David

The house had been built with four windows, two on the east and two on the west, so the outer disciples of the Ascending Sky could see the rising and setting of the sun. It had been built on the Ascending Sky's Earth Peak with four fired brick walls and a sloped roof of red terracotta tiles. The walls had been finished with jointed pine, both within and without.

Spacious by nature, there was a parlor larger than the apartment David had lived in. Hanging from the ceiling was a pretty little lamp of Yin Fire which swung to and fro. Lining the walls of the parlor were what David first believed to be benches. But when Kanhu pointed out the sewn cushions beneath them, he realized they were actually tables.

There was a door at each corner of the parlor leading to the inhabitant's bedrooms. There were beds of teak within, but only one of them had a mattress, as cultivators didn't sleep often. Feiyan took the room with the mattress. The saving grace of the rooms were the little words carved along the doorframe, soundproofing them.

Alice and Feiyan had a little argument when Alice suggested that they use one of the rooms as storage. Feiyan insisted that everyone had enough space in their rooms to store anything they wanted - it would be truly criminal to deprive David of his rightful living space! Alice won.

Attached to the house was a little pine bathhouse with a roof so low even Feiyan and Alice had to stoop to not hit their heads. There was a basin dug into the bathhouse and lined with stone and at the bottom of it was a little, glowing crystal which sang with qi and grew brighter when the door was closed. There was no water in the basin, and David had no idea where to get water to fill it.

David quickly learned that Feiyan was very, very difficult to live with.

"I'm going to scream."

Alice continued to play. David recognized the piece as an adaptation of the duet she played with Uncle Jiang back in Ping'an - Departing Geese. Her guqin was balanced on one of the benches and she sat cross-legged on one of the cushions.

"I'm really, really going to scream."

Kanhu cultivated in the corner. He'd been going at it for hours now. It sounded like he was trying to balance the rhythm of qi within him. David was entirely sure that he hadn't made any progress, mostly because he stopped every few minutes to hum along to whatever song he recognized. He was humming right now - Departing Geese was a catchy melody and, apparently, quite popular, even if the poem associated with it wasn't.

Feiyan's lower lip quivered. "Does no one care about the plight of poor Feiyan?"

David had spent the last day looking out a window, drifting in and out of naps. Cultivation had a strange effect on his perception of time - when he drifted off, he discovered that when he came to, the sun or the moon stood at different points in the sky, even though he didn’t feel the passage of time. He only really woke when someone addressed him, or when the bells rang across Tianbei. It was one of the things that vaguely troubled him.

He didn't want to dignify Feiyan's theatrics with a response, but he was bored out of his skull, so he sighed and turned towards her. Feiyan was kneeling beside an enormous package, wrapped in a thick red cloth and tied with far more twine than necessary. "What's the issue here?"

"I don't know how to untie this!" Feiyan complained.

"Seriously, princess?" said Kanhu, who was looking for any excuse not to be cultivating. Feiyan had been staring at the package for nearly ten minutes now, and she'd not even touched it.

Feiyan batted her eyelids at David. "Can big brother help me with the package?"

Alice played the next chords a little more aggressively than normal. Before David could respond, Kanhu had drawn a little knife out of his robes and flung it casually across the room. It sank into the package with a thunk - wood, followed by a tinkling sound from inside the package - glass.

Feiyan screamed, short and shrill. "If whatever inside is damaged, you'll be paying for this, Tai Kan-"

"Right, I'll give the money directly to Daoist Chow, to help with the restaurant bill."

Feiyan gnashed her teeth and pulled the knife out and slashed at the twine violently. When the string formed a mess at the base of the package, she unfolded the red cloth to reveal a large, heavy-looking wooden crate. The top of it was a thin pane of oak which she pushed out of the way.

Despite themselves, David, Alice and Kanhu were all crowded around Feiyan now.

There were many things inside the crate - the first that David noted was a folded sheet of bamboo paper that Feiyan stuffed into her robes. A letter, no doubt. Under the letter were all manners of pottery urns, and glass jugs full of herbs and tinctures and even a small potted plant.

Feiyan went straight for the potted plant, cradling it. “Grandmother sent me Junzi Gancao!”

Gentleman Licorice?

Feiyan looked from one giggling face to another and a light dusting of pink colored her cheeks. “The smell of licorice is good for your cultivation if he’s in the room!” she protested.

“Right, of course,” said Alice, patting her head.

Feiyan ducked away from her, then flounced off to place Gentleman Licorice at the nearest windowsill, where his leaves took on the silver of the moonlight. Feiyan tapped a leaf gently with her finger and skipped back to the crate. “There’s so many useful things in here,” she exclaimed.

David looked at her doubtfully.

Feiyan turned her nose upwards delicately. “This is an area where I’m far more educated than you, big brother.”

One by one, she went through the colorful tinctures in their oblong glass containers which were sealed with wax. Some had bits floating inside. “This is the essence of fire moss, good for your meridians. That’s hundred-year-holly steeped in snake wine; it’ll cleanse you if you’re poisoned but you won’t enjoy it. Hanging ginger paste, it smells awful, I hate it.”

She started popping open the lids of the urns after she’d gone through the ten or twelve vials of clear glass, giving each one of them a small sniff. “Eight Horned Toad venom, used to make many poisons and full of m-male energy.”

