Very soon turned out to be after what was technically his hospital shift. The word technically had to be inserted, as people kept stopping him, checking in on him, praising him for his restraint while loudly declaring that they couldn’t have stood it themselves. They’d have killed the little bastard!

Tian appreciated the good wishes, but he didn’t believe the boasting. It was Doctor Pei who sat him down in an examination room and asked the important question. “Why did you let him hit you?”

Tian looked away, then down. “It’s stupid.”

Doctor Pei waited patiently. Tian finally ground out- “I could feel it was a trap. The unnatural flow of the situation led me to hit him, so I didn’t. But the real reason I just stood there while he threw a fit was to establish dominance. Or at least hierarchy. I thought if I just ignored his words and showed he physically couldn’t hurt me, he would settle down. The only other time I’ve been slapped, it was a doctor saving my life. I didn’t know how it would feel.”

Doctor Pei nodded. “A very different thing. You might have heard the expression ‘Face slapping.’ It means humiliating someone. It could easily rise to a life and death vendetta.”

“I think that was the idea, yes.” Tian nodded.

Doctor Pei drew a steady breath, and carefully looked Tian over once again. “You say your care for our patients is driven by spite. Explain that.”

Tian tried to put into words what he had only understood emotionally. Eventually, he cupped his hands and slightly bowed.

“May I speak without minding my language?”

“Hah. Go ahead.”

“Fuck each and every person who throws people in the garbage!” Tian gasped and folded over on himself. He hadn’t know those were the words trying to come out. But it was true. It was what happened to him. Sick, burnt, crippled, practically blind, dying of every single thing and thrown in the garbage. Then they threw rocks at him when he cried for help. When he reached out. When he dared to exist in their sight. They threw him in the trash, then they threw rocks at him for trying to live!

If it wasn’t for Grandpa Jun, he would have died. If it wasn’t for his hugs, for that constant feeling of love and presence, he would have become a monster. A heretic. A being without compassion.

“My brothers and sisters are good people, mostly. And even the ones who aren’t are still people. They aren’t rags to mop up heretics and be thrown out when they are too dirty and torn up. I hate that anyone thinks of them that way. So I’m retaliating. By giving a damn. By being the one who turns up, and listens and is just there. Who fights against the pain, because I’ve been hurt and I’m hurting now but fuck it all to hell, I’m used to living with pain. And maybe, if I scream hard enough, fight hard enough, get big enough fists, I will prove I’m human too. That nobody can throw me or my brothers in the garbage!”

Doctor Pei inhaled sharply. Then nodded. “Can you let go of your feud with the Li Clan?”

“I don’t have a feud with the Li Clan, Doctor. I don’t even have a feud with the little idiot. Despite wanting to slap his head up into a point then round it off. I absolutely have a feud with whoever set us up.”

“That’s fair.” Doctor Pei pulled a battered book from his ring. It wasn’t very thick compared to his first aid manuals, but there was a strange weight to it. It pressed on the air around it.

“This art is not suitable for circulation. It never entered the sect’s dao repository let alone made its way out onto the library shelves. I didn’t hand it in because we have dozens of manuals that do practically the same things, and this particular art could be terribly misused. In the sense that someone could use it improperly and cripple themselves. Especially at the Earthly Person realm. On the other hand, it’s one of the very few true healing arts usable with vital energy alone.”

Doctor Pei extended the book to Tian. “Keep that heart. Keep studying. Keep fighting. And one day, I will be proud to call you Doctor. I am already proud to have a junior like you.”

Tian couldn’t get his head straight the whole rest of his shift. He couldn’t even name all the emotions he was feeling. He was greeted at the door by a member of the disciplinary squad. “Come with me. Supervisor Chen has called for you.”

They walked over to the depot gate. There was an enormous bird, big as the one that swallowed Tian, waiting. It was a crane. White feathers, a red crest on its head, and its long beak looked like the father of all pikes.

Martial Uncle Chen and twenty members of the disciplinary squad, including Hong Liren, were standing around its towering legs.

“Martial Uncle summoned me?”

“You are exactly on time. Good. We are going.”

