Chapter 3#

First Steps in the Way of Seals#

Yan Wushu’s only reply was “rest well.” Xiao Man said nothing more. He sat on the couch and watched Yan Wushu walk out and pull the door shut behind him.

What he wanted was not an answer from Yan Wushu. Their bond as cultivation partners did not cease to exist simply because no binding ceremony was held, no proclamation made to the world.

How many years ago had it been — the stars turned, and the thread of fate had begun to wind around them both from the moment of their first meeting. After that came a decree from Heaven, a divine official sent to announce that the Mirror of All Ages had reflected a marriage affinity between him and him.

Xiao Man had been nineteen at the time, recuperating at the Grand Zhaohua Temple. Yan Wushu had just completed a mission and was hiding at the same temple to nurse his wounds.

Xiao Man’s illness had been with him since before birth; only a handful of Buddhist sutras kept at the Grand Zhaohua Temple could cure it at its root.

The mission Yan Wushu had carried out was a secret one — he could not let anyone know he was injured. He refused to let Xiao Man summon a physician-monk, yet his wounds were grievous; one blade wound ran from his left shoulder clean through to his hipbone, nearly splitting him in two.

Xiao Man had no choice but to treat him himself.

He had suffered many injuries in childhood, but the Phoenix Clan’s constitution surpassed that of ordinary humans — their self-healing ability was extraordinary, and more often than not, the wound would close before he had even finished bandaging it. After Yan Wushu rescued him and brought him to the Grand Zhaohua Temple, injuries had ceased to be part of his life, and he had never had occasion to learn how to treat them.

Everything he did was learned on the spot — cleaning the wound, applying medicine, wrapping bandages, and even suturing — progressing from clumsy and frantic to careful and practiced. By the end, he even had the leisure to pin a flower in his hair while he worked.

Roughly half a year passed. Then, when the first autumn leaf drifted down from the branches, the abbot sent a young novice monk to say that a visitor had come from afar and wished to see him.

Xiao Man was startled — he assumed that Yan Wushu’s hiding there had been discovered — and immediately turned to conceal him. But Yan Wushu only lay back in the reclining chair and laughed. “They haven’t come about me.”

“How do you know?” Xiao Man asked.

“I calculated it.” Yan Wushu folded his fan and tapped it lazily against his palm.

Xiao Man tilted his head and looked Yan Wushu up and down, then asked, not quite believing: “And have you calculated who it is and what they want?”

Yan Wushu began to count on his fingers. At the end, he raised an eyebrow, and an expression of genuine surprise crossed his face. “Someone from Mist Island.”

“What is Mist Island?”

“An island far in the uttermost east, hidden within layers of dense fog. Most of its inhabitants are divine officials — they serve the Heavenly Dao that hangs high above our heads, never descending.”

Xiao Man had barely gotten out an “oh” before a figure stepped into the courtyard. The man wore a Daoist robe of sky-blue, his white jade hair crown bound high, his bearing solemn and dignified. His gaze swept across Xiao Man and Yan Wushu, and he flicked his horsehair whisk. “The Lord of Radiant Light’s calculations are impressive indeed.”

Xiao Man greeted the divine official from Mist Island with a bow. Yan Wushu remained seated in his chair without moving, replied with an airy “you flatter me,” and then said: “Generally speaking, when a divine official leaves Mist Island, it rarely bodes well.”

“That is incorrect. I have left the island this time to bring the Lord of Radiant Light glad tidings.” The divine official flicked his whisk again; his tone was not particularly agreeable — he said “glad tidings,” but managed to make it sound like a death notice.

Even at his most young and ignorant, Xiao Man could see that Yan Wushu and this official from Mist Island were not on good terms. He quickly caught the eye of the guiding novice monk and gestured for him to leave, then poured a cup of tea for each of the two men.

The Mist Island official took a seat at the stone table outside the corridor. After one cup of tea, he said to Yan Wushu and Xiao Man: “It concerns a joyous matter between the two of you.”

“What joy?” Yan Wushu smiled with his mouth and not his eyes.

The man across from him fixed his gaze on Yan Wushu and said, unhurriedly: “The Mirror of All Ages has reflected an affinity between you two.”

Yan Wushu’s expression was flat. “That is stating the obvious.”

The Mist Island official set his cup on the table and spoke two words: “A marriage affinity.”

At those words, Xiao Man froze. Yan Wushu fell silent.

It was only later that Xiao Man came to understand: the Mirror of All Ages and the island in the uttermost east were instruments and places through which the will of the Heavenly Dao was carried out. The Mirror reflecting a marriage affinity between him and Yan Wushu was no different from Heaven itself arranging the match.

