Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Persistence of Memory

It is said somewhere far away, there is a mountain touched by God. If you leap from it with a pure wish in your heart, it will come true. Who said it, when or why, that does not matter.

Anything can happen when someone believes it hard enough.

There are memories in his head that are his and not his. Memories that don't fit where his life has been. Memories that don't make sense. As long as he can remember, they’ve been there. A white sword, a long empty road, the braying of a donkey. Walking in the rain for… something. A flock of cranes taking off. Rabbits.

Where they came from, he does not know. But he knows they are important. Even the small ones. Even the ones that don't make sense.

Each and every memory, Liu Yang holds onto and keeps close, waiting for the day when he will understand why they linger in his mind.

His first clear memory that is his own is of following rabbits. At least, it is the first part that he knows is his and not added in from hearing the rest of the story from his parents and cousin over and over.

The full story goes as follows: that A-Yu and he had heard their grandfather mention that the honored elder had returned home and thanked A-Yang's father for taking care of his rabbits while he was gone. With all the wisdom and enthusiasm of their respective ages (four and six), they had decided they should go see the rabbits. A-Yang sort of remembered where the house was, and A-Yu could read the names on the little houses they passed. And also maybe see over the fence. And they did find it, eventually. A-Yang remembers backtracking at least once on their quest for rabbits.

The honored elder's house was more simple and smaller than the others around, but that made it easier to find. There is a tall fence and a small garden, and behind the wood, they could see beautiful white rabbits that hopped over to look at them curiously. Their long ears twitched as A-Yu stood on his toes to look over the fence and squeal in delight.

A-Yang loved them immediately. He couldn’t quite reach them through the fence, but he strained anyway to see if their fur felt as soft as it looked while A-Yu looked for the way in. As he wandered off, A-Yang turned his head when he heard a thumping to see another beautiful white rabbit sitting outside near the forest. 

“Look, A-Yu!” he called, but his cousin didn’t hear him. “Look at the bunny!”

Everyone else's recounting of the story only remembered the one rabbit, but he maintained until the memories grew too dim with age that there had been two, one hopping forwards to lead him on, and the other waiting till he was almost close enough to touch the soft white fur before bounding forwards with its friend.

He didn’t think about how far he was going, or that A-Yu wasn’t behind him anymore. And he didn’t think about the fact that he had been told not to go into the woods by himself. He only realized that he was very lost when the rabbits ran into a hole he couldn’t fit in and then when he looked around, he couldn't see A-Yu or A-Niang or A-Die anywhere.

He was lost.

Alone without the rabbits, everything seemed much scarier. When the bushes moved, it might have been a monster. When a strange noise came through the trees, it was surely a ghost coming to eat him.

He sat against one of the trees and next to a bush where the monsters wouldn't see him and burst into tears.

It felt like he was lost for a long, long time, but his mother told him it was barely more than an hour. He remembers watching the bushes moving and then a person in long white robes coming through them. He sniffled and wiped his nose on his sleeve, because he was four and all grown up now and four year old boys didn’t cry. The tall man knelt down till they were the same height and smiled at him. It was a nice smile, even if it seemed small, it made him feel safe again. 

“Hello there, I found you,” the man said,  reaching out with his sleeve tucked over his arm to wipe away the tears off his cheeks. A-Yang hiccupped and stared at him. “You must have been scared, but you were very brave. It's okay now.”

He nodded and sniffed again. His face still felt wet and sticky. Quickly, the man scooped him up and let him bury his face in his robes, clinging tightly so he wouldn't get lost again. The man made a soothing humming noise and he felt it all rumbling in his chest. 

“You and A-Yu came to see my rabbits, didn't you?” 

A-Yang nodded again and then yawned suddenly. Now that he didn’t have to be scared and alone anymore, he was very sleepy. The man's shoulder wasn’t as big as A-Die's, but the fur on his robe was soft and smelled nice. Like the way the incense in the shrine smelled sometimes. The nice man wrapped some of his heavy robe around him so he would be warm too. 

“There we go, it’s too cold for us out here.” The man kept walking while holding him up, his arms strong enough that A-Yang never budged even though he wasn't holding on tightly anymore. “If you would like to visit the rabbits, I will talk to your A-Niang. She can bring you over to visit the rabbits someday. Would you like that?”

He nodded sleepily against his shoulder, resting his cheek on the soft fur on his robes. “I like rabbits,” he said, yawning broadly. 

The man made a soft huffing noise. “I like them too,” he said while A-Yang tried to get his head comfortable on his shoulder. “They should get to see more people again.”

A-Yang curled his fists up into the man's robes again and closed his eyes as the nice man started to tell him about the rabbits. 

His memory fades out there, but A-Die assured him that the honored elder had not been upset at all, and that A-Yu had started crying when they'd come out of the woods. He'd apparently never stirred from his sleep the whole time.

He will always look back fondly on this moment, even though he will not appreciate how unique it would really be until years down the line. After all, who else could say they met the Immortal Lan Elder this way?

Despite his invitation, A-Yang doesn’t get to see the rabbits again for nearly a year. The honored elder is an immortal, his parents try to explain, who doesn’t know time in the same way and tends to wander spontaneously, which they only find out when he needs someone to feed his rabbits.

A-Yang doesn’t quite get what makes someone an immortal, but apparently it means being older than Yeye, so he has to be at least forty, which A-Yu agrees with.

Unlike most immortals, A-Niang said that the honored elder prefers to be with his clan too much to go up to heaven, but that means he can only interfere with the people who live on the mountain with him and let everyone below the mountain live their own lives.

All of this goes right over his head as a child and only means that he has to wait a whole winter to play with the rabbits again.

Then one spring morning, when there is still snow where the sun didn't shine on the grass and if he breathes out hard, he can see his breath, his patience is rewarded. He is waiting outside for A-Die and sees the honored elder walking along the stone paths towards their house. A-Yang has been practicing his bows so that when he got to see the honored elder again, he could be respectful. There is something inside of him that needs the honored elder to be proud of him. He’s not sure why. Maybe it’s because the elder came to save him when he was lost and now he needs the man to see that he is growing up and being good now.

He bows properly as the tall man comes closer, the way Yeye had taught him to do for when the honored elder arrived next time, making sure he didn't look up under his eyebrows the way he had been told he was not supposed to do.

The sound of footsteps stops, and then he hears a noise. “Very well done, very polite,” the honored elder says and he tries to look up without moving his head. He can just barely see the honored elder bowing too, all perfectly like only Yeye could do it. Maybe it is because he was taller than A-Die. He wants to be that tall, or maybe even taller someday.

He keeps bowing for a few moments even though his back is starting to hurt a little bit. But he doesn't know when he's supposed to stop bowing. Every time someone has told him to stop and that's when he knows he's bowed enough. Maybe the honored elder will take pity on him and tell him to stop soon. Before he has to stop and be rude.

He hears a soft sound in front of him and then there are hands straightening him up. 

“Oh it's okay, no one needs to be bowed to for that long,” the honored elder says as he stands up with relief. “Not even me,” he adds with a wink.

A-Yang feels a little embarrassed and also a little warm inside. Like even though he was doing it wrong it still made him happy. 

“G-greetings honored elder,” he says quickly before he gets too shy to say it. He doesn’t understand why, but it seems to be harder to talk to people the older he gets instead of easier like A-Yu says it is. 

The elder smiles at him again and that warmth keeps growing. “Greetings, A-Yang. Do you know if your parents are in?”

He nods quickly as he hears the door open behind him. His A-Die places a warm hand on his head for a moment before drawing away to bow nicely to the elder as well. “Greetings, honored elder. Is there some concern I may address for you?”

The man smiles at him and at A-Yang. “I came to speak with you about that matter we discussed last fall, now that I have returned for a while. Is this a good time?”

He blinks in confusion as his father considers and strokes at his beard in thought. “I have plans I would need to delay for now, but my wife could speak with you in my stead? Or I could request my plans be delayed.”

The honored elder shakes his head. “There’s no need for you to delay on my account, please do not let me interrupt. Important matters should be addressed promptly, I have just returned from speaking with some of the elders, myself.”

A-Yang is so confused. It feels like they’re having a different conversation than the words they are saying, but he can’t figure out what it is. Adults are so confusing sometimes.

His father looks relieved instead, he reaches down and pats his shoulder. “A-Yang, could you go fetch your mother for us? I think we should have this resolved soon.”

With more confusion running through his head, he runs inside to get A-Niang like he was asked while his father and the honored elder speak in quiet voices that he can’t understand. Hopefully they will tell him later.

A-Niang comes out quickly once he mentions that the honored elder is here, but A-Die has already left by the time they make it back outside. She invites him inside and then tells him to wait for her in the hall to walk him to classes.

He waits impatiently in the main hall while the honored elder and A-Niang talk quietly, too far away for him to hear without sneaking closer and possibly getting caught.

He doesn't, but he wants to. He wants to know what they're talking about, and if he'll be allowed to help with the rabbits. They are his favorite animal ever and he's only seen them once. Even if he only gets to see them one more time, it would be wonderful.

There are footsteps in the other room and he straightens up and tries to pretend he wasn't waiting eagerly to hear what they decided, making sure his face is empty of all his thoughts and his hands neatly crossed behind his back.

They walk into the room together and he can't resist looking over at them. The honored elder smiles at him. “Were you waiting here the whole time?” he asks and looks at his mother. “You have raised a very dutiful son.”

She smiles and nods in thanks before walking over in front of him. “A-Yang, would you like to go over and help with the rabbits and the chickens in the morning some days? The honored elder has said when you are not in class you are welcome to stop by.”

He looks at her quietly, trying to make sure she isn't joking, then at the honored elder who is waiting to hear his answer. When neither of them break into laughter he nods eagerly, his ribbon sliding down his face with how fast he moves it. A-Niang only laughs and fixes it.

The honored elder leans down to look at him with a smile, eyes creased at the edges. “Is this weekend too early?” he asks seriously, as if A-Yang would rather do something else than go see the rabbits again. “We can wait as long as you like.”

He shakes his head just as vigorously. He waited all winter. That was more than long enough. “This weekend, please. Is that okay?” he asks hurriedly. 

“Of course,” the elder says, glancing up at his mother and getting a nod that they both see, “I look forward to seeing you there, A-Yang.”

Sometimes, he dreams of falling. Not just like what A-Yu talks about like falling out of the sky or off of the roof. No, they are much clearer dreams. And always the same one. He is fighting someone with a sword in his hands. Then it gets knocked away. Before he can call it back, there is sudden pain in his chest and his shoulder.

Then hands push at him and he's too close to the edge of the cliff and when he stumbles there is no ground to catch him.

And then there is nothing but clouds and blue sky as he grasps for anything. His sword does not come, no hand catches him and he falls and falls and falls.

He always wakes up before he hits the ground.

The first time he goes to help with the rabbits, A-Niang walks him over even though he knows the way. It is early enough that the sun is still behind their mountain and the lamps haven’t gone out yet. There are long shadows everywhere, covering all the spring flowers so that they are still tightly closed.

“Are you nervous?” his mother asks as the little house comes into view, with the great large forest spreading out behind. “This is a big responsibility, to come help the honored elder.”

He shakes his head. The forest may still be a little scary, but he will not be going into the forest. He will not be going back into the forest or down the mountain until he has his courtesy name. Only adults with courtesy names go down the mountain. 

He is happy to live here in the Cloud Recesses instead of down the mountain. He has heard the adults talk about how noisy and crowded it is when they think he’s gone to bed. Up here is where A-Yu and his parents and everyone else lives. Why would he want anything else?

His mother squeezes his hand as she walks up the stairs to the honored elder’s house, knocking twice. Now that he is up higher, he tries to look over the fence and see if he can see any of the bunnies yet, but there are no rabbits or chickens in the closed off yard.

They wait a little while and his nose itches and the light around them gets brighter as the sun comes up higher and higher. The lanterns flicker out when the light touches them. And then the door opens. 

The honored elder smiles at them from the doorway, his hair all loose like he only just woke up. Without the ponytail he keeps it in, it falls down well past his butt with little ripples in it. It looks very pretty. 

“Good morning Yan-guniang, Liu-gongzhi,” he greets and it takes him a moment to realize that the honored elder is calling him a young master.

