The Fourth Wall - Chapter 39 preview

The mountain rose, ever onward. Without light, the night turned on forevermore. For the pair of cultivators, ascending the mountain was a trial, if different ones for each. For Yeye Su, the old man only sought to bear the discomfort, to preserve his chi till he reached the peak where he might then test himself against the dao and utilize the pills he had acquired.

For Wu Ying, the ascent itself was the test, the journey upwards a matter of peeling away his own preconceptions, allowing the howling wind and ever hungry dao to strip away the lies he told himself to survive. Every moment, he took a scalpel to his falsehoods, carving away portions till he would lay himself bare.

And either fall away, internal, till he was nothing more than a nub or join body and soul together at last.

His first experience with the wind had been at the Double Soul, Double Body sect. He had learnt of his own lineage and connection there, in that basement of power and ritual from a pair of Elders who had dedicated their lives to helping others, studying the intricacies of a body and soul. A bloodline that had been hinted at it, that had been part of a family’s lore – much like some other families spoke of Immortals in the distant past or connections to Ministers or the royal family – had borne fruit.

It mattered little, till that moment, when it had been shown to be true. A question of whether he should have, could have, pushed forward. Developed his bloodline, grown stronger that way, combining herbs and bloodlines from the various animals he trapped. 

Maybe even searched for a droplet of dragon blood, much like what he had found for Tou He later.

Instead, he had embraced the element itself, ignored the bloodline that gave him access to it. Pursued the various methods of growing stronger via Body Cultivation, a system that was little used within the Shen. He had chosen it because it had felt right, because it was the most appropriate and powerful system available.

Because he had been desperate at the time.

Was that all? Was his desperation sufficient to drive him down a single path? If so, how much luck did he have that it had brought him this far? No.

It wasn’t just that.

The central wind.

That had been what he had heard that first time, the one he had sensed. It had not just been that one, but the five mortal winds, compared to the winds of the heavens and the hells that he had recognized. Those had drawn him in, but it was the central wind that he had felt most of all.

The wind of belonging, of the kingdoms and mortals. That drew in all the other winds and made them its own, that wind of balance and organization and understanding. It was the wind of the kingdom he had lived within, set too far away from the east where the oceans lay or the west where the desserts grew. Plentiful and quiescent, neither as harsh as the north nor as warm as the south, a place of balance.

He had found the center of it, and in finding it, found the center of himself.

The wind was a part of himself, the parts of all four others, the mundane world of humanity and the Middle Kingdom. Nothing grand and imposing like the six heavens, nothing personal and intimate and numerous like the thousand hells. Yet, for Wu Ying, it had been what he wanted, needed.

This world. The five winds that blew in from all the directions. The four major ones, the four minor. 

He had started traveling north and then west, all the way to the dessert. Found caverns, caves and desert lands and a boy who wanted to be a hero. He had trained him, listened to the wind, felt the heat and the sand that got everywhere, all the time. Smelled the spices of faraway lands, tasted the tea and cactus juices and watched the stars turn above him. Felt the sand brush his skin, the warmth of the day and the chill of the night.

Met different tribes, a gang, new lands. Saw different modes of dress, studied body cultivation and ways of improving themselves. Saw the world, in a different way.

Then went north, chasing the wind. Was captured and treated as an honored guest, studied spirit cultivation, met and spoke to giant turtles and traveled from land-to-land in a nomadic lifestyle. A lifestyle that suited him, strangely enough, till it was time to go. And found that he never, ever was forced to stay.

North, and north again. When the world went white and the winter never ended. When only a few creatures lived, and even fewer plants. Still, he traveled north.

Found a palace that he was never meant to visit, disturbed an individual that was so high above him, they never even bothered to make an appearance. Cast him down, crushed his spirit, gave him an opportunity to truly grasp what it meant for a world to live under the cold forevermore.

Beauty was in the eye of the beholder, in the miniature crystalline structures of a snowflake, in the stark beauty of a winter sunrise or the wide expanse of a sky without civilization. Lights in the sky, pale green, violet and blue dancing, a low hum that could only be heard on the edges.

A northern wind that saw creatures – strange and weird, waddling on two feet and diving deep into waters, plucking forth fish and crabs and more…

Different worlds from his own pastoral paradise. 

Nothing at all like this land either. Shadows had turned into complete darkness, only the barest glimmers of light coming from the portal as it streamed upwards to light the way. Spiritual senses extended a short distance from him, just enough to allow him to place his feet properly, guiding his way by feel and sense and smell and hearing than sight.

So many senses, deprived of him. Similar, but different, from the pressures of the deep.

East. 

The great winds of the east, bringing with it hurricanes and typhoons, the great gusts that tore apart houses and brought pounding rain to shore. The smells of an ocean, at first so similar, and then, as he travelled; resolving into minor differences. There, hints of a land of cherry blossoms and oaks, of smoking mountains and different people.

Here, water turned brackish and still, of rotting flesh and dead sea creatures. A mingling of scents, not just salt and water, but also leaking fluids and chemicals escaping from deep subtaranean vents. 

Flotilla of ships, a people who never stopped on shore for longer than they had to, trading to gain new vessels, new homes for one another. Different cultures, a lifestyle that focused upon the ocean and the catch, the necessity of repeating the same actions, over and over again as fish grew stale. 

New challenges, different from his own farming background.

Just like being underwater, swimming deep below. Harvesting new forms of marine biology, plants and coral and sea anemones. Doing battle with creatures that lurked beneath, fish and crabs and octopi. Oh, that multi-limbed monster that occasionally made its presence known in his nightmares.

