David

The population of the Middle Continent wasn’t divided equally over its landmass. David and Alice had woken up in the southeastern reaches of the continent where dense and craggy forest had grown in place of rice fields. They'd then followed a river north to the city of Ping'an, which was beyond the purview of the Eight Linked Cities, where the civilization of the continent had been compacted.

They'd traveled hundreds of miles west to arrive at Dongjing - the Eastern Capital, the home of the Clear Skies Sect. This was where Chan Changshou had been born and raised, and where he currently lived. By contrast, Xijing - the Western Capital, to David's knowledge, had been built against the ocean to the west. This was where Zhu Feiyan's family ruled, and where the Paper Flowers - the sect from which Daoist Nan originated, had its roots.

When David and Alice had journeyed towards the Iron Scripture with Li, they'd walked the Iron Road, a well-maintained but rarely used path that shot out the northwest of Dongjing to end at the very northwestern tip of the continent, at the black city of Bei'an that had been built with volcanic glass and smelled of fishmongers. This was the road on which David and Senior Sister Hong had been attacked.

"You must understand," said Hong, coughing, "you need to know what you can say no to and what you can accept. It is incredibly impolite for you to turn down an invitation to a dinner, for example."

"But what can I say no to?"

"I can't think of anything," Hong growled, taking a sip of tea. Her shaking hands set it back on the counter with a short clatter.

Daoist Nan had watched silently as Hong had attempted to explain the geography of the Middle Continent to David, but now he chimed in. "If you're a new inner disciple, you should probably avoid proposals of alliance, sale of goods and promises of marriage," he said. He was brewing more tea in his cauldron with a cast iron belly at the corner of the room.

"Remember that you represent our entire sect," said Hong, for the fifth time. With that, she slumped against the counter again, breathing heavily. Her eyes closed.

"I understand," said David, feeling more than a little irritated.

Hong made no reply - she had fallen asleep, standing.

"You should leave before she wakes up again," said Daoist Nan, sporting a sardonic grin. "It'll take me a week's time to heal her and if you don't leave now, she'll likely spend the next week ensuring you don't create problems in Huzhou."

David nodded quickly. With a final glance at Hong, who was sprawled against the edge of the counter, with her hair in her tea, he left Nan's tea shop.

Now, David was headed west again - but rather than north onto the Iron Road, he was headed south. In the breast pocket sewn to the inside of his new robes - robes he'd gotten for being promoted to inner disciple, robes that looked exactly the same as his old ones - was a little faded yellow pouch. It had been carried by Senior Sister Hong for most of the journey, but it fell to him to deliver it now.

The last time David had walked the streets of Dongjing, it had been lit with a million fireflies. Tonight, it was raining lightly, so it was not quite as bright - but only just. Windows on every pagoda lit the streets in a warm yellow glow that implied a citywide love of nightlife. Lanterns of many colors hung from the doors of the thousand cul-de-sacs that formed the little neighborhoods of the city.

The city had grown not out of any sort of urban planning that David would have recognized, but with the construction of each individual pagoda that represented a school of something - not just cultivation and martial arts, but also pursuits like theater, cooking and sculpture.

Within a few minutes of walking, the boulevard widened enough for four lanes of oxen-drawn carriages to pass. Directly in front of David, at the center of the city, was Winds of Spring Tower. From this grand pagoda that was the home of Chan Changshou’s Clear Skies Sect, there were lanes of traffic headed in every direction.

Dongjing was fifty li from Huzhou, but it wasn’t a measure of the cities from center to center. The sprawling metropolis of Dongjing extended on all sides from Winds of Spring Tower for many miles in eight directions. While Senior Sister Hong had spent nearly half an hour explaining the dos-and-don'ts of interacting with an allied sect, she’d not given him anything other than the vaguest of directions.

“Young gentleman!”

Now, David stood in front of the tower with absolutely no idea of which way to go. It was as crowded as any New York City street - with pedestrians pacing along roadways. There were no cars, but carriages drawn with horses and oxen shared the center of the streets that made up the veins and arteries of the city.

“Young gentleman!”

Cultivators darted along the rooftops of the city, jumping from the shingled roofs of the pagodas. Many of them wore the pale yellow of the Clear Skies sect but far greater in number were cultivators in robes of different colors. Those who did not wear yellow gave the disciples of the Clear Skies a wide berth - it was clear who ruled the city.

“Excuse me, young gentleman!”

Someone was trying to get David’s attention. David sighed and made a bet with himself - would the man try to sell him something or would he ask for directions?

“What do you want?” David asked.

“I would like to know if you’ve seen the greatest show on the continent!” The man had a hard face, pinched cheeks and a sallow tone of skin that could have only come from malnutrition. In his wrinkly hands were a stack of flyers. He wore somewhat tattered blue linen robes and sported a long, graying beard.

