Cultivating Common Sense In A Xianxia World Chapter 55: What Is Necessary

The rods ca at the third notch, and I was on my feet before the first strike landed.

I walked out of the curriculum room into the cold and I did not let the cold register in my shoulders. The formation mustered inside the count of one hundred. I took my place at the head of the formation.

I held my weight forward. I ran the cold water exercise at full count, not half. Fei Liao did not correct . He watched the first soak from the bank and did not speak.

The drill ran through the fifth notch.

Weapons at the sixth. Pair work at the seventh. Load march at the ninth. I ran each of them clean. By the tenth notch the training ground felt the way it had felt in the weeks before the fires.

Fei Liao called dismissal. The formation broke.

I walked toward the clinic to eat. Suyin t at the door with a bowl of rice.

"Thank you," I said, and I ant it.

"You look hungry."

"I am."

"Sit. I will bring water."

She brought water. I sat on the step and ate. She sat beside for a breath before she went back inside to the morning's clinic work. When the bowl was empty I set it on the step beside and watched the compound wake up.

Three days passed.

They were quiet days. The second cohort was still four days out. The construction at the river fork moved on schedule. Suyin and I wrote the second draft of the dical regin for Fei Liao's petition to Lanyu. Shan Pei and Shu Shu ran their periter work. The recruits ran their drills. Pei Yan sat in the garrison cell without speaking, and I did not visit her. I did not want to see her face until I knew what I was going to do with what I saw.

On the morning of the fourth day, Xu Bing ca to the curriculum room at the first notch.

He did not knock.

"Squad Captain."

"Xu Bing."

"The Commander's answer has co. Lieutenant Fei Liao asks that you co imdiately."

I stood. I followed him out.

Fei Liao was at the table. Commander Xu's letter was unrolled between his hands. The garrison cord lay beside it.

He did not look up when I ca in. He finished the last line he was reading, folded the paper once along the existing crease, and set it flat on the table. He slid it across to .

"Read it."

I read it.

The letter was short. The Commander's script was the tight even hand she used for operational correspondence, no flourish, no salutation. It addressed each elent of the proposal in turn.

The Chianji corridor she approved. She called the strategic reading sound and ordered Fei Liao to begin the preparatory work for a Western Reaches force to stage at Chianji ahead of the spring campaign. Shan Pei and Shu Shu's scent-bond capability she recognized and registered for operational use across the district.

The spy use of Pei Yan she rejected.

There is no tactical rit in involving her. Blood must be repaid in blood. If the village wishes to develop a spy network of its own from among the willing, that would be a different matter, and of considerable use to the Western Reaches.

The execution order held.

Her note at the bottom nad the one who would carry it out.

Pei Liang will hold the blade.

The seal was the Commander's.

I folded the letter along the crease and set it back on the table.

Fei Liao was watching .

"She is thorough," he said.

"She has great insight."

He almost smiled. "We have each found what we needed from her, in our own ways."

He nodded once.

I walked out into the cold.

I asked Xu Bing to find Bolin, Shan Pei, Zhao Jun, and Suyin, and to tell them to co to the commons hearth at the second notch.

They ca.

Suyin was first. She sat on the bench across from and did not speak. Bolin ca in behind her, still in his clinic apron, still with the ink on his fingers from the morning's records. Shan Pei arrived from the ridge path with Shu Shu at his ankle, and he sat at the end of the bench and the beast lay across his feet. Zhao Jun ca last. He had been at the forge. He was in his work tunic. He stood at the edge of the bench for a breath before he sat down.

"The Commander answered this morning," I said.

I told them.

I told them about the Chianji approval and the preparatory work for the spring. I told them about the rejection of the spy use and the Commander's reasoning that blood must be repaid in blood. I told them about the village spy network idea and how she had raised it as a future consideration. I told them the execution order held. I told them that the Commander had nad as the one to carry it out.

I told them the whole shape of it.

When I finished, no one spoke for a long breath.

Bolin spoke first.

"She should die for what she did. Anything less is a rcy she does not deserve."

He folded his hands on his lap. That was what he had to say.

Shan Pei spoke second.

"I agree with Wei Bolin. The blade should fall. It should fall by your hand, Brother Liang.”

He inclined his head. He was done.

I looked at Zhao Jun.

Zhao Jun did not speak for a long breath.

He was nineteen years old. He had buried his father eight weeks ago. He sat on the bench where his father would have sat and he looked down at his hands.

"I wish it was ," he said. "I wish I was the one who had the chance."

I remained silent to let him continue.

"But if I had to be comfortable with anyone else doing it, it would be you, Pei Liang." He looked up. "You put down Lu Fang without a second's hesitation. Duan used to say you were a natural at putting down dogs. He ant it as a complint, in his way."

His knuckles were white on his knees.

"Let it be you, then."

I looked at Suyin.

Suyin had not spoken.

She was looking at her hands. She had been looking at her hands since Zhao Jun had begun speaking, and she was looking at them now because if she looked up I knew what I would see on her face, and I think she knew I would know.