It seemed they were going. Where, why and how were still mysteries. Still, if the Heavenly Person said “Go,” the Earthly Person went. Martial Uncle Chen waved a hand and everyone was lifted onto the back of the crane. A platform was floating just above the bird’s broad back, formation lines glowing around the edges.

The bird leapt into the air… and Tian stayed firmly planted on the platform. The whole thing moved and shifted with the bird, keeping everyone flat and steady on it. They weren’t even being battered by the wind. It was one of the strangest things Tian had ever seen. There was a fair amount of movement on the bird’s back, but they could ride it out well enough. They were, after all, cultivators.

“I’ll fill you in on the mission details while Senior Redmane carries us to our target. The heretics have a small base near here. More like a fortified inn or refuge than a proper base, but it amounts to the same thing. We had been leaving it alone as it made for easy surveillance. Not any more. I want prisoners. I want the ledgers. I want a thorough inventory of every grain of sand in that place and where you found it. Clear?”

“YES, SIR!” The disciplinary squad shouted, and Tian tried to keep up.

“Good. Junior Tian, you will stay out of the fighting and focus on keeping people alive. Us and them. Junior Hong, you will stay out of the fighting and focus on the inventorying.”

“Yes, Sir.” They chorused.

Tian noticed that Hong was fixating on the platform. There seemed to be a particular knot she had her eyes locked on to. He stood closer to her. Nobody was speaking, so he remained silent. Then he started cultivating. He saw the corner of her mouth twitch slightly. Maybe it was helping.

The wasteland looked beautiful from high up. The colors seemed to shift and move- all the reds and oranges and browns suddenly swept aside by miles and miles of black gravel and little jagged rocks. Even then there were shades of black, some with a bright shine, others ground matte by the blowing desert sands. Stark, harsh, but undeniably fascinating.

He definitely preferred seeing it from several hundred feet up.

“We are almost there. Get ready.” Tian couldn’t see what the Martial Uncle was talking about, but he pulled out his rope dart and glared at everything he could.

Chen drew a heavy saber from his storage ring. Five gold rings pierced the back half of the saber’s spine. Tian couldn’t imagine why the saber looked like that, but there were faint shimmers of metallic qi coming off them. Whatever it was, it was beyond his realm. Then the Martial Uncle raised his blade, and showed Tian what the world of a Heavenly Person powerhouse looked like.

The heavy saber rose and with it, a ghostly blade made of metallic qi. Tian thought he could see a brutal tiger printed in that qi, its round eyes full of fury, the King symbol burning on its forehead. Senior Chen swung down at a rocky outcrop hundreds of feet below. The tiger descended from the mountain.

The earth split apart.

Rocks exploded, stone fragments scything across the desert leaving long furrows behind them. The outcrop split open. There had been a hidden channel buried inside the rocks. Tian hadn’t seen a hint of it, he could have been right next to it and he’d have missed it. Chen split it in half the long way with his saber, ripping open the side of the rock face and exposing the caves within. It was like ripping open a termite mound. Or an ant’s nest. And now the ants are swarming.

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The heretics ran out in showers of sparks and twists of qi as talismans and formations shattered. In swirls and mobs of gu, or the shrieks of monkey-faced demons with wings for ears and long, clawlike paws. A withered looking heretic exploded upwards in a cloud of boiling demonic qi. “CHEN, YOU BASTARD!”

Chen didn’t frown, didn’t grunt, didn’t even blink. His saber did his talking. He flew off the platform and hacked down once more. The saber qi smashed into the demonic qi, splitting it wide apart. The heretic swung something too fast for Tian to see, but there was a deafening CLANG as blown rocks and dust showed the protective dome over the platform. Elder Redmane came in hot, crushing a few heretics under his long legs and spearing a few more with his beak. The Level Nines hooked ropes to the side of the platform and, bracing their feet against the elder and holding their bodies up with the rope, ran down the side of the giant bird.

Hong held up her hand and slowly closed one finger at a time. She reached five, then ran for the ropes. “Come on!”

It was chaos. The heretics were running, not interested in fighting to the death. Not all of them were level nine either- Tian watched a sister in the disciplinary squad knock out three with three punches, then looked shocked when her fourth punch exploded a heretic’s head.