He likes that, it makes him feel very grown up to be addressed that way by the honored elder. He remembers to bow before his mother can remind him though, and when he’s supposed to straighten back up. 

“Good morning, Honored Elder,” he says and is even more proud when his voice doesn’t shake.

The honored elder smiles warmly at him and then looks up at his mother again. “You are welcome to stay if you wish, I can make some tea,” he offers kindly. “It will likely be at least a shichen of work before we are done.”

His mother shakes her head. “I have things I must attend to at home. Will you bring him home when you two are done?”

The honored elders bows to his mother with a very serious look on his face. Even the fact that his hair is loose and falling everywhere does not make it look any less regal. Truly the honored elder is someone he should aspire to be like. He wants to be that composed even if his hair is loose and tangled. 

“I will make sure he makes it home safe.” His eyes crinkle at the edges as he smiles warmly and reaches out to ruffle his hair playfully, “he won’t go running off into the woods on my watch.”

He squirms away from the ruffling hand and smooths his hair back down as his mother laughs. “I could think of no one safer, I thank you.” she says and then they all bow again. “A-Yang,” she says and he straightens up immediately, “follow his instructions and do not complain about the work. All tasks are noble tasks.”

A-Yang nods and tries to not feel sad that she is not staying too. But she is right that they are both busy and also he is not four anymore. He can be trusted to behave himself and not go running after rabbits.

After all, he is now allowed into the garden where they live too.

His mother kisses him on the top of his head and he lets her patiently as the honored elder goes to tie up his hair, and when he comes back out she is walking back down the dirt path that leads to home, turning back occasionally to smile at him. He watches until she is nearly out of sight before turning to the honored elder, excitement and maybe just a tiny bit of nervousness mingling in his stomach like a thousand butterflies.

The honored elder smiles down at him and he gets the feeling that he understands what he’s feeling. Of course he would. He’s the oldest person in the Cloud Recesses, he’s been here since before any of the rest of them. He’s the only person who could understand all these confusing feelings.

The honored elder leads him down the stairs and reaches over and opens the gate, waiting for A-Yang to walk in before closing it behind them. He still doesn’t see the rabbits or the chickens, but he can hear the chickens somewhere nearby. Almost like they’re in the house. Or maybe in the wooden structure next to the house? 

The honored elder walks over to the wooden structure and starts undoing a long rope that suddenly turns into a door and a ramp that unfolds and releases the chickens he could hear. Four speckled hens walk down the ramp and cluster around his feet, clucking and bawking the whole time. “When the sun goes down, predators for sweet chickens and bunnies come out and while my fences are good, it doesn’t stop the ones that can fly,” the honored elder explains as he walks over to another very similar looking ramp. “So they all go home for the night and I let them out in the morning.”

This time when the ramp falls down he sees a white furry nose poke out from the doorway. His heart is beating fast and he doesn’t feel like he can breathe for excitement.

He is getting to meet the rabbits.

The honored elder chuckles and wanders off with a bucket, but he barely notices him leaving as he watches the white twitching nose hop forwards with long white ears and soft looking fur that he just wants to reach out and pet. The rabbit is cautious hopping down the ramp, but seeing its chicken friends seems to make it feel comfortable and it bounds down to sniff around the dirt and bits of grass and his feet curiously.

And just when he thinks it could not be better than this, a second rabbit appears, and then a third. All in all there are seven soft white rabbits that come out of the wooden structure by the time the honored elder returns with the bucket now full of dried grain and a bowl of bright green vegetables like what they eat for dinner every night. “You can pet them if you want, although they’ll probably hop away until they’re used to you,” he says, setting the bowl down on the ground and watching rabbits and chickens come over to investigate immediately. “Come on over.”

He carefully walks around the rabbits who have picked out their favorite bits and hopped away to eat them away from the chickens who are standing around a piece of lettuce that they have pecked until it is more hole than leaf to stand next to the honored elder, who shows him how big a handful to make (three of his to one of the honored elder’s) and how to throw it over the ground so that the chickens will have fun wandering around pecking up all the pieces. “There’s a bin behind the house that’s latched so that no vermin can crawl in and deprive my poor chickens of wandering around and ignoring the same untrustworthy piece of corn for three days,” he says and A-Yang has to try and not snicker too much as he sees three of the four chickens inspecting something on the ground and immediately walking away from it disapprovingly. 

They stand there watching all the animals eating peacefully before the honored elder bends over and scoops up a rabbit right off the ground, one hand supporting its front feet and the other under its butt so that it’s curled up in a tiny ball. Next to his dark robes it looks even snowier than it did on the ground, just sitting calmly in his hands with its nose always twitching as it smells the new air up high. “Oh good, no squirming today,” he says with a soft laugh. A-Yang can’t help smiling at the gentle way that the honored elder holds the rabbit. It looks very safe.

He really wants to pet it.

The honored elder holds out the rabbit to him. “You came to see me last year to meet my rabbits, right?” he says as A-Yang stares at the little white bunny right in front of his face. “So come meet my rabbits.”

He really can’t breathe now. The honored elder helps him hold it safely, adjusting his hands over the soft soft soft fur so that the rabbit is nestled against his chest. “Always make sure that you have your hands supporting their spines, they’re easily scared and they can hurt themselves if you’re not gentle with them.”

He nods slowly, throat too full to speak his gratitude as the rabbit tries to stand up and sniff at his face. They are even softer than he thought they would be looking at them. And now that he is holding one of them the others seem to have decided that he’s interesting too. The honored elder is laughing a little at the look on his face, but he doesn’t care.

This is the best day of his whole life. 

A-Yu has already been going to classes for two years by the time he's old enough to go, telling him all about reading and math and meditation and sword work. When he isn't busy helping Liu-ayi at home or doing homework, sometimes he shows him how to stand so that you can't get knocked over by the teachers, or how to sit and meditate and tries to explain how to focus and pull your energy inwards in circles.

The strangest thing is that sometimes it feels familiar. A-Yu doesn't always need to show him how to move from one stance to another, and the breathing comes naturally to him. When he's old enough to go to his classes at last, he is far ahead of the other kids his age.

“Your son is a prodigy,” he overhears the Lan-laoshi who teaches the swords to the kids his age. “I've never taught a child to whom swordwork came so naturally. With your permission, I would like to advance him so that he may begin working with a wooden blade.”

When they praise him for it, he tries to tell them that it was A-Yu showing him what to do that made it easy, but no, apparently he's been skipping past A-Yu's age group too.

All through that year he dreams of watching different kids in a different classroom as a severe man guides him through work far above what they will learn, and wakes up from those dreams with a strange feeling that hurts his heart and makes him want to run to his A-Die and A-Niang and be held like a baby until it passes.

It surprises him later to learn that this feeling is loneliness. The sort of loneliness that can eat someone alive.

The honored elder leaves for a time in the height of summer; instead his father takes him to go feed the rabbits most mornings. Now that he is coming regularly the rabbits know him as a person who will feed them and pet their soft silky ears and crawl inside their hutch to change the straw inside so that they can sleep on fresh bedding and they always hop down and crowd around his feet while his father brings out the food since he is still too short to open up the bin fully without having to throw the lid back where he cannot reach to shut it again.

As the last leaves are falling the honored elder returns with news of the outside world and new books, seeds and tools for them. “It is always good to know what happens beyond our borders,” his mother tells him that night after they come home from the honored elder’s home where all the adults were requested to come speak with him.

He would have been more disappointed if he hadn’t known that the rabbits were all locked up for the night and it would have just been a long time sitting listening to people talk about boring politics and who married who and who declared attacks on who.

He wants to grow up soon, but those conversations sound so boring. Getting married just sounds weird since he’d have to kiss someone and why would you attack people for no reason? Adults are so odd. When he grows up, he’ll travel around by himself and help people in trouble and maybe after that he’ll come back and have a house like the honored elder with all the rabbits he could care for.

Time passes strangely sometimes. He passes his first year of classes far ahead of the others in his age group, then his second. He grasps how to use a wooden sword almost as quickly as he did the stances, but to his frustration they will not let him skip any more classes, telling him that his body is not growing as fast as his mind and he will not be allowed to skip ahead to a metal sword until he stands taller than the practice dummies in the training yard.

His golden core grows steadily under the guidance of his teachers. When he is eight he is introduced to a series of instruments, xiao and dizi, pipa and xun, erhu and guqin. There is a part of him that is transfixed on the idea of learning the dizi despite it being a less commonly used instrument than the others, perhaps a part that wishes to follow in the footsteps of the honored elder and the strange black dizi he always has hanging from his belt. The xiao has a similar appeal, but his cousin already plays it and he doesn’t want to be just like his cousin anymore. He is not A-Yu number two. 

But in the end he settles on the guqin instead. There is one in the yashi with beautiful dark wood that he heard played once by a teacher with only white left in her hair that rang in his dreams for days afterwards. There is an impulse to reach out and touch that beautiful guqin in the yashi. There is a part of him that knows he could make it sing like no other.

But the strings on his practice guqin still hurt his fingers and while he practices in all of his spare time, his fingers are not long enough to play an adult’s instrument yet. 

Sometimes he wishes he could just grow up faster .

The honored elder still lets him visit every day he is not in classes to help him feed his chickens and take care of his rabbits. On those days he walks as quickly as he can manage without running; there is no running allowed in the Cloud Recesses. Every morning he may visit as soon as he has finished his breakfast, even if it is raining or snowing.

No matter how early or late he is, the honored elder is always waiting for him. It isn't until Liu Yang is through the gate that he opens the doors for the rabbits and chickens to wander out freely, making noise and bouncing around him as they wait for him to get the pail and the basket that are already ready for him.

“Honored elder, do you still feed them when I am in class?” he asks one day as the rabbits lay in little white clouds all over the ground, chewing on grass or lettuce leaves with content looks on their faces. “Or are there other people who come and help you as well?”

The honored elder makes a clucking noise and tugs on the end of his braid. “So formal! Aren't you only eight?” he asks and laughs softly when he scowls at him. “I still take care of them myself when you're busy.”

He is happy to hear that he is not sharing the fun of feeding the rabbits with someone else, but he is also strangely sad. “Why are you always doing everything by yourself?” he asks, watching one rabbit hop over to another and start to cuddle up against it, both of their noses twitching rapidly as the one that was by itself closes its eyes and looks happier than it did.

When he looks up, the honored elder is watching them too with a strange look on his face underneath the smile. But it disappears when he notices him looking up. 

“A-Yang, you worry far too much about your elders,” he scolds him and reaches out and ruffles his hair again. “It's our job to worry for you instead.”

He scowls and looks down. “But you're the honored elder. There's no one older than you. Who's going to worry about you instead?” he says sulkily, not looking at the man.

It takes a minute for him to realize he should have never said that, and for the elder to start laughing. He looks up in worry only to see the man with one arm clutched tight around his stomach and the other wiping at his eyes as he keeps laughing, scaring the rabbits and chickens off to a different part of the yard. 

“I-I apologize!” he says quickly, leaping to his feet and bowing. “This one should have not said that! Please forgive me, honored elder!”

He waves one hand at Liu Yang, the other still wiping away tears from his eyes. “You should have absolutely said that,” he says through his laughter, the words hard to understand and yet he knows what they are. After a few moments he manages to calm down and when he smiles, it is so bright it almost hurts to look at it. “Sometimes it takes young eyes to see what these old ones have forgotten.”

He tries not to frown in confusion. Even if the elder isn't mad, he doesn't want to say something else and make him mad this time. The elder appears to see it and takes pity on him again. 

“When you live long enough, everyone is younger. I have seen everyone in the Cloud Recesses be born, grow up, grow old. But even so I am still a part of this sect and I should let you all care for me as I do for you.” His eyes grow distant, wistful. He stares at the door of his house as if someone were waiting for him inside, even though he knows after all this time that the honored elder lives alone.

He is looking at someone Liu Yang cannot see. For some reason it makes him very, very sad. He may not know much about the world yet, but he knows that people shouldn’t be alone like this. There should be someone waiting for him. The house should not be empty when he is sitting with the rabbits.

He wants to ask who the honored elder is looking for. But he can feel in the center of himself that there are questions he should not ask. 