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"Suyin."

"I said what I had to say four nights ago."

"Say it here."

She looked up.

"The blade falls by your hand. I am with you in every step of the way, and I appreciate you for consulting us in these matters.”

I nodded.

Four in favor. The village would not fall along a fracture line tomorrow at midday.

"Tomorrow at midday," I said. "The formation will muster at the third notch. The village will be called to the commons at midday. Commander Xu's letter will be read aloud. The sentence will be carried out."

No one objected.

I rolled the letter and tied it with the garrison cord.

"Thank you. Each of you."

Bolin nodded. Shan Pei inclined his head. Zhao Jun stood and walked out of the commons without another word, and I did not call him back.

Suyin stayed on the bench.

She did not reach for my hand. I did not reach for hers. We sat across from each other at the hearth for a long breath, and then she stood, and she walked to , and she pressed her forehead to mine for three slow breaths.

She walked to the clinic.

I walked to the main house at the evening al.

Hao's wives were at the low table with the children. Lady Chen at the head, because she was the eldest. Lian at her left. Xiaoying at her right with the youngest born pressed against her side, a girl of two who had Hao's eyes. The two adopted sons were at the foot of the table, both of them quiet tonight, both of them eating without speaking. The other younger child, a boy of five, was half-asleep against Lian's shoulder with a rice grain stuck to his cheek.

i Rong looked up when I ca in.

"Brother Liang."

"Sister Pei." I bowed my head to her.

"Sit with us."

I sat.

They had left a place at the side of the table. The place had been left every evening since the fires. No one had nad it. No one had eaten from the bowl that sat at that place. Tonight i Rong reached across the table without speaking and set the bowl in front of , and I took the chopsticks from the cloth beside it and I began to eat.

The children did not look at directly. The older adopted son, Pei Wen, was thirteen. He had been training polearm with Hao every morning at the fifth notch before the fires. He had not touched the polearm since. He was looking at his rice. But I noticed his hands. They had the rough calluses of fieldwork and the small burns of kitchen work, and I understood without having to ask that he had been going to the east field in the mornings and doing the work a thirteen-year-old does not usually do, and coming back in the afternoons to help i Rong with the water and the firewood and the nding. Pei Jian, his younger brother, had the sa calluses.

The two eldest sons had stepped into the shape of what their father was not here to do. Nobody had asked them to. They had seen what the house needed and they had begun doing it.

I set my bowl down.

The youngest two were another matter entirely. The boy of five, the half-asleep one against Lian's shoulder, had woken up enough to notice that I was at the table. He slid off Lian's arm and toddled around the end of the low table to stand at my elbow, considering my bowl with great seriousness. I put down my chopsticks. I lifted him into my lap. He settled against my chest with the rice grain still stuck to his cheek and he reached for a piece of pickled radish from my bowl.

I let him have it. He chewed it solemnly and laid his head back against my collarbone.

Xiaoying's daughter, the girl of two with Hao's eyes, watched this from across the table. She pushed herself up from her mother's side and ca around the table on unsteady legs with her small fists closed at her sides. She stopped three paces from my seat. She looked up at . I held out my free hand. She considered it for a breath and then took one of my fingers in her whole hand and she squeezed it hard, the way two-year-olds squeeze, and she looked at as if she were deciding sothing.

"Up," she said.

I lifted her up into my lap beside her brother. She fit against my other side. The boy did not object. The two of them sat in my lap while I finished the rice one-handed, and neither of them said anything else for a long ti, and neither of them needed to.

I looked at Wen across the table.

"Your hands look like you have been in the field."

"I have, Brother."

"Jian. You also."

"Yes, Brother."

"Good. Thank you, both of you. Hao would say the sa thing."

Wen looked down at his rice. His jaw worked. He did not speak.

"I would like you to run the form at the fifth notch tomorrow. I will correct your stance if you need correction."

His chopsticks paused. He looked up at . For one breath his face was his father's face, the full open warmth I had not been able to look at directly since the fires, and I held his gaze because the boy deserved to see that I was still here.

"Yes, Brother."

Jian looked at his older brother, then at .

"May I also run it."

"You may."

He nodded once, solemn, and went back to his rice.

I ate one-handed with the two little ones settled into my lap.

i Rong watched eat. When I had finished she reached for my bowl and refilled it without asking, and she set it back in front of and she put her hand over mine on the table the way Hao would have, and she held it there for a breath.

"You are carrying a great deal."

I didn’t know what to say to that, so I just inclined my head with a nod.

"Hao would tell you to eat until you could not eat anymore, and then to sleep."

That made smile. "I know he would."

"I am telling you now in his place. Eat. Sleep. Carry what you have to carry. We are here. The children are here. The house is here. Whatever you do tomorrow, you co back to this table at the evening al. Do you understand?”

"I understand, Sister."

Lian, on her left, had been watching with the boy against her shoulder. She spoke without raising her voice.