The disciplinary squad was moving fast. Some were throwing out talismans that landed like little bolts of lightning, paralyzing those struck. Others tossed around exploding balls of smoke powder that left the heretics choking and gasping… and their Gu dying. Mostly they ran in with sabers and heavy maces. A few hung back with heavy bows, shooting down heretics trying to escape with light body arts.

Nobody was allowed to escape. It all went terribly quickly. A couple of heretics spotted Tian and Hong, and ran for them. Wanting hostages, perhaps, or just seeing a weak spot to break through. None came within fifty yards of them. The speed and violence of the raid was overwhelming.

Five minutes after they landed, the disciplinary squad was ripping through the hidden waystation. Seven minutes after they landed, it was pronounced all clear, and the prisoners were ready for treatment.

“I’m up.” Tian nodded at Hong.

“Me too. My first time inventorying a whole base. I hope someone is helping or we will be here all day.”

“I mean, they already spread the base out on the ground for you so it’s easier to count. That’s helping, right?”

“Ho ho. Doing okay?” She asked in a quieter voice.

“Not remotely. I know what’s going to happen to these people once I patch them up. My brothers… tell me a lot of things.”

“Yeah. My sisters too. Didn’t match up to seeing it. Tian? It’s okay to just leave before they get started. Nobody will think less of you.”

Tian set to work. Blood clotting powder. Bandages. Clearing blockages to the throat- in many cases hidden weapons that got lodged before they could be spat out, in one case someone nearly choked to death on their own teeth. Anything not fatal wasn’t treated. The blindness, for example, or broken bones. The gu crushed inside their host's body, poisoning them from within. An antidote was administered- enough to hold them for a little while.

“Oh.”

“What’s that, Brother Tian?” The level nine guarding him asked.

“I think this one is “Brother Gosung.” The face was different. The line of the jaw had changed, the angle of the eyebrows, even the shape of his eyes had all changed. The rest of his body hadn't. Nor had the feeling of his vital energy on the air. It was subtle, but the kind of subtle Tian paid attention to.

“My name is-”

“Please don’t tell me.” Tian shook his head.

“What?”

“Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. I know what’s going to happen to you soon. It makes me sick. I have been killing and eating my own food for as long as I can remember, but I didn’t leave animals to suffer. I made it fast and clean, as best I could.”

Tian carefully checked that he could slip two fingers under the wrapping on the bandage. “There. No chance of bleeding out or cutting off the blood supply to your leg.”

Tian bandaged everyone who needed it, then walked away. The heretics were all piled up out in the desert, cooking in the sun. One by one, they were dragged inside the ruins of the base. They didn’t come out again.

He found himself in the shadow of Senior Redmane. Grandpa was holding him, letting him feel his emotions. “I thought this would feel better. I was kind of looking forward to beating the piss out of someone. A hot-blooded fight. Hah. I think I’m going to puke.” He didn’t bother keeping his voice down.

“A kind boy.” The voice was warm, rich, older. Tian didn’t look up and see which senior brother was speaking. He was lost, drawing circles in the sand.

“I grew up without any kindness, then I was shown it by my brothers. My happiest moments of existence were the happiness with my brothers in the Temple. And I know it wasn’t free. Someone paid for it with their work and with their blood. I get that. My joy, someone else’s suffering. I eat meat. I eat plants. They were all living things. Some day, worms will eat me. It’s just… do I have to be suffering until then? Does everyone?”

“No. They don’t. You don’t. You can live in a state of serenity and contentment. Your emotions will often feel a bit more dim or ethereal, like you were drifting through life. But you can do it. It just takes an immense amount of practice. Thousands upon thousands of hours of cultivation. Immortal detachment, as some call it.”

“Well, I do enjoy cultivation, Senior…?” Tian looked around and didn’t see anyone.

“Redmane. You may call me Martial Uncle, if you like, or Senior Redmane. Both are correct.” The giant eye of the crane peered down at him. It was like being eyeballed by a predatory hill.

Tian clasped his hands and bowed. “I greet the Martial Uncle. Thank you for your kind words and your advice.” It was pure Brother Fu, instinctive courtesy. When his brian caught up with his body, his internal monolog was a series of expletives and “THE FUCKING BIRD TALKS? WHY DID NOE THE GIANT BIRD TALKS?!”

