Sky Pride

Han was a little weird, in Tian’s opinion. He carefully washed his whole body every day, using a washcloth and a basin of warm water when baths weren’t available. He kept his hands and face carefully scrubbed throughout the day. He kept separate clothes just for training in, rough things cut for ease of movement and short enough for manual labor. He had two sets for training. He also had two sets of robes he wore when not training, much finer, but still cut for a man who expected to be moving fast and fighting hard. All kept tidy, with nary a loose thread or torn seam. It was an extraordinary amount of clothes for a mortal. Tian didn’t own so many robes, and he had the advantage of storage rings.

It was a real education watching the boy use a needle. He patched and mended cloth with a surgeon’s eye, the stitches perfectly even. Tian couldn’t help but notice the sorts of stitches Han used were quite different from what he studied, though there were similarities. Still, what did it matter if the robes were muddied and torn? They were just clothes.

He mentioned that to Han, and got a very polite look back. A well worn card was raised. “A gentleman speaks to the world with his clothes before his face, and his face before his words.”

“It’s far better to just listen, isn’t it? What could you possibly say that would interest the world?”

They blinked at each other in mutual incomprehension, and silently agreed to return to their own business.

Then there was his stubborn obsession with swords.

“The sword is the gentleman of weapons, and the weapon of gentlemen.” This card was particularly worn down. The corners had become rounded, and the paper was shiny where he held it.

“A ‘gentleman’ is a sack of rotting meat in a constant process of dying, animated by the faintest spark of a truth so profound, he refuses to consider it. Yet, despite that, he considers himself a more dignified, more cultured sack of rotting meat than his peers. A weapon is a tool meant to evict that spark from the rotting meat regardless of how pretentious the meat is. You show me where on this bit of abused metal you see anything dignified or cultured. I can show you the meat chopping bits.”

Han seemed to want to sulk after that. He didn’t, but Tian could tell he wanted to. He decided to cheer the young man up with a round of evasion practice. Liren chased him with her spear, while Tian flung darts and little bags full of rice flour at him. The blunt darts and the flour were ruled “poison,” with penalties to be applied to the practice should they connect. Han was much calmer afterward. He just lay in the shade and breathed, not stirring a finger, looking up at the blue sky. Tian quite approved.

Then there was the money strangeness, though that turned out to be a useful trait in disguise. Tian had suggested a quick trip to the steppes to kill some raiders as a way for Han to earn some pocket money. A reasonable, sensible suggestion, in his considered opinion. Liren disagreed, saying that while some day he might fight ten to one and win, he surely wasn’t there yet. It would be better to just give him an allowance, at least for now.

“Eeeh… it feels like we are setting him up with bad habits. You can’t just expect people to give you money, you have to kill them. I was thinking of picking a band of forty or so, and having him trail them, slowly picking off the weak and unsuspecting. When the band figured out something was going wrong, it would give him a chance to practice his escape and evasion techniques. A brisk run across the grassland for a week or two, trying to get back to the city and safety, would be immensely educational.”

“Oh sure, that’s basically how we were raised, but we actually knew how to fight.” Liren shook her head sadly. “Little Han still has a long way to go. We’ll just have to take it slow. And stop trying to brainwash him. You know perfectly well people earn salaries and wages and things.”

“Sure. What earned me more money? Working in the hospital, or killing heretics? Money slides into the purse most easily when lubricated with blood. This has been proven repeatedly.”

Liren rolled her eyes, but didn’t argue. “Just trust me, please. We have more than enough to give him some pocket money, and it means we don’t have to keep an eye on him while he runs for his life across the steppes. If he looks like he’s developing bad habits, we’ll just toss him out into a raider camp or something and let nature take its course. Fair enough?”

There was an urgent tapping sound. Han was holding up his slate and desperately trying to draw their attention to it.

“I don’t need any pocket money! I have savings, and my meals and room are all provided by the Governor!

“Nonsense. Even I know that city folk need pocket money. The beggars I know spend all their time trying to get it. I guess you could just go beg.” Tian frowned.

Liren snorted and pulled out a pillowcase sized burlap sack from her ring. “Here. Just take what you need.” She handed it to Han, who was yanked sideways as the sack pulled him sharply down. It was impressive, Tian thought, the way the young man kept his death grip on the slate. He’d half expected it to go flying.