“I haven’t and I don’t care to,” said David, taking a step away from the man. It was most likely some kind of scam, because locals kept a wide berth from the man. David decided the man was likely a pickpocket. He clearly had no cultivation to speak of - his movements were sluggish, but they also seemed abnormally thoughtful. Furtive, even.

The man’s mouth opened in a theatrical gasp. “You haven’t seen the performance of the greatest idol of Song Mountain, Liu Na?”

David let out the sigh he’d been holding in. If the man had said anything else, he would have walked away, but Song Mountain Sect was indeed where David was supposed to go.

Like all scammers, the man must have sensed David’s interest. “I am a gentleman from Huzhou, here to spread the word of the greatest show on earth! There will be singing! There will be dancing! There will be drinks. There will be gambling! For just a few silvers, you can join our touring carriage, but if you present our voucher to the gambling halls of Huzhou, you may bet up to every single silver you pay us to take you there! What do you say, young man?”

David almost laughed out loud. This was not, as he expected, a scheme to rob travelers in the city - at least not in the short term, but this was something he was familiar with. It was illegal to run a casino in New York City, but in the Indian reservations to the north of the city, there were many such marketing schemes - many of them more generous than this.

“How much is it?” David asked.

“Only twenty five silvers! Our carriage is leaving at midnight, so we’ll get to Huzhou at the most exciting hour!”

David nodded. “I do have business in Huzhou,” he said. “Twenty five silvers will be fine.”

“Really?” the man asked, as if he didn’t believe him.

David frowned. He supposed the man was used to more aggressive bargaining. “Where’s the carriage?”

The man gave him a wide smile. He was missing a few teeth. “This way, gentleman!”

David followed him along a side street that curved off the main road. It was a little more quiet and narrow than the main thoroughfare, but there were still ten or fifteen people walking in both directions.

The carriage was clearly visible from all the way down the street. It would be drawn by the four horses tethered to it - they were eating out of pails in front of it. Thin little tent poles ran all along a structure that was filled to the brim with small wooden benches. Rain pattered off of the canvas roof held up by the tent poles.

On the seats were, David expected, the other suckers who’d agreed to tour with the carriage. At its helm was a middle aged woman holding onto the reins and nursing a pot of dark red wine. David noted the sound of the Song from her - but it was diffuse and arrhythmic.

The passengers were divided along an aisle to the middle - on the left side, most of the passengers were the same age as David’s mother. Most of them had the callused hands of laborers. Half of them were slightly overweight, the other half were far too thin. They were either sipping at bottles of liquor or napping. They wore robes of linen and cotton in many colors, with many stains.

The other side of the aisle was dramatically different - they were mostly young women and girls who were David’s age. Most of them wore robes of silk, short skirts, little bracelets and necklaces of gold and silver, and makeup. There was a rowdier group near the back of the carriage who had already been drinking heavily, from the way their conversation carried down the street.

None of them seemed to be cultivators.

David stuck his hand into the pouch Alice had handed him - the one that Mayor Lin had given them back at Cloud Mountain City, and fished out twenty five silvers, which he passed to the advertiser. The man's eyes lingered for an uncomfortably long time on his pouch, but he said nothing, choosing instead to hand David a little red slip with the word for ‘voucher’ on it.

David climbed aboard the carriage and found an empty seat next to one of the girls on the right side of the aisle.

“Excited?” the girl asked immediately.

“About what?” David asked, smiling.

The girl turned to look up at him. Her eyes were a light brown and her skirt was blue. David supposed he would have found her attractive back at home, but his eyes had been heavily desensitized to beauty. The girl didn’t have Alice’s bright smile, nor the regal cheekbones of Daoist Li, to say nothing of that perfect structure of everything about Fairy Guan.

She gasped, staring.

Was there something on his face?

She noticed his confused frown. “Oh I’m sorry, it’s just, you’re kind of really hot,” she said, winking. She had a cute face, with slightly exaggerated dimples. “I’m Yanyan. Are you dressed like a cultivator because Liu Na prefers cultivators? I read about that in the Huzhou Daily interview too!”

David hadn’t heard of Liu Na before the advertiser had accosted him on the street, but the girl was so excited he played along. “Something like that,” he said.

The girl pouted. “So you’re a big fan as well, then. How much did you love her new single?”

David shrugged. “Nothing really beats her older work, in my opinion, but maybe seeing her live will change my mind,” he said, lying through his teeth.

“Oh my god, so true!” squealed Yanyan. “My favorite song is definitely Rain Falls. As the rain falls, I look into your eyes,” she crooned. She had the singing voice only a mother could love.

In retrospect, it shouldn’t have surprised him, but the right side of the carriage erupted into what was probably the chorus of the song all around him.

“Settle down, settle down,” barked the woman at the reins. “You’ll scare the horses. We’ll be leaving soon and when you get to the concert you can sing along as much as you want.”

The party bus ignored her, as David expected.