What kind of existence was the Heavenly Dao? A bond it tied with its own hands was one that could not be undone — perhaps only the death of one party could erase what had been written.

In the still of the night, he let out a long, slow breath. What Yan Wushu had said back then had proven to be a prophecy of the truest kind.

When a divine official leaves Mist Island, it rarely bodes well.

His end in his past life had been as wretched as wretched could be. Xiao Man had no desire to have anything more to do with this man. He could not die himself — and killing Yan Wushu was a prospect with almost no chance of success. Right now he was at the Baoyu Realm; that man had already reached the Taixuan Upper Realm, one step away from the Saint’s Realm. He was far, far too weak.

So he had to make himself strong. Strong enough to stand against Yan Wushu. Strong enough to sever with a single sword the bond of grievance tying him to Yan Wushu.

Strong enough that no matter what Heaven intended by all of this — if he defied it, Heaven itself would not dare to punish him or hold it against him.

“So it’s visitors from Mist Island. But since divine officials tend not to bring good news, we won’t be extending a welcome.”

At the gate of Gushan, Yan Wushu stood in his dark robes, leading a number of elders, blocking the path of a Daoist figure. The figure wore green, with a white jade crown and a horsehair whisk in hand — unmistakably a divine official from Mist Island.

The relationship between Gushan and the island in the uttermost east had been unfriendly for a very long time. No one objected to the attitude Yan Wushu was currently displaying; some even gave a cold snort to make their own hostility toward the Mist Island official plain.

A divine official from Mist Island was a walker of the Heavenly Dao — a figure revered across the entire Xuantian Continent. To be blocked at the entrance of Gushan and refused entry was a significant loss of face.

Yet he did not appear surprised by his reception. He swept his whisk and gave a light huff. “The night before last, at the seventh quarter of the hour of Hai, the star disc showed signs of disorder. The location indicated was Gushan.”

The deep of night had passed; it would soon be the hour of Mao. The “night before last” the official spoke of referred to several hours prior.

He’d come fast. Yan Wushu’s eyes shifted, his folding fan swaying gently. “The wind-riding arts of Mist Island are formidable indeed. So the star disc is saying that Gushan is about to fall into disorder?”

The Mist Island official’s expression was lofty. “The precise implication, I do not know. I have come only to inform.”

“To warn, more likely,” said Yan Wushu with a smile. “Could you tell us what kind of disorder appeared on the star disc?”

“Some stars,” the official said, “will deviate from their original paths.”

“I see.” Yan Wushu assumed an expression of perfect understanding, and smiled. “Something that could be said in three sentences — why come in person? Wouldn’t a letter have served just as well?”

“Hmph.” The whisk swept once more. Without a word of farewell, the official turned and dissolved into light and left.

The gate fell quiet. An elder standing behind Yan Wushu furrowed his brow. “Irksome as the Mist Island people are, they do not send false messages. Can it be that Gushan is truly facing some calamity?”

“Stars deviating from their paths,” Yan Wushu murmured, glancing at the sky, “does not necessarily mean something bad.” He paused. “I’ll go report to the sect leader. Everyone else, please return.”

The group dispersed, their figures receding into the distance.

At the third quarter of the hour of Mao, the great arc of sword-light that had hung from east to west across the sky finally faded. The first thin thread of dawn touched the clouds and slowly colored them. The wind moved through the trees; birds began to call. On the couch, Xiao Man opened his eyes.

The spirit-force Yan Wushu had channeled into him the night before, and the Bright Moon Dew he had taken, had been fully absorbed. The backlash from the secret technique had eased considerably. He smoothed his sleeves, rose, and walked to the window, pushing it open to let the wind in.

The mountain air was cool; the dew had not yet dried. It was far earlier than he usually woke. Rong Yuan, who attended to him, was occupied elsewhere — Xiao Man did not disturb him. He cast a minor cleansing spell on himself and left Qiyinchu.

Snow-Intent Peak lay to the east. Xiao Man sat on the back of a flying beast and drifted unhurriedly westward.

Gushan prized the kind of cultivation won through hardship; most disciples rose early and labored late. Even before the sky had fully brightened, the sound of swords rang out across the peaks, woven together with the chattering of birds in the trees into something altogether noisy. Only the most solitary and remote of the Twelve Peaks — Tingyun Peak — was silent. It was said that the two masters who dwelled there had never taken disciples, and had gone off wandering the world hand in hand.

Xiao Man’s gaze drifted across Tingyun Peak as they passed, his expression thoughtful.