There was a hurried shuffling of cards, then “How much is in there?” was pulled out. An uncommon card, still with sharp corners.

“How many grains of rice are in a bowl? I don’t care, as long as the answer is ‘enough.’ It’s not really money for us. It’s just stuff we collected and kept to make moving around in the mortal world a little easier. Now that we are in the Heavenly Realm, it’s even less useful.” Liren shrugged. “If it was spirit stones, I could tell you down to the last stone what our savings are. Same with the valuables. Mortal stuff? It just piles up.”

“That won’t do.” A card worn almost into a circle. Then, “I’ll do the accounting.” Not heavily worn, but Tian could see where it had been smudged from use. How odd.

Odder still was the way the teen brought out a table to the courtyard, then set up a ledger book and a set of scales. From his bags he took a small leather case. When he opened the case, there were a series of weights nestled in velvet. He quickly sorted the money from the sack into piles based on denomination, then examined each coin individually, weighing them as he went. Some of the coins went back on the table, the others into a small bucket on the ground.

“What’s he doing?” Tian whispered.

“I have no idea.” Liren whispered back. “But have you noticed that the coins that go in the bucket are different from the ones on the table?”

Tian shook his head, then extended his senses. Liren was right. The coins on the table were generally uniform in size and weight, while the ones in the bucket weren’t. Perhaps they were counterfeit?

After two hours of steady work, Han presented a ledger in impeccable handwriting, noting how much of each denomination they had, as well as an accounting of coins that were “Clipped, shaved, clinked, counterfeit, or otherwise tampered with.”

Tian stared at the ledger, then turned to Liren. She grinned, and asked “Merchant family?”

“My mom is a tailor. I helped keep the books. I was the debt collector.” Three cards this time, each modestly worn. Liren laughed. “Well, we’ll keep all the fake coins, and you take… a gold a week? Is that too much?”

Han nodded violently.

“A silver?”

Han hesitated.

“Ten silver?”

Han strongly shook his head again, then wrote on his slate. “Six hundred copper cash is a good weekly wage for a skilled laborer. I’m not even working for you. You don’t seem to have many copper or brass coins. I could make change for you, and take some money out of that. But I really don’t need pocket money.”

“Huh.” Tian shrugged while Liren suddenly jerked upright.

“We’ve been getting robbed! I’ve been paying for things in silver!”

“Oh, well, we don’t really care-”

“The principle’s the thing, Zihao! We’ve been getting scammed for years!” Liren roared. Han had the face of one watching another, regrettably, suffering what they deserve.

“Silver is mostly used by banks or high end business deals. Normal people would use it for really big purchases, and even then would probably just bring in strings of copper cash. Mom charges around twenty taels of silver to make robes for someone, and people almost always pay in copper. Usually, if someone asks for silver, they are negotiating, and expect you to come back with a way, way lower number. I hadn’t seen golden taels before today.” Han’s tidy characters vanished as they were absorbed into the slate, not removing the sting of his words.

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“How many copper to a silver?” Tian asked.

“It varies, but I think it’s around a thousand or twelve hundred copper cash to one tael of silver?” Han looked uncertain, his brush strokes hesitant.

Liren looked ready to die of embarrassment and wanted to do something violent about it. Tian patted her back. “Told you merchants were greasy-minded people and not to be trusted. Killing heretics and bandits, then looting their remains. That’s the honorable way to accumulate wealth.”

Han was hired on as their steward while he was in training. Salary- one tael of silver a week, and the promise that they would keep the guards away if he had to break a merchant’s legs.

“I was ten when I went into the convent. I’d run around with some pocket money, of course, but that was in Mountain Gate City. Everything is crazy expensive there.” Another week had passed. Liren wasn’t any calmer about things.

“I know. People are used to cultivators there, and have adjusted.”

“It’s a hidden reason why families were willing to kill to be on the mountain. It’s not just extending your life or being healthier, it’s the chance to rip off cultivators who don’t know better. Or don’t care.” She pounded her fist into her hand.

“Yes. You are right.” Tian agreed. He had agreed the last sixteen times she had said some variation of this.

