(Xie the Scout)

I left the liar's house and made my way back towards the village center. On the way, I'd met the boy who'd introduced himself outside the village Headman's manor.

“It's just like I told you, right. Anyone can get lucky and brew poison. The village headman supported the lie because it was good for morale, but now he'd like to move it out of town before it endangers someone. It seems like the kid is aware, though, that he's not going to fool people in the big city like he can out here.” The boy in mismatched rags declared.

“Fine. Here is your tip.” I said as I took out my purse and flipped a silver coin towards his feet. He stepped forward and caught it in his left hand.

“Thank you, uncle.” He said with a foppish bow and then rushed forward to embrace me in a hug. I extricated my arms and shoved him off only to see his face plastered with a sneering grin. Before I could berate him he vanished down a cluttered alley.

I hated being used. In truth, the boy was not the problem so much as the headman. I'd nearly made a fool of myself. Perhaps I could redirect a travelling alchemist this way and point out a dangerous young charalatan. It would be both right and a righteous comeuppance.

I continued making my way towards the village center, and it felt like those thoughts had lightened the load on my shoulders.

***

(Ju Ping)

I spent the rest of the day meditating. Novice practitioners see martial arts as a matter of finding ones ki, unlocking the lower, middle and upper dantian and then mastering various physical applications. For this reason, serious martial artists are sometimes called cultivators for they plow and seed their own ki pathways so that they can “cultivate ki.”

I've always thought this was rubbish. We are not machines. Martial arts is not about paying in this time or effort to get a predictable and standard outcome. Some men are born with only two dantians. Are they the lesser for that fact? No.

The truth I strove for was one I'd only begun to fathom, and yet from my craddle I had understood the word for it. Wuxia, to be a “Martial Hero,” that was what I'd always strived for.

The word, by itself, is hollow. A man can be a hero many ways. He can cure a disease or kill bandits or raise and support orphans. In this way, the truth was equally malleable. It didn't matter how I strengthened my spirit. I could do it by increasing my resolve as I slaughtered infants. I could do it by hunting and sacrificing to harvest the purest and rarest of supplements. I could do it by pouring my heart and soul into a single painting for over a decade.

I only needed to figure out how I, Ju Ping formerly Lu Bai Xiong, was going to express my “Martial Heroism.” Today, I meditated on the one thing that had always seemed to elevate my spirit—my fight with Chengdu and later Varan. The pure exultation at scoring a victory and the resolution that came with my defeats.

In the back of my mind I had another question stewing. How should I handle Meifen? I had cast out disciples before. It was easy and yet terrible. The easiest part was that casting a disciple away when you were the master was really simply a matter of a few words. The terrible part was that it'd mean sending someone out into the world half trained and with a shattered moral compass.

She could do terrible harm and yet still possessed the potential for so much good. Were her mistakes my own shortcomings that I refused to acknowledge? I didn't think so, but a master was responsible for what their disciple did.

I was clearly leaning towards a short punishment. Still, this could happen again. Should I prepare and in anticipation train her only in short quick things that could be easily mastered or easily left incomplete? I disliked this on principle, but I had a feeling this would definitely happen again.

Something was wrong with Meifen. When I had confronted her about it she'd fallen to her knees and hugged my shins. She'd been wrong and apologetic and entirely too subservient about it. There was no fire in her when I was around, and yet she clearly had some fire to have gone after her former bullies. She just refused to show it to me.

I was gratefully suddenly that Meifen was still ugly. She had slimmed down and lost weight working with me, but there she'd always be big-boned and have a solid look about her face and rough hands. If she had been a dainty flower I'd question if I was being too soft on her or biased.

My heart was telling me that there was only one thing to do and as I'd done countless times before I trusted my heart.

My mother didn't like me leaving the house late at night, but she had been increasingly busy and it was easy to slip out after dinner. Atop the roof of our school house I met Meifen. She jumped up to it with the help of a school desk and then bowed low to me. It had been three days since I'd spoken to her about her misuse. In that time I had not even said one word to her.

I had planned a show. At my feet was cooling corpse of a fox I'd caught and snapped the spine of. To the west was the dying sun, and to the east the ascending moon. I stood proud and tall to dispatch my wisdom when we were spotted and screamed at by a stupid bothersome woman. I picked up my prop and without a word our eyes met and we both took a dive off of the roof in the direction away from the screeching harridan.

After a short chase that left only the harridan panting, I began asking Meifen questions in an alley, similar to the one I'd met Dugu in.

“Meifen, we've meditated on it before, but what do you think Martial arts are for?”