About a quarter-hour later, White Blossom Peak came into view.

This was Xiao Man’s second visit. He had no idea where the Zhaoyu Pavilion was for morning lessons — but the flying beast did. When Xiao Man told it the destination, it gave its wings a beat and changed course.

The Zhaoyu Pavilion was already filled with people, though they wore no uniform disciple robes. A book lay open on every low desk.

It was then that Xiao Man remembered he had no book. Worse still, he realized with mild surprise that he was slightly nervous.

During those years at the Grand Zhaohua Temple, recovering and studying the sutras, he had kept largely to his meditation courtyard and rarely stepped outside. When he encountered something in the texts he could not understand, he would seek out the abbot or the senior monks for guidance.

After coming to Gushan, he had lived on Snow-Intent Peak in much the same way — seldom venturing out, spending his days reading and tending flowers. In more than a hundred years of living, he had never once had the experience of cultivating and studying alongside this many other people.

Xiao Man stepped down from the Roc-bird’s back. The bird sensed his mood and nuzzled his cheek with its round, fluffy head. The small gesture made Xiao Man smile faintly; he said his farewell to it, then lifted his eyes to take in the Zhaoyu Pavilion, and didn’t go in quite yet.

The disciples moving past were all in a hurry. Occasionally someone glanced at Xiao Man, but most simply kept their heads down and walked in. Then, all at once, a voice rang out:

“Hey — hey, you —”

The voice was vaguely familiar. Xiao Man looked toward it curiously, and before he could focus, something flashed in front of his eyes — a person had bounded up before him and slung an arm over his shoulder with the ease of an old friend. “Hey man, you’re here for class too, right? Come on, come on, if we don’t get in now we’ll be copying lines!”

It was the person from last night’s free-for-all — the one who had spent the whole battle hiding behind a boulder, waiting for everyone else to finish before striking, and who had ultimately been knocked out cold by Xiao Man’s bow.

Unlike last night’s all-black ensemble, he was now wearing robes of blinding gold, his sleeves rising and falling in the not-yet-bright morning air and the thin, uncleared mist — conspicuous to an absolutely thorough degree.

Xiao Man had seen him, but didn’t know him. He was about to peel this person off his shoulder when the stranger had already grabbed his arm and was hauling him toward the Zhaoyu Pavilion.

“I’ve never seen you on White Blossom Peak before — you must be new as of yesterday, right? My name is Qū Hánxīng — Qū as in ’little melody,’ and Hánxīng meaning, naturally, the cold stars in the sky. What about you, you —”

Qu Hanxing talked as he walked, then suddenly cut himself off and yanked Xiao Man to one side.

The Zhaoyu Pavilion, which had been noisy a moment before, fell silent. An older Daoist figure walked in through the door, went straight to the front desk, sat down with a sweep of his robes, and faced the room.

This Daoist had greying temples at each side, wore no expression of amusement, and looked sternly composed. Qu Hanxing lowered his voice and murmured in Xiao Man’s ear: “That’s today’s instructor — surname Yang.”

The seats in the main hall were full, except for two at the very back by the window. Qu Hanxing steered Xiao Man toward them and sat down; his expression suggested he still had plenty more to say — but then Instructor Yang, seated at the front, rang a small bell.

Class had begun.

Everyone fell silent. Xiao Man swept his sleeve and sat up straight.

Qu Hanxing pulled out the book for this lesson, cast a glance at Xiao Man, and slid it to the middle of the desk between them. “You don’t have a book, do you? We can share.”

“By the way, that archery of yours last night was incredible — where did you learn it? How long have you been practicing?”

“And it looked like you were using wind-riding? I thought the Baoyu Realm wasn’t supposed to be able to ride the wind — could you maybe teach me…”

Qu Hanxing kept whispering, an unceasing stream of it. Xiao Man’s initial gratitude had curdled into impatience, and he was just about to say “stop talking” when Instructor Yang at the front tapped his small bell, fixed his eyes on the two by the window, and asked: “Qu Hanxing — what are the three fundamental components of a basic fire seal?”

“Huh?” Qu Hanxing looked up with a blank expression. “What?”

Instructor Yang made a sound — “mm” — with a rising inflection. “You can’t answer?”

“You hadn’t said anything yet, Instructor,” Qu Hanxing said, the picture of innocence. He had been whispering, yes, but he had also noticed that Instructor Yang had only asked them to open their books — he had not yet begun to teach.

“That was from last lesson!” Instructor Yang snapped. A teaching rod appeared from nowhere and came down hard on the desk. “Such carelessness — copy both last lesson’s material and this lesson’s material. Ten times each!”

