Hao was at the river when I arrived.
He had come early, before his morning form, and was sitting at the bank with his forearms on his knees. He looked like he had been waiting. I sat beside him and we watched the water for a while without speaking.
Then I showed him.
I opened the core draw the way he had taught me, let the ambient Qi come from the river's direction, held it in the channels instead of releasing it. Then I turned my attention to my hands and let the Qi seep outward from my fingertips, slowly, following the contours of the ground when it dispersed.
Hao watched.
"It moves like the water," he said in awe.
"It carries the water's quality and it’s shape," I released the hold and let the Qi drain back. "That is what elemental affinity is. The ambient Qi itself carries different qualities depending on what it has been moving through. Earth Qi, Wood Qi, Water Qi, Fire Qi, — ambient Qi can be shaped differently. A practitioner whose body responds to one of them draws from it more easily, holds it longer, and produces it naturally in their own circulations." I looked at the river. "I just discovered that mine was water."
Hao cupped his chin in thought.
"What do you think mine would be?"
"I don't know yet. It would have to be read the same way, by noticing which direction your draw comes easiest from and what quality the ambient Qi carries when it arrives." I looked at him. "I want to find out for all of us and anyone else who trains here long enough to be ready."
"What would you call this technique?”
I shrugged my shoulders.
I had been thinking about the name for quite awhile now but I couldn’t arrive on anything concrete yet.
"Zhu Rong and Shan Pei draw from Shu Shu because the beast's Qi has the same quality as theirs.” I looked at the water. "What I know for certain right now is that water is the element I have an affinity for. Other than that, I don’t know what else to call this."
Hao considered my words and I could tell that he was thinking deeply about something else, maybe trying to recall if he felt an affinity before that he hadn’t realized yet.
"Do you think mine would be fire?"
"I don't know."
"If I stood in the middle of a fire, would I know?" Hao pressed.
I scoffed at his words. "I would not recommend that approach."
Hao nodded. He had been genuinely considering the fire. "Then we find another way."
"The sensing develops further than I initially understood," I said. "Ambient Qi reading is the foundation. But when a practitioner has found their affinity and worked with it long enough, the sensing can evolve into something more. Commander Xu can hear heartbeats for example. So who knows what else could be possible.”
Hao looked at me with a confused look, and then I realized that he probably didn’t know who Commander Xu actually was, what my time with her in Lanyu entailed.
"She showed me her technique when I was in Lanyu," I said hurriedly. "I have been developing my own version since."
Hao put his arm around my shoulders.
"Brother," he said, warmly. "I am proud of you, we truly share the same blood. You like me, prefer a seasoned woman."
Oh no.
I opened my mouth to speak but Hao cut me off.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
"Love can be very complicated," he continued before I could stop him. "The most important thing is to be earnest. Tell Wei Suyin that you love her and Commander Xu both, and that the three of you can build something together. It can be done with honesty and care and -"
"Hao."
He stopped mid breath.
"You are misreading the situation," I said with a sigh.
"Humor me one question." He held up a finger. "Do you have feelings for her?"
I wanted to face palm if I could. There was no clean answer that would end this quickly.
"I do," I began to say, "But it’s different. Commander Xu is similar to me so we understand each other. But Wei Suyin is different from me, and it is the differences that I like more."
Hao was quiet for a moment before he burst out into a proud and genuine bellow of laughter.
"Well said." He patted my back twice. "A man should have a woman that both challenges and fascinates him. Father told me that." He looked at me. "Tell Suyin what you think of her, she would love to hear it!”
I nodded.
"And," Hao began, lowering his voice with great seriousness, "the most important thing. Do you know about how to have babi-"
I raised my hand. "You put the sword in the sheath, brother. Yes. I know. Please do not continue."
Hao laughed, deep and full, and wiped a fake tear from the corner of his eye.
"I have never been more proud," he said.
He went back to his morning exercies while I stayed at the bank and wrote the sixth principle in my head until I had the language right.
Cultivation has affinities. They are personal and cannot be assigned. They can only be found by the practitioner, through the practice, by noticing what the ambient Qi already gives them.
I would write it down when I got back to the curriculum room.
The days that followed were quiet. The second cohort from Xu's garrison was still weeks away. The Pei arrivals had settled into the compound's routines. Luan Feng had the grain records current. Bolin was running the general sessions with the same steadiness he brought to everything.
Suyin and I finished the Mother's Touch documentation on the third evening.
The technique record was four pages now. The sixth principle draft, and Mother's Touch technique that was properly credited by Wei Suyin.
And all the while, Shu Shu had grown.
She was still recognizably a cat, and still small enough to sit across Shan Pei's shoulders, but her Qi signature had deepened since Zhu Rong left. The compressed draw around her was stronger and more defined. She and Shan Pei ran their synchronization drills on the south wall every morning and the quality of what I could see in the visualization was different than before. It appeared that their techniques were developing in sync with one another.
I watched them one afternoon from the observation platform and thought about what Shu Shu's element would read as. Something from the deep south, from the Maw's creature-country…perhaps there could be an element that defies categorization.
Xu Bing suddenly arrived at the curriculum room in the early evening, knocked once, and came in when I called. He closed the door behind him.
"The soldier I assigned to her to watch Pei Yan has reported no findings. She has been participating in the same militia drills at the same time every day with the same three men, Duan and the Wei Brothers.” He paused. "The soldier couldn't get close enough to hear what they talked about. She doesn't speak loud enough in personal conversations to hear her words from a distance."
"Did he notice any contact? Notes, marks, anything at all?"
Xu Bing shook his head. "Nothing that he could find."
I rested my head against my fist.
In my mind, her consistent routine roused suspicion and she certainly did not act like a grieving mother, especially one who found out that two of her children died here. But then, who was I to judge what grief looked like in another person? When Mother died I had wanted to keep my hands full of work, my mind moving, my attention on the next thing. Grief found its shape differently in everyone. I did not know what Pei Yan's shape was.
What I knew was that she had walked through ridge country alone to reach this place, and she never explained how.
"Add a second soldier to watch her during the night while the other watches her during the day. Make sure that both soldiers are unaware of the other,” I said.
Xu Bing nodded.
I thought about what I would do if I were in Pei Yan’s position.
If I were here for the purpose she seemed to be here for, what would I be watching?
The militia rotation — she had the watch change times.
The second cohort timing — she had a general sense of the gap.
The cultivation capacity of the village — she had seen Wei Bolin’s sessions but had not been admitted to participate yet.
She knew polearm basics and nothing beyond that. Whatever picture she was building was incomplete on the cultivation side.
The strategic picture was not in her favor either. Last word out of the eastern roads was that Lord Shen Yuan of Qinghe was moving his forces north to deal with the border pressure, which meant his attention was elsewhere. Meishan had been quiet as well, so would they truly commit forces to assault a village settlement in the Western Reaches territory over a personal grievance with Prefect Shen Yuan's army already stretched?
Maybe. Grievances did not follow strategic logic, and if she were working in concert with him, then this could be used a deterrent to march on Meishan.
Tomorrow I gather more information, I thought. And then I send word to Commander Xu.
"Anything else?" Xu Bing asked.
"She will crack eventually," I said. "Keep the rotation quiet and come to me directly if anything suspicious is reported to you. If it comes to that, then we will move on her."
He nodded and left.