And answers he will not get.

Classes begin to get more interesting as he gets older and advances further. Musical cultivation comes to him as easily as sword work, and while it takes time to build up calluses on his fingers so that the strings don't keep hurting, he loves to play the guqin for hours until his fingers are too stiff to move.

Talisman cultivation is challenging, but rewarding when he eventually begins to get the trick for how to write them properly. And that one he wants to keep taking even when the teacher gently suggests that he should focus on sword and music instead because apparently the honored elder teaches the upper level classes and he loves learning with the honored elder. He can ask him anything and he has the answer. He knows so much about so many things. He wants to learn from him in a proper class. And that means he will learn how to grasp talisman cultivation no matter how many times they politely suggest he is better suited for others. 

He excels in his sword classes. While he is still held back with the others despite having the skill and movement down, the teacher tells him that it is because he is still growing and he needs to learn how to fight with the body that he has, not the body that he will have. After one class he is given a new wooden sword that feels heavier than the rest, with his name carved into the hilt. 

“This one is weighted,” Lan-laoshi tells him quietly, when the other kids almost his age aren't looking, “so that you can build up your strength.”

His days are full with music, swords, talismans, etiquette and all the other things a young master should learn, but at night he tosses and turns as dreams and memories tumble in his head. Rarely does he remember what they are when he awakes, but sometimes it is the flash of sitting at a beautiful guqin with fingers outstretched, or of the long white sword that he sees so often.

And many times they feel like only half a memory, like something is missing from them. Something important.

Something he needs to remember.

When he is nine, the honored elder comes to his sword fighting class. Or rather, he appears there while they are running through drills and no one remembers seeing him appear. He's just leaning on the fence that separates them from the other classes, looking out over all of them curiously.

The moment that Lan-laoshi sees him, he calls the class to a halt and they all bow to him. Only Liu Yang sees him make a face before they all straighten back up. By the time anyone else is looking at him he's smiling again. 

“Don't mind me, I just like to see how our current generation of cultivators are shaping up,” he says with a wave. “I didn't mean to interrupt class.”

The teacher commands them to go back to training, but none of them can focus properly in the excitement of the honored elder watching them. Even Liu Yang, who still sees him once a week and is used to hearing him be curious about his studies, can't seem to move as he should. Lan Rui raps his knuckles by accident when he doesn't block properly and then glowers at him. It's not like he's doing any better at pretending it is still a normal class! He keeps glancing over at the honored elder as if he wants him to see him doing well.

Something about it makes him feel a little angry and a little sick to his stomach at the same time. He adjusts his grip and when Lan Rui comes at him again, he deliberately uses one of the moves from his dream and slips under his guard to hit him on his sword wrist. Maybe a little bit harder than he meant to.

The wooden sword clatters to the ground and the class stops again as Lan-laoshi comes over to look at Lan Rui, who is clutching his wrist and glaring at him with tears in his eyes. 

“How did you do that?” he demands loudly as the teacher gently presses his fingers onto his wrist. “You cheated.”

“No,” a soft voice says and shame sinks through the anger. He can't bear to look up as the honored elder comes over and kneels in front of Lan Rui, offering him back his sword. “It's just a move you haven't learned how to defend against yet.”

Lan Rui sniffs and looks up at him, taking the sword and pointing the tip at the ground respectfully. The sickness and shame sitting in his stomach grows as the honored elder smiles at him and moves to stand on his sword arm side. “Would you like to learn how to block against someone seeking to disarm you?”

Lan Rui nods quickly and the teacher exchanges a look with the honored elder and calls the others over to watch. The honored elder accepts a sword from the teacher and goes through the same move he used, but much slower, talking all the way about how to spot it and how to block it. Even a fool could pick it up with how he explains it and Lan Rui is not a fool. After two demonstrations, he picks up the countermove that the honored elder is showing him and turns the twisting of the blade back on him so that his own sword clatters to the ground instead.

The other students are fascinated; as soon as Lan Rui demonstrates twice more that he has it down, they all start clamoring for a chance to practice the move too. A chance the honored elder gives them, motioning for them to line up and take turns.

Liu Yang stands there numbly, knowing he should be in the line as well, getting to learn a powerful move from the honored elder who holds a sword with such confidence even if he's never seen him with one before.

But he can't make his feet move, he can't look over at everyone else surrounding him. Can't bear to listen to him applauding all of the students as they succeed and send his blade to the ground.

It was special, learning things from the honored elder. And he didn't want to share it. Not with the other students and certainly not with Lan Rui.

Instead of getting in the line, he walks towards where they store the swords and angrily puts his away before storming out of class. Tears of shame and anger prick at his eyes and only make the shame and anger grow. He doesn't hear anyone calling after him. Even if he did he wouldn't listen to them.

He feels so weird and out of sorts and he doesn't know why. It doesn't make sense! He loves sword class. He loves learning things. The honored elder came to see them training. He could have shown him how much he'd grown since those first days. And instead he is storming off with tears running down his face as if he were still a small child.

His feet take him to the place where it feels safest to hide away until these burning ugly feelings inside him die- with the rabbits. They hop around him in confusion as he climbs over the wooden fence and goes to sit behind the hutch where people can only find him if they’re looking for him and buries his face in his knees.

The rabbits follow him to where he’s hiding and sit around him in little white balls like large flowers in the grass they always keep trimmed short. It is hard to stay upset when you are surrounded by rabbits. Especially when they are waiting for you to stroke them. He slowly uncurls and wipes the stray tears from his face and cuddles the rabbits until he is feeling better.

It doesn’t occur to him that anyone might wonder where he has run off to until he hears the latch on the gate lift up and sees the rabbits lift their little white faces up and go hopping off to meet the honored elder. In an instant the shame is back, he shouldn’t have run off, he shouldn’t have crossed the fence without his permission, he shouldn’t still be here 

“A-Yang?” he hears the elder call out and his ears burn again. He could just… try and climb over the fence. He is no longer a small child. He could find his way back out on his own.

But instead he stands there still as the air and the rabbits lead the honored elder to see him glaring at the ground, frozen in indecision. He hears a soft laugh, the same fond one the honored elder makes when the rabbits are playing together. It makes him warm inside even through the shame. He likes the way that laugh sounds. It reminds him of the way the sun coming out from behind the clouds seems brighter.

The honored elder walks over and places an arm on his back and walks him out from behind the hutch into the daylight again, with the rabbits and the chickens milling around them. 

“You left class suddenly without a word. What happened?”

He shakes his head mutely, unable to look up at him. How is he supposed to try and explain what happened? He does not know what emotions are warring in his chest, the shame, the sick anger, the indignation that someone might take something that is special to him.

How is he supposed to explain something without a name?

He pulls away from that kind touch on his shoulders, still looking at the ground, the rabbits hopping around them without a care in the world other than living their peaceful bunny lives. 

“It doesn’t matter,” he says and kicks at a pebble on the ground. “It was stupid and I shouldn’t feel that way,” he mutters under his breath.

The honored elder snorts and sits down on the ground, motioning for Liu Yang to come join him as he pulls a rabbit onto his lap, petting it until it settles down. 

“There are no stupid emotions, only stupid reactions,” he says very wisely. “Something upset you and you’re still reacting to it. Tell me about it.”

He doesn’t want to tell him about it; he wants to run away and hide until he forgets all about it. But the honored elder is looking up at him patiently, waiting for him to sit down and talk to him just like when he has questions that he does not want to bring to his parents or his teachers. The honored elder has never told him that anything he had to say was not worth saying, or suggested that he was wrong for the things he thought about.

He slowly sits down on the ground, one of the chickens staring at him and then deciding he was not as interesting as the patch of ground to their left and wandering off again. 

“It was stupid,” he says again, trying to make sure that the honored elder understands him. “I just got really mad because you were showing everyone else how to do something.” His eyes burn, but he refuses to cry. He has already cried enough for no reason. “It isn’t special if you’re showing everyone .”

The honored elder is quiet for a moment, just petting his rabbit as he waits for him to tell him that it is stupid, that he was wrong.

Then he smiles and the knot in his chest eases. “I know you may not agree when you’re experiencing it, but it is okay to feel jealous,” he says at long last. “Anything that you feel, you feel for a reason. What matters is how you act in the moment.”

Jealous? Why would he be jealous? The honored elder is really great. Anyone would be happy to learn from him, should be happy to learn from him. He knows so much and he explains it so well. And Liu Yang wants everyone else to see that. So many people only come to speak to him about cultivation problems or requests for things to be brought in on the next trip down to the town below. Or at least that’s the only time he sees them, but he wants more people to come and tell the honored elder how great he is.

Jealousy is for selfish people, people who want to keep things for themselves so that no one else can have them. He does not want to be that person. He is not that person! So why is he feeling it?

Some of his confusion must show on his face because he feels the honored elder reach over and pinch his cheek lightly before letting go. He scowls for a moment but the man’s laughter makes it hard to stay upset. 

“A-Yang, sometimes you feel things for reasons that don’t make sense until you talk about them. Even I sometimes feel upset about things and I’ve lost count of the years I’ve lived.” He is still laughing a little, but his eyes are kind.

The honored elder is always so kind. He wishes that he could be that kind to everyone. 

“I hate feeling jealous,” he tells him honestly, looking at the same pebble he’d been kicking around. “It makes me feel sick and angry.”

The honored elder nods wisely. “As long as you do not hold onto it, it will pass and fade. You have a good heart, A-Yang,” he says, drawing his eyes up to his face again.

There’s a way that he smiles when he’s thinking of something else, where it’s still in his eyes but more distant. Maybe wistful, that is a good word, he read it in a book recently. Like Liu Yang reminds him of someone long gone. He is smiling like that now. 

It brings up a little of the jealousy, but mostly sadness. And guilt, for some reason. That doesn’t make any sense either. But the honored elder has just told him that sometimes you feel things and don’t know why yet. Maybe it’s another one of those.

“Anyway,” the honored elder says brightly, gently nudging the rabbit off his lap and pulling himself to his feet, “you missed my lesson on how to avoid that move you used.” He winks slightly as he offers Liu Yang a hand up. “Although given that you know other moves beyond your years, perhaps you already know it?”

He shakes his head quickly. “I want to learn it!” he says, already prepared to go back to the training grounds. “Please, will you show me?”

The honored elder laughs and pats his head fondly. “Yes, but perhaps first we should give the rabbits a treat for disturbing their afternoon naps. I believe there are some carrots back in the dining hall. Would you care to accompany me?”

He nods eagerly, all thoughts of jealousy and guilt forgotten in the dust. A small part of him still feels very smug as they walk along together towards the dining hall with a small basket.

Lan Rui would never be invited along to give the rabbits a treat.

The winter he is ten something strange happens. His parents wake him in the middle of the night, rushing him out of bed and into his warmest clothes as he attempts to blink the dream fog from his eyes. 

“A-Yang,” his father grips his shoulders tightly and looks in his eyes. “I need you to follow your cousin up to the main house, and stay with everyone else there until the honored elder comes back. You must stay there. Do you understand me?”

He has never looked more serious; it’s a little frightening. He nods and looks back at the small things in his room, wondering if he should grab his practice guqin or his books or something. But his mother is standing at the door with her sword drawn and his father is already motioning for him to go out the back window and in the end all that he has time to grab is his old worn stuffed rabbit that helps keep the dreams from becoming too scary sometimes. It is silly that he needs it, but he sleeps better with something in the bed too. 

So Xiao-Tuzi goes with him and he climbs out the window and sees A-Yu and his mother standing together, waiting for him. When he looks back the lights on the paths are out and the clouds seem thicker than they ever have before. 

“The honored elder is hiding us,” A-Yu’s mother whispers as they go inside the main house and she shuts and locks every door behind them until they are in a room together with the other children. “Stay quiet,” she whispers and Liu Yang sits down against a wall with A-Yu right next to him. Even though he is older and should be braver, he is shaking too. 

“What’s happening?” he asks in a whisper as one other woman comes in with her sword unsheathed and stands at the door along with his Ayi. There is only one lamp in the room, and they have it mostly covered. He can barely see anything. A-Yu only shakes his head and curls up smaller. Someone else is crying quietly, but it’s too dark to see who.