The air of innocent sincerity Qu Hanxing had been projecting vanished from his face, replaced by an expression of profound suffering.

Instructor Yang’s gaze shifted and landed on Xiao Man. “The same question — you answer it.”

Qu Hanxing raised a small hand. “Instructor, today is his first day.”

At that, half the room turned to look at Xiao Man, with varying expressions. Instructor Yang dropped the teaching rod on his desk. “First day or not, ignorance is not guaranteed.”

Qu Hanxing threw Xiao Man a look that said brother, this is as far as I can help you and shrank back into his seat. Xiao Man met Instructor Yang’s gaze steadily, and said with composure: “I have not studied fire seals.”

Instructor Yang shook his head and said “very well,” then opened his book and raised his voice: “The seal — one of the methods by which a cultivator communes with the five elements of heaven and earth…”

As the lesson began, the various glances aimed at Xiao Man — curious, appraising, skeptical — gradually disappeared. The birds outside the window chirped. After some time had passed, a mountain tit flew into the Zhaoyu Pavilion and set a small bunch of grapes on the desk in front of Xiao Man. The half-asleep Qu Hanxing was startled awake; he rubbed his eyes and looked at Xiao Man, then at the grapes, barely believing what he saw.

Xiao Man broke off a portion and shared it with Qu Hanxing. The latter peeled one and popped it in his mouth, then gave Xiao Man a thumbs-up. “So sweet! That’s an incredible skill you’ve got there, man!”

At the same moment, Instructor Yang snapped his book shut with a loud clap and rose to his feet:

“The explanation and demonstration of the basic fire seal ends here. From this point, you will attempt it yourselves. I will return in one hour to inspect your work. Anyone who has not succeeded will receive a Ding rating for the ‘First Steps in the Way of Seals’ assessment.”

With that, he left the Zhaoyu Pavilion.

Conversation broke out across the room.

Xiao Man glanced out the window. His brow moved slightly. “That strict?”

The young man seated in front of him turned around. “Of course. Gushan has no use for the incompetent. Don’t let the number of people on White Blossom Peak fool you — after half a year, fewer than three in ten will have earned the right to remain at Gushan. So we have to fight for every bit of progress.”

The young man wore loose white robes and looked a few years younger than Xiao Man — perhaps fourteen or fifteen. His smile was entirely winning.

“His name is Mò Jūntiān,” Qu Hanxing said, by way of introduction.

“Juntiān?” The name struck Xiao Man as strangely familiar.

Qu Hanxing’s expression shifted slightly. He stretched out the syllables. “Speaking of which — I still don’t know your name.”

“Xiao Man,” said Xiao Man.

“Xiao Man… Xiǎomǎn.” Qu Hanxing nodded, and smiled. “Good name.”

“Hanxing, these are my notes from just now.” Mo Juntian turned and turned back, passing a small booklet from his desk to Qu Hanxing.

Qu Hanxing received it with the rapturous expression of someone reunited with a long-lost dear friend, clasped Mo Juntian’s hands, and said with feeling: “Eternally grateful! Eternally grateful!”

“Every time we cover seals, he can’t follow the lesson. But if he has notes, he can manage something.” Mo Juntian explained to Xiao Man.

Xiao Man gave a nod of understanding, glanced at the half-bunch of grapes on the desk, and asked: “Would you like some?”

“May I really?” Mo Juntian looked delighted beyond expectation.

Xiao Man passed the grapes to him.

After the young Mo offered his thanks and turned back to face front, Xiao Man glanced sideways at the notes in Qu Hanxing’s hands. A single look was enough to see that Mo Juntian had written down every word Instructor Yang had spoken, and done so with clean, meticulous characters — not a single mistake visible anywhere on the page.

“See? Isn’t Juntian incredible!” Qu Hanxing noticed Xiao Man’s gaze and patted the booklet with unmistakable pride.

Then: “Look together!” he said.

The notes took the place of the copy of First Steps in the Way of Seals that had been sitting between them.

Xiao Man read quickly — more or less ten lines at a glance; Qu Hanxing was slower. Their paces didn’t match, so Xiao Man borrowed First Steps in the Way of Seals from Qu Hanxing and left him the notes.

Xiao Man turned the pages one by one. He had never had much interest in the Way of Seals — he had picked up only a rough sense of it at some point — and looking at it now, it was still… this tedious.

He set the book down and sighed.

“Not very gripping, is it?” Qu Hanxing balanced his brush between his upper lip and nose, arms crossed, and said in a long, dreary tone. He had already put Mo Juntian’s notes aside as well.