Feiyan blushed, then moved to another urn, which made a sloshing sound. She immediately retched and closed it. “Porcupine urine, why, why, why?”

Feiyan reached the last, and largest, urn, which she gave a deep, appreciative sniff. “Oolong tea, with peach blossoms. My favorite!”

“So,” said Alice. “Where’s my money?”

Feiyan winced, then withdrew the letter from her robes, giving it a quick read.

She winced again. “There is a bit of an issue allocating funds this month. Father does the auditing on the harvest moon and he-”

“Save it,” said Alice.

“Feiyan is so sorry,” she wailed.

Her three roommates rolled their eyes.

By now, the moonlight was casting pale shadows low into the room, and Kanhu had come to a realization. “Aren’t we supposed to be somewhere right now?”

David froze. “Our lesson with the peak master is soon, isn’t it?”

“Um, did anyone bother to find out where the Sword Platform is?” Feiyan said, still looking at Alice nervously.

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Alice muttered, very annoyed and very much in English, under her breath.

They made a mad dash for the door as four, and threw it open. Immediately following that was a collective sigh of relief as they were hit with a wall of sound.

They had gotten lucky again - there were scores of disciples headed down the path, and David was struck by a wave of nostalgia. The mountainside was loud, with screaming, with whooping, with laughter, like a crowded city street, or a crowded school hallway.

“Feiyan’s good fortune has saved us yet again!” proclaimed the girl. “In shaking us from our boredom with the impeccable timing of my delivery-”

“Shut up for one time, just one time!” moaned Kanhu. They glared at one another.

In the crowd, David found a familiar face, who he rushed over to. “Daoist Liang!” he called out.

Daoist Liang turned around. Another purple flower adorned her hair - a deeper shade than the one from the Autumn Festival that matched her eyes. She gave him and Alice a wide smile.

“Ji and Chow, my cute little juniors!” Liang dragged her companions along with her - a girl who looked younger than Feiyan and a man who looked to be middle aged. “My friends are Daoists Wei and Wei. No relation,” she said, chuckling.

The man gave a pout that looked misplaced on his face, and the girl slowly stroked her chin, giving David a deep sense of disorientation.

“We’re trapped in one another’s bodies,” the girl announced sadly. “It’s been this way for centuries.”

“Don’t mind them, they’re the worst of practical jokers,” said Daoist Liang, giggling. “They tried that one on Peak Master Feng and he kicked them out of his office.” She swung her foot, undoubtedly mimicking Feng.

David and Alice began walking with the trio down the mountain. A few steps behind them, Feiyan and Kanhu were loudly arguing with one another.

“Aren’t you an inner disciple?” Alice asked. “Why are you going to Fairy Guan’s lecture?”

The two Daoist Weis gave one another furtive smiles. “We go because we cultivate the Skybound Scripture and she is the foremost expert on the text. Even the Sect Master has questions only she can answer. In this trying time before our first tribulation, any scrap of knowledge might help us survive,” said the man.

The girl continued. “Sister Liang, who does not cultivate the Skybound Scripture, goes because she is the most beautiful woman in the world. By night, Liang studies the Scripture so as to get into the Fairy’s good graces, neglecting her cultivation and sighing like a wronged flower.”

“That is not why I study the Skybound Scripture,” Liang said, looking offended.

The girl gave a little leap and ended up seated precariously on Liang’s shoulder. She pointed her nose downwards and rearranged the flower in Liang’s hair. “Yes it is.”

“Ignore them,” said Daoist Liang, folding her arms. She attempted, unsuccessfully, to shake the girl off. “Ambitious inner disciples often spend time in company of the peak masters they wish to apprentice under, should they become core disciples.”

“You’d love to be in her company, wouldn’t you?” said the man, giving an exaggerated hip thrust.

“Gross,” said Daoist Liang.

As they stepped onto the Skybound Path at the base of the mountain, Feiyan and Kanhu had caught up with them, and the two Daoist Weis were, once again, doing the bit about being stuck in one another’s bodies.

Feiyan gave the man her deepest pity and pinched his cheeks. “I hope you’ll get fixed soon!”

Kanhu snickered to himself.

Before long, they had passed the arch of carved pine at the foot of the ascent to Sword Peak, and the Skybound Path curved around the mountain. Dawn was rapidly approaching - lighting the sky in shades of pink and red.

The entrance to Sword Peak wasn’t the wide, sliding stone of Earth Peak, but an impossibly tall pair of doors of light grey steel which let in two people standing abreast. Alice looped her elbow into David’s and they walked through the doors together, staring four stories up, where the tips of the doors met, like a sword split down the middle.

Immediately behind the door was an amphitheatre made entirely of the same light grey steel of the door. Tiers of concentric circles ringed a stage a hundred steps down. Each step was a sheer drop a meter down. Little tables that looked almost like trays were jointed on each step, separated by ten paces, which hung over the steps below them.

The bottom steps were already full of disciples, gathered together in groups of four or five at each of these tables.

The air smelled faintly of lavender.

A thin, melodious voice cut through the din of chatter, from a fairy dressed in white at the very bottom of the ampitheatre, at the center of a platform three men wide and a hundred paces long.

“I see our new disciples have arrived.” Fairy Guan beckoned them downwards. “Please join me at the base of the Sword Platform.”