He hasn’t realized how quiet things can be. No one is talking, even in whispers. There are no sounds from outside. It is so dark.

Then he remembers that the honored elder is out protecting them. Like in the stories A-Die tells them about when they all climbed up the mountain to escape the war, he has called the clouds to hide them. As long as they have the honored elder, they are safe.

But it’s still scary. The honored elder is fighting by himself. If only he were older . If he were older, he would run out and fight with him and make sure that just like he is protecting all of them, Liu Yang is protecting him.

It’s such a strong feeling that it burns in his throat like tears. He should be out there helping. He knows more sword moves than the teacher still, he is very improved in guqin, he has already learned how to play all of the basic Inquiry language and some of the battle songs. He could help! And he feels like he would remember how to fight once he holds a sword in his hand to fight a real enemy. 

It feels like something he used to do, he used to go out and fight like this. For the first time in his head, sitting on the floor with everyone else while everything outside is too quiet he realizes the dreams aren’t just dreams.

They’re memories. He is remembering doing all of these things. Once he was a different boy who lived in a different Cloud Recesses, who learned everything he knows now.

He doesn’t know what to do with that knowledge yet. Who he can tell or what he is supposed to do. But for a moment it feels like he can see this other boy sitting in front of him. He is in white robes with the same ribbon as Lan Rui or A-Yu wears, with the clouds on it. He looks very serious. 

He has pretty eyes. Like flat gold discs. He wishes his eyes looked like that.

As quickly as he sees the other boy though, he is gone and there is only the fear and A-Yu and Xiao-Tuzi with him. 

No one sleeps that night. They all sit together watching the light in the lamp dance, too afraid to talk or move until the sun comes up and the honored elder comes knocking on their door. 

He looks so tired and one of his robes is cut through at the elbow, but otherwise he is okay. His smile seems tired too. 

“They won’t be coming back. You can all go home.”

Some of the other children clap or cheer, but too many of them are too sleepy. Next to him, A-Yu yawns hugely. The honored elder laughs and reaches over and ruffles his hair fondly. 

“Perhaps no classes today, if no one slept.”

It is a good thing that they are all tired and confused, it means that no one is looking twice at him for being quiet and lost. A-Niang keeps one arm around his shoulders as she leads him back home. He sees several other cultivators in white robes slowly milling around with their hands on their swords, as if they are prepared for battle.

There are strange shadows moving beyond the treeline, but A-Niang sees them at the same time he does and puts herself between him and the shadows so he cannot see them around her. 

“There is no need to be frightened, we are safe here,” she whispers to him as they walk along.

How does he explain to her that he is not frightened, but lost? There are too many things in his mind and he can’t think clearly now that he knows the things he knows.

This is not his first life. And he can remember some parts of what happened before. He lived as a Lan, he had rabbits, he fell off the side of a mountain. He played guqin and fought with a sword as white as moonlight.

Has anyone else ever lived a life with someone else’s memories? Perhaps the honored elder would know, but it does not feel right to talk about it yet. He needs more…more something. He yawns heavily and his eyes feel full of sand. He is so tired .

A-niang goes ahead of him into their home and only gestures for him to follow after a few moments. She leads him around the smashed vase on the floor with a smile. He looks around but that is the only thing he can see broken. Maybe she or A-Die accidentally knocked it on the floor.

Another yawn interrupts his thoughts as she leaves him at his bedroom. “Sleep well, A-Yang,” she says with a smile and kisses him on his forehead before walking away. He can hear her picking up the pieces of vase on the floor down the hall.

He crawls back into his bed, it feels so strange to be in his bed when the sun is up. The rules specify that one must not laze about, but is it lazing if he has not slept? If his mother tells him to go to bed, then it is not lazing without permission.

There are too many thoughts in his head, he feels all stuffed and overfilled with everything that happened.

People attacked his home and the honored elder and his A-Die and A-Niang were part of the ones who fought them off. He remembered things that are not his life. 

Thoughts swirl around and around in his mind like silt in the stream, forever stirred up by the little fish swimming against the flow of the water until they lure him into dizzying dreams.

The day after the attack all of the children in the sect are brought out and told what happened and why they needed to hide until their parents came back for them:

When they came out here before, it was in the middle of a war in the Jianghu below. The honored elder offered shelter to the young and old, the weak and injured of a nearby sect when the war came to their home.

They are the only ones left of the Gusu Lan sect of old, and some of the people below have not forgiven the honored elder for killing everyone coming after them. There are not many of them left anymore because it has been long enough that most of those who still held a grudge have either moved on or died by now, but sometimes someone tries to get revenge for a fallen ancestor.

What Liu Yang gathers of it is that people are stupid and since all they do is live on their mountain and help out the people below with cultivation problems, they should just be left alone. Yes, there was a war, but it wasn’t their war. 

It seems really stupid to keep trying to fight battles that all the people who cared about it already died for. Revenge doesn’t make sense if the person who caused it is dead.

He still has so many questions about everything and all the adults are too busy to answer any of them. The honored elder had not come out to the lecture, so when he finds a good moment, he sneaks out and walks down the dirt paths towards his house.

There are very few signs that anything happened even just a day after they were attacked. There are gouges in the grass and a few deep cuts in the wood of houses, but all of those will be fixed quickly. The dirt path is still just as nice to walk on as it was before, the little white stones on either side still in place.

He turns around the bend to the honored elder’s house and stops suddenly. Because what he sees is not what he expected at all. Usually there is no one out yet, the honored elder will come out of his house when he gets there. But right now he is sitting outside on his stairs, and there is another tall man sitting next to him. He is dressed in white robes, but instead of the blue cloud patterns he is so familiar with, there are red flames licking at the hems. 

They are sitting close together as if they were friendly, and the honored elder keeps reaching over and brushing at his hair as if he’s smoothing it out. The other man seems to enjoy it, he keeps laughing whenever the honored elder does it. He is too far away to hear what they’re saying, but it is obvious to him that it is not bothering him at all. 

There is something very wrong with what he’s seeing. The honored elder does not just casually touch people. He is the honored elder. To be treated with respect by everyone. One does not just lean into him when sitting nearby.

He stands there, caught in his surprise and dismay until the honored elder sees him and waves. Slowly he walks over, the two men smiling at him patiently. 

“Liu Yang, did you come to feed the rabbits this afternoon?” the honored elder asks, smiling wider than he’s ever seen before.

He nods mutely. He feels like he’s interrupting something, and he doesn’t even know what it is. And to make things even stranger, that old part of him is not upset at seeing this other man, but very warm and happy. It makes it harder to be upset when the old piece of himself is glowing.

“One of your students? Or another duckling?” the other man asks, looking up at the honored elder with a mischievous smile. “Good morning to you,” he says and stands up and bows politely. “I do not believe we have met, the last time I was here you were just an infant.”

He blinks and looks at this man’s face more closely. It is familiar in a way, but only in a way that the ancient part of him recognizes.

Does that mean then that they knew each other before? He has realized that he really knows very little about everything that has happened before.

Did he know the honored elder in his past life? They are both part of the same sect now, but he does not actually know how long ago his memories are. Only that they are not in the same place. 

He is staring and not answering, he realizes suddenly. In his hurry to bow properly he manages to swing his sleeve so that it hits him in the face and smarts a little. 

“This one is Liu Yang,” he greets quickly. “I apologize for my rudeness.”

The younger man laughs and it reminds him of the honored elder a little bit. They laugh the same way, not to make fun of people but because that is how they show being happy. 

“Greetings to you, Liu-gongzi,” he says with a smile as he straightens up.

The honored elder looks at him with the same expression he sometimes sees on his own father’s face and he understands what he saw at the same time the man speaks again. 

“This one is Lan Sizhui, and I’ve come home to see my father.”

Lan Sizhui is almost as amazing as the honored elder, once he is used to the idea that the man who lets him help feed his rabbits and lives alone at the end of the village also has a son who is older than he is.

But then the honored elder is immortal. No one knows how old he is. It makes sense that his son would also be older than him. And Sizhui-sanren, as the other adults call him, is the same as his father. There is a similar look in their eyes, something that says that they have seen all the mornings and evenings pass by, spent many afternoons sitting and drinking tea and watching people grow up that will eventually grow old and die while they look the same.

The honored elder tells him that he will not need help with the rabbits while Sizhui-sanren is visiting, but he doesn’t feel upset by that. He has known in a sort of strange way that the honored elder is different from them and sometimes it makes him sad, but until Sizhui-sanren came back to visit them he didn’t know the honored elder could smile the way he does.

It lights up his whole face like the sun finally coming over the mountain, wide and crinkling his eyes almost closed but for slim blue slits. He is always reaching out and hugging the younger man, brushing at his hair fondly. And Sizhui-sanren returns the affection with a softer but no less warm smile.

He does not mind having his mornings more free for a little while anyway, he has many other things to consider. 

He is still trying to work through the very idea that he has memories that aren’t his but still feel like he has lived them and what it all means. Sometimes the thoughts that come to him late at night when he should be sleeping go around and around in his head like an endless spiral until he feels dizzy and his head hurts. After he wakes up from three separate dreams that feel the same but all have different little changes, it occurs to him that he should be trying to write this down.

He spends his newfound free mornings in the library taking notes on his dreams, looking through the books for any other stories of the situation he is in. 

They are distinctly unhelpful. Reincarnation is not something covered in any texts aside from a small section of romance books where someone loses their lover and then later meets their reincarnation and falls in love again.

And unless he is not remembering something as big as wanting to fall in love and marry someone, there is no way those would be useful at all.

Sizhui-sanren finds him there one morning, walking quietly as a cat into the library. “Oh, hello Liu-gongzi,” he greets as Liu Yang attempts to tuck his papers away without making it look suspicious. “I did not think anyone else would be here at this time.”

There usually aren’t, that is why he is here now. He does not have to answer questions he does not want to if there is no one else there. But now Sizhui-sanren is here and looking over the books by drawing his fingers down the covers while humming softly.

“You do not need to leave if you do not wish to,” the man says as he pulls out a book he recognizes as being old poetry. “I only came by to take something to read while A-Die goes down to negotiate with idiots. I hope he doesn’t have to beat too many of them up.”

There is something about the juxtaposition between the regal image that he makes standing in the library with his special flame embroidered robes and book of poetry while casually talking about the honored elder getting into a fistfight, a picture that does not fit together quite right. Perhaps it is that he is suggesting the most honorable, graceful person in the Cloud Recesses would end up punching someone.

Sizhui-sanren looks over at him and smiles in amusement. 

“Oh, you’re making a face at that.” Without a moment of hesitation he swoops over and sits down across from him in a perfect graceful movement that leaves his sleeves properly swept out to the side next to him, book still cradled in his hands. “A-Die will absolutely punch someone if they are stupid and insulting the people he cares about,” he says in a low voice with a smirk as if he is confiding a secret to him. “I’ve seen him do it before. Someone suggested that his power was more overblown reputation than any real skill and if he didn’t have his flute he would be incapable of fighting back.”

This is definitely baseless gossip. There is no way the honored elder would do such a thing. It goes against everything he knows of the kind gentle man who diffuses situations with a calm word and a smile.

He desperately wants to hear more. When he was a child he did not think much of the fact that no one even knows the honored elder’s name, but now as he is growing up he wants to know more about their protector and teacher. He has lived such a long time, there must be so many stories about them. 

“What did he do after that?” he asks breathlessly.

Sizhui-sanren’s smile grows and he realizes that he’s fallen into his trap and allowed him to spread more gossip. But then again, is it gossip if he does not tell anyone else? This will stay between him and Sizhui-sanren. And he will only ask questions if the man invites them, he decides quickly. 

“Ah, are you sure?” he asks with a little laugh. “Is it not spreading gossip?”

He shakes his head quickly. “I will not tell anyone else.”

Sizhui-sanren throws back his head and laughs the same way the honored elder does when caught off guard. 

“Ah, A-Die was right about you,” he says, but refuses to elaborate no matter how carefully he looks up at the other man. “No, we are not discussing private conversations. However the one I will tell you about took place in the middle of a cultivation gathering when I was a young man. My A-Die had recently joined the Lan sect and the whole Jianghu was still whispering about the events that had led up to that…”

Sizhui-sanren stays with them for a year and then leaves when the magnolia trees blossom. The morning he leaves the honored elder invites him to come say goodbye. 

