Sky Pride

The hospital stay was originally supposed to be for a week, but was extended another week, then extended again for a month, minimum, and he was told not to fixate on his release date. He should just focus on getting well. His body eventually stabilized, but he was still terribly prone to catching cold phase diseases. Tian thought there was a cruel irony to an immortal sneezing, though he didn’t feel very strongly about it.

He had a hard time feeling strongly about much of anything. He lay quietly in bed, ate the oranges Liren peeled for him, and read his medical textbooks. When the doctors came in to check up on him, they would quiz him on the day’s reading. He tried to explain what it felt like to Liren- it wasn’t comfortable, but he wasn’t uncomfortable enough to do something about being uncomfortable.

Liren was the opposite to the bedbound Tian, hardly able to sit still but always trying to not disturb him. Nearly frantic with the need to do things and be useful, she would peel oranges, fix blankets, rush out of the hospital to just “quickly grab some snacks,” only to be found collapsed on the ground twenty yards from the hospital door. She sometimes slid into unconsciousness mid sentence, then woke in panic, not seeming much rested. It was awful to watch, but all Tian could do was rest, and try to be a restraining, calming force. It wasn’t lost on him that he should be the one up and moving, but everything was just so tiresome.

It took a few weeks to figure out, but the doctors got there in the end- the last thing Tian and Hong needed was balance, or rather, not balance in the way any of the doctors were familiar with. It was entirely down to their unique body cultivation arts. Liren required Yang qi in ferocious quantities. Her fragility and lack of endurance, while usually a classic sign of yin deficiency, were in her specific case a sign that her body cultivation needed to advance to the next level.

“Like pouring water on a bonfire that actually needs a bucket of charcoal,” was how Elder Nui described it. “Normally we’d want the fire banked to a sustainable level. In her case, the ‘sustainable level’ is much higher than normal, so yin balancing damn near made the fire go out. Right now, she’s yanked between burning through all her vital energy and passing out to recover it, with no in between. It will settle down eventually, but…”

Tian’s case was a little different. His body was all about balance… oppressively so. It didn’t simply want a balance of yin and yang, it needed it. The steady trickle of wood qi that was brought in by Advent of Spring was fine, but it barely kept the art progressing. Yang and yin were kept largely segregated by the art. Yang vital energy was overwhelmingly funneled by the art into developing his meridians and dantian, leaving his overall flesh, and personality, a touch too yin.

“The human body does skew yin, of course, being of fleshy and earthly nature, but there is a balance to it. A male body should be roughly yang nature within that yin framework. I’m making up numbers for the sake of illustration here, so don’t take them too seriously, but… if a fleshy body is the yin to the meridians and dantian’s yang, yin flesh to yang qi, we would expect a male to be sixty-forty yang to yin overall, while women would be sixty-forty the other way. You, I’m guessing, were averaging more like fifty five-forty five. Not an inherently bad thing, your body is immensely strong and enduring, and most people need to bring their bodies into better balance.”

“And now?”

Elder Nui wiggled his hand in the air. He had short, thick hands, Tian noticed. Doctors' hands were usually long and slender. He wondered how that came to be, drifting away for a moment before refocusing on the Elder’s words.

“Now you have a massive dose of yang qi slamming into your meridian-dantian system. The good news is that your meridians and dantian are incredibly robust for someone in the Earthly realm, and there is no harm done there. Very lucky for you, as they are difficult to repair. The bad news is that the miniscule fleshy portion of your body where your middle dantian touches your heart couldn’t withstand the sudden influx of qi and tore. Not completely, or you would be dead. But enough to impede the flow significantly. You aren’t bleeding internally, but your internal qi circulation is disrupted. Notice I said qi and not vital energy.”

Tian had, in fact, noticed.

“That matters, because your vital energy is in rather good shape. Unfortunately, the flow of vital energy into the middle dantian and conversion into yang qi is damaged. With that diminished conversion rate, while you won’t die, you will be in yang-qi deficiency until you heal. Which will be a while. It just takes time.”

So he waited in bed. Sometimes he read, or bickered with Liren when she was awake. Mostly he slept. It was very easy to sleep, and sleep, and sleep. The doctors came in now and then to give him medicine, stimulants to keep him awake. He grudgingly ate them, but he was not at all inclined to stir around. What was so bad about sleeping?

What finally got him up and moving was a new patent being assigned to the room down the hall. The patient was yelling terribly. He had seen awful things in the Redstone Wastes, done awful things, and the memories kept him up. Unfortunately, the medicine and the meditation weren’t helping as much as one might hope, and in a fit of despair, he tried to take his own life. Mercifully, some good brothers of his were nearby and managed to stop him before he completely severed his heart meridians. It still left him hospitalized, screaming at night and crying for wine, for opium, for anything to make the memories and illusions stop.

