David

David liked Huzhou. The blend of the city's noisy nightlife, quiet temples and brightly lit streets made him feel at home. He hadn't thought of home in a while, in all honesty. He felt a sliver of guilt - in the first few days after he'd arrived in this strange land, the thought of fossilized gum on concrete, of cars honking and periodic sirens comforted him.

“The Southern Continent is a great place to visit. A bit too warm during the summertime, but…”

It was no longer the case. These past few days, his mind turned to the faint hum of doors that bottled the sound in that little house on a mountain, the faint muttering of esoteric secrets and Alice.

Currently, none of those were nearby. He had seen more danger in the last few weeks than he'd ever faced before, on what he’d been told was known as a Seed World. But these dangers weren't very frightening.

“Of course the frozen north is still very much unexplored. Launching an expedition from the coldwater ports north of Tianbei would be less of a hassle, wouldn’t it, Daoist Ji…”

Cultivation was many things to many people and it seemed to be a common antidote to fear. It was, however, not a complete cure for discomfort.

“And of course, it was an easy matter to deal with. All you have to do is…”

If a hard and fast commonality existed amongst the many descriptions of cultivation that David had heard, it was a universal sense of discomfort. That was a feeling that was simultaneously deeply guarded and incredibly obvious. It manifested in everyone he'd met in this world - innkeeper or immortal, civilian or cultivator. The feeling only grew stronger as David crossed milestones in his own journey.

It hadn't been immediately noticeable. It was easy to pin his worries on homesickness and the many unfathomable situations he found himself in. If he approached it methodically, the act of cultivating should have brought nothing but positive emotions. It neatly solved so many of the discomforts he'd once considered facts of life.

“I’ve read many books about the topic, and some of them are very hard to find…” Wen gave David and Bo a thumbs up.

“I’ve always felt that way,” said Daoist Bo, nodding.

Had Wen stopped talking for even a moment? Daoist Bo was still pretending to listen to him, it seemed.

“Really?”

“What do you think, Path Friend?”

He was never too cold nor too warm. He almost couldn't remember the last time he'd slept, or even felt physical fatigue. There were no roads too dark to travel. Sight was limited less by distance than the curvature of the planet. If he ran at his full speed, would be ticketed on the highway. Conversation was as easy to understand whether he stood across the street or beside who he was speaking to.

At the moment, however, it was warm and he wasn't the least bit tired and the roads were well lit and the view was beautiful and-

"How many silvers would it take to buy your wisdom, honored Daoist Ji?" asked Wen.

David ignored him.

Wen threw his arm over David's shoulder, shaking him. If he'd been one of the birch trees they idly passed every few seconds, he would have lost fewer leaves in a tornado. It made him wonder how often cultivators injured the common folk without any ill will.

While pain remained a visceral, sharp sensation still, it was as fleeting as the injuries that caused it.. David swallowed hard, suddenly realizing how many life-threatening situations he'd run into just in the last three days.

Catching a palm strike to the chest from Small Wei had temporarily doubled the count of ribs in his chest and punctured a lung so quickly it popped. Catching a ring on the iron road had smashed his arm into something the shape of a Christmas ornament - dangling off his shoulder by a tendon and smelling well done from the heat of Sun's qi.

He'd never even broken a bone before arriving in this realm, but somehow he'd a stronger impression of suffering from catching the flu than from the most recent encounters.

David decided how intensely it hurt had to be subordinate to how long it lasted. He thought of Alice, and how she tried to hide the upswell of dark blood whenever he heard the sound of her Silkworms. She still insisted on pretending nothing was wrong, even when they were alone. He hoped it wasn't painful.

"I said," Wen declared, raising his voice, "how many silver taels would this lowly Daoist have to offer to the Path Friend he has long admired-"

"I heard you the first time." David groaned.

No, physical pain couldn’t last when the wounds he'd received closed so quickly. But that only made other, smaller, discomforts so much worse. David was so much more easily annoyed.

And he'd completely forgotten how annoying Wen could be, especially when he was bored.

"If you heard me the first time, how could your Dao Heart allow you to still your tongue? Name your price!"

Daoist Bo tittered, holding well manicured fingers in front of her mouth. David wondered how many albums she would have sold, how many different magazine covers she would have claimed, how many deranged social media accounts she would have accrued in a world where cultivation wasn't the primary focus.

“Yesterday I had a premonition about Daoist Chow! I saw her face in a bowl of soup! Perhap it is her key to breaking through, and the Heavens knew you would be able to bring her this important information. Luckily, despite being a budding prodigy in the field of Feng Shui divination, I only charge a very small amount of silver!”