Liu Yang is sad to see him go. Not only because the honored elder will be sad again too, but because Sizhui-sanren has been kind to him too. He has answered many questions that he felt he could not take even to the honored elder, and helped him through another year of talismans. He still struggles to grasp them, but he has a plan to make it into the honored elder’s class and he will not let a lack of talent in them delay him at all.

The honored elder and his son stand together arm in arm with their foreheads pressed together for a long moment. They whisper something between them, but he is not standing close enough to hear what they say and even if he were it would not be words meant for him.

As Sizhui-sanren starts off down the mountain again, guqin strapped to his back and turning back to wave sometimes until he is too far into the trees to see them, he feels the honored elder pat his head gently. 

And that weekend he returns to coming by every morning to come help with the chickens and rabbits as he did before.

The year he turns thirteen the honored elder leaves for a time right after his birthday, but returns in spring with Sizhui-sanren at his side and something that has all of his shixiong and shijie so excited that it is the only topic of conversation for weeks.

He has brought back the materials so that their smith can make swords as they come of age. Lan Yu is turning fifteen that summer and he is the oldest of their group, so he will be the first to receive his sword and courtesy name.

“Have you started thinking of a name for your sword yet, A-Yang?” he asks one day while they are sitting outside after classes. He has a book the honored elder loaned him on ward talismans that he is taking notes from, so he is prepared for when they are inevitably tested on making and using them effectively, and he has been tuning out Lan Yu’s dithering over what his sword should be named. “Since the name will be part of the sword forever, you need to have a good one.”

He has not thought of a name for his sword. It is still far away from him. The test on ward talismans is coming up much sooner than that and whether he passes or fails hinges on moving into the honored elder’s class next year. His sword on the other hand is a certainty- no one in their age group can match him with a blade and even their seniors struggle to keep up with him.

Lan Rui has not forgiven him for being better at their sect techniques than him even though he was born to the Lan family and Liu Yang is an outer disciple. Maybe he would be better if he spent less time thinking about his image and more time on his footwork. He would certainly spend less time landing in the dirt during spars, anyway.

“I will know its name when I first hold it,” he says absently, turning the page to another complex explanation of how water can interfere with wards if not properly accounted for. “How can I name a sword I have not seen yet?”

His cousin makes a face at him. “You can have an idea anyway. Maybe yours should have a water name, or be named after one of the sect principles.” He picks one of the small white flowers scattered in the grass around them and starts absently pulling off petals and tossing them to the ground. “A-Niang’s sword is Yueliang, so maybe I should name it Shouyue.”

He sighs and sets down his book, careful to not put it anywhere near the ink. “You should name your sword a name that you are willing to hear others say for the rest of your life. Will you really want people to compare your sword to Liu-ayi’s because you named it after hers?”

A-Yu huffs, but considers his words as more petals fall to the ground. “Maybe,” he concedes at last, “but this is why we should be thinking about your sword name too. You have more time to decide what a good name would be.”

“Or I can pass my test,” he says calmly and opens up his book again. A-Yu would not understand why he needs such a thorough understanding, he stopped talisman classes to focus on musical cultivation when he was nine. “Lan-laoshi is very strict on what counts and I want to keep advancing in this.”

A-Yu lets out a dramatic sigh, but returns to listing names out loud until he sees someone coming along the path near them. “Oh, we can ask him what he named his sword and why!”

When he looks up he sees familiar flame edged robes and the warm smile of Sizhui-sanren as he turns and begins walking towards them.

 “Lan-gongzi, Liu-gongzi,” he greets them and bows politely before gesturing for them to sit back down. “Please, I have no intention of interrupting your studies unnecessarily.”

Liu Yang shakes his head as A-Yu brightens up. “Actually, Lan-sanren, perhaps you could help us come to an understanding? My cousin doesn’t seem to understand why he should be thinking about the name of his sword now instead of waiting until later.”

Sizhui-sanren laughs and sits next to them, a boyish grin on his face. “Oh? This seems like a very important discussion indeed.”

Liu Yang closes his book and sets it aside again. He may not be as old as the honored immortal, but he still knows more than both of them put together, along with pretty much everyone else who lives in the Cloud Recesses. His advice too, must be worth hearing out.

A-Yu does not wait for him to collect his own thoughts on the matter before launching forwards. “So I’ll be getting my courtesy name and my sword at midsummer and so I need to have a name for my sword ready too. And it needs to be the right name, but it’s hard to decide on what name sounds best. All the ones I’ve come up with either are too simple or don’t sound right. A-Yang still has almost two years, so he has lots more time to come up with the right name, but he would rather wait and see his sword before he names it.”

“I do not see the point in coming up with a name I may have to discard once I see and hold the sword,” he retorts, glowering at his cousin in turn. “If I name my sword for the strength of the earth and receive a blade more meant for the dancing wind, then I have simply wasted my time. There is no sense in worrying over it now.”

Sizhui-sanren does not laugh at either of them, but takes their debate in stride, listening seriously. “So Lan-gongzhi believes that you should have a name ready beforehand, and Liu-gongzhi believes that you should name your sword for the properties it carries rather than come up with a name that does not suit it?” When they both nod, he smiles and draws his own blade, gently holding it out to them hilt first. “I am curious to hear what you think mine may be named, without looking at the scabbard.”

A-Yu hesitates at the thought of touching another cultivator’s sword, but he has no fear of it. He would have not offered it to them were there any danger or harm to be done. It is a light, delicate sword with a dark blue tassel hanging from the hilt. A simple design, but still elegant, almost like rushing water. His own wooden training blade is heavier than it is, he feels like if he bore this blade he could fight for hours without tiring. He passes it carefully to A-Yu as he considers what he knows of Sizhui-sanren, an elder Lan with nearly as much grace as the honored elder in his movements and actions. 

“Is it Benliu for the mountain streams?” he asks at last.

Next to him, A-Yu is hefting the blade and watching the way the light shines down the center, eyes wide and shining as he holds a real cultivator’s sword and imagines what his own would be like. 

“No, it must be Lanhua for being so graceful as the best Lan disciple should be.”

This time Sizhui-sanren does laugh a little as he accepts his sword back, sheathes it and turns the scabbard out to them. The characters for Midsummer stand out clearly. 

“They are excellent names,” he complements them as he sets his sword back down. “But mine was named by the man who raised me as a wish for how the years ahead of me would go, as bright and joyous as a midsummer’s day.”

They both sit there for a moment as the breeze around them tugs at hair and clothes and sweeps away the rest of A-Yu’s plucked flower. Something about the name stirs at his memory, but almost as swiftly it is lost in the breeze. 

“So, we could ask someone else to name our sword if we wish?” A-Yu says at last, looking relieved to have a decision taken out of his hand. “And they could pick a good one instead?”

Sizhui-sanren nods. “But perhaps be careful with who you ask. They may have their own opinions on such a matter. The honored elder’s sword is one such case. He attempted to avoid choosing when he had many options available and the person who gave him his sword took him at his word. Now only he will casually speak the name of his own sword.”

 Three years ago he would have believed that Sizhui-sanren was attempting to tease him, but as he has grown he has come to understand the honored elder and his son a bit better and that the honored elder does have a wicked sense of humor that does not often come out around them. Now he knows that underneath the calm demeanor of the honored elder as their respected teacher and leader, he likes to make people laugh and does it by deliberately quoting poetry out of order or switching around a single word so that the whole meaning changes. It is less surprising that Sizhui-sanren takes after his father in this way.

A-Yu on the other hand is still under the false illusion that the honored elder has never done such a thing as punch other sect leaders in the face when necessary and is giving Sizhui-sanren a disbelieving look. “He is the honored elder of the Lan sect, he is older than all of us and knows more than we could hope to learn. How on earth could he have a sword with a name that no one else would dare say?”

He carefully keeps his face blank in order to avoid laughing under his breath as Sizhui-sanren looks A-Yu directly in the eyes and waits until his formerly indignant posture settles. 

“A-Die’s sword is named Suibian.”

A-Yu splutters in protest as Sizhui-sanren gets up and bows and continues on his way without another word, undoubtedly off to spend time with his father instead. 

“Why are you not confused?” he demands as Liu Yang picks up his book again and calmly returns to his section.

“As the leaves fall, so do ideals,” he quotes at him instead, “even a hero has a misnamed sword.”

A-Yu throws a flower at him and storms off in a huff. He does not worry about it; once his cousin cools off he will return and toss around more names that do not sound quite right to him until his birthday comes by.

At the height of summer, his cousin turns fifteen and his father gives him the name Zhiheng, wishing him to know and balance his ideals and not be swayed one way or the other. 

He names his sword Lantian in the end, that all of his days might be filled with clear skies. He came up with the name less than an hour before he was gifted his sword.

The second that Liu Yang sees the characters carved into the blade, a name passes through his mind that rings as clear as a bell. Or rather as clear as a mountain stream.

It is infuriating to know that in the end they were right about how each other would need to decide, for he knows the moment he sees his cousin draw his sword that his own will be named Qingshui.

As autumn approaches he spends nearly all of his spare time in the library with books on talisman creation and design, until the characters smear into blurs on the page and he falls asleep twice on the little table that he spends all of his time at. He writes notes on theory and tests the simpler ones multiple times on his own room and burns part of his sleeve with an improperly written barrier talisman, but it all pays off in the end.

He passes intermediate talisman theory and moves on into the honored elder’s class along with one other student, a girl named Qi Mei who always has ink stains on her fingers and sometimes on her sleeves. She is nice enough; she definitely has a knack for talismans that he lacks, but they have never really spent much time together.

There is a part of him that is very slightly disappointed that he is not the only one of his generation to graduate into his class, but he cannot deny that she deserves to learn as much as he does. She was the only one in their group to consistently produce working talismans on a first try.

There is always a slight gap between classes  in the autumn months so that they can celebrate another year of safety up on the mountain. Lan Zhiheng is so excited that he has his courtesy name and is invited to go down the mountain for the first time with the weavers and crafters to sell their wares in the town below, that he spends most of the preceding week talking his ear off. 

“A-Niang gave me spending money too, so I’ll bring you something back,” he promises him while they are training together in the sparring yard. He still cannot land a blow on Liu Yang, but at least he is improving at dodging now. His cloud-patterned forehead ribbon is slightly askew. “What do you want?”

He shrugs and wipes down his blade properly. Now that he is beginning to grow to his adult height he has finally been allowed to use a simple metal blade. He has already grown nearly three cun over the summer and surpassed his mother to her playful distress. 

“What could they have down there that I will not find here?”

Zhiheng snorts dismissively, sheathing his own sword with pride. “Sword tassels in a color other than blue, new books, sweets,” he says with a wild gesture. “Li Jiaying bought that jade hairpin on a trip in town, they’ll have things like that.” As he finishes wiping down his sword and puts it back in the hall where all the practice swords rest, his cousin follows him eagerly. “I promise I’ll bring back something you’ll like.”

“Let me think about it,” he says as Zhiheng opens his mouth to keep trying to persuade him. His cousin scowls but snaps his mouth shut as they walk down towards the dining hall. The sky above is already streaked with sunset even though there are still hours before curfew and the talisman lanterns are beginning to wake up and glow with soft warm light. 

His thoughts turn back, as they often do these days now every time he remembers that he has achieved one of his childhood dreams, to the honored elder and the red silk ribbon he always wears in his hair. Sometimes the style changes, but that red ribbon is always a part of it. He is growing up; it is appropriate that he considers how he would wish to wear his hair now too.

“A blue ribbon,” he says at last and Zhiheng snorts. “Not Lan blue, but…dark. Almost black.”

His cousin nods slowly. “I could find that, are you sure that’s really what you want though?”

He considers it a moment longer. He is not a Lan, he will not wear any sort of fancy hairpiece like Lan Rui has already taken up even though he still will not have his courtesy name for another year. But he still wants something that feels unique and eye-catching. Something that will make him seem more grown up. 

“Yes, that is what I want,” he confirms. “I would wish to see any sort of pin or other ornament myself. But you can pick a ribbon in the color I like.”

