Hong Fanyi

Back in her day, newly promoted inner disciples, no matter the sect, were pretty easy to kill.

Disciple Ji had been sitting on the ground - much like Hong and her opponent, when Sun of the Iron Scripture had launched one of the rings from his finger at him. Somehow, the boy had discovered the trajectory of the little ring and managed to block it with an open hand.

That was the miracle that kept him alive.

The force of the ring colliding with his palm let out an almighty creak of bone breaking. The wide black sleeves of Ji's sect robes flew back, as did the skin and muscle of his forearm, ripped outwards like a blooming flower to show snow white bone.

It was peculiar to Hong that the boy still stayed rooted to the ground, swaying backwards like he'd been hit with a great wind - the force which opened up his flesh must have been enough to send him a li into the bamboo forest. In fact, smoke rose from the palm he'd stopped the ring in. His arm was a ruin, but the ring had been stopped in its tracks. There was no blood. The friction of the ring had cauterized the wound.

Hong could have sworn she'd heard the sound of thunder - there would be rain soon, a rarity on the Iron Road.

Disciple Ji collapsed to the ground, sprawled over his arm. His eyes bulged. It must have been from the pain. His lips moved, almost in silence, but the words easily floated into her ears.

"Four stitches, four stitches, one wound to knit, two strings to sever, three needles divide-"

It was a specialty of the Southern Continent - the real thing. But who in their right mind would have taught this child something as valuable as a foundational sutra from the Eagle Peak of the True Sutra Sect?

"Heavens above!" Disciple Sun cried out, with the bedside manner of a celebrated doctor. "Are you going to be alright?"

A sudden rage snuck onto his face. "How are you alive?"

Disciple Ji didn't reply. His lips continued to move in time with his sutra.

Hong looked up at her enemy. The sudden motion made her lightheaded, but she committed herself to analyzing him - far too late in the battle if Master Ling could be believed.

What her junior had said was correct entirely. The man had opened more meridians than her. From the way he manipulated his body, she could tell that he must have Ignited on his pi, the spleen - even though her own martial arts were infinitely superior to his, he was able to keep up with her every motion. He was naturally faster, his hits were naturally harder. It was the favorite of martial cultivators.

But the man was a doctor. Why did he choose such a path?

"You have survived my strike," said Sun, almost placidly. "You deserve a name. What is it?"

"Ji Kang," the boy gritted out, before Hong could utter a word of protest. The ring that had sunk into his hand shot from his sleeve to the floor in a clatter, and a fountain of blood. "Four stitches, four stitches," he decided, staring at the ring with a curiosity Hong could only describe as morbid.

Her junior was too proud. It would likely be the death of him, one day. Or possibly today.

Hong felt the currents of qi in the air - it was complex and mysterious to her senses, but not impossible to break down.

Fairy Guan had once mentioned in a lecture that the scars of tribulation were always apparent in the qi of a cultivator who had not Resolved their principle. Indeed, Disciple Sun’s qi cried out at the world as if it had been wounded - proof of that Tribulation of Weeping that came with opening the Spleen, eroding the boundaries between the circulatory system of the body and the circulatory system of qi that started at the lower dantian and followed passages to the meridians and apertures.

But there was another earthly tribulation the man had not quite survived. There was a swinging pendulum to the rhythm of his qi. With a start, Hong realized that the apertures on the right side of the man’s body were destroyed. He had taken the Tribulation of Balance, the opening of the shen, the kidneys, the seat of the Spirit Root - and had only passed it nominally.

She could use this knowledge.

“Four stitches, four stitches.”

With a short scream, Ji's hand jerked out of his sleeve. Hong didn't know what to expect other than a bloody mess, but it certainly wasn't a completely reformed limb.

"Was that a lifespan sutra?" she whispered, incensed. That was so irresponsible!

"What's that?"

“Typical of spoiled children to have Heaven’s treasures,” spat Sun. “But it won't matter.” He pushed his matted hair out of his eyes and then forced himself to his feet, with bent knees.

But this time, Hong was ready.

I’ll remember every prayer, every tear, every breath.

Disciple Sun flew at Junior Ji. He was just as fast as when she'd met his strike on the road, but now she met him in passing. Her palm found the muscle under his right shoulder.

Had it been his other side, she could have potentially smashed his heart and killed him instantly, but attacking a weak point was almost always better than striking at the often fortified heart of a cultivator.

She slipped and her jaw hit the slate of the road. Her eyes closed. How strange, she didn’t remember him hitting her-

Hong felt the wind against the side of her face.

“Put me down.”

Disciple Ji did not put her down. “You’re heavily wounded, and I’m not sure how,” he muttered as he continued to run.

Back in her day, inner disciples followed orders.

“Put me down!” she protested again, but her vision swam and her eyes closed. This time, she didn’t lose consciousness. “Where are we headed?” she muttered.

“To Dongjing, in the opposite direction that Disciple Sun of the Iron Scripture ran,” said Ji. “To the tallest pagoda. Our sect is friends with the Clear Skies, are we not? A friend of mine has mentioned that on the seventeenth floor, there is a medical facility.”

