My constant nagging to leave our closed meditation chamber, if I appease my xianxia-dreamer self – prison, if I am being more honest – does eventually force my parent’s hand to let me free. For one day, mother compromises, “if you want to go outside, we can go to a tea party. There will be other children your age, a lot more space, food and more. You can even take a break from your training.”

I agree immediately – why not? It had been four months of the same mahogany room – my only respite was that spiritual lake, which I wish to revisit, if only to leave this place. Although shorter than my stay within the womb, that was inevitable, if a bit unnecessary – could I have not been reborn right before birth? But at least then, there was some justification. My parents have given me none and the frustration only builds.

I don’t doubt the benefits of doing so – my linguistic ability has improved by leaps and bounds. I have yet to spend any time writing, but I can read about a hundred characters now and now have a better understanding of sentence structure and meanings. Accumulation has reached 220, which is pretty amazing, if I say so myself. But given that the spiritual cloak should hide my spiritual strength and I have yet to mention my cultivation technique at all, it should be a nonfactor in my parents’ decision to keep me home.

But a few days later, mother keeps her words and brings me outside. No blindfold this time and no fancy robes, just pure blue silk. No designs, perfectly fitting.

The room we stayed within is the basement, surrounded by all sides with hallways, with the grounds, walls and ceilings inscribed with so many formations that they are more formations than walls. Mother brings me around the basement an arbitrary amount of times before stopping in front of a random section of the wall and stabbing it with an inscribed rectangular stone. Somehow, the stone fits into the wall perfectly and the formations light up. The wall slowly rises into the ceiling, unveiling a staircase we take upstairs.

The rest of the house looks overly simplistic – a few servants clean, cook and otherwise care for the house – but the house lacks possessions or furniture overall. A painting here, a table there.

“New house?” I can’t help but ask.

“For you. And your siblings, when I have them.” Mother says. “I suppose it’s time we stopped hiding you in the basement. It’s about time for you to sleep in a proper room, and in a proper bed.”

“Alone?” I ask, a bit confused by the prospect. I’m stoked about the freedom, but leaving a four month baby unattended overnight seems almost recklessly naïve.

“Of course not. Little Sister Meng will be there with you.” Mother scoffs, opening the door to outside. “Just understand, now that you want to come out, there are responsibilities you will have to undertake. Do you still want to go?”

I step past the threshold easily – I already have the responsibility of saving the Hundred Peaks from its destruction. Just what could compare to that? The carriage is already waiting there, manned by some servants I have never seen before. Not going to lie, I’m a bit disappointed they are not Ascetic Yang – not because I believe such a position befits her skills, but that my world has expanded that much more with the introduction of random servants.

The carriage looks to be the same one from before – there’s the family sigil, a ruby cauldron wrapped three times by a golden dragon – only the golden exterior can be seen this time around. A bit too flashy and shiny for my taste. Even in the early morning the glint is blinding.

I settle into the spot where father sat last time, which makes me a bit uncomfortable. This would be the first time he would be absent for any noticeable amount of my life. “Is father not coming?”

“He is busy.” Mother says, pronouncing that last word angrily. Perhaps more so than she intended, since she looks at me and speaks softly moments later. “A pointless gesture. They haven’t budged since then and another meeting wouldn’t change anything.”

“They?” I ask.

Mother shrugs as she looks out the window. I enter deep meditation.

҉҉҉

Tea party generally conjures the image of a few girls, drinking tea with dolls, if the comics that I read as a child holds any merit. Probably not, but the idea would not be too far off in my mind. But no, the tea party that mother suggests is a full-blown noble extravaganza.

The building itself is bigger than the mansion we live in, which isn’t a particularly high bar given that almost every other building on the estate – since everyone of import in the Ying clan seems to live in the same estate, or at least own property there – seems to be bigger than our mansion, but still. About a third of the interior is dedicated to a terrace arrangement of tables. Mother brings us to the dais as the very top, which is surprising given just how humble our housing is, but given the lack of contest, I suppose we are in the right place. The other four spots at the table have already been filled with a mother-child pairing – it does seem that there is not a single adult man in the entire building, except maybe the servants.

I don’t get to see much of the rest of it – but the terrace seems like a layered cake, with more and more tables as one proceeds down the layers – before storms of qi smash against each other all around me. Mother’s domain appears around me, not the fuzzy outline that she normally has, but one she now wears an aura, thick enough to comfortably hold me within and more. Things become almost complete silent

Once the novelty of the situation fades away, at an increasingly rate once the world turns into an abstract painting, I begin to process other bits of information. Many of the children are comfortably above three feet tall. I’m about half a foot shorter and a great deal lighter. Most of the children are not with their mothers but in the other part of the building, in larger groups.

“Didn’t you say that I would be around children my age?” I ask. “Why are they so much bigger than me?”

“All the children here are only a few days to a month older than you.” Mother says. “You’re just small, despite my great efforts in helping you grow.”

I always thought I was on the bigger side of babies, but fine. Cultivation medicines can supposedly resurrect people so forcing them to grow faster isn’t too much of a straight, just why haven’t I experienced it? “By feeding me?” I ask. How else does one ‘help people grow’? “Spiritually?”

“By keeping you in a medicinal bath of qi.” Mother says, “I beginning to think it’s ineffective. It’s been months but you don’t seem to be growing much at all.”

I hope that’s not the same bath I have been siphoning qi from, a pleasant surprise if I’m to be honest. “I’m four months old.” I say. “The bath was supposed to help me grow? Could the qi have been used for something else?”

