Hao crawled back to the tent. The spirit stone helped him find his way. A light inside the tent shone from the flap he had left open. He spat out the spirit stone, catching it along with the clump of blood that filled his mouth, sending both to the space inside the Spirit-Holding bag.

  He wanted to clean himself up of any evidence. Even if he caused trouble, he didn’t want to be blamed. Hao got up to a seated position, sitting in the same place he crossed his legs throughout his cultivation earlier in the day.

  Hao looked over himself, scratching the side of his face. It’s not going to be easy to hide these injuries. He couldn’t see his face, but he could feel the egg-sized lump on the side of his head, not to mention his cheek. Is this bleeding ever going to stop, He wondered. His shoulder was another thing entirely, a long, narrow slash traveled from his side, going across his back, it split his robe open. The skin beneath and the gash that had mostly stopped bleeding were on full display.

  “Brother Hao, is that you?”

  It was Dong Lingli’s voice, exhausted of energy, coming from the other side of the tent’s wall. It made Hao pause for just a moment.

  Hao slid along the edge of the tent, just until he reached the flap. He pushed the flap open, hesitant about looking in. Still, Hao put his friend at ease, looking in, trying to keep as much of his injuries hidden as possible.

  Lingli turned back, lying his head back on his bedroll. “You let the wind in. It’s too cold to sleep. I am no good with fire. Can you ramp it up or something?”

  Hao stepped inside while the man was looking away from him. The less Lingli knew, the better for both of them. If Hao was caught, at the very least, he would not drag an innocent man, and a decent one, with him.

  Hao stood in the center of the tent, covered in congealed blood. “It’s not a problem. I need to warm up anyway.”

  Lingli rolled, his back turned to see Hao more than once. His hazy vision was just enough to catch the marks running on the young man. From face to finger, it was hard not to notice. He didn’t say anything, rolling his face back down into the cushion of his bedroll.

  Hao had a good pile of wood in the Spirit-Holding bag. He took out a few pieces that were already split. As the wood was placed, the fire grew, any leaves left on branches or grass in bark turned to smoke. As cold air came in from the flap still open, the warm smoke bellowed out into the night air.

  Once the fire was going double, the strength compared to before Hao took a seat in front of the pit, looking over himself once again. As he was thinking of what to do, Lingli spoke again.

  “Brother Hao, I promise not to cause you trouble, as long as you don’t cause me any.”

  Lingli’s voice was weak, but the words lingered in the air.

  Hao stopped himself from doing anything stupid. He was going to leave the wounds open, he had no way to seal them. Just tucking my robe and hiding it will do.

  But hearing the words from Dong Lingli was rather strange. It was the second time a peer, someone near his own age, spoke words that were not insults or threats.

  Hao stood, leaving the tent again. The night was still young for Hao. “I’m going back out to cultivate.”

  “Cultivate? Brother Hao, you work too hard. How will you think clearly with so little sleep?”

  Hao scratched his chin. “Do you have an extra piece of your tent material?”

  Lingli’s blanket and bedroll started bouncing around. He was looking for his holding bag bound to his waist. After his blanket went still, his hand shot out, throwing an arm’s length of white cloth. Just as fast as his hand came out, it went back under his head.

  “I don’t want it. Prototype… piece,” he let out a long yawn. Lingli’s final words for the night sent him into a sleep as Hao slipped outside.

  Hao laughed a little. Is that all you have to say? Hao assumed Lingli was in a similar social position to him based on the number of people that visited the man throughout the day. That and the number of people he talked about. As many as Hao. Only mentioning his Senior and master; rarely a peer was on the mind or tongue of Dong Lingli.

  Outside, Hao took a new spirit stone out of his bag. With the spirit stone came a white herb. Hao broke a piece of it off, placing the root into his mouth. He bit down on it. It burned at first, like a merchant’s spice, only many times worse on the open wound inside of his mouth.

  After a few seconds, the burning disappeared, along with every other sensation. His mouth, his wounded cheek specifically, was numbed. He didn’t swallow the chewed-up root. He took the paste and applied it to his shoulder, getting a branch into his mouth first to bite down on. The last thing he needed was to bite his tongue or make his cheek worse and not notice it.

  Hao ground down his teeth on the branch as he rubbed the white root in and around his shoulder wound. His eyes watered from the sensation of burning, his breath stifled once or twice. But Hao always got it back to the same steady rhythm.

  While he was waiting for his shoulder to numb, he had a few things to do. First, he took out a bucket of his homemade ‘jam’. He frayed the end of the white tent material, pulling on it until a string began unraveling from its end. Once he had a couple feet, he stored the rest of the cloth.

  Hao split the string in two and pushed half of it down into the squashed berries, dying it. It was quick to change color, turning a dark blue, perfect for mending his robe to help hide its largest tear.

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  Now he needed a needle. Hao took out one of his fire-starting flints and squeezed its center carefully. Hao wanted to apply pressure sharply and evenly to make the ideal fracture. The flint split down the center, almost even. Then he knocked off one end to a sharper point. The finishing touch, Hao carefully used one of the Feline Demonic Beast’s teeth to work a groove to slide the thread through.

  Hao took his robe off. His undershirt came with it. He didn’t have his cloak on, I’m lucky in that regard; I wouldn’t be able to repair an artifact. Even if it was a simple stitch.

  His shoulder didn’t numb, but he knew there wasn’t much point in waiting. Some chewed herb paste wasn’t going to make the process painless. Still, he did the robe first, letting any more blood running from his shoulder freeze as the night got colder.