The trick to calling someone back when they were lost in their memories was well known in the hospital, but sometimes what came back from the illusions was the realization that the present was unendurable. What could be more reasonable than despair, and a wish for better fortune in the life to come?

Tian couldn’t put what he was feeling into words, but by the third day of screaming, he was too uncomfortable to remain still. He summoned an orderly, got a wheelchair, and visited the veteran. Tian was used to seeing grizzled old warriors. He had assumed this man would be the same. What he found was a seemingly healthy man in the prime of his life, whose eyes stared at him from Hell.

“I was in the Wastes as well.” Tian nodded. “Sometimes I get lost there.”

“There is a lot of that going around.” The man grinned, and Tian thought he smiled like Suneater.

“I’m called Tian Zihao. May I know Brother’s name?”

“Sima Cu, formerly of Western Pines Temple.”

“Brother Sima has a story. This little daoist is good at listening, if Brother wants to speak, and good at sitting in silence if he does not.”

“Hah. I don’t suppose you have any wine with you?”

“I do not. I gave it all away years ago. But I do have some tea, and while it might not be to everyone’s tastes, most people seem to enjoy my tea service.”

The warrior gave him a disbelieving stare, then glanced out the window. It was the hour of the Ox, the darkest part of the night.

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“Tea at night. You aren’t worried the tea will keep you awake?” The warrior asked.

“Brother, are you worried that it won't?” Tian smiled, very slightly.

The older man half smiled. “I don’t really want to talk, but I could do with a good cup of tea.”

Tian set out his tray on a table next to the hospital bed. It was awkward, sitting in a wheelchair. The heights of everything were wrong. It wasn’t uncomfortable enough to make him change, however, so he made do.

“I have a friend from the Bamboo Medicine Hut who sent me tea to help with my nightmares. A blend of flowers, herbs and tea leaves. Perhaps it will help Brother Sima as it does me.”

“You sure you want to share that? Who knows when you will get more?”

Tian blinked. What an absurd question. “Brother Sima, I don’t know if I will be alive by the end of this tea session. I hope I will. I don’t have any reason to think I wouldn’t be. But I don’t know. I do know Brother has a lot of the same problems as me, and that this tea helps me, and that the last person I knew named Sima was a petty man and I am determined to learn from his example and not be one myself. So,” Tian vaguely waved the kettle as it heated up, “Who cares? It will exist in my memories, and I will hope to have it again some day. Good enough.”

The older man laughed awkwardly. “Yeah, there are a lot of Sima’s running around, and mostly we aren’t related. That is a gorgeous kettle and the tea pot is exquisite. They look antique.”

“They are.”

“Where did you get them?”

“From the storage ring of the dead dog who called my tea service shit.” Tian paused for a long moment, the tea hovering in the air pincered by the wooden tongs. “Oh dear. It seems I am a petty man after all. I’m not ever going to let that grudge go.”

Sima Cu stared at Tian for a moment, then burst into laughter, real and warm this time. It turned out that Sima liked the tea very much, and thought Tian served it very skillfully. A sensible man of good moral character, Tian decided. He would come back tomorrow.

As he wheeled himself back to his room, he passed another room with some brothers he recognized laying bedridden in it. “Eh? Is that Little Doctor Tian? What happened to your hair?”

“Oh, I’m wearing it down, these days. A ponytail is about all I care to do. Can’t be bothered to make a bun.” Tian explained.

“Really? I don’t feel comfortable unless my hair is up. And… not white as a crane’s wing.”

“Oh that.” Tian shrugged. “I got bit by a dragon.”

“Well damn, Sounds like a story and a half! Come on in, let’s catch up!” Tian sighed silently. This would be tiresome, and he had a dreadful certainty that his good days were done. The tea and gossip circuit was already drawing him into its clutches. But he wasn’t uncomfortable enough to change, so he would just have to accept it.

When Liren came the next morning, she was startled to be asked for tea snacks, then smiled like the sun rising when she heard why.

“They are very troublesome people. Don’t spend too much. Rice crackers are entirely adequate, and suitable for almost any prescribed diet. Buy the cheapest sort, they keep longer.” He urged. It was very unjust of her to laugh the way she did, and he couldn’t understand at all what made her fall off her chair. She should have someone push her around in a wheelchair, she couldn’t possibly go shopping in her condition.

