Tian could feel himself creaking. His body had never been better, but inside, he was fraying and brittle. He had always known the world was a cruel place. He had known that his brothers were treated far, far too poorly. Their lives were spent far too cheaply. But the Monastery had been, unquestionably, good to him.

Just the existence of the West Town Temple was a great kindness to him, and from what he could see, a great kindness to the nearby villages. It provided security and comfort in a world that had precious little of either. But not for free. The villagers spent their lives in the rice paddies serving the Temple, and the lay brothers spent their lives on the battlefield serving the the Monastery.

It wasn’t fair. It shouldn’t be this way. But it was the best they could do, given everything. And since they had been around for thousands of years, the ‘everything’ under consideration was enormous. All those webs of interests. All those generations of families and the accumulated wealth and status. They all had to be balanced. They all had to be weighed against pursuing the virtues.

It was all well and good to say that frugality was a treasure of the Dao, but no merchant empire was ever built on moderation. At least not that Tian had ever heard of. And without all those merchants, without those constant streams of supplies, how could the Monastery still stand? How could it supply its people with weapons and equipment and all the tools needed to make arrays or enchantments, or just dinner?

Humility? How humble was someone claiming to grasp immortality? Auntie Wu had said it herself- it was sheer arrogance. It wasn’t like the Direct disciples were less arrogant either- they won their positions by grasping more of heaven’s secrets in a moment of revelation. Not exactly humble. Debatably frugal. And compassion simply didn’t factor into it.

The Daoist Masters knew what was right and virtuous, and also knew that they couldn’t run a large, powerful organization by insisting everyone strictly adhere to those principles. So they did their best. And their best saw his brothers and sisters dying in the desert for… what? Maybe finding a new direct disciple? Thwarting the goals of the vile beasts in Black Iron Gorge, whatever they were?

He didn’t give a damn. He really didn’t give a single damn. He hated the heretics for hurting his brothers. For their cruelty. But why exactly should he care about them interfering with… what? The business interests of the nearby kingdoms? Were they launching massive slaving raids? Trying to divert rivers to starve others and turn the Redstone Wastes green? He didn’t know, and he largely didn’t care. His compassion didn’t reach quite that far.

Auntie Wu had told him directly- at the Heavenly Person level, if you weren’t a core disciple, your loyalty to the sect got a lot more conditional. There were a lot of fond feelings. The resources and security provided by the sect were impossible to discount. Just having people around you could ask questions to if you had cultivation problems was monumentally important. But loyalty? The monastery considered them, ultimately, to be expendable. You could see the whole vast apparatus of the Ancient Crane Mountain as a giant funnel gushing upwards.

All those lives, all that effort, to lift up a Monastery that most of the sect would never see. Nobody was stupid. If the Monastery’s loyalty to them was conditional, why shouldn’t their loyalty to the Monastery be conditional too?

The old monsters up on the mountain understood all that, of course. They had spent ages and ages considering it. They decided it was good enough. The best they could do, all things considered.

Tian crouched in the dirt, drawing circles and squiggles, not really seeing what his hands were doing. Just trying to breathe through the contradictions. He loved his temple. He loved his brothers and sisters. He loved his cell, and the silent meals where food was flicked from bowl to bowl and laughter was hidden behind glares. He loved their heroism, their chivalry as they roamed the Broad Sky Kingdom. When he grew up, he wanted to be just like them.

And they served the Monastery. With all that implied. A monastery that wasn’t evil. Wasn’t deliberately cruel for cruelty’s sake. But the difference was pretty hard to spot, down in the dirt.

Around and around and around. His brothers knew, of course. If he could figure it out at a whopping fourteen years old, they definitely knew. But they all turned up on the muster ground. Not a single one of them tried to run from the war. Brother Fu, the kindest, most compassionate person Tian knew, was in the field so much, his bed might as well not exist.

The old man had lived a bloody life. He shouldn’t have to get his knives wet anymore. He should be allowed to live in his courtyard, watching the birds squabble in the parasol trees and practicing his handwriting to the sounds of a happy temple.

Brother Fu gave up twenty years of merits just to get Tian Advent of Spring. Twenty years. Tian could feel what those twenty years were like, now. He could feel the weight of that time. The cost of it. Twenty years, for a boy he hardly knew, but was willing to love. Compassion. Frugality. Humility. Didn’t Brother Fu live those principles? Didn’t he deserve his rest? A scumbag like Ku could get a revelation and ascend, but Brother Fu somehow didn’t?

A mad god! Grandpa Jun was right. There could only be a mad god, elevating the wicked and punishing the virtuous!

It was too big. Too much to wrap his head around. The circles and squiggles had turned into an array diagram of staggering complexity, or perhaps a mandela only comprehensible to the most supremely enlightened monks. He stood and dusted himself off. He didn’t understand. It wasn’t right, and he didn’t understand why his brothers accepted it. So there was really only one thing to do- grow. Get stronger, learn more, and one day, change things.

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Simple, really. Hard, but simple. He had been meaning to work on his Yang energy. This seemed just right.

It wasn’t hard to see the change in Tian. The doctors were the first to notice it. He had always been diligent and hard working, but there was a particular thoughtfulness to him now. If it had just been one day, they might have missed it. But it was every shift for weeks, then months. He still had all the conversational grace of a collapsing wall, but they could see him trying to do better. He figured out better ways to move people gently from bed to bed. He always fluffed pillows thoughtfully, and made sure they were positioned just how the patient liked them.