A world like this one, where his sense of smell was gone. Where sight was but a bare few feet, where light had bled away like a half day old stuck pig, such that only the barest trickle of blues and violets and blacks were left. Where sensation was omnipresent, water pushing against his body – and yet, the information it passed on, barely anything. Warmth, the flow of currents, the cold of the deep. 

Hearing all too present, the thrum of his breathing, the shift of his clothing. Every noise, magnified and transferred across the liquid boundaries, such that distance was hard to tell, direction even more difficult. Smell and taste, useless and certainly not to be trusted.

A world entirely different from the one he existed within, the winds missing but what he brought with him. Only his spiritual sense a guide, his aura compressed and layered tight against his skin.

Just like here…

Similarity, and opposites. He exhaled, hard, feeling the world pushing down on him. Feeling the scalpel of his own soul cutting away, discarding experiences, understandings. Not knowledge, but longing perhaps, for a world below. 

It had been peaceful and frightening in equal parts, but the wind had been silent. He had seen so much, but it was not the underwater lands that drew him. It had been missing, something, though funnily…

He cut less, than what he would have imagined. The wind might not be present, but he had been. Even the frightening, the tumultuous world of the typhoon, the dragons that had taken him soaring through the skies, shown him what true power of the wind and the wide expanse of its influence had been.

Blown inland, till he had spent time cultivating. How his simple castoffs had drawn others, to draw upon the energy he had exuded, the dao emnations from his own contemplations. Watched the battles, the struggles of those with less fortune and in his own actions, offered them some form of salvation.

Till the winds had called, south and hells together. 

For a battle that he had never expected.

Wu Ying slipped, twisting, catching himself on the edge. He hung there, for a time, unable to understand how he had stumbled. Over the edge, one hand outstretched, weakness encroaching upon his body and strength draining away.

Like his lifeblood.

“Oh…” he whispered, touching the damp, sticky robes by his sides. Realisation coming, even as breath was laboured.

He was dying, by inches, with each cut. Each moment, as he struggled to comprehend what his own dao was, each time he split away portions of his body or his soul, finding something that would fit together, he injured himself. 

Blood, leaking from him. He forced his arm to bend, to pull himself up. Rolled onto the tiny trail, looked up. Saw nothing, not in the gloom. Or perhaps, a little glint, a shifting robe, the sense of fading footsteps.

“Didn’t even slow down…” Wu Ying hissed.

Then, forced himself up, onto his feet. Shuffling forward now, his body deadening with each movement.

South, the tropical lands and humid atmospheres, where the winds carried a myriad of scents that challenged his perception and ability to discern matters. South, to meet up with an old friend and… 

Yang Mu.

A sparkling light, a woman that he realized he was grateful not to have met earlier. The younger him, the one with fewer scars, with less learning or culture or understanding of the world might not have recognized her for what she was. A sparkling light, a comforting embrace. 

Youthful passions would have seen him discard her, bypass her for another perhaps. Beautiful in her own way, but after long exposure to his martial sister, such things had faded in importance to him. Outer beauty was the sprinkling of sugar on a dessert, the salt on a meal. It emphasized what was already there – it did not mask a bad meal.

A delight, a disaster, a revelation.

The south brought the demons and his sword, a new culture that hated and feared his own. A nation who had built an entire town and a fortress to stave off the attacks that came all too often from the north. Funny, how such things repeated itself. For so many nations feared the nomadic ‘barbarians’ who did the same.

South, to be betrayed, all while grasping a new wind… and finding a sixth. 

The thousand hells…

Wu Ying remembered it now, though his mind wanted to recoil from the pain. The moment of decision, during a battle that he had feared never to come back from. When he had chosen to act, and the first time he ever parted with a portion of his own dao, stepped off the path he had begun to walk.

He was the winds. All five of the mortal winds, a trace of the sixth in the thousand hells. Following the guidance of another, as he did the heavens demands and traveled to seek out the dangers. What they had found, what he had encountered, being out matched over and over again. It had required him to give up who he was, to do battle as the wind itself. 

Coming back… coming back had hurt. It had required him to give up a portion of himself, to sacrifice a part of his very identity and a way to the heavens. His sense of self, his identity was too intertwined to ever give it up for the winds, even if it might have made him more powerful. Even if he might have become an immortal.

He had loved the wind, the stories it had told, the lands it crossed and the passion and gentle calming that it brought. The wind was both nurturer and calamity, as gentle as a breeze, as destructive as a typhoon. Though he might have accepted it into his body, allowed it become part of him…

Wu Ying had rejected it too.

They had diverged then, though perhaps that separation had begun earlier. He had loved the lands he had seen, the people he had met, the plants he found and the variety in cultures and cultivation techniques. Every time, he had learnt more, grown further with each step…

Each wind, another expanse to explore.

Each land, another culture to delve into.

Each person, another story to hear.

Each moment, another step towards the Dao. 

He was not done. 

The winds had been expansive, inclusive of everything above the earth. Yet, he had loved the ground below, the plants and the soil from the day he was born. Hours spent tilling fields, digging into earth, testing and tasting soil itself. Uprooting yams and onions and garlic alike, for the mortal. Thousand year ginseng, enhanced radishes…

So much he had loved and studied, again and again.

The winds might have brought him to the north, but it was not the ice and snow that blanketed the lands. It had brought him east, but it was not the vast oceans that had greeted him with a spray of salt and water alike. The waters, so expansive, so great and powerful and filled with wonders that scared him and excited him at once.

Of course he had rejected the winds. After all, it was only one part of the Dao.

And Wu Ying, he truly was greedy. He wanted it all.