Zhiheng smiles at him, apparently understanding this logic more. Then he snickers as something occurs to him. “A midnight blue then?” he asks.

Liu Yang furrows his brows in confusion. It is a shame that his cousin is older than him, or else he would elbow him in the side. “Yes, what is so strange about that?”

The other boy shakes his head and refuses to explain what’s making him laugh. “I’ll make sure I have that for you by the time classes start back up.”

As the dining hall comes into sight, Qi Mei is there as well, hovering shyly near the entrance. She brightens and waves slightly when she sees them, before turning her attention to another one of the senior disciples who has come over to stop and walk in with her. Ah, she was probably waiting for Li Jiaying then. They are the only two girls within their generation, they often spend time together.

Zhiheng is still snickering annoyingly to himself. There is something about being fifteen that makes him obnoxious at times; always looking back and forth between some of the other students and making indiscreet noises whenever he sees something that amuses him. Heavens, he hopes that it is just his cousin and it will not happen to him as well. Li Jiaying was nowhere near as annoying when she received her courtesy name. Or maybe she was and he just did not see it when he was nine and still more focused on trying to master sword forms and practicing on a full sized guqin. 

Oh no, what if it’s contagious? When he turns fifteen and gains his courtesy name, will he too become an utter buffoon? He elbows Zhiheng in the side so that his absurdity will not infect him and walks off quickly to the dining hall.

“A-Yang, you’re so rude!” his cousin calls out behind him, sounding more offended than injured. “Watch, I’ll get you a ribbon that won’t catch anyone’s eyes at all! Just you wait and see!”

Despite his threats, his cousin brings back three silk ribbons, all of the exact shade he requested. Liu Yang steadfastly ignores his teasing. 

It is only his business if he spends a shichen figuring out the most pleasing way to tie up his hair in them. What is the point of having a dark blue silk ribbon if no one can see it?

The autumn leaves blow into his face and path as he walks towards the edges of their home. Now that they have moved on from utility and defensive talismans and beyond where other cultivators wish to study, the honored elder told them that they will be practicing where it does not matter so much if incidental fires begin.

The old house in front of him is somewhat daunting in appearance. The wood is not painted in pleasing colors and there is no clear path to the door, only a slightly more worn down path in the grass. But then that is the purpose of it. When it comes to higher level talisman work, a single accidentally reversed stroke can change the entire meaning. It would not do to destroy the Lanshi in their studies.

Soft footsteps behind him herald the arrival of his shimei. Qi Mei is almost as quiet as he is. It is part of why they get along. There are no wasted words between them. She nods at him and he returns it.

The autumn wind sings in the trees. He does not know if the honored elder has already arrived or if they should wait for him still. He told them to meet before you hai at the old house, but not what to do after that.

He is nearly of a mind to walk up to the building and knock on it when he hears soft voices behind them. As he turns around he immediately understands any delay. The honored elder and Sizhui-sanren are walking up together, talking quietly with equally quiet fond smiles, the long shadows cast by sunset stretching out together until their figures blend together.

“Ah, my students,” the honored elder calls out when he sees them, brightening a little. Next to him Qi Mei smiles and bows as he puffs up a little with pride. He has worked very hard to join this class and now he is a part of it. It is wonderful to be recognized for it.

Sizhui-sanren parts ways before reaching them with another smile, turning around and heading back towards the main buildings. The honored elder comes up before them and fixes them both with a stern look. “I must say, I am not surprised that the two of you are the only ones progressing further in talismanic theory. It requires determination and a keen eye, as well as a certain level of finesse.”

He feels a shiver run down his spine at the words, already standing up straighter. This is very different from what he expected. The honored elder addresses them as students, but also with a respect that comes from a shared interest.

He is eager to prove that he did not make a mistake in allowing him to join. That desire straightens his spine and sharpens his mind. He must not miss anything that the honored elder has to say.

The deep blue ribbon in his hair only bolsters his confidence further.

The honored elder smiles at them and gestures for them to go towards the building. “Our first lesson begins here,” he says cryptically. “There is a talisman already at work. Your task is to discover it using all you have learned beforehand.” He claps his hands together and looks at both of them, his deep blue eyes thrumming in excitement. 

Something in his chest flutters at such a look. He dismisses it after a moment. It is only nerves. It is his first class with the honored elder! Anyone would have nervous fluttering in their chest at such a look. Next to him, Qi Mei looks similarly excited and overwhelmed. They are going to learn from the greatest talisman user in the entire jianghu. He has invented the barrier that keeps them hidden from sight up in the clouds. He spent an entire afternoon after one class just trying to write down all the details in the talisman at their entryway that made it so warm air could not escape through an open door in winter.

He is almost overwhelmed by anticipation.

“What are you two waiting for?” the honored elder says, lifting an eyebrow. “I told you what you needed to do. Get to it!”

They both jolt in surprise as if a guqin string had snapped in the middle of a song and quickly move towards the building. As he gets closer he can feel a weird sort of pressure in the air that makes him feel like he really does not want to get any closer. There is a creeping, crawling sensation on the back of his neck as if he is being watched. He tries to put it out of his mind as he gets closer to the house, stopping maybe four zhang from the staircase leading up.

Qi Mei has decided to go around the other side, lips moving silently as she already pulls out talisman paper and a small jar of what is likely cinnabar. She wanders out of view before he can determine if she’s noticed anything, but that is just fine.

He wants to prove that he made it this far on his own merit.

It is some sort of ward, that is easy to tell. While the ones they had practiced were meant to prevent entry from non-human and non-living beings, his previous teacher had covered many other kinds, including taking them all into the forest so they could see the powerful wards preventing anyone without a special token from entering the Cloud Recesses without a powerful ward breaker of their own.

This one is different from the others. It feels like it is meant to ward by persuading the person approaching that they do not want to be here rather than outright blocking it. Perhaps if it were on a building in the middle of their home he would have not even noticed it, simply picked up on that subtle feeling and kept on walking by.

How would he get past a barrier that is attempting to convince him that advancing further is a very bad idea? He cannot see even the most subtle trace of paper on the building anywhere, meaning that the actual talisman must be hidden within.

Such a thing could truly only be done by someone incredibly proficient in talismans. He chances a glance at the honored elder, standing there patiently with his arms loosely folded in each other. The sunset has brought out a touch of answering red in his hair, warmed his face further in a golden glow.

He blinks when he realizes that all previous thoughts of how to defeat a barrier of this sort have fallen out of his head. Hurriedly he looks away and pulls out his talisman paper before the honored elder notices him staring. He is here to learn, not be distracted by colors .

The simplest method of breaking through a ward is usually to ignore it. If you are of such character that you wish to invade someone’s home for ill reason, then simple wards will not do much to keep you out. They are usually made to help guard against fierce corpses, yao and other such things where a cultivator’s skill is needed to handle their greater power. In contrast a farmer may bash in a robber’s head with a hoe and defend his home under his own power.

But this one is so powerful that at least at this point in his life he does not have the willpower to ignore it. Even standing as far as he is from the building, his feet itch as if he should be running away from it and hiding behind the honored elder instead. So that method is not available to him.

The next solution would be removing the talisman entirely. It cannot ward a building if it is not connected to a building. That solution would however require him to either have a sword that he could throw and summon back to him, or again be able to ignore it long enough to reach the talisman. Which is in the building. So that solution is similarly removed to him.

The third option was one they only covered in theory, not in practice. A talisman of equal strength and opposite purpose could cancel out another. One could not have a talisman to keep floors warm and cold active at the same time. Every autumn his mother would go wandering through the house replacing talismans so that her feet would not feel the chill of the wooden floors even before the snows arrived.

He is not arrogant enough to think he could create a talisman that could actively challenge the honored elder. He has hundreds of years of experience making such wards. Liu Yang does not even have his courtesy name yet.

But this is not a real ward, this is a test. So perhaps it is the answer. He would have seen their skill levels when he saw their tests. Master talisman artisans can make their talismans as strong or weak as they wish. It stands to reason that he would have created something at their level to test them.

This is not a test of their skills, it is a test of their ability to encounter, study and solve problems without seeing the talisman they are trying to diffuse. He is capable of doing this.

He so desperately wants the honored elder to be proud of him. 

His hands do not shake as he takes out his own jar of cinnabar and begins to write. This talisman is meant to make a place feel unwelcome, unpleasant and best avoided. To counter it, he must come up with one meant to attract.

It feels vaguely unpleasant to consider that in practice he is writing a lure talisman. He has made spirit attraction flags before - they all have. But this is not meant to work on spirits, this is meant to work on humans, drawing them to a place they would otherwise not go. 

He consoles himself with the thought that he is not and will never be a man who would ever do such an unjust act. This is only to break a talisman of opposite nature. 

He takes his time drawing out the lines, making sure his strokes are in the proper order and nothing overlaps. The cinnabar shines wetly in the fading light as he traces out the last character. As he reseals his jar, he chances a glance at the honored elder. His face is at rest, the edges of his lips barely curled at the corners like a dozing cat. They quirk up just slightly as he catches Liu Yang’s eye and flicks his fingers lightly at him, motioning him to return to his task. 

Right. He is in the middle of his first lesson. 

Before he can send his talisman flying at the building with a touch of qi to help it along the way, he feels the pressure dim and fade entirely, followed by Qi Mei’s cheer. He is tempted to curse in disappointment, but he will not do that. At least not out loud. 

“Well done, Qi Mei,” the honored elder says. “Wait a few moments before going up though. The test is not over yet.”

Some of the disappointment yawning in his chest abates. Some. The honored elder still wants to see his work. It is not a competition. 

He still wishes he had finished first. He may have if he weren’t suddenly so easily distracted by colors or wondering what the honored elder was thinking of. No doubt Qi Mei had managed to keep her mind focused the whole time.

The unsettling prickling on the back of his neck returns as the honored elder throws a talisman of his own to reset the task. If he were inclined to cheat like Lan Rui is always accusing him of, he could have attempted to destroy it on his own now.

He is not that sort of man though. He made a talisman to counteract one he could not see, so he will close his eyes and pretend that it is still hidden away where he cannot find it.

He takes in a deep breath, feels the autumn wind pull at his hair and throws his talisman with all his might. It lands soundlessly on the door, cinnabar still shining wetly in the dying light.

He does not dare to breathe for a moment. Then the pressure abates again as his talisman flares to life. Qi Mei cheers again for him as she comes around the building to join them. “You did it.” she says excitedly, eyes glowing. “That was a hard one.”

Her praise is nice, but he desperately wants to hear what the honored elder thinks. He has worked so hard for this moment. And he cannot tell what he’s thinking as he comes over to look at his work.

At last he nods and smiles and Liu Yang feels butterflies swarm in his stomach again in response. “It is a well reasoned solution. You did well.” he says at last, snapping his fingers as he takes down his talisman. “Congratulations, you have both passed the test to go to class.”

He cannot breathe. He physically cannot breathe. He does not know what is happening to him, but somehow the simple praise has almost overwhelmed him. Perhaps it is from how long he has waited for this day. His ears feel uncomfortably warm, his hands slightly damp. He stows away his remaining talisman paper before it dampens as well.

He has never felt anything like this before. He is disoriented, off balance. The honored elder opens the door and motions them into the classroom. He follows behind Qi Mei into a simple room with two low tables in the middle and one near the single window at the back, along with curious burn marks on the walls.

It must be the excitement of the day, he decides as he sits down at one of the low tables and neatly sets up the things he had been told to bring along. Lan Zhiheng had been so excited on his first night hunt that he dropped his sword twice. He had confided this information in deepest shame, but it is comforting to know that others can be similarly caught off guard when they wish to prove themselves.

It will be better tomorrow, he reassures himself. Today he has done well. He has passed his first test and handled himself well.

The honored elder sits on the table rather than behind it, leaning back on his hands and smiling at them. “Well my bright students, today we’re going to keep learning about how to counteract talismans you can’t see.” he says conversationally, a casual smile on his face. “You proved that if you know what you’re going up against, you can come up with a solution. This was an easy one though,” he says, his face going very serious for a moment. “Not every talisman announces itself so loudly.”

Liu Yang takes a deep breath and focuses on listening to and absorbing every word he says. It would be the height of foolishness to waste this precious time on wandering thoughts and dizzying butterflies in his stomach.