And when someone was dying, or convalescing in pain, Tian would be there. Asking them about happier times. Asking them about trivial problems they could advise him on. Letting them tell their stories, or just complain. Nobody told him to. He just did it. Some days, he even came in when it wasn’t his shift. Just to sit with the wounded and the dying.

Tian didn’t neglect his studies either. The doctors were observed with forensic care. So too were the patients. Even the books weren’t spared his obsessive attention. Tian dissected them, tracking the steps of diseases and cures through every winding twist of literary intestine.

When the doctors asked him why he was going so hard and taking so much care, he said “Spite, mostly.” Then he looked confused when they didn’t understand. It seemed quite obvious to him.

His martial arts practice got considerably more intense. Tian began every practice by reminding himself that since Snake Head Vine Body was a wood aspected art, it was yang, and should therefore be treated as such. Same with Thunderous Palm- a yin yang art. He had plenty of yin. Time to lean into yang. Even Imperial Heavenly Swallows, with its metal alignment, was solidly yang… even if metal was often categorized as Minor Yin. There seemed to be some debate there. The problem wasn’t the arts. It was his mindset. Time to stop thinking like a sick, weak child. Time to start fighting like his brothers.

Tian started to consciously mimic their posture and mindset. The brothers from West Town who saw him doing it thought it was hilarious. Others, less so. He did it anyway. “Senior Brother has a direct and ferocious martial air. I think I can learn a lot by imitating you.” Tian wasn’t trying to flatter them, but it seemed to smooth things over.

“Think of the world as a battlefield. Anywhere outside your control is a place the enemy can strike from. You must therefore maximize your area of control, and limit the enemy to places where they cannot strike you.” One of his brothers from West Town was drilling him on positioning. He had heard this before, but something clicked this time.

“Like playing go. I’m not just looking to directly strike, but to control space.”

“Yes, to an extent, but also no. Here is the most basic example. Thrust forward with your palm.” Tian did so. His brother took a tiny hopping step straight back, keeping just out of range. “Turn the thrust into a lunge.”

Tian lunged, extending the move an extra few inches. This time his hand reached his brother’s chest.

“See- even though I got distance, I didn’t control the space. You were therefore able to pass through it and strike me. Reset. Now- thrust.”

Tian shoved his palm out again, but this time, the brother stepped away at an angle. While he was still close to Tian, Tian would have to swing his arm across his whole body and still might not hit the grinning brother. Tian moved to strike with his other hand, but a meaty finger poked him in the temple first.

“I’m right up in your space, but you don’t control it. It’s my space now. You thought I was retreating? No, it was an attack! Don’t be deceived by appearances. I control the space, so I have taken it from you. I attack through the space, and it is a moat against you. There are people, desperately sad people, who think that simply positioning well is enough to triumph on its own. Rubbish. Reset. This time, you take the angle, and I will show you how to cross the moat.”

Tian reset, putting himself on the opposite side of his brother’s body from the outstretched fist.

“I will move with roughly the speed and strength of a Level Six. So be careful.” Tian nodded, and moved to attack the opening. The senior brother exploded. Tian didn’t have a better way to describe it. The senior seemed to throw himself directly into Tian’s oncoming hand. The senior’s heels were stomping down on Tian’s insteps, knees crashed into his thighs, fists like ham hocks swung at his head and came thrusting at his nose. It felt like he was being attacked by a man sized spider that had been launched out of a catapult.

When Tian was able to pick himself up out of the dirt and shake his head clear, he looked at the grinning senior.

“Hard martial arts, or external arts, or military arts, call it what you like, are an explosion. There is a lot more brainwork that goes into them than you might think, but it’s all about the burst. Rushing in and unloading the force as quickly and directly as you can, exactly where you want it. Imposing your energy on the enemy.”

“Yang. Rigid, direct, forceful. Explosive.” Tian nodded, smiling.

“Exactly. Now you try.”

Tian did, and a fraction of a second later was back in the dirt with an aching jaw and a ringing head.

“There is a reason, Junior, why we don’t teach you to fight that way all the time. Knowing how to take a step back, how to gather your energy, how to accept someone’s intrusion and turn it into your advantage, are all yin qualities. And if you don’t master them, dirt will be the nicest thing you eat. You need balance. Now, let me show you how to explode the right way!”

Tian smiled as he grabbed his brother’s hand and rose out of the dirt. He had always enjoyed martial arts. Sparring with a brother, learning from his decades of experience was a sheer pleasure. Best of all, though, he slowly understood something Brother Fu had been trying to teach him when they played tag in the desert.

Back and forth, advancing and retreating, attacking and defending. They weren’t separate things- they were all the same thing. Not relying on complicated schemes but simply flowing with nature and the moment. It was an absence of strategy that only the most subtle of strategies could match. You weren’t even fighting the enemy. You were a natural consequence of their actions.

Tian couldn’t do it. Couldn’t even begin to do it. But he could see the shape of it now. He had something to work towards. And if it meant polishing his yang skills in the process? His smile got happier and happier as the lessons continued. He didn’t have all the answers. He wasn’t even sure he was asking the right questions. But he was getting stronger, and could see the path to getting stronger still.

The months flowed past. Tian grew happily, able to ignore the tarry hate that still clung to his heart.