“We can’t just-” she retched, undoubtedly spraying blood onto the road. “We can’t just walk into a friendly sect and expect medical treatment-”

“My friend is a core disciple there. He will get you treatment, whatever’s wrong with you,” Ji promised. Her eyes opened again and she stared into his face. It was pale and worried.

What indeed was wrong with her?

“I believe I’ve been poisoned in some way,” she said, spitting another mouthful of blood. She could see stars despite her closed eyes. “I don’t think I’m going to make it.”

She took a deep breath. The air was stale - she didn’t like that. The breeze from the mountains of Tianbei where she’d spent most of her life was always cool and fresh - not held in by arrays.

“My name is Hong Fanyi,” she began. “I was born two thousand, three hundred and forty two years ago-”

“No, no, no,” said Disciple Ji, with a desperation in tone that she should have had. “You’re going to live.”

“In the town of Shentai, on the west coast of the continent, on the road between Xijing and Bei’an. My father’s family owned a restaurant and my mother was a seamstress. Many cultivators my age who seek Principle miss their mortal lives dearly, but I barely knew my family. When I was not even twenty years of age-”

Hong paused to spit again. She opened her eyes to stare at the bamboo of the forest.

“I met a cultivator on the road of life. He claimed to be an outer disciple of the Hualuo Sect, one of the many lesser sects that dot the civilized world. I loved him dearly, but I no longer remember his name. His arrival into my life coincided with many young women disappearing from my town. I discovered later that he had never been alive in all the time I’d known him. The inheriting disciple of Earth Peak from the Ascending Sky exorcised him. That inheriting disciple was Master Feng, Resolved.”

Her eyes closed and she said nothing. Hong reached a finger to her wet cheeks and examined it. She’d expected to see something sticky and red, but it wasn’t blood.

“We rise Skybound like a thousand stars, cross our steel, make our bones. It’s an unlucky thing, none of the other disciples in my caste - a century older, a century younger, survive to this day.”

A sudden pain she didn’t know she felt in her stomach intensified. A kaleidoscope of colors flashed before her eyes. She heard the rumbling of thunder, closer now - she didn’t want it to rain.

“You’re not going to die,” the boy promised, horrified. The colors settled on something clear, blue and bright. She smelled smoke. It smelled like cooking, like fire, like homes. She opened her eyes.

They had exited the bamboo forest on the southern side. The pagodas of Dongjing rose into the sky, powerful and wide. It was a beautiful sight - under the night sky, the rooftops teemed with cultivators forever young and beautiful.

“We’re here,” whispered Disciple Ji.

The black garb of the Ascending Sky must have stood out - it was an uncommon choice, but there were many sects in Dongjing and to the pale yellow robes that patrolled the streets and skies, they were barely worth notice.

Disciple Ji did not slow - he headed boldly unto the main avenue that pointed straight at the tallest pagoda - the home of the Clear Skies sect.

“You’re not going to find a doctor who can heal me. This is Iron Poisoning,” said Hong. “It is a famous technique of the Iron Scripture - I should have prepared for it.”

“You better believe I will,” growled Ji. “We’re going to head to the seventeenth floor and you’re going to live.”

He was now running through the massive commercial district, the heart of which was Winds of Spring Tower, the home of the Clear Skies and its thousands of disciples. Dongjing was built around it entirely - as they drew closer, there were more and more yellow robed students milling about.

“Listen here, junior,” she mumbled. “The Clear Skies has ten times our core disciples and each of them are not a fifth of the quality. Just because you know one of them doesn’t mean-”

Disciple Ji stopped suddenly.

“I smell tea!”

“What?”

“Tea!” he said, as if it would be the solution to all of their problems. “Tea, thank the heavens, tea!”

There was, indeed, the heavy scent of tea wafting up the block - but within it was much more than just tea. There was the sound of crinkling paper, the smell of smoke and fire, there was Principle. Rushing against it was the sudden expansion of her junior’s own qi. To her surprise, it too had a flavor - though it seemed somewhat inert and unassuming to her.

Hong almost felt a slice of resentment for the person who was intent on saving her life. Talent was as talent does, she supposed. And then she felt panic. “Stop casting your presence to the wind,” she hissed. “Do you want the entirety of Dongjing to descend onto us?”

Indeed there were some curious faces from the rooftop now.

The scent of tea grew stronger. Hong didn’t think she could grow pale with Iron Poisoning, but she was sure if she checked a mirror her face would be bloodless. “The cultivator felt that,” she whispered. “They’re coming.”

But her junior was a step ahead of her. He tilted his head to the sky and shouted out.

“Disciple Ji Kang of the Ascending Sky greets his senior, Daoist Nan Pu’er, Resolved, of the Paper Flowers, whose banner will not flag, whose palace will not fall, whose promise will be kept!”

The returning rumble raised the hairs on the back of her neck.

“For what purpose does Ji Kang call on this old Daoist?”

Back in her day, inner disciples did not have connections like this.