It will be better the next day. He knows it.

It is not better the next day. Or the day after. In fact, it does not get better at any point. He is still learning, in fact he understands how talismans work better than ever before. The honored elder is the best teacher he’s ever had! He challenges them, but is always willing to explain something more clearly. He loves learning from him so much.

And yet for some reason the things that stick in his mind the most are not any details on how to enhance the power of a talisman by writing it in a certain order, nor the brief glimpses of his history he sometimes drops while explaining practical uses of talismans he’s invented over his lifetime.

No, what lingers in his mind is the way that sometimes when he is in the middle of a lecture, he twirls a lock of hair around his fingers or spins a brush around and around, as if needing something to spin against his brilliance. It is the way that whenever he gets excited about something they’ll be working on his whole face lights up. It is the way his ponytail sways back and forth whenever he’s pacing in front of them, accenting the movement of his hips.

For some reason his mind is caught up in every little way the honored elder moves and holds himself in a way that no one else has ever caught it. Whenever he smiles his stomach falls through the floor. A single word of praise sends his heart soaring, the slightest hint of disappointment in his focus or work is devastating.

At one point the honored elder notices that he always ties up his hair with the dark blue ribbons Zhiheng brought back for him and his approval of the color sends him into a spiral of delight that does interfere with his classwork, his mind is too caught up in repeating his approving reaction to focus on anything else. He shamefully has to ask Qi Mei as they walk back towards their homes what they actually learned today.

She gives him an odd look, but is kind enough to fill him in. He resolves to at least try and remain focused while they are in class.

And if the margins of his notes are filled with nonsensical drawings and his continued journaling of similarly muddled dreams with rabbits and loquats and copying a miswritten character over and over, that is his business after all.

The seasons change around him. Summer fades with the setting sun into fall and he studies talismans by lamp instead of outside in the garden with golden light around him, and then autumn disappears with the leaves to the earth to be buried in snow, and when his fifteenth birthday finally arrives he is given his courtesy name. A name chosen for him by the honored elder.

The butterflies have mellowed slightly over time, but when his father sits him down one evening after dinner and tells him that the honored elder came to see him to tell him how well he was doing in his classes and that he has thought of a courtesy name if they are still seeking one, they spring back to overwhelming life.

His fifteenth birthday dawns icy cold with stars hanging so sharply overhead that they look like they could cut him. He still goes out to feed the rabbits in their hutch, a task that has never lost its excitement even with age. One of the female rabbits is pregnant and the thought of getting to see (and possibly help) with the kits makes him feel as excited as the first time he got to hold one.

The honored elder comes out as he is putting away the bucket of chicken feed, wearing a heavy white robe that drags on the ground slightly. He squints in the sunlight as it reflects off the snow, but smiles when he sees him. 

Liu Yang is mostly used to the swoop and soar feeling in his chest. Mostly. Sometimes it still catches him off guard. Today though he smiles back and bows. The fluttering is not enough to overwhelm him when he has so much else to be happy about. He is finally fifteen. He will finally receive his own courtesy name and sword and be able to leave the Cloud Recesses on supervised night hunts. Today the boundaries of his world have grown farther than the clouded forests.

The honored elder bows in return, red ribbon bright against the snowy world. “Happy birthday, A-Yang.” he greets him, coming over and ruffling his hair lightly. “Who told you you should be out here on such a special day mucking out the rabbit hutch?”

A tingling sensation runs down his spine and up through his fingers at the touch, but he dismisses it. Strange feelings are not allowed today. “I wished to see the rabbits,” he says honestly, “and since they do not wish to come out in the snow, I must come to them.”

The honored elder nods in agreement. “They don’t like the snow at all. I learned that during our first winter here, we spent the whole time with the rabbits inside.” His eyes go that strange sort of soft they always go when the mysterious other person that he rarely mentions comes up in his thoughts. 

He can’t be jealous of this strange person, they are clearly long gone now. He’s never felt brave enough to ask the honored elder who the other person on the mountain with him first was.

Once he’d asked Sizhui-sanren if it had been him, but the immortal had frowned at him and shaken his head with such a look on his face that he’d vowed to not ask again. So whoever they were was difficult to think of for Sizhui-sanren and likely the honored elder as well.

People couldn’t help dying, everyone got sick or old or met a battle they couldn’t win - well other than the honored elder, but he still felt a little disappointed in this person that they would just go and die on him. His convictions that the honored elder should not be as alone as he is have not changed at all. 

The only difference now is that he is growing up enough to be a companion if the honored elder will let him do so. He already comes and feeds the rabbits and chickens every day and sometimes they talk. It is his favorite time of the day.

The honored elder clears his throat and he realizes that he is holding out a small bundle of white fabric to him. He takes it before he realizes what it is. Under the fabric layer he can feel something solid and detailed, cool to the touch. “You already gave me a name ,” he protests, holding out the small bundle as if it will burn him. “That is… that is…”

The honored elder rolls his eyes at him and chuckles. “What sort of elder would I be if I did not give you something for a momentous birthday as well?” He crosses his arms and looks down at him with amusement clear on his face. “I will be very offended if you try to refuse it.”

His cheeks burn as he realizes that it would be an insult to a man he respects above all others if he continued to protest. Without another word, he slides aside the fabric to see a tassel meant to be tied to a sword, silk threads in dark blues tied around two jade pieces, one with the symbol of their small sect, the other with tiny birds carved flying over a cresting wave. 

It is beautiful . He cannot help but run his thumb over the wave over and over. The honored elder correctly interprets his silence as stunned appreciation. “A sword should have something that speaks of its wielder,” he says warmly.

He attempts to thank him, but the words catch in his throat, leaving him standing there with his mouth hanging open uselessly. The honored elder laughs and pats his shoulder before mercifully walking back towards his home. “Don’t spend too long out here, it is cold .” he says with a shiver, frowning at the clear sky above them. “I am going back inside where it is warm instead.”

The honored elder lingers for a moment longer, then leaves him standing in the snow. He has no doubt that if he stays standing there for too long, he will be scolded for being foolish and risking his health even though truthfully he does not find the winter as cold as some of the others who have come up from the village below. 

But it is a special day and he does not wish to be scolded. So even though it takes him a few moments to make his legs go, he makes the walk back home, holding the precious gift close to his chest.

He has been given many gifts over the years, not only the privilege of assisting with the rabbits and all the wisdom he has to share, but little trinkets he has brought back up from his travels away. He has all of them safely tucked away in a box next to his bed. But this one- meant to be worn, meant to be seen, chosen for his birth name… 

It is something he will always bear with pride.  

He walks through his naming ceremony as if he were dreaming, he takes up the sword crafted for him and ties on the honored elder’s gift. The wave in the token matches perfectly with the surging ocean carved on the sheath. 

And from Liu Yang he becomes Liu Yizhen. It settles over him like the snow blanketing Cloud Recesses, transforming in the cold of winter to be something more than it was.

With his name and his age comes new privileges, new opportunities to be seen and to grow outside the walls of his home. Less than a month after his birthday, he and a group of four other disciples including Lan Zhiheng go on their first night hunt below the borders of the mountain. They are of course accompanied by two senior cultivators, but they are the ones in charge of investigating the situation, selecting the best course of action and executing the mission flawlessly.

The world outside is so different from their home. Lan Zhiheng has traveled a few times, but he and the others have never gone below the clouds. The senior cultivators walk into the mists without hesitation, their jade tokens glimmering as they pass the barriers between the Cloud Recesses and…everything else. Qi Binjia, scarcely a week past her coming of age, looks even more excited than he is.

At first it doesn’t seem all that different, even though when he looks back he cannot see their home through the heavy rolling clouds. The trees are the same, the snowdrifts that they glide over on their swords for fear of breaking through the fragile layer and sending snow cascading down the mountains are the same, the fading light through the branches above are the same.

And then they break through the treeline and it is very different. At the base of the mountain there is a massive glassy lake reflecting the first stars appearing overhead, and between them and the lake are more houses than he has seen in his whole life.

“This is Huqiu,” Lan Fengchi tells them calmly, dismounting with grace onto the side of the road where travelers have patted the snow down smooth. “It is one of the smaller cities in Gusu, and the only one we trade with.”

Next to him the other disciples are gaping openly as their seniors lead them forwards into the town, and it is only his firm discipline that prevents him from doing the same as they walk under high walls and glimmering lanterns. From every side there are people calling out to them about their wares, asking if they’re off on a night hunt, laughing and talking merrily. There are hundreds of scents mingling in the air, fried dough and spices and roasting meat assaulting his nose all at once.

It’s a little overwhelming. His shoulders grow tenser with every shout and new smell and all the bright lights. He already misses the piercing stars overhead back at home. Here the lanterns burn bright enough that they block out the constellations above.

But soon enough Lan Fengchi and Li Jiaying lead them towards a smaller building a little way away from the main street and the sounds mellow somewhat. Inside there is a small family huddled together near the hearth, with a fourth person holding a bowl of water and a wet cloth dabbing at a deep cut on the father’s face.

Their seniors bow first and they follow in unison, six cultivators in white robes and swords ready for whatever concern they were requested to help with.

“No concern is too small, no need too simple for us,” the honored elder had told all of them when they were given their mission. “Glory or difficulty is irrelevant. The others down below will pick and choose and let innocent people suffer. Do not become those people.”

And what else could he do but follow those words fervently? It was the most passionate he’d ever heard him speak.

“Lao Ran, you said your family was driven out by a malicious spirit?” Li Jiaying asks calmly, smiling at them. “Is there any more you can tell us about it?”

The man winces as the healer continues to clean the cut on his face, but his shijie’s words set him at ease. 

“Aye, at first we thought it were a stray dog, they come about sometimes, but usually they’ll leave after a day or so. We have no chickens for them t’ steal.” he explains when Lan Fengchi frowns slightly, “so they don’t usually stick around.”

He pauses and looks down at the ground. Neither his shijie nor his shixiong press him further. He stores that away for later. When people have been through a hardship, it is better to wait and let them speak in their own time.

His wife reaches out and squeezes his arm comfortingly. 

“It-it came back later that night,” he continues with a shudder, “howling and scratching at the door. We didn’t think it could get to us until it stood up and pulled the latch from the door.” His eyes shine wetly and the small girl in his arms lets out a sob. “Our…our oldest took the rice harvesting tool to cut it down. But it slashed his belly open in front of us. We could only run and leave him behind.” His voice cracks at the end and he looks down at the ground.

“Please great cultivators,” the woman says emotionally, “please kill the beast that killed our son and let him rest in peace. We could not recover his body, but we will build a shrine for him.”

Lan Fengchi and Li Jiaying bow again smoothly, faces mirrors of comfort and kindness. “Of course, it is our duty as cultivators.” Lan Fengchi says calmly.

“We will lay your son to rest and return your home to you,” Li Jiaying adds, “Before the night is over his spirit will be at peace.”

They bow as their seniors turn to leave, following in a neat line. Liu Yizhen looks back to see the family curled around each other, openly grieving. 

He tries to imagine what it would feel like to have lost someone like that, suddenly, violently, because they wanted to protect the people they loved from danger. For once his other memories are curiously silent on that. He follows the rest of them numbly as trying to pry at that part of his mind feels like smashing into a wall of glass, sliding down and tumbling to the ground.

“Liu-shidi,” Lan Fengchi’s voice cuts through his fumbling thoughts and he looks up to see that the rest of the group has come to a halt. “Did you hear any of what we said?”

  He has not heard any of it. He was so caught up in his own worries that he missed it entirely. He flushes in shame as he shakes his head. He has been perhaps a little spoiled by his teachers and family, they were always content to stop whenever he got lost in thought before.

But he will have to learn to stay in the moment instead of flitting about between his past and present. He is truly not a child any longer. He has his sword and his courtesy name. And it is time to grow up.

He looks at Lan Fengchi and throws all concerns to the back of his mind for later. “My apologies, shixiong,” he says calmly, proud as none of his previous distraction can be heard in his voice. “I was thinking of the family we are helping and got lost in thought. It will not happen again.”