  It was Hao’s first and hopefully last time stitching clothing back together. But his fingers were precise and acted fast; he mended his robe to a respectable level in just a few minutes. Enough to keep his shoulder hidden, at the very least.

  As for his shoulder, he washed it first. He had to open a fresh jar of wine, quietly sneaking back into the tent to warm it up. Hao got the wine to a boil while melting any ice and blood around the wound. Once he was back outside, he placed a second stick in his mouth in case he bit through the first.

  The herb lost a lot of efficacy being chewed up and applied to his cheek; the numbing effect on his shoulder was limited. But he acted upon his self ruthlessly. Any sort of leftover material in or around his wound was peeled away. That irritated him, but he wasn’t suffering until he thoroughly rubbed the open gashing wound with the boiling wine.

  Then he started stitching. Hao did the best he could based on what Zhengqi explained to him. But listening to words of the experienced and learning the theory, and performing it on yourself for the first time was different by the distance of five oceans.

  The first stitch was fine, his skin pulled tight together, but they got worse as he went along. The thread never broke, but his needle started falling apart. He had to flick the end off the flint a few times to get a nice point. He was working blind by the time he got to his back with a flint as long as his thumb.

  To make it worse, he was starting to shiver, and it was not the cold getting to him for the first time in a while.

  Hao had to call it quits halfway on his back, the wound was not as deep anyway. As for covering it, impossible, he had no bandage, nothing to bind it.

  What’s the best I have on hand? Hao didn’t want to ruin the canvas of the cloth that Dong Lingli had given him any more than he already had, but it was the best he had; everything else was torn and dirty. There wasn’t a body of water, a place to clean in this Secret Realm.

  He kept it folded, placing it against the wound. With whatever was left over of both the dyed and white string, he wrapped it tight around his shoulder and chest.

  Hao got his robe back on. Finally, it seemed like ages to him, but he took a breath, leaning forward, the top of his head touching the ground. He held the hope of his life being eternal since coming to the mountain, but also accepted the fact he could die. It did not scare him, but he did not love pain, even if he could endure it.

  He shivered, getting it out of his system.

  For a moment, he even regretted twisting that man around the tree without knowing his name. But he would do it again. Or do something worse if he had to, just to see one of Grandpa He’s killers bow so grotesquely that even the patrons and witches of the Netherworld would leave his soul at the door between life and death.

  Hao stood, his thoughts escaping him as he swung around his arm. Outside the awkward feeling of having threads binding his skin, there was little discomfort. The material was soft and flexible but sturdy. Prototype, huh? Brother Lingli seems to be a perfectionist of sorts.

  He began running back and forth. Hao said he would Cultivate so he would. He tested out Seven Colored Steps, and the boost in proficiency he got from getting lost in his emotion was not artificial. He felt like he was finally ready to comprehend the third carving that Li Tuzai left burned in his memory. Li Tuzai…

  Hao’s mind sank deep into a well while he performed the movement technique. His heart was steady, he felt empty yet at peace, he was just an emotionless Wave traveling through the Ocean. A life traveling through the Dao as the Dao traveled through him.

  He got rid of the light of the spirit stone, moving around himself blindly. Hao felt like he was watching himself from outside his body; even in the dark, blind to everything, his hands were bloodied. It made his heart race. Why? Fear, disgust, exhilaration? More?

  While performing Seven Colored Steps in the dark, his mind was soothed. He was able to stand back and analyze, understand those emotions, and eventually master them. How much more is there to this technique? What do you want, Li Tuzai?

  He had an in-depth understanding of his feelings towards the technique while using it. Fear and caution, like he was standing in front of a bed of coals. Trepidation poked his bones, but temptation beckoned him. On the other side of the coals was a master, gold, spirit stones, elixirs, and eternal life.

  Unknowingly, Hao whistled as he performed the steps. The third stage of the technique was right before him in his mind, he was inching onto it. His lack of musical talent was showing. The song that came from his lips was unknown to him, if it was a song at all. Out of pitch, tuneless, and daunting, a whistle like a harrowing scream.

  After only a few minutes, Hao felt stretched thin. He had to stop, looking toward the dead man bound to the tree. Hao couldn’t see him, but he knew he was there. He sat down facing that way. There he meditated until and through midnight. His mind was as steady as any other night of cultivation. The rare streak of lightning ripping through the clouds above escaped him.

  Morning arrived before he knew it. Kind winds woke him from his cultivation. He watched the sunrise and felt the weather. The winds were less kind here in this zone of mountains and grasses but iceless.

  Upon entering the tent, he found Dong Lingli already awake.

  “Brother Hao, good morning. Did you come up with a good breakfast menu during your cultivation?” Lingli said. He smiled like he was joking, but his head bowed while his hand hit his stomach like a drum.

  Hao was more than happy to eat as well. He wasn’t hungry; he just wanted something to remind him he was still alive. Last night, he looked like a ghost to the man he killed, and he felt like one until first light. He riffled through the dead man’s goods for anything tasty, pained but regretless.

  “Here, this is some wine. It’s clean, but it might taste stale; it’s been boiled once or twice,” Hao said, placing the wine jar next to the fire. “Ah, right, before I forget. We need to talk about the formation in that drawing from last night and this trial you were talking about.”

  Hao pulled a pan out of the Spirit-Holding bag, leaving the dead man’s belongings alone for now. One of the most interesting things inside was a token made of peach tree wood. Identical to the many badges that were abandoned at the mountain’s base.

  Dong Lingli left his work behind, spinning as he sat down in front of the fire, stretching his neck and arms.

  “Cultivation, Formations, and the Trial. Brother Hao, you are a busy person.”