“So since the mind refuses to read, just go ahead and draw one!” Qu Hanxing raised a hand and seized his brush, pulled a clean piece of seal paper toward him, and began drawing.

Xiao Man made no move to do the same. With mild curiosity, he looked around the Zhaoyu Pavilion, quiet and discreet about it.

The three from the Upper Baoyu Realm who had fought to the very end last night were seated toward the front. They had already finished their seals — some were surrounded by others asking for guidance; others sat coolly unmoved, seemingly in meditation. Of the rest, very few had succeeded; most wore expressions of concentrated worry.

That was entirely natural. Based on what Mo Juntian had just told him, Xiao Man estimated that this cohort was only in their third year since entering the gate. How many cultivators, after three years, were still fumbling at the threshold? The fact that these people were making attempts at all — even failed ones — was already remarkable.

He was still thinking this when a bang rang through the pavilion.

Something had exploded — to his immediate right, the shockwave still dissipating, a wave of heat still present, very close by. Xiao Man looked over. Naturally: Qu Hanxing had failed.

The boy’s face was as black as a lump of charcoal. The seal pinched between his index and middle fingers had been reduced to half — the other half had turned to ash and was drifting and spinning through the air before settling onto the desk.

“Hanxing, are you all right?” Mo Juntian turned around with concern.

“Fine.” Qu Hanxing slowly set down the remnant of the seal, drew a long breath, wiped his face with his sleeve, grabbed a clean piece of yellow seal paper, and picked up his brush again.

He failed again.

Then a third time, a fourth, a fifth — until even his brush was blown apart.

Xiao Man lent Qu Hanxing the brush from his own place. The boy, now sporting a thoroughly disheveled head of hair, sat in deep thought for a long while before putting brush to paper.

A basic seal was not complex — it did not require a great deal of spirit-force — but for someone newly entered into cultivation, it was not something one could produce casually. Qu Hanxing drew more and more slowly. A quarter-hour later, he finally laid down the last stroke. He let out a breath and was about to activate it when Xiao Man caught his hand.

“Wait.”

“What?” Qu Hanxing looked puzzled.

Xiao Man didn’t explain. His finger traced the lines Qu Hanxing had drawn, going around the seal once, and stopped at a certain point. “This stroke is missing. It needs a curve upward here.”

Qu Hanxing raised an eyebrow, skeptical. “Really?”

“Try it and you’ll see,” Xiao Man said.

Qu Hanxing, operating on the logic of I’ve already failed so many times, once more can’t hurt, followed Xiao Man’s direction and added a stroke to the seal paper.

He glanced at Xiao Man. Xiao Man nodded.

Spirit-force seeped from Qu Hanxing’s fingertips and flowed into the seal paper.

Then — quick as a blink — a small whoosh, and a flame rose steadily into being.

“How — how — how did you — how did you do that?!” Qu Hanxing leapt to his feet in excitement, the flame swaying with him. “You said you couldn’t write fire seals! And I didn’t even see you pay attention during the lesson!”

“I can’t,” Xiao Man said.

“Then how did you do it?”

“By feel.”

At those words, a snort of laughter came from somewhere in the pavilion. Qu Hanxing was already glaring in that direction, about to say something — when Instructor Yang swept in through the door, face stern, eyes sweeping the room.

“Time is up. Present your seal papers. I will inspect them one by one.”

The atmosphere in the Zhaoyu Pavilion shifted in an instant. Those who had been talking, those who had been scribbling in a frenzy, even the one who had just laughed — all of them stopped and sat up straight in their places.

Qu Hanxing held up his still-burning seal paper and asked Xiao Man quietly: “What about you? If you haven’t drawn a seal, you’ll get a Ding rating.”

“The seal paper is a medium for communing with the five elements of heaven and earth. An ordinary cultivator cannot summon fire directly, so the fire seal acts as an intermediary — a call to the fire element. If the call is answered, it counts as a success.” Xiao Man’s tone was calm, his pace unhurried, his voice clear and smooth as spring water falling against stone. “I don’t need to go to that trouble.”

“So what are you going to do?” Qu Hanxing asked.

Xiao Man raised his hand. His fingers traced several swift strokes through the empty air.

In that instant, a fierce flame blazed into being, hovering in midair — burning without falling.

Instructor Yang, standing to one side and slightly ahead, stroked his beard, and an expression of delighted surprise came over his face. “In no more than the space of one hour — you’ve already reached the level of writing seals directly, without seal paper as a medium?”