There must have been something in the tone of his voice. Liren gave him a look, then turned away with a sniff. Tian sighed silently, and the two carried on walking down the street. You could feel the change in the city. Just two weeks in, and you could see old timers making a point of dramatically throwing away their canes, or lifting big jugs of wine. The effects of Gourmet were much funnier. The city dump had gone from a place inhabited by foxes and vagabonds, to needing a full time garrison to stop “medicine hunters” and “chefs” from collecting ingredients.

Nobody knew why the best tasting dirt was found under old piles of well rotted garbage. It just was. Enterprising folks had started trying to compost at home, with varying levels of smelly results. Tian couldn’t give them any advice. He didn’t know why the old piles made better dirt either, and Grandpa refused to explain.

“You know, something just occurred to me. The mortals know there are immortals walking amongst them.” Tian smiled a little. “They make a huge fuss when we come out in force, but you can see it in the people who deal with cultivators regularly. We are like hereditary nobles or high officials. Not someone safe to play with, but still essentially human.”

“Yes?” Liren tilted her head to the side, eyeing a brilliant topaz ring on a passing woman’s finger.

“They might not see us when we are strolling, but they definitely know we are around in cities and things. At least in the Earthly Realm.”

“Yes?” She hit the precise harmonic necessary to tell him to get to the point.

“They adapted. They are used to looking out for people who are that little bit too odd. Too unworldly, or too dismissive of things like “odds” or “certain death.” What did the storyteller say the other day? The one during dinner?”

“He said a lot of things, but ‘A thousand silver to see a beauty smile,’ was the one that stuck with me.” Liren said, with some heat.

“That’s the one. He said it was a king acting a fool, and maybe it was, but I bet there are cultivators who have done that too. I can easily see one of my brothers eating a really good apricot, then buying every apricot in the market, then deciding they don’t like apricots that much, and giving them all away, all within five minutes, and without haggling. Possibly not even asking the price. The mortals know there are people like that out there. They have adapted. They found ways to survive and to thrive. It’s funny. We could empty this city without so much as getting dusty, but it’s still their world. We just live in it.”

Liren snorted at that, but she was hiding a smile. Tian spotted it, and hid his own smile. They were four blocks over from the old Jin compound, the current site of the Long Family storehouse, and most importantly, Daoist Lian. The older cultivator was in residence, and they could feel the pressure of his attention on them. A bit like standing next to an open oven. You could feel the heat on you, even if it wasn’t burning. Though you would certainly be burnt if you tried to touch it.

Daoist Lian wasn’t actively hostile, but he wasn’t subtle either. He didn’t have to be.

“I still think we could take him out in the open.” Liren mentally grumbled to Tian.

“I agree. You let me know when he leaves his nested wards, the talisman reinforced walls, and what I swear are some kind of enchanted statue. Statues. You know what I mean.”

“Constructs. They are called constructs, or sometimes golems. Like the guardian statue that Senior Brother Gen nearly died for. I don’t think any of our sect crafters made them, or at least none that I knew of.” Liren’s grumbling intensified.

“Stonesplitter and Redspear still aren’t back. Think they are waiting in hiding, hoping we will finally take the bait and attack?” Tian kind of wished they were. The fact that they hadn’t returned after nearly a month said worrying things. Particularly since the Grand Shaman had been wounded when he fled.

Liren just shook her head. “I can sense about two dozen people in the warehouse. More coming and going on the covered wagons. Looks like not all the slaves are kept in the forts out in the steppes.”

They were hidden under an obscuring formation, but Tian and Liren had rather excellent senses. The results might not be the most accurate, but they could feel that a whole lot of somebodies were in there. Most importantly, there was the faintest breath of vital energy about them.

“I still think it’s a hidden attack force. It doesn’t make sense otherwise.” Tian disagreed. “Or victims to be chained up in brothels or something. The higher-end goods.” He spat.

Liren shook her head. This wasn’t the first time they had this conversation either. She looked over at Tian, then jerked to a stop. “Oh. Oh my ancestors. I know who they are, and why they are being kept here and not out there.”

“Who?”

“Cultivators. They are all the lousy, level one or two in the Earth Realm cultivators who hire out as guards or become bandits. He’s here to keep them under control. The Long Clan needs exports if they are going to pay for imports, right? Well, what do we have a surplus of?”

Tian stared at Liren in horror. “Bandits. Cultivator bandits. And the heroes that travel around fighting them.”