“What advice? I’m not saying you should do that. If you can learn to accept suffering rather than trying to rise above it, your life will be a lot more fun. At least in the short term, anyway. A couple of centuries, maybe four or five with luck. But if you want to go the distance, the ethereal mindset is mandatory. Up to you, really. That boy Chen knows pain all too well, and embraces it. Most of the Inner Court doesn’t think that deeply about it. But the Daoist Masters up at the top of the Monastery? The ones really holding down the sect? Like a cloud drifting on the wind, or a pine in a deep glade.”

Martial Uncle Chen came striding over, dragging a wiggling black sack behind him. “How’s he doing, Senior?”

“He’s feeling like shit. As he should.” The bird snorted. “He was doing everything right, and still got dropped in it. Why you thought this little outing would make him feel better, I can’t imagine.”

The big man gave the bird a long-suffering look. Tian instantly recognized the expression. Sometimes seniors say things, and all the juniors can do is put up with the “constructive criticism.” Even if it’s coming at an unhelpful moment. And the most junior juniors present need to be selectively deaf. Or else.

“Because I can’t let him beat up the Li boy. Who, I’m sorry to say, isn’t cursed or insane, just arrogant and pampered to the point where the difference is difficult to spot. It doesn’t cheer you up at all to see your enemies crushed? To know that they are helpless before you? To know that their suffering is tens or hundreds of times greater than your own?”

“Respectfully, Martial Uncle, it’s not me they are helpless before. I haven’t crushed anything. And I don’t take any pride in their suffering.” He shouldn’t have said it. It was a stupid thing to say. Just sticking the word “respectfully” in front of it didn’t mean a damned thing. He bowed apologetically.

There was a thoughtful pause. Then Senior Redmane snorted. “Chen boy, you will be busy here for a while yet. I’ll give him a dose of what he really needs. Spend some of the time in reflection.”

The platform vanished from Redmane’s back as a wave of qi lifted Tian up and onto the giant crane’s shoulders. “Hold on tight, boy!”

The bird shoved himself up and into the air, mighty wings beating, softly thundering through the clear sky. Up. High, higher than a mountain, so high the land just became orange and flecks of white clouds below him. The sky wasn’t solid blue, there was a gradient to it, light to dark, thousands of shades of sapphire in the great emptiness.

“Don’t think. Don’t even cultivate. Just be. Just open yourself up to the moment.”

How? How could he? His mind was torn with everything that had happened since he came to the desert. The stupid cruelty of it all. And the kindness. And the care from people around him, who were suffering in the same blasted wasteland. All the thoughts about virtue, and motives and martial arts, about too much yin and balancing yang, about building relationships and fluffing the pillows of malice and slapping the teeth clean out of little shits and healing someone up so they can be properly tortured before their summary execution…

It was like ignoring a thousand tigers roaring. Like trying not to hear the monsoon rains beating down on your ragged nest, wondering if the trash heap would collapse and bury you.

“Just breathe. Just breathe and focus on your breathing. See where you are. Accept that you are here, it is now, and really, in this vastness, where do you end, and where does the sky begin? Just breathe. And accept it all.” Redmane said.

“I was already worried about being too yin.” Tian thought. Then he laughed. It started silently inside of him, but it quickly escaped. It was all too much. How often had he said he would ignore the pain and focus on getting stronger? So why not accept it? Why not be like his seniors for a moment and accept that this was the best he could do for now?

Tian settled his breathing and looked out across the heavens. He didn’t try to understand what he was seeing. He drifted through the sky on the back of a mighty crane. Saw the world as that mighty ancient did. He breathed.

At some point, the moment felt right and he stood. Tian spread his arms wide, and he breathed. In and out. The wind was blowing around him, but it didn’t knock him off his path. The sky existed all around him, but it was in him too. A sky in his mind, breath and qi. There was no distinction.

Tian was a mess. Hurting, beaten, but not broken. The sky was big enough to hold all that. And there was no boundary between Tian and sky. He needed to empty the bowl of his mind and let the bowl of the sky carry the complicated thoughts for a while.

Tian breathed. And for a moment, or an eternity, or for just long enough, he breathed in time with the Dao.