Didn’t Wen owe him money for the purchase of a pill furnace in Ping’an? David didn't remember for sure.

"I compel you, in the name of my ancestors above, in the name of Stars in the Sky, in the name of the Empress Ascendant, say something interesting!" Wen shouted.

The sound of thunder echoed in the distance, but David couldn’t say for certain it wasn’t the sound of thousands dancing to a full stadium to a beloved song.

"Well, I didn't think you were going to say anything interesting anyway," said Wen. He folded his arms. David wondered if Wen practiced as much as Feiyan had pouting in front of a mirror. His eyes darted at David, still expecting him to answer a question that David had forgotten.

Silence came in many flavors, but this was the kind David liked the most. The silence stretched on - a stubborn, childish contest. Every few seconds, Wen's head tilted back a little further and his nose took a more aggressive angle upwards and outwards.

Bo's smile widened at the same rate, until more than a minute had passed and the stadium they were headed to grew close enough that the ground began to shake ever so slightly. Just how loud was this concert going to be?

David opened his mouth to ask, but decided he'd rather find out when they arrived. The people of Huzhou were known for their beauty, the people of Dongjing loved exchanging secrets and the people from David's homeland didn't negotiate with terrorists.

He wished Alice were around. It wasn't worth telling a joke when the only person who would laugh was hundreds of miles away.

Bo pushed her bangs out of eyes.

"Apparently this century's fashion craze in the Morality Palace involves stuffing small dogs into purses and making meals as unpleasant as possible," said Bo. "When I attend this coming spring, what color would you like your ride to be, dearest disciple?"

It seemed she'd been working on her own standup routine. David found her funnier when her quips were short and clever.

Wen cracked a tired grin. "Whatever color gets me the least dirty looks from my sect sisters, I supposed."

Bo sighed. "Most mortals hate change. Take a few centuries to prove your talent, and you'll have fellow disciples as devoted as your fans will be." Her walk sped up just enough to hide her face from Wen. For someone as proud as Wen, David was sure he would have rather gotten a beating than the flash of pity.

"Yeah, just a few centuries," said Wen, with as much cheer as he could muster. His stride had become listless.

This was the kind of silence David liked the least. Bo smiled and waved at cultivator and citizen alike as the crowd thickened. Her movements seemed a little stilted and awkward, especially for someone with her experience. David supposed that someone who drew so much from the adoration of others could be strongly affected by her disciple’s emotional state.

Wen observed her for a few seconds and then began to meticulously mimic the length of the wave, the shape of her smile, the slight raise of her eyebrow, the slight tilt of her head when she winked.

David understood - this was some kind of cultivation technique. But whatever the technique was, it was clear that Wen was struggling.

"Path Friend," David muttered.

Wen continued. David could see the concentration in the way he narrowed his eyes and adjusted his gestures to resemble Bo with increasing accuracy. As more and more people seemed to avoid his greetings, regardless of which sect they belonged to or whether or not they were cultivators, Wen grew more and more determined.

"Wen," David said, a little more sharply. Wen didn't stop. "Wen," David repeated, more insistently.

"Can't you see I'm trying my best to concentrate here? I've doubled the number of mistakes I've made," Wen hissed, before adjusting his face back into an infectious smile.

"Whatever you're trying to do, stop it," said David. "This isn't a martial form, your performance doesn't get better with higher accuracy. The closer you get to copying her, the more people, especially mortals, will find it unsettling." He paused, then glanced at Bo. He suddenly realized that giving advice on something like this could be seen as presumptuous at best and a terrible insult, if Bo chose to take it that way.

Wen took that moment to defend himself. "Master's the most beloved singer on Song Mountain for good reason. She's the best at this," he said, in a low enough voice that only a cultivator listening in could hear.

Bo paid no attention to him. Instead, she leaned back into a stretch, and pushed her bangs out of the way again.

"At least wave at different people than she does," David said. "At best people think you're mocking them."

"The people who are glaring just don't like me because they claim I'm spitting in the Maiden's eye, or possibly even blasphemous, or taking a leap at swan meat, or whatever phrase people on this continent use to sound melodramatic."

"Melodramatic," said David, flatly. Wen was accusing other people of being melodramatic. David wished, once again, that Alice was here. She loved arguing with Wen.

"Being well-fated has a price," said Bo. "Wen isn't even thirty years of age. Some lessons are hard to teach. The Immortals who study the Dao through the body claim that the brain doesn't finish its full development until the age of forty, at least, so processing some ideas in cultivation can be a bit of a gamble."