Xiaoying, the youngest of the three wives, did not speak. She had her daughter pressed against her side and her eyes on the low table, and she was not a woman who spoke often in front of the household, but I saw her nod once when Lian had finished, and I understood that the three of them had talked about before I had arrived.

I finished the second bowl.

I stood up.

"Wen. Jian."

"Brother."

"Fifth notch tomorrow. I will be on the training ground."

"Yes, Brother."

I bowed to the table. I bowed lower to i Rong because she was the eldest. I bowed to Lian. I bowed to Xiaoying. I walked to the next room where Hao lay and I sat with him for a long breath without speaking, and then I walked out of the main house into the night.

This is why, I thought, on the path back to the clinic.

I would do whatever was necessary for their sakes.

I would abide by my own tenets. I would steel my emotions. I would work out the best way for them to live in peace, and I would climb whatever institutional ladder brought them closest to that peace, and if that ant studying under Fei Liao as the man's junior until Fei Liao thought I was ready to be promoted, then that was what it ant.

Because in my past life, I had done it before.

Gao Shu was at the clinic door when I arrived.

She was standing at the step with her hands folded in front of her in the small formal way she had adopted since her father's death. She was wearing his old forge apron, which was much too large for her, tied twice around her middle with hemp cord.

"Uncle Liang."

"Gao Shu."

"May I ask you a question."

"Co inside."

"No." She shook her head. "I do not want to ask it in front of Brother Hao."

I paused.

"Then we will go sowhere else."

"The river," she said. "If that is not too far. I have been practicing at the river. I wanted to show you sothing and I wanted to ask a question."

"The river is not too far."

We walked to the river.

The moon was up. The water was low in the winter channel and the stones at the edge were white in the moonlight. Gao Shu led to a particular stone about thirty paces downstream of the usual crossing and she stopped beside it and she looked up at .

"Ask your question first," I said.

"How do I make them do what I want."

"The Mai."

"Yes. I can feel them. Instructor Wei Suyin says I am close to seeing them and I think I am. I can feel them when I concentrate. They feel like they want to move, but they do not move when I try to move them. I do not know what I am doing wrong."

She held up her small hands. Two fingers curved, thumb extended, the sign she had shown Pei Yan months ago.

"What does it look like when you do it, Uncle Liang."

I sat down on the stone beside her.

"It looks like this. Watch."

I drew.

I opened the core draw the way Hao had taught at this sa river. I let the ambient Qi co from the water's direction. I held it in the channels. I raised my own hand in the sign, two fingers up, thumb curled, and I let the Qi seep outward from the pores of my palm. It ca as water. It ca as a thin condensed stream, dense enough to bend light, and I directed it at the end of a small willow branch that hung over the water six paces away.

The stream touched the branch.

The branch cut.

The severed end dropped into the river.

Gao Shu made a gasping sound.

"Uncle Liang..."

"That is what it looks like when the practitioner has found an affinity, and trained it, and let the ambient Qi shape the draw. My affinity is water. The river is always close to when I cultivate. I discovered it the sa way you are going to discover yours."

"What is mine?"

"I do not know. It is not for to assign."

"Then how do I find it?"

"By continuing to feel. Mai awareness cos first, then what you can produce with that cos after."

She sat down on the stone beside . Her forge apron pooled around her knees. She looked at the water.

"Uncle Liang."

"Mm."

"I thought I was going to be a forgemaster. Like Ba."

"I expected that also."

She looked at the river instead of at .

"Ba would not have minded. He told once that a good smith has to feel the iron the way a cultivator feels the pathways. He said they were the sa."

I did not answer imdiately.

Gao Ren had died at my gate, and his daughter was going to be both of the things he had wanted her to be, because she had decided she would be, and because she had rembered what he had said.

"He was right," I said.

"Co to the training ground at the fifth notch. You will run the first awareness drills with Wen and Jian. You will also go to the forge and continue your apprenticeship work with whichever smith Fei Liao assigns to replace your father's position. I will adjust your schedule with Instructor Wei Suyin."

"Yes, Uncle Liang.”

She stood up from the stone and brushed her hands together to get the stone dust off her palms. She looked at the river one more ti, at the willow branch still floating downstream, and then she looked up at with the full open face.

She bowed to , the short formal bow her father had taught her, and she turned and walked back along the path to the village.

I stayed at the river for a long breath.

I watched the water move the willow branch downstream until the current took it around the bend and the branch was gone.

I walked back to the clinic.

Suyin was on the sleeping mat when I ca in, already changed for the night, the lamp turned low. She lifted the blanket for without speaking.

I washed my face. I ca to the mat and I laid down beside her. She settled against my chest and put her hand flat over my heart. I rested my chin against the top of her head. Her breath was warm on my collarbone. Her hair slled like the herb table, the bitter green of the dicinal leaves she had been working through that afternoon, and I breathed it in.

She shifted closer. Her breathing slowed against my chest. I felt her settle, the small unspoken letting-go she always did in the last breath before sleep ca, and I held her the way she had held through the night of the fires. The lamp burned low and went out. The room was dark. Her hand on my heart stayed where it was.

I slept peacefully that night.