."

He stood, brushed the dirt from his clothes and walked home. The moonlight stretched his shadow long, like a giant standing tall between heaven and earth.

From that day on, Shitou stopped fighting people.

Sanwa and his gang often came to tease him, throwing pebbles at him and calling him "mud legs" and "Slime brat." Shitou neither talked back nor fought back. He only lowered his head and went on his way. Seeing this, the townspeople became even more convinced the boy would never amount to anything. Shitou's father said nothing, but every day after eating, he set his bowl down hard. The sound struck Shitou like a blow to the heart.

Only Deacon Sun came to see him once.

It was one afternoon when Deacon Sun had come from Nuoding City on business and stopped by Green Grain Town along the way. He saw Shitou training alone on the barren slope, with the Slime wrapped around a wooden stick and hanging in midair like a strand of blue snot. Deacon Sun watched for a while, then asked, "You really mean to follow this road all the way into the dark, kid?"

Shitou nodded. "Brother Ning said my Martial Soul is special."

Deacon Sun didn't respond. He merely took an oiled-paper packet from inside his clothes and pressed it into Shitou's hands. It contained a few pieces of dried meat. "Eat. Look how skinny you've gotten." As he was leaving, he turned back and added, "If there's anything you need me to pass on to him, you can find me in Nuoding City."

Shitou stood on the slope for a long time, clutching the dried meat.

Another half month passed. Shitou's father sprained his back while cutting timber in the mountains and was bedridden for more than half a month, leaving all the work at home to Shitou and his mother. Shitou gathered firewood in the mountains and weeded the fields during the day, then changed his father's dressings when he came home at night. His cultivation time was squeezed down to a short stretch in the early morning. He gritted his teeth and started getting up another half a shichen earlier.

During that time, he often ran on the barren slope while reciting the words Ning Buhui had taught him. "Don't keep thinking about how to bite someone else to death in one mouthful. First think about how to keep them from beating you to death." He knew the words by heart, and his steps grew steadier with each passing day. But reciting them was one thing; reality was another. His family was so poor they could barely put food in the pot, and his father grimaced in pain even turning over in bed. Every day, Shitou was so exhausted he fell asleep the moment his head hit the pillow. How could he have the mind to meditate? The Slime was listless too, huddled in a corner like a lump of dried glue.

That evening, Shitou crouched by the stove, heating water. The firelight shone red on the old wounds on his face. His mother sat beside him, sorting vegetables, and suddenly said, "Why not stop training? You'll be seven next year. Learn a trade in town. It's better than being a Soul Master."

Shitou said nothing.

"Your father's body is like this. He won't be able to do heavy work anymore. No matter how long you train, can you eat it?" His mother snapped off a vegetable root, her voice full of weariness.

The water boiled. Steam rushed up and stung Shitou's eyes. He stuffed a handful of firewood into the stove and said softly, "Mother, give me two more years. If I still can't do it in two years, I'll learn carpentry."

His mother said no more, only sighed.

In the latter half of the night, Shitou tossed and turned, unable to sleep. Finally, he put on his clothes and got up, fished a pencil stub and a wrinkled sheet of rough paper from beneath the bed, and leaned by the window to write. He wrote in large characters, their horizontal and vertical strokes crooked. Whenever he didn't know how to write a character, he left a space. Moonlight shone on the paper, casting its light on his small, thin hand holding the pencil.

In the letter, he wrote: Hello, Brother Ning Buhui. I'm Shitou. I train every day the way you told me to. The Slime can wrap around a tree branch now, and it can stick to wood, but I got into a fight with Sanwa and didn't win. He pinned me to the ground and beat me. I really couldn't beat him. My father sprained his back, and my family has no money. My mother wants me to learn carpentry next year. I don't know what to do now. Am I really not suited to being a Soul Master? I feel very lost right now. Brother Ning, do you really think the Slime can do it? Shitou.

Early the next morning, he tucked the letter into his clothes and walked twenty li to the entrance of the Spirit Hall in Nuoding City, where he handed it to Deacon Sun. After reading it, Deacon Sun only patted his head and said, "Go home and wait."

The letter spent five days on the road. By the time it reached Ning Buhui, it was late at night.

Ning Buhui had just finished cultivating and was sitting at the table in his quiet room. He opened the letter by the light of an oil lamp and read it word by word, then went back and read it again. There weren't many characters, and Shitou had squeezed them crookedly onto the paper like a swarm of freezing ants. Ning Buhui pictured the boy leaning by the window to write them, and it was as though something had gently touched his heart.

He folded the letter and put it away, then spread out a sheet of paper, picked up his brush and wrote only a few sentences:

"If you can't beat him, don't fight him. If people laugh at you, don't listen or look. You haven't taken the wrong path. Keep letting the Slime absorb water and become sticky and tough. When your Soul Power reaches level 10, or after two years, come to Spirit City. I'll teach you some new things. Don't become a carpenter."

Signed: Ning Buhui.

He folded the letter, thought for a moment, then slipped ten Gold Soul Coins into the envelope. It wasn't much, but it was enough for Shitou's family to buy several months' worth of grain, so he wouldn't have to worry about food for the time being.

After sending the letter off, Ning Buhui pushed open the window. The night wind rushed in, making the oil lamp flicker. He looked in the direction of Nuoding City, as though he could see through hundreds of li of darkness to the short, stubborn figure on the barren slope.

"Shitou," he murmured. "Don't let me down."