David

The north side of Tianbei included the peaks of the Ascending Sky and a sprawling, residential district of well-maintained houses built with clay bricks and dark wood. Most of the houses were small. Thin paper lanterns dyed a deep vermillion hung at every door, and each door was far from its neighbor.

The residents of Tianbei favored long, winding paths from the road to these doors through well-maintained gardens full of flowers. There were few pedestrians, but each one they walked past greeted the group of black-robed disciples with smiles.

As they moved further south into the valley, the housing became more dense and the yards became shorter, as did the streets. Storefronts began to crop up on corners - florists and booksellers at first, then tea shops and clinics. Soon, the stores outnumbered the houses and the streets grew more crowded.

Consistent landmarks were the bell towers that didn't share their streets with any other buildings. In contrast with the carefully kept neighborhoods around them, they were tired and worn. There were no entrances at the ground level to any of them. The sheer concrete walls rose three stories with no windows to meet platforms of the same concrete hanging overhead, jutting over the road.

Dug out of the walls were what had been words, but most of them were illegible. David had seen something like this before - the words on the concrete walls had been written with a blade.

"That looks like a health hazard," said Alice, who pointed to one such platform, half of which had eroded away. The road beneath it was clean and cobbled, but David imagined that the missing bits of platform had gone somewhere - most likely downwards, at the detriment of anyone on the road. That same erosion was what had smoothed over most of the writing on the walls.

The platforms mostly pointed from firmly shut wooden doors shaped like arches. "How do people even use those?" asked David.

Feiyan looked at David with a touch of that disdainful superiority. "Have you never seen buildings made for cultivators? You fly up there, of course."

"It sends a message," explained Kanhu, who was more patient. "You have no business in that building if you're not searching for your Nascent Soul. And not just any fourth realm cultivator can fly - opening the sanjiao comes with a notoriously difficult tribulation."

"The sanjiao?" asked David. "Is that a meridian?"

Kanhu nodded and pointed at the soft of his throat, just under his Adam's apple. "The sanjiao governs flight and good health, amongst other things I'm sure we'll learn about."

"Wind, as well," said Qitai. "I've never heard anything about the tribulation, though."

Kanhu shrugged. "I lived on Minghai's Pear Tree Island for a few months. Fourth realm cultivators from all over the world would come with gifts for the Still Waters so they can take their Tribulation of Dust while submerged in one of the Still Yin Pools. Most of them still die - no one goes to Turtle Cove because that's where the sect dumps the dried out corpses if no one collects the body. They say that on the night of the new moon, you can hear their last words on the wind."

Feiyan paled. "Why aren't the bodies buried? Civilized human beings bury their dead."

"Civilized?" Kanhu asked, incensed.

"Yes. Civilized. And nothing you can say to me will convince me otherwise," said Feiyan. "So tell me your little southern myth which can convince a populace not to bury their dead. Go ahead!"

"The story goes something like this," said Kanhu, who looked more than a little offended. "Once upon a time, there were many more stars in the sky, so every full moon, the western Phoenix would fly across every sea to look at the stars. On a particular night, her favorite star fell from the sky and she shed a single tear, which rolled into the ocean. A fish drank the tear and learned the truth of the world, so he swam onto land, grew legs and started walking - our first ancestor. So when you die in Minghai, your family returns you to the waters. If you don't have a family, it's the duty of your fellow man to cast you back."

"What a ridiculous story," said Feiyan, who hated things she didn't personally believe in.

Kanhu folded his arms. "Don't you believe over in Xijing that the first ancestor popped out of a flower as a fully formed adult?"

Feiyan glared. "There are records in the caves of Jiangxi of the Fu Emperor waking the world. In every single record is a riverbank and the carving of a lotus. This all but proves-"

"Are you trying to tell me that some busted up scratches in a tunnel is conclusive evidence that one sunny morning a flower decided that instead of blooming normally, it was going to make a person?" Kanhu gave the girl a smile that could only be characterized as patronizing.

Color rose to her cheeks. "It makes more sense than your story. The Jiangxi carvings are the only records of the period before the Xi Emperor who Broke the Chains."

"Forgive me for doubting some caveman's foray into painting," said Kanhu.

"You're so disrespectful. The art in those caves are the oldest surviving depictions of cultivation," said Feiyan. "Where's your sense of curiosity? Where's your piety?"

Alice wasn't paying any attention to the squabble. She was attempting to read the weathered writing on the walls. She was tracing out possible words on the back of David's hand and her lips formed a string of candidates for whichever word she was working on.

"Don't bother," said Feiyan. "No one can read those. Those are older than the Great Sects."

David was struck with a sense of disorientation. "What do you mean older than the Great Sects? Aren't the sects-"

"The Iron Scripture boasts a history of a hundred and fourteen generations, which places it firmly at the start of the Xi dynasty. When Great Xi established the Linked Cities, he did so with that sect's power. Starting from the Middle Continent, the world was cleansed of its old traditions and after several generations of rule, history of things before were not kept. The bells of Tianbei were raised when Xi lit the torch - for what reasons, nobody knows," said Feiyan softly. "This is not a secret, just a fact of reality. Great Xi had eleven daughters and no sons. My father considers him the greatest of inspirations."

