Journey to the East 30

“I will find the Way for us to burn gloriously as we once did, without consuming our whole selves. Let Yanmei lead the clan. Let the Grave sit surrounded by our armies. I only know I feel most alive with the wind in my hair, speeding across the dunes on horseback, seeing our people cheer at my approach. That is what I want, to be glorious, to be celebrated, to see our lands safe and our enemies crushed. I cannot do that without climbing the peak, and I refuse to lose that, to become a mere forge flame..”

Gu Xiulan picked her words with deliberation.

It was the truth she had found on campaign. Why she was certain her cultivation had begun to race so freely.  She had found it out there on Refeng’s back, in the thunder of her outriders' hooves, following her into battle. The mere thought of releasing the men she had taken and forged through the heat of this year's battles to another's command made her want to grind her teeth, for all that she’d thought nothing of a bunch of common if elite soldiers at the start.

Her Mother squeezed her eyes shut, lips pressed together in a thin line. The silence that fell following her words stretching on, tense and cold.

“How can you have changed so much and so little?”

Gu Xiulan did not respond to her Mother’s harsh whisper.

“You could so easily have glory, have adulation. I taught you how to take that for yourself. I taught you to make yourself the object of envy, of admiration, of wrath or desire, whatever feeling you might will from your audience. But no. You simply must earn it in blood and dust,” Ai Xiaoli said tiredly. The rippling haze in the air stilled and sunk. “I cannot understand this.”

“...I do treasure your lessons, Mother. The poise you taught me, the lessons on reading people, understanding and eliciting what makes them act. I use them every day,” Gu Xiulan said quietly. “Just not in the ballrooms you intended.”

Ai Xiaoli did not respond for some time. Gu Xiulan drank her tea and did not speak either. She had prepared herself for this, if… if Mother found her path unacceptable. So be it. She would be a filial daughter in every way she could, but she would not step from her Way, not now. For all its downsides, the social uncertainty, this confrontation, the danger and fear and pain.

She was resolved.

“There are no words I can speak which would change your will,” Ai Xiaoli said. Her voice was cold and matter of fact. “No, that is a lie. Should I put my will and Law behind my voice, I could. You love me yet, you crave my approval, even more than you crave the adulation of strangers, and with that, I could break your will and bring you back to a safer path, for all that you would never reach a higher realm. You would even thank me for it in the end.”

Gu Xiulan looked at her mother with trepidation. It was not something to be brought up in polite company just how much power a high realm cultivator could have in that way.

“I have seen it done. My own mother certainly corrected our behavior enough times,” Ai Xiaoli said casually. “Though that does show how imperfect such things are.”

Gu Xiulan shook her head slightly. She had felt a cold fear spreading through her gut, a knot of tension that released now, after only a moment’s thought. “You would not do that to me, Mother. You would not do that to any of us. Father would not have fallen in love with such a woman.”

Mother’s eyes drifted half shut. “No. I suppose he would not. I am not proud Xiulan. You infuriate me with this choice. But…

You too are happy.”

“I am. I do not want to go back to the way things were,” Xiulan replied firmly.

“So be it,” Ai Xiaoli said sadly. “I will resign myself to losing a daughter.”

Gu Xiulan’s shoulders shook and the tabletop smoldered under her fingers. “Could you not at least pretend you believe in me Mother.”

“Do you prefer that?” Mother asked, looking at her with tired eyes. 

Mother could very well make her believe whatever face she wished to present. They had just spoken of it after all. Would she prefer to be wrapped in a pretty lie? Gu Xiulan clenched her hands hard enough for her fingernails to bite into her palms.

She could now recognize what mother was doing. For a woman like her, of veils and intrigue and convincing words, this bluntness, these harsh words… were their own form of respect. Even if they stung her badly.

“No.”

The wind kicked up rustling the curtains which cut off the balcony from the interior as they both sat in silence.

“I will prove you wrong,” Gu Xiulan said. “Maybe the battlefield will take me someday. But I will not end in the forges. I swear that.”

“As if that is the only end I fear,” Ai Xiaoli sighed. “Let it be so. I cannot support what you have chosen, but I do love you, my daughter. If nothing else, do not forget that.”

But things would not be the same. There was a rift between them, and Xiulan could not cross it, not yet. Nor it seemed, could her Mother.

But rift or no, they were not gone from each other's minds at least.

“I understand Mother. I say it again. I treasure what you have taught me, and I love you as well,” Gu Xiulan replied quietly.

“I do not doubt that,” Mother answered. “No, that is the reason why we may both cause each other such pain.”

Gu Xiulan bowed her head in acknowledgement.

A benefit of their home, Gu Xiulan thought, toying with her cup, was that one's tea never grew cold.

“Do you intend to wear that shade around your eyes to the merit ceremony?” Mother asked.

Gu Xiulan blinked, raising her head and her hand almost touching her own face. “I… yes. I do not think many of the Father’s generals like it, but I do not need to look like I’m on the road while we are back home.”

“I am certain you will make the men grumble,” Ai Xiaoli said crisply, studying her face. “It is too soft, you want something which will make your eyes more intense. If you want to be respected in that sphere while keeping womanly habits, you must be more domineering.”

Gu Xiulan pursed her lips, uncertain. “...I already feel as if I intimidate my peers a bit too much. The young men at Baron Song’s feast had trouble keeping my eyes. I thought I would…”

“A man who needs a woman to study his feet to feel confidence is not worth your time,” Mother said. “You have narrowed your pool of suitors significantly by your choices. If you wish to be a warrior, then be fierce, the sort who will be attracted to your Way will not be driven away.”

Gu Xiulan let out a soft laugh. “...I am being a little ridiculous aren’t I? I was willing to confront you, but here I am still trying to soften my face…”

Blasted monkey, she did not have a villainous face.

“Inconsistency is something you will only lose much higher upon the way,” Ai Xiaoli said quietly. 

“I see,” Gu Xiulan said, tracing her finger around the rim of her cup. “...Would you still aid me in looking my best for the ceremony, Mother?”

“It seems I have time,” Mother replied.