Lan Fengchi gives him a look, but says nothing further to him, instead addressing the group as a whole. “This being will likely still be within the area, even if it has left the house. Pair up in groups of two, spread out and investigate. We must know what we are fighting before challenging it. A fierce corpse may be put down through a sword or musical cultivation, but a minor god would require resentful energy to pierce through its divine energy.”

Li Jiaying looks at them with her face as unreadable as blank paper. “Qi Binjia, go with Lan Fengchi. Lan Zhiheng…you’ll watch out for your cousin. Don’t let him walk into a tree.” Her eyes alight on Lan Xuyun, jerking her chin at him stiffly. “You’re with me.” 

At first he is displeased at the reminder, especially since Lan Xuyun lets out a loud snort as he walks over. Then he sees the look in his shijie’s eyes and understands more clearly.

He has perhaps failed to act properly by allowing himself to become distracted on a night hunt and fail to listen to his senior’s instructions, but laughing at others is similarly frowned upon. Satisfaction curls in his belly as the same seems to dawn on Lan Xuyun and his shoulders shrink under their shijie’s shriveling gaze. It still does not matter that he was born directly of the Lan, his name alone does not carry any weight and he has done nothing to earn the prestige of his family name.

These thoughts are best kept inside though, although he can tell as Zhiheng comes over that he knows what he was thinking about. “The honored elder says it matters most how we act, not only what we think,” he says under his breath. “I can dislike him and still treat him as my shixiong if I must.”

Lan Zhiheng gives him a fond smile and shakes his head slightly but says nothing. Li Jiaying clears her throat again and looks at all of them. “Return within a half shichen. If you catch sight of the yao, do not engage but call for backup.” Her voice is utterly serious as she continues to impress the severity of the situation on them. “You may have trained for years to fight, but there is a difference between the training grounds where there are seniors around to help if something should go wrong and what we are dealing with now. It has already killed at least one person. Do not let yourself be a victim as well.”

 They each set off in a different direction into the dark. Lan Fengchi goes right for the house, sword already partially thumbed out of its sheath. He can hear Li Jiaying muttering under her breath to Lan Xuyun as they walk off, but quickly loses track of them as Zhiheng taps his shoulder and leads him towards a snarl of trees dark and foreboding under the faint moonlight.

“Keep your senses open,” his cousin whispers as he seems to ghost across the field, stepping as lightly as a hunting fox around any possible branches or remaining fallen leaves in the grass. “You may not see it, but whatever you hear or smell will tell you just as much. Especially if it still has blood on it.” He can just see the shudder in his shoulders as they stalk across the field. “The smell of blood is… hard to forget.”

He tucks all of that information into the corners of his mind and tries to open up his senses like Zhiheng suggests. There is the faint sound of running water in the distance, likely a small stream, and the little skittering and scurrying of forest animals running about under bush and shadow. There is the whisper of the wind tugging at his hair and robes. There is the smell of wet earth and new growth, even late at night there are new things growing.

There is nothing missing that he should be able to hear, nothing that he can place as out of the ordinary. From Zhiheng’s frown he is noticing the same thing. They walk into the cluster of trees carefully, the enchantments woven into their robes turning the white to a dull gray that would not be noticed easily by living or no longer living being. 

The air seems to hang still around them, cool enough that in the brief patches of moonlight streaming down between the budding branches above he can still see the puff of his breath. He swears he can feel eyes on him, fixed on a point between his shoulder blades that has the tension rising in his shoulders.

But every time he turns back and looks there is nothing there. The night animals are still quiet and content. It is only as quiet as it should be.

Then there is a crackling sound from just ahead and he nearly leaps and slashes out with his blade before he realizes that it is coming from his cousin. At first he is relieved that it is so simple an explanation.

Then Zhiheng draws out a burning talisman from his robes, ash falling from his fingertips to the ground below and he can see his cousin’s eyes go wide and he realizes that it is not a good thing.

It is one of their summoning talismans. One of the other groups is calling for help. One of the other groups has found the beast.

They glance at each other and leap up onto their swords in the same movement, Zhiheng holding out the talisman and watching the flame flutter in the direction of its burning companion. 

“It is Lan Fengchi’s group,” he says as the last of the talisman burns up in his fingers, eyes dark as the brief light fades away. “Quickly!”

They had gone back to the house, but as they fly out of the woods he can see Qi Binjia running as fast as she can from the small barn instead, her scabbard empty and one sleeve dark. “Run!” she practically screams as they descend towards her. “Shixiong is holding it off, but he said find shijie and get her to throw up the distress call.”

It is not against the rules to disobey a senior, only impressed that they must understand why they are doing it. And Yizhen knows exactly why he would disobey this one.

Lan Fengchi is their shixiong, but he is also fighting alone. If he had sent Qi Binjia away without her sword then that means that he is likely outmatched and intervened to save her when they were ambushed in some way.

And the rules do forbid leaving someone behind when you can intervene and help instead. 

“Shimei,” Zhiheng says calmly, smiling gently at her as they land and she stumbles to a halt. “Go find Li Jiaying and tell her what our shixiong said to do. And…” he looks at Yizhen and he nods briefly. He will not let his cousin go in alone against some mysterious being. They grew up together, they will fight together. “And tell her that my cousin and I have stayed behind to help our shixiong.”

Her eyes go wide, but Zhizeng and Yizhen are her seniors and she dare not disobey three orders to do the same thing. Clapping a hand to her shoulder, she nods and starts running again towards the last place they saw the third group. 

There is a brief flash that shines around a door left ajar into the barn and they move in unison towards the hidden fight. As they approach they can hear a soft snarling that almost sounds like someone singing angrily. It goes up and down and trills before abruptly opening into a roar. 

Zhiheng pulls another talisman from his sleeve and throws it at the door rather than open it and risk being attacked when their guard is down. He does not see what it was meant to do, but realizes that it is one of the more powerful ones their honored elder invented as the sound of wood aging and crumbling comes from before them. A talisman meant to bring down barriers by weakening their foundation. Only ever to be used to break apart wood or stone trapping people in a dangerous position.

As the door comes tumbling to the earth, they both surge in with swords drawn.

It is very dark in the barn and there is the heavy stench of rust around them. The singing snarl seems to come from all around and abruptly he can feel the difference between being in the forests and being in here.

Out there he had wondered if something was watching him. Here he does not need to wonder, he knows in his bones that something is looking at him with the intent to kill.

He reaches into his sleeve slowly, making sure that he is right next to Zhiheng as they advance together, feeling for the light talismans he’d spent an afternoon perfecting until they matched the honored elder’s calligraphy perfectly. In one swift motion he throws it forwards, the thin slip of paper disappearing into the dark and then suddenly blooming like the dawn as it reaches a surface, shining in strong blue light.

He evidently still does not have them right yet. They should be like the sunlight. Now everything is painted the same color as a rainy day. It is still enough that they are not stumbling in the dark.

They look around quickly, trying to spot either their shixiong or the beast in the new light. There are high beams overhead that he suspects might hold some great cat or bird out of sight, but before he can move to go up he hears Zhiheng start to cry out in horror and choke it back.

He whirls and sees lots of black splotches on the floor in the blue light, glimmering wetly and then a familiar sword inches from a  pale hand. As his eyes follow the hand he sees their shixiong sprawled on the floor.

The entire lower half of his body is missing. His eyes are half closed and his white robes are dyed nearly black in what he realizes must be his own blood.

Lan Fengchi is in pieces. He’s not moving. His brain knows what it should mean but it refuses to arrive at the final conclusion.

The singing seems to be closing in around them like walls as the rusty smell of his shixiong’s blood overwhelms him. He was the most experienced of them all. And now he’s…

The sound of loud fireworks outside cracking and screaming for help brings him back to himself just in time to pull his sword up clumsily as an enormous shadow drops down on him with a roar. He falls to the ground, feeling warm sticky liquid soak up into his sleeves and onto his hands. Qingshui is somewhere out of reach on the ground, but as Zhiheng leaps forwards and attacks the strange shadowy beast that seems to be shifting as it moves, never tied down to one form at once, he calls and it leaps back to his hand, the hilt slipping slightly in his slick hands.

Zhiheng is on the defensive, but the beast seems to have forgotten him at the moment. He leaps forwards towards it, slashing down towards the base of one arm as it reaches out to bear down on his cousin and hears it cry out in pain before whirling on him.

His shoes skid in the blood on the floor, but he is able to duck and rotate under the swiping claw as Zhiheng attacks it from behind. It is terrifying, but not clever and it continues to whirl around and attempt to attack whoever harmed it last.

At the same time none of their repeated slashes seem to be doing anything and neither of them can get enough of an upper hand over the beast long enough to throw out a talisman or adjust their tactics. It does not seem to tire as he leaps over a long arm and cuts down harshly, feeling Qingshui’s blade bite into flesh, but he can feel his golden core fighting to keep up and prevent fatigue from setting in.

They are outmatched. Badly. He knows that their fireworks would have alerted their elders and sent them flying to their assistance, but there is no way to know when they will arrive. It could be within minutes. It could be just a few moments too late. Like it was for Lan Fengchi.

He is not ready to die. He remembers the moment before death all too well and this feels far too much like that again. But this beast will not be felled by a blade, he can tell.

Thought seems to drain away into instinct and movement. The blue light makes everything feel dreamlike and quiet. There is a roaring in his ears that is blocking out the singing snarl in the air, it pulses evenly. 

The ancient part of him stirs, wakes from its content slumber as he flips away from another attack and in the same motion pulls his guqin from off his back and sets it hovering, suspended by spiritual energy in the air. 

He knows the battle songs to play in concert with others in a skirmish. He knows how to summon and speak to ghosts and how to interpret what they say.

None of them used these chords. He has never heard mention of what he is about to do. All he knows is that it is either to draw on this ancient knowledge or die. And the latter is not an option.

He pulls his fingers across the strings and a beautiful rippling ringing chord pulses out from it, blowing back his hair and bouncing about the rafters as the beast lets out a true pained cry. “Yizhen?” he hears his cousin call out breathlessly as he lets Qingshui fall to the ground and continues.

The closest thing he can think of as he plays on instinct and the notes harmonize with the pained screeching of the beast as it thrashes about wildly, unable to strike before he plays again, is that it is a dirge, a bitter lament. It is the song you play when half dead with grief and unwilling to break beneath despair. It is full of loss and loneliness and the bitterness of mortality.

A tear drips unbidden down his cheek as he continues to play and the beast shrinks in on itself, its pained screeches fading and becoming fainter as it crashes to the ground heavily. Yet he can see its great sides heaving and does not stop even as he feels the spiritual energy the song takes draining out of him rapidly. His vision flickers and he does not stop. His knees threaten to buckle yet he still does not stop.

Only when the song ends and the beast lets out a heavy rattle and lies still at last does he stop. Zhiheng jumps over the body in order to catch him as his knees give way at last. He feels so curiously light as his cousin holds him up. His voice fades in and out of focus but he tries to turn and look at him. “...never even heard something like that and you played it perfectly!” Zhiheng scolds him in equal surprise and fear, “Yizhen? A-Yang?”

He tries to blink at his cousin and tell him he’s fine, he’s just a little dizzy, but his mouth refuses to move. There is a heavy thunk that he realizes is his guqin falling to the ground. He needs to pick it up. Lan-laoshi will scold him for treating his instrument badly if he just leaves it there.

There is shouting from outside and then Zhiheng is carrying him outside. No, stop that. His guqin and sword are still on the ground. Lan Fengchi needs help. He just needs a minute to catch his breath. That was a difficult song but he played it right. Well done Liu Yizhen, you’ve survived your first night hunt.

He can see people running towards the barn as Zhiheng yells something above him. There’s Li Jiaying and Qi Binjia, and Lan Xuyun. Did you kill the terrifying monster that killed our shixiong? I don’t think so, he thinks dully and then has to remind himself to not be arrogant. He did not do it out of a need to be seen or to prove himself better than others, only because he does not wish to die.

There are other people here now too, but they are blurry white shapes. He waits for a moment to see if they clear up, but they only seem to get worse the longer he looks at them. Maybe he is going to pass out. His whole body feels as heavy as lead and his head barely feels connected to the rest of it.

He feels cool fingers press onto the points on his wrists and cool energy swirl up into his body as the worried face above him suddenly is striped in gray, then fades out entirely.