“Your soul.” Mother scoffs, frustrated. “But your soul strength hasn’t increased past ten, so that can’t be it.”

“How odd.” I say. I check my soul strength: 220. Houston, I think we may have found the problem. Would make senses that daybreak and nightfall doublehours would not be helpful if I am already being force-fed qi already. “So, if by chance, if my soul did absorb the qi, what would happen to my body?”

“Difficulties.” Mother says, then pausing. “You are oddly talkative today.”

“I’m not normally?” I ask, offended. I do my best when I interact with my family – it’s a cruel jest to suggest otherwise, especially after I have lost so many memories of my original one.

Mother doesn’t respond, but instead hands me a scroll. “The events have already started, but if you find anything else interesting within them, you could join them.”

I look at the storm of qi. ‘Events’ is an interesting choice for that, but I open the scroll anyways. Sure enough, tens of events, ranging from running – which I have no hope to do, my stride is simply too small – to spiritual strength – which I’m not foolish enough to disclose, even if I didn’t have a spiritual cloak hiding it – to some vocab tests – which I probably will win, or at least not embarrass myself.

“Surely the vocab tests, shouldn’t go too badly, right?” I say, pointing at it.

Mother pauses too long for comfort. “If you can read as well as you speak right now, you should be fine. If you become annoyed, then remember you can just come back here, or we can even go home.”

Annoyed? At a vocab test? What is this, high school? Perhaps, when the English classes give lists of words we would hardly ever use, so we all crammed a few minutes before the test. But the vocabulary I am learning so far is so basic that it’s embarrassing that I even have to learn them at the moment. No, I don’t think she’s talking about me, since she think I will do fine if I can maintain my current state. That implies some sort of inconsistency with my speaking and reading.

I have yet to backslide to any noticeable extent in Shanhua, the language of the Mountains (also known as the language of the Colorful Peaks, which I strongly believe is Chinese, only with a name change due to a distinct lack of China in this world). But if I’m not slipping…oh god. Does my instinctual self that does all the eating, pooping and walking – basically things I’m too good to do – also take some of my language classes as well? Can it even learn a language? How does that even work?

“I’ll do my best,” I say, rolling with the oversight. I’m in control now and that’s all that matters.

Mother nods as she carries me down. The storms of qi clears for a brief moment, showing terrace of tables. All the children had disappeared to the events, along with a good portion of the mothers as well. The qi soon picks up once more, clouding everything I see. I begrudgingly using Qi Awareness. I had been kind of hoping to analyze the surroundings more, perhaps on the lookout for some hidden masters and crouching tigers, but alas, blinding myself has not been particularly effective. After all, Qi Awareness was described as an analytic technique, mostly used for introspection, such as checking my soul’s threshold’s integrity.

My vision clears up instantly, now that I can no longer see the qi clashing in the air. Two-thirds of the building has been partitioned to the events, but not sequentially. Rather, all the events are held all-day long, with the current ranking posted, with as many retries as the babies desire.

On our way to the vocab testing event, we are stopped by a mother-daughter duo. The mother has pink hair, with the body of a nymphI don’t recognize either, so they were not sitting upon the dais, but that’s as much as I got.

“Is this the famous **** I have been hearing about?” the woman says.

Mother ignores the woman, and brings me past, but not before the daughter brings me into an immediate hug. She measures me to be a full head taller than her, which must have been rare, because she becomes really happy all of a sudden. “I’m bigger than you, so I’m your older sister.”

“Is that how that it works?” I ask.

“Yep.” She pats her chest and nods. “Bigger means older. Older means better. So follow me and I’ll protect you.”

I begin to answer the little girl but the woman speaks once more. “But what can you really expect from a child anyway, if his mother is a ****?”

Mother grabs my arm and drags me to the vocab testing site. “What was that?” I ask.

“****. They are older but weaker than me. Ignore it.” Mother says. Looking at the Ascetic, a relatively new one, since he only has four earrings in total. “Little Yun would like to take the literacy exam.”

“Absolutely.” The Ascetic says, bowing. “Right this way, Young Master Yun.” The testing area is closed off with a small wooden fence. Within the testing area there are twenty tables, five of which are filled with babies. The Ascetic brings me to an empty corner. “This is a vocab test, so you have to choose the picture that matches each word. You cannot change answers, but you can retake the test after you are done.”

I nod.

The Ascetic taps the center of the table a few times and the entire thing lights up. The character for the sun appears right under his fingers. The rest of the table splits into four quadrants, each with a different painting for it. Once I select a bright orange sun, a beep resounds and the Ascetic smiles. “Great job. Just raise your hand if you have any questions and I’ll come,” he says before leaving.

The test seemed simple enough – I only had to guess on a couple of the questions for the first twenty, which I got two for three right. My name jumped up on the leaderboard with each correct answer, displacing the twentieth name as I gradually climbed the sixth place. However, the last five questions were abysmal. Some type of name, as all the options were portraits. I only got a single right, which did not change my position.

Mother smiles as I return to her. “Great job. Father will be proud,” she says. “Would you like to do another test.”

“No. Let’s go home.” I say. The earlier woman was probably the norm, not the exception, since she would not have been permitted to cuss mother otherwise. The score, while not the best, should quiet some rumors. Best to leave now and hint at my skill at the other tasks, rather than reveal my ineptitude in others.

“Did you have fun today?” Mother asks, helping me into the carriage.

“Yes.” I lie. I’ll have to be more specific in my desires next time around. Other children might be more tolerable than I originally considered, but the adults can be surprisingly annoying.