"Right, a little too young," said David, making sure Bo was looking ahead before he threw Wen the smarmiest grin he could manage.

Wen glared back at him and then at Daoist Bo.

"Don't make that face," said Bo, without turning around.

David and Wen both froze. He was sure the instant chagrin on Wen's face mirrored his own. David smiled, shrugging. Wen chuckled.

Bo whipped her head around to face Wen, without a trace of humor. "Would you like to inform this old woman what her disciple finds so funny about her instruction on proper etiquette?"

"Nothing at all," said Wen, sticking out his tongue at her. His smile slipped away slowly when he realized they'd stopped in the middle of the road.

David wasn’t sure what Wen might have said or done to have gotten his master angry.

"Nothing?" Bo whispered softly. "What of your promises?" The sound of the Song rose slightly in her.

David frowned, alarmed. Daoist Bo's Song was composed of what he perceived to be the pitched vocals of many distinct voices representing different notes. It was melodically beautiful - had they been the keys of a piano, it would have been tuned to an impossible standard of accuracy. Something wasn't right.

"What is my opinion on lying?"

Wen shook his head. There was a hint of panic in his eyes now.

He thought carefully about his own Peak Masters, and Daoist Nan and even of the few seconds he'd heard Li's Master, the Beggar of Bei'an. He could almost hear their steady, strong rhythmic Songs, ordered and technical and organized.

"This disciple apologizes," he muttered. David looked around. A handful of bystanders who weren't cultivators kept their eyes steadily on the road and sped up, consciously or not. There wasn't a single disciple from either Song or Tang Mountain who wasn't openly staring. In the distance, David could hear an introduction for one of the opening acts from the stadium.

He thought of Uncle Jiang, who sounded of crashing waves, whose Song was so precise he could hear the immortal proclaiming who he was as if he'd spoken plainly, but so intricate he could not isolate the sound of his core. Whenever David tried to remember the conversation with Uncle Jiang, it never matched up exactly with what Alice had heard.

"What has my dearest disciple done to require an apology?" What exactly had Wen gotten himself into this time? What had caused this dramatic shift in Daoist Bo's personality?

David eased the frown off his face. Daoist Bo had seemed incredibly kind, if a tad eccentric. Bo was a musician, a renowned singer. She had not yet Resolved a principle, but as he continued to listen for the sound of her Song, the lack of principle didn't abate his concern. He counted nine open meridians. She was far closer to one of the Peak Masters than to Senior Sister Hong, who was fifty li away and not fully recovered.

Silence.

Xin, he noted, as he felt a thunderous rumble at the lower registers of her Song. She had filtered her Song through her heart’s meridian. What was she doing?

David glanced around - the crowd was mildly perturbed, and the Tang disciples looked mostly confused, but each and every one of the six or seven disciples in red varied from derisive to excited to hopeful to-

The ones who'd met his eyes schooled their expressions into something more polite. David had been glaring.

Wen's Song, by contrast, had not changed. The click that echoed towards the high heavens. The flutes and clashing swords which had been senseless noise when they'd met on that little boat which Wen had to recite a mantra to stabilize was continuous and well timed. He'd been in some stage of Qi Condensation at that point. He was assuredly at the cusp of establishing his foundation now.

"Has a Disciple of Song Mountain somehow lost the most revered gift of his voice?" Bo's song rose in volume. No - not in volume, in depth. More voices joined into the chorus to sing each note of her Song. It was a form of mimicry. David wasn’t sure if its source was from Daoist Bo at all.

Was Wen in imminent danger? Wen had not reached a level of distress high enough to destabilize his Song, but David suspected that he likely had progressed beyond the point in his cultivation for that to happen.

David looked around. A few more disciples from both sects that controlled the city had stopped by to watch. Some of the citizens of the city continued past the scene in order to get to the concert, either out of good sense or their lack of ability to sense qi.

He wondered if there were any cultivators like Daoist Nan in this city. The chances were slim - and it was even less likely they would get involved.

Wen shook his head frantically. "This disciple apologizes for his lack of worth. He hopes his master will grant him another chance to do better."

"And how many chances have I given you?" As her Qi surged and circulated within her, it took on another layer of density, and her voice softened again. In the corner of his eye, he could see the disciples of Song and Tang craning their necks and frowning intently, their eyes glued to her lips.

Those were the words that had left her mouth, but they had taken something else with it. The music from the stadium had gotten far louder, and those who were watching turned their eyes up the road.

Bo leaned forward, bringing her lips to Wen’s ear.

"Who found you on the door of death, with a wound tainted thrice in Heavenly Principle? Who paid the cost to close it, my lost little star?”