Once he was up and serving tea, he became a regular host to the Wang Clan, most particularly its newest addition. He did like the Wang Clan, on the whole, but unfortunately Ming Yu was both his most frequent visitor, and intensely bothersome. Tian had timed it. Even in his muted emotional state, he couldn’t go more than twenty heartbeats without feeling an urge to smack her. Which was doubly irritating, since she wasn’t actually a bad person.

“Here- fresh persimmons! Do you know how hard they are to come by these days? Be grateful! Oh ho ho ho ho!” She covered her mouth with the back of her hand, fingers curling with an aristocratic flair. Tian’s hands twitched.

“Words cannot express the feelings in my heart at receiving your gift. Let me offer you one in return. Just because Brother Wang and Sister Mei have their little… cultivated personality quirks, doesn’t mean you should imitate them. Take Sister Su as your example. Honest, direct, sincere. Often misunderstood, but treasured by those who do understand her.” Tian urged.

“Hrmph-”

“That is not a noise humans make.”

Ming Yu paused. The jade cuffs on her ears caught the light rather prettily. She was the family’s chief carver, and it was quietly agreed that, in the Earth Realm, on the Mountain, she had few or no equals in her knowledge of stones.

“It is.”

“Isn’t.”

“I have definitely heard people going ‘Harumph.’” Ming Yu insisted

“Yes. But that’s not what you said. You said ‘Hrmph.’ Which is not a sound made by healthy humans. Did you drop by for a cup of tea, or was there something else?”

She ducked her head with a small blush at that. “You don’t have to be so direct.” She muttered. “Tea would be lovely, but I’m really here because Sister Hong mentioned you found a large stockpile of stones that you couldn’t identify. If you give me some samples, I’d be happy to identify them for you.”

“Oh, that would be helpful, actually. Let's see… I think there are only four or five different sorts of stones here, but I don’t really know.” Tian waved his hand, and head-sized rocks tumbled out. Ming Yu quickly scooped them up and stored them in her own ring.

“Thank you for your trust. We were all very concerned when we heard about you and Sister Hong, and Sister Su wanted to race over here and take charge of things. It took all of us practically sitting on her to convince her that this wasn't a problem for her to fix. Identifying some stones seems like a problem I can solve. Once I… ahem.”

She visibly reset herself, tilting her nose upwards and pressing the tips of her fingers to her heart. “Once the brilliant ME has cracked the secrets of the stone with little more than a snap of my fingers, you, groveling peasant, will- Is that a new tea pot? The kettle is definitely new.”

Ming lost the pose again, leaning in to get a better look.

“Oh yes. I’m very fond of them. Not for sale.”

“I wouldn’t sell them either. Unless my eyes deceive me, that is a genuine ancient zisha teapot. If it’s been used properly, the tea qi will have accumulated and transformed the materials in a way that can only be imitated, not replicated. Try to stick with just one type of tea when you use it, that’s the tradition. My sponsor had a modern one that looked a bit like that, but inferior in every regard. The copper on that kettle is no ordinary goods either, to say nothing of the inlay. Tsk! I’d love to get them on the bench and take a closer look-”

“You would need your eyes to look, and your hands to hold them, Sister Ming. Better to obedi- contentedly drink your tea from this extremely ordinary clay cup.”

During his second month in the hospital, he had a bad spell and collapsed. He was quickly diagnosed with Kidney Yang Deficiency, and given a new course of medicine. The medicinal teas tasted vile, and he never felt any better, but he drank them. No point in giving the orderlies a hard time. Their job was hard enough as it was.

Tian struggled to stay awake, and even with the wheelchair, it was dreadfully fatiguing to move around the hospital. Liren spent most of the day by his bedside. She slept a lot too, but when she wasn’t sleeping, she was in constant motion. Her nerves and manic laughter were exhausting, and yet somehow able to startle him into attention. He would wake up, scold her and tell her to go off and do useful things and she would agree and still be sleeping or bouncing around in the chair when he woke up again.

Kidney Yang Deficiency was a miserable condition. No matter how he lay down, he always had a painful ache in his back. Combined with the stiff limbs, it was impossible to get comfortable. Dark bags gathered under his eyes, and his temper grew shorter.

One day, he woke to find a scruffy looking Liren carefully warming a pot of the most incredibly fragrant soup.

“Chicken soup made with mountain ginseng. I checked with your doctors, it is very good for you. A sister helped me harvest them and I made the soup.”

Tian nodded and sipped some of the broth. It felt the way he imagined hugging Liren would feel. Endlessly warm, endlessly comforting.

“I could eat your chicken soup forever.” He smiled at her and meant every word.

He took a turn for the better not long after, which he entirely credited to the soup.