Tales of Sun and Steel 4

“You should have been harsher in your reprimands.”

Mother’s voice was cool and quiet, every syllable measured to express  a disappointment deep enough to drown in. Yet, Gu Yanmei was not a child anymore. While those words hurt her, that tone made her wish to lower her head and apologize, she could see the tremors in the surface of the lake, if not its depths.

She did not think she had ever seen her Mother so out of sorts.

Ai Xiaoli sat across from her in the tearoom of the temporary manor house which had been arranged for the tournament viewing. Her mother had not a hair out of place, and only the smallest downward curve of her painted lips, showing sorrow.

But the oven-like interior of the Gu manor was not rippling with distortions of heat, but rather, manifested discontent.

“I felt it was more important that Xiulan receive support and encouragement toward recovery,” Gu Yanmei said, only the slight sheen of sweat on her brow showing the intensity of her Mother’s regard upon her. “While I have scolded her a great deal, it would have been folly to push her into the despair which could have consumed her in the first days.”

Her sister had been listless and fragile lying in that bed. The tears flowing as she acclimated by degrees to the now chronic pain that would define her life for decades or centuries to come had shaken Yanmei’s heart. If she had not already breached the fourth realm, she might have endured a heart demon, seeing what the result of failure to cultivate the divine fire of Shen within her flesh would be like in no uncertain terms.

Mother’s long eyelashes drooped down, her eyes drifting shut in acknowledgement. “...That was correct. I see it in her even now. But, I know you Yanmei. Your skill with words is not so crude. You could have reassured her, shown her the way back to proper self regard without encouraging her recklessness.”

“Only a body forged and purified into a vessel to match my own can contain the sparks she has taken into her flesh,” Yanmei said. “I will not encourage my little sister to live the rest of her life in such pain.”

“And I have read the reams of scrolls provided by the Sect’s physicians. A cultivation of the body into the middling stages of bronze would be sufficient for her to live a life no worse than a grave poisoned veteran,” Ai Xiaoli said. “And from there she might make a careful climb to the fourth realm through safer methods over the course of decades.”

“Now she seeks to burn herself pure and match your speed. She will only hurt herself more in doing so. Pain can be endured. Death cannot.”

“I have found a smooth path, at least to this place. The mountain yet looms high, but I stand undaunted. I am happy Mother,” Gu Yanmei said quietly, tracing her fingers around the rim of her cup, the tea within, cultivated in the gardens of Phoenix home, came back to boil before she raised it to her lips, letting the heat and flavor settle in her core. This was a conversation she and Mother had already had, back at her own end of year tournament.

When Mother had recognized her ambitions.

“You are,” Mother acknowledged. There was a grudging note in her low, soft voice, but it was a small thing. The ghost of something more intense. “My daughter, the gold-clad and glorious, who seeks to embody flame-in-metal. It is not what I wanted for you, but I acknowledge that it is your path. However, Yanmei, you understand the gulf in talent that lies between you and your sisters, do you not?”

Her hand tightened on the cup fractionally, disturbing the bubbling liquid within. She lowered her head in acknowledgement. She did understand. She was the unusual one, in finding cultivation such a smooth experience. Where other’s experienced a climb up a sheer cliff, she experienced a pleasant stroll.

It had been difficult to reconcile, as she so swiftly surpassed them all. Just as she had found herself at an increasing distance with her brother and sister disciples, save for the few who kept a modicum of pace.

She could admit she had uncharitable thoughts about their focus and effort in her first year or two at the Sect. How could they be content with such trundling speed? There were a hundred, hundred ways they could streamline their schedules, improve their efficiency, remove unnecessary cruft which took up cultivation time.

But she had come to see that following her methods only brought misery to most, and rarely even improved their cultivation much. Even Gu Xiulan was not…. Like her in the aftermath. She had tried, but in the end, she worried that she had actually made things worse.

It was that friend of hers who had convinced her to stop trying to break herself.

“...You say I am skilled with words, but when it comes to matters of inner motivation…. I am not. You are right Mother. There is a gulf between my sisters and I, and it is one I cannot begin imagining a path to bridging.”

Her Mother sighed, her head low. “That is what cultivation is. Pulling away, further and further until you are naught but an island in the darkness, looking uncomprehending on those you once loved.”

“And yet you reached for the fifth realm, only a step below sovereignty,” Gu Yanmei said quietly.

An eye cracked open, deep pale blue, the unruffled surface which pulled at Gu Yanmei, which enticed her deeper, down down into resplendent waters where all could drown softly in darkness.

“I did. But you understand, don’t you Yanmei. By the time your Father stole this flower from that cruel garden… It was far too late to stop. And even now, I must dread the day when the man I love makes himself into naught but a forgefire, or I should become a mask of silk over a sharpened blade.”

Gu Yanmei could only close her eyes. She did understand. By the time one broke into the fourth realm… there was no contentment with your place, only failure or stagnation. To forge a Name, and with it a purpose, the drive which was the fuel for the furnace of Shen generation. To cultivate beyond mere qi… it required an ambition, a drive to change an aspect of the world. 

Lower cultivators did not understand. So many thought they could scrabble up the mountain with naught but the desperate animal fear of death to drive them.

Impossible. Such a small desire could not support a wielder of Law, let alone a Sovereign. There was a reason high realm corpse Immortals were so rare. Such a fear could not survive in one who had seen and felt what came with the rigors of breaking through to the fourth realm.

“It is true. But it is also too late for my sister.”

“She is only in the third realm. The injury she has done herself can be undone. Do you think I would not burn a thousand favors and a palace of coin to see my daughter healed?”

“And to undo what she has done would cripple her advancement. Mother. You must understand that this would cripple her.” Gu Yanmei insisted.

Her Mother’s tiny, dainty knuckles rapped once against the tabletop, and the entire manor shook. Gu Yanmei flared her own qi against the wash of her mothers power, as the whole room and everything in it wavered like it was no more than a reflection on water.

“I know this.”

“You do. So why do you still deny it, Mother?” Gu Yanmei replied quietly.

She did not reply.