But David could almost read the words - and Alice was closer still.

"Tell me is it really," Alice muttered, still tracing nonsense on the back of David's hand. "Tell me, is it really going to- what are those damn words?"

They were carved with a sort of desperate violence - scarred and unsightly from birth - in a script that was curved and bent rather than the sensible, clean lines of any modern Chinese he'd read. It was also not the Chinese of this world - but that of his own. They twisted in his mind, refusing to stay still - they didn't belong, but unlike his native language, English, the characters were pictograms that represented something rather than letters.

No, not both words - only one of them. Two characters with one meaning. One word was all-consuming, violent, powerful. The other word was written with a shaky hand, scrambling for cover - like someone hiding from pursuers. David knew that they were hiding from something - it was an experience he had shared. He thought of shattered glass, too much grey light, a dead librarian.

"Storm. Tell me, is it really going to storm again."

"You two really need to stop making things up," snapped Feiyan.

Alice looked ready to make a scene, but Qitai finally spoke up. "I'm getting hungry," he said. "We're not allowed to leave Tianbei until we're Inner Disciples. You're going to be seeing so much of these towers you'll get sick of them."

Feiyan took that as a sign to continue walking. With some reluctance, David and Alice followed.

"Look up ahead," said Kanhu, pointing down the street. "A proper jiulu. Let's eat there!"

It was an establishment much like the one that David and Alice had drank at in Ping’an - shaped like a squat pagoda, with a doorway covered in red silk and hanging red lanterns.

Feiyan turned around and back to see if Kanhu hadn't made a mistake before she exploded. "I'm not walking into a place called the House of Fleshly Delights!"

Kanhu sidled up to the girl. “Does the princess not love fleshly delights?”

“The princess does not!” Feiyan screeched.

Kanhu sighed. “Perhaps the princess is too young, then.”

“Am not!”

“If the princess isn’t too young, then surely she must desire flesh too,” Kanhu said, stroking his chin.

“I- You-”

The afternoon sun cast long shadows across the cobbled roads. Alice pinched David’s finger’s lightly as they continued onwards towards the jiulu.

“W-who’s going to marry me if I’m seen in such a place?” Feiyan wailed. “The eleventh princess of the House of Zhu, at a whorehouse! What a humiliation!”

“I guess we must find somewhere else,” said Kanhu. “The princess is too young to enjoy time in a nice jiulu.”

“I’m not too young!” Feiyan snapped. “We’re eating there,” she declared.

“But didn’t you just say that no one would want to marry you if you’re seen there?” asked Alice, who enjoyed needling the girl.

Feiyan’s lower lip trembled, at war between her sense of propriety and her desire to seem older than she was. But before she could respond, Kanhu and Qitai had already pushed the gauzy silk curtain back and entered.

Alice took her hand and guided her into the House of Fleshly Delights.

In an instant, they stepped into a different world - one that smelled of cloves and incense, of cinnamon and wine. The sound of giggling women and happy conversation could be heard throughout the whorehouse.

“Why did you take me to a place like this?” Feiyan muttered, her cheeks turning as red as the sunset.

“A table for five, madam,” said Kanhu, to a woman at a thin podium. The woman was in her late thirties, with a heavily made up face. She pressed a heavy fan into her bosom. She was dressed in a long, thin qipao with apricots and orioles woven in colored silks.

“Young masters and mistresses! Welcome to our humble House!”

The interior of the House of Fleshly Delights was lit with yellow and red lanterns which contrasted with the blues and whites worn by the girls travelling in pairs and trios from table to table. Unlike the jiulu in Ping’an, an ensemble band played - three girls who looked no older than David and Alice, one on a guqin, one on a four-stringed lute - the pipa and a third on a two-stringed fiddle - the erhu.

Across the walls were murals telling some story about the valley of Tianbei frame by frame. Cultivators depicted with halos behind their head raised towers and fastened bells to them, their swords and spears pointing towards the west. Peaks rose in the backdrop - not three, but five. As David’s gaze rounded the room, from right to left, more bells and bell towers could be seen, and the number of peaks dropped to four, and then three. What the cultivators were fighting hadn’t been depicted, but the final mural depicted victory, with the door to the jiulu superimposed over the entrance to Earth Peak.

It was still early in the afternoon, so there was no shortage of empty seats. A pair of waitresses led them to a table of red, lacquered wood with matching stools. As they approached, it was clear to the girls that Feiyan would be the easiest victim - they were describing the kitchen’s delicacies to her, playing with her hair and flattering her.

“Yes, we’ll have the House special, as well. Chicken and ginseng broth is very good for the skin, after all,” said Feiyan, as they sat. “And only the best baijiu for my fellow disciples.”

The girls were already gone when they had settled into their stools.

“So,” Feiyan started, eyeing the group with sudden trepidation. “I might be lacking in funds at the moment.”