Chapter 6

Chapter 6: Reading

When they stepped out of the hall, the sun was already sinking, pressed low against the horizon.

From the stone steps, Zhao Chun looked out over the land. Layer upon layer of towers and tiled roofs in the Royal Capital stretched beneath her, washed in evening gold. The light glazed the blue tiles; pear blossoms lay scattered like fallen snow.

Even this sky that seemed endless was only the ceiling of a larger world.

Martial arts had already entered its twilight. The truly cruel age had not yet arrived—but it was coming.

Zhao Chun let out a long breath.

Zhou Pian Ran glanced over, puzzled. Zhao Chun shook her head. “Nothing. Just thinking.”

“Don’t fall behind,” Zhou Pian Ran teased softly. “You were walking and spacing out.”

It was late, so Abbot Liang had someone lead them to lodging first. They would meet him later, he said, if fate allowed.

As for what counted as fate, no one knew.

Their guide was a young Daoist with a smooth, pale face and no beard. He introduced himself as Min Shunxing and treated them with careful courtesy, smiling the whole way. When they reached the lodgings, he even answered questions for nearly a quarter-hour.

“If you need anything, go to the General Affairs Office up front,” he said, visibly proud. “Meals, clothing, travel, carriages—anything. We have it all.”

The courtyard was broad, divided by a low wall under the eaves.

To the left, bamboo grew thick and quiet—Liu Zi Yi and his group were placed there. To the right, flowers spilled over stone paths in bright abundance. Zhou Pian Ran tugged Zhao Chun into the flowered side as if she’d found paradise and refused to leave.

Thanks to Wang Fang, Wang Chu Yan was allowed to stay with them as well.

Three side rooms, one for each girl. Zhou Pian Ran chose the one beneath the blossoms. Zhao Chun preferred a corner room near the well.

Night fell fully, but Zhao Chun felt no hint of sleepiness.

After eating the meal delivered to them, she lit a candle, sat at the desk, and opened the Scripture of True Sensory Insight.

The first page was a warning: do not expect success overnight. She turned it and found an explanation of the five elements—how they generated and restrained one another, and why fewer spirit roots were better.

In the end, it came down to one simple principle: bite off too much and you choke.

The more spirit roots you had, the more kinds of spiritual qi you could draw in—but that wasn’t an advantage. Each breathing cycle brought in a fixed amount of qi. With false spirit roots, the attributes were too mixed; once divided, each became thin and weak.

A single spirit root was precious because it could only draw in one type of qi by nature. With nothing to dilute it, cultivation speed soared.

The next section described how to draw qi into the body.

Zhao Chun remembered Steward Cao’s words: preparatory disciples had only five years. Drawing qi into the body was merely the first step. After that came cleansing meridians and opening acupoints.

If she wasted too much time at the beginning, the rest of the road would only grow steeper.

She pulled out a sheet of paper and wrote one line, hard and clear.

Draw qi into the body—fast.

The section on acupoints followed the same logic as the meridian section, only far more complex.

There were twelve meridians, but hundreds of acupoints. She couldn’t do it recklessly.

First came fifty-two single points, then three hundred paired points, and only then the fifty extraordinary points outside the meridians.

Acupoints stored qi, guided its flow, and helped speed circulation through the body’s great cycle. Opening them wasn’t optional; it was part of the path itself.

Zhao Chun sketched a simple diagram of the body on paper, marking meridians and acupoints, then copied the sequence for opening them in the margin.

“Things have roots and branches. Affairs have beginnings and endings. Know what comes first and what comes after, and you will be close to the Dao.”

[The ancestral teachings really do work everywhere,] she thought.

She tried to flip forward—and found she was already at the end.

A line at the back read: “After preparatory disciples enter the sect, they may read the second volume.”

So she wouldn’t see what came next for a long time.

She turned back to the heart mantra page and began to memorize.

The characters were ordinary enough on their own. Put together, they became dense and obscure. It felt like returning to school, back to the years of wrestling meaning out of lines and phrases.

If she couldn’t grasp the sense, memorizing by force would only become harder. She broke each passage apart, weighed it word by word, then stitched it back together until it formed something whole.

The heart mantra was too profound, and she was touching such secret knowledge for the first time. After only two lines of rough understanding, her mind already felt frayed.

“Don’t be greedy,” she told herself. “If I push further, I’ll only make mistakes. Rest, recover, start again tomorrow.”

She rubbed her eyes and snuffed the candle.

Maybe she’d drained herself too hard. Zhao Chun slept like stone. When she opened her eyes again, the sun was already high, the sky rich with gold and crimson.

She exhaled, rolled up, and dressed quickly.

After pinning up her hair, she pushed the door open to fetch water and wash.

If she remembered correctly, there was a well right outside.

She reached it—and found no bucket, no rope, nothing to draw water with.

Zhao Chun turned back toward her room to fetch a bucket when someone called, “Are you drawing water?”

Wang Chu Yan stood a few steps away.

She’d traded her bright, ornate outfit for a plain moon-white cloth dress. Her face was clean, her hair neat—she must have washed up early.

“Yes,” Zhao Chun said. “But I didn’t see anything to carry water, so I was going to get a bucket.”

“No need. There’s no water in that well.” Wang Chu Yan pointed ahead. “If you follow the little path around, there’s a washing platform.

“Today’s the first day. They don’t know when we’ll wake up. We have to register at the General Affairs Office first. After that, they’ll send water over regularly.”

Zhao Chun thanked her.

Wang Chu Yan smiled. “It’s nothing. We all came from the same place. Of course we should help each other.”

The words were loaded. They were clearly from different homes—different families, different towns. If they had anything in common, it was only that they were all from Chu Kingdom.

“The same place?” Zhao Chun asked.

Wang Chu Yan blinked. “You didn’t know? My brother told me. It isn’t just Chu Kingdom in the selection range. All the kingdoms are included—Jin State, Wu State. They had more people chosen than we did.”

She lowered her voice. “My brother said Steward Cao even lost his temper about it.”

Zhao Chun’s expression tightened. “If you hadn’t told me, I wouldn’t have known.”

The cultivation road was also a road of competition. If she wanted to avoid being pushed aside, she could only study harder and cultivate harder.

Wang Chu Yan seemed to read the tension and softened her voice. “Don’t worry too much. Go wash up.

“Steward Cao’s background is extraordinary. He has status even in the Outer Sect. With him here, no one will dare look down on us.”

That protection, Zhao Chun knew, was aimed most at Wang Chu Yan. Wang Chu Yan’s brother was Steward Cao’s own junior brother. Caring for her was natural.

Zhao Chun, on the other hand, had simply been selected by him. He’d shown her the way, yes—but she couldn’t expect him to go out of his way for her.

After saying goodbye, Zhao Chun walked through a grove of camphor trees. Sure enough, she found the washing platforms ahead.

When she finished, she returned to her room and went right back to the heart mantra.