Soldiers came cantering down the street. They too had been making good use of the Calisthenics, but they had been fit to start with. The difference was less dramatic compared to ordinary folk. The troopers rode with frowns and tight shoulders, despite the sunny skies and peaceful city.

Tian and Hong continued their walk, just stretching their legs and seeing what there was to see in the city. Comfortable with silence, and just being. When they were in sight of the walls of the Governor's compound, Liren cracked a smile. It slowly widened and grew, the happiness breaking through the frowns she had been wearing most of the day.

“Burning Flag City is doomed. As things stand, right now, they are doomed. Who knows if reinforcements will actually reach them? Even if the reinforcements do come, the nomads have Shamans, while the city has, at best, a handful of mercenary cultivators. Judging by what we saw at the convoy ambush, they aren’t anything special either. At least, I’d put any of my sisters against all of them.”

Tian nodded. “Agreed. And I’d do the same for my brothers. There was, what, one level eight? And the rest treated him like he was their ancestor. The Governor met him personally, with Hanshen and the Red Plumed General, once they reached the city.”

“Exactly. Which suggests to me that he’s the strongest Earthly Realm combatant in the city. I haven’t felt anyone stronger. Have you?”

“Nope. Doomed.” Tian sighed. He liked this city. It was ugly, but it had become important. So many important things had happened here.

“No Heavenly realm fighters to combat the Grand Shamans, now that Redspear and Stonesplitter are gone.” Liren continued. “Sweetdove won’t fight, nor with Lian.”

“It does explain the Governor being so happy to give us our own courtyard in his compound, and cover our meals with no questions asked.”

“We aren’t ordering wine. I guarantee that even with Little Han, our meals cost less than the Governor's family does.” She waved her hand, dismissing the tangent. “Aren’t you getting it? We can change the future of this city.”

“What do you… the captives in the warehouse.”

“Right. You and I can hold off the Grand Shamans, and the soon-to-be-liberated enslaved cultivators can bolster the Earthly Realm fighting force. If we hit the tribes hard enough, it will buy more than a little time for the City. It might even change the whole flow of things in the border country.”

They kept walking, taking in the city, its sounds, its smells, the pride of the people, and the lightness of their posture contrasting with the firmness of their steps.

“It is worth remembering that we lost against the Dire Wolf Grand Shaman.” Tian’s voice was quite mild.

“We were losing. Not quite the same. And we will have had weeks and weeks to get stronger. Better equipped too, if Sweetdove comes through with those robes. Plus, who knows what other good things we might find in that warehouse? Or on Lian.”

They smelled the scents wafting from the food stalls, the frying oil and the roasting meats, the savory-sweet smell of steamed rice rising in white clouds into the aching blue of the steppe sky. Tian swerved suddenly.

“Sis, sis, buy me one, no, five of those skewers!” He pointed, practically vibrating.

“You say that, but do I dare? Grandmother, how much for the lamb and leek skewers.”

Hoary eyes eyed them thoughtfully.

“Please cut us a deal, Grannie, this idiot spent most of our cash on his damn exotic pet.” Tian controlled his jolt of shock. The granny shook her head. “Five cash each skewer, no bargaining. If you can find a better deal on this street, tell me about it so I can buy some for myself!”

“Five! Can’t it-”

“Scram.”

“Fine, fine.” Liren reached into her sleeve and pulled out a beggarly string of coins. The granny snorted, but she put the skewers on the grill over the coals. The fat quickly melted and sputtered as it dripped. Little flames licked up, charring the leak and lamb. The granny reached into a bowl full of orangy powder and sprinkled it over the skewers. She flipped them, and applied the spice to the other side. It took just a couple of minutes to be done.

Tian gleefully tore into his, not minding the oil smudging his face and dribbling over his fingers. The orange spice was tangy and spicy and smokey, and sweet. The leeks were charred, sweet and savory, cutting through the gamey, grassy lamb.

“It’s even better than I thought it would be. It’s delicious! But it’s also unsatisfying. No qi. The core is missing.” He sent the thought to Liren, still grinning like a mad one. “I was feeling the same way about killing and robbing Daoist Lian. But you know what? I think I found that core. We have perhaps a month to plan, equip ourselves, and launch the attack. Perhaps less, but let’s assume a month.”

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and grabbed another skewer from the smiling Liren. “It’s going to be a busy month, Sis. I’m eager to get to it.”