“To strengthen ourselves in mind, body and spirit. To forge and complete the being that God has only put the first initial touches upon. To shape our evolution.” She answered unhesitatingly. I hadn't questioned these answers when she'd at last settled on them. They were each good answers in their own way.

“Why do you want a strong mind, body and spirit. What is the pont of the instrument you are forging? Why evolve at all?” I asked.

She paused. In the space of silence I took a sliding step forward and thrust out my hand. It fell quite short of her but the wide wave of ki behind it blew her hair wildly around in the hot gust of air.

“If you continue to follow me you will meet countless men who can make that same movement and spew out poisonous fumes, lava, cannabalistic ki, crushing gravitational maelstroms, or blinding, burning rays. They will all possess the means of killing not tens or hundreds but thousands or even tens of thousands. With that kind of power at their fingertips humanity has continued existing and flourishing when by all rights we should have fallen into infighting and destroyed ourselves eons ago.”

She studied me. My legs, my hips, my chest and arms, every part that had moved. She was thinking. I could tell by the way her ears twitched and she rubbed the back of her left hand. She did not answer the three questions I'd possed and grasped for the answer to the one I hadn't spoken.

“Progeny. Humanity possesses an innate need to reproduce and protect our young. We don't evolve for ourselves. We evolve for our children. We don't forge ourselves for ourselves. We are instruments for a grander purpose. We don't become strong as an isolated entity. We are the fruits and fulfillment of the legacy of those who have come before us.”

She hit the nail on the head. At least she could do it in a classroom type setting.

I gestured for her to hold out her hands and then I shoved the bloody fox into them. “Mei, what does this make you feel like? To be holding this in a dirty, wet alley at dusk.” I gestured at the mainroad in a half smile. “No one is ever going to notice this animal who died. Not even my little sister who always acts like anything furry is made for cuddling and lovin'.”

She didn't say anything. The gears churned behind her eyes, until at last they spat out, “nothing. It's just a dead fox.”

Then she did something I didn't expect. She swung it by its tail against the wall. It hit a thunk.

I frowned. “Meifen, that's not how you should treat it. It may be dead, but don't dishonor it. You're right. No one is going to notice because to them it is nothing. It's a dead end. There will be no progeny and there will be no continuation of its line. It was weak so it was caught by me and because it was weak no one will notice or protest if I cooked and ate it.”

I took it back from her and then paused to realign on my goal. I wasn't getting through to her. I needed a more modest goal.

“Do you remember reading about Guru Pathik's student? He's important because he left behind an entire country. A legacy that still exists and shapes our world to this day. If he still around and were to attack this village would you hand over your life to him just because he is someone important.”

“No.” She answered reflexively.

“That's right. Every being has a right to defend and fight for themselves, even murderers and bandits. They fight not just for their own right to exist but for their descendents. Now think of school as a microcosm of our world. The bullying is some child's pretensious version of warfare. Do you get the right to fight back when bullied?”

“Yes.” She said with more confidence but she wouldn't meet my eyes.

“They get the right to fight back against your bullying as well. Now what happens when cultivation is brought into the picture. As I said once the existence of cultivation and martial artists who can kill thousands or tens of thousands is seemingly incompatiable with our flourishing society. How does that work out?”

She didn't want to answer, but she'd got it. “They upset the balance. They tip things towards escalation and destruction. They wipe out the hope for a legacy and future.”

“They also guarantee a hope and future, Meifen. We don't always get to choose our enemies but we do get to choose who stands by our side.” Even as I said the words a hollow hole seemed to open up in my chest. They seemed more true than when I'd practiced the line in my head. There was something in there for me.

I forged on ahead. If I stopped to think I wasn't sure I could pick up later with the same momentum. “I want you, Meifen, to teach them a little of what it means to be a cultivator and a martial artist. You may continue to practice with me, but if they accept you are to give them lessons in meditation until they grasp their scale in the world. When they do, tell them this speech as well about keeping the balance and about a being inalienable rights.” I nodded down at the fox who had fought and lost to me. Then I raised up my right sleeve and showed her some scratches I'd received from it. I'd purposely let it scratch me as I killed it. It had surrendered its life but not without scoring a bit of my blood.

“In two months,” I said down to my apprentice, “they should have either refused to learn from you or be ready to unplug the first opening to their dantian. You don't have to go further than that, but at least teach them up until that point. If they wish to learn more then they can go to the Ping Dojo.”

I began walking out of the alley back towards my house. Before I remembered one last thing. Meifen was standing behind me with a hint of horror on her pale face. “And another thing, if you're going to hit someone and you want to keep it a secret be sure to learn to hit only places that can be concealed by clothing.”