At the expansive stairs of the temple, the convoy got off their horses to make their way up to the pagodas looming before them. The pagodas reached for the heavens, their pointed wooden tops and sloped ceilings wide-reaching. The top of the highest pagoda blocked out the sun from where they stood, causing it to shine unnaturally above them. The temple that looked so small from the trail had become gigantic and overwhelming in an instant.
Looking up at all the stairs, General Yichen made the decision to leave the troops behind. Only the generals, Bowen, and Hongyi would make their way up to the temple. If they didn’t come back by the time the sun set, then the rest of the party would come up to the temple.
“General Xinyue, I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to go up there without Zixin and me.” Haoran pulled the General to the side, worried about her. Zixin looked at the two curiously from where he stood with the horses. “What if something were to happen?”
“Am I not your General?” Xinyue asked the question, her head tilted slightly. She was cold and unflinching. She had never had to act this way to Haoran, but she couldn’t let him doubt her or place uneasiness on her decisions. If he did so now, there was no telling about the future or in battle.
Haoran’s eyes widened as he looked into the gold eyes of his superior officer, and for once understood what it must feel like to be her adversary. “You are, General.”
“Then you will follow orders.”
“Yes, General.” Haoran saluted.
Xinyue turned and walked back over to where the others stood, waiting for her to continue on up to the temple.
As they walked, birds called out to them from the trees and the leaves rustled with the wind. Xinyue could see why a temple would be built in such an idyllic location. The stairs were a stormy gray with a slight slope in the middle from use by the many practitioners who must have frequented the temple.
“Greetings.” The peaceful silence was interrupted by a temple practitioner, his misty blue robe marking his allegiance to the Long Kingdom. He bowed with both palms pressed together at his chest as he stood a flight of stairs above them. “May I inquire as to why you have come to our temple?”
General Yichen nodded to the man and smiled warmly up at him. “I am the Crown Prince of the Long Kingdom, and this is the General of the Wu Kingdom. We are here to speak to your Master.” At the Crown Prince’s introduction, Xinyue put her palms together in greeting, and the men behind them saluted.
“Ah, I see. How most fortunate, our Master has just come out of his solitary prayer.” The cultivator put his hands on his stomach, his right palm over his left hand. “I will lead you to him.”
“Thank you for your courtesy.” General Yichen seemed like a different person than the one Xinyue knew. He was polite, almost too polite, but he held himself in such a way, like a cobra about to strike, he was waiting for the most opportune moment.
“This way.” The Cultivator walked ahead of them, his footsteps quick and light. He carried up the stairs without any problem or sign of physical exertion.
“What is he, a billy goat?” Bowen hushed Hongyi, as the Second-in-Command groaned at looking up at all the steps they needed to still climb.
“You will need to work on your physical prowess more when we get back to camp.” General Yichen smiled down at Hongyi from his place a few stairs ahead of him.
“Don’t threaten me like this. It’s not good for my heart.” Hongyi dramatically placed a hand over his chest and pretended to faint.
“Your heart is on the other side of your chest.” Bowen’s voice was dry, his face expressionless.
“So it is.” Hongyi switched his hands. “Thank you for your reminder.”
“You must be close.” Xinyue’s observation caused all the men to pause. She continued up the steps after the cultivator.
“Yes, we are.” General Yichen nodded. “I’ve known them since I was a child, and we’ve fought in different battles since we’ve been on the battlefield.”
“Hm. I see.” Xinyue felt some unknown emotion rise in her, and it took her a moment to place it. It wasn’t resentment, but a kind of envy. She was envious of General Yichen and the friendships he had.
“The temple gate is just up ahead, we will be there soon.” The cultivator paused and glanced back at them, not a drip of sweat on his brow.
“Damn, billy goat,” Hongyi muttered under his breath.
They continued up, when General Yichen broke the silence, “Do you not think you are close to Haoran or Zixin?”
“They are my subordinates. They’re people who live and die by my order, to be close with them would be blurring the lines.”
“Well, yes.” General Yichen smiled, and for once, Xinyue thought it was genuine. “But they are also human beings, that you’ve been through life and death with. We’ve formed a bond based on mutual respect. A companionship of sorts.”
“Do you trust them?”
General Yichen blinked heavily for a second. “I trust them more than others.”
Xinyue was shocked into silence. She thought that out of everyone in all four kingdoms, it would be General Yichen who would understand her the best. Her subordinates had been with her since she was sixteen, just before she was named as the General of Wu. They had been with her when they were mere foot soldiers, she had recognized their talent, and picked them to accompany her as she rose through the ranks. She respected them and took note of their companionship, even enjoyed their amusing banter, but she had never thought of them as close or as something more than a subordinate. To do so would mean that she would have to treat them differently than her other soldiers; she would have to let them into her heart. After years on the battlefield, Xinyue had lost a lot of the social skills that she had as a child in the temple, and even then, she wouldn’t say she had been the best at making or keeping friends. Xinyue frowned underneath her face covering. Was she too harsh with Haoran at the base of the mountain?
“We have arrived at the temple gate.” The cultivator turned to them and pressed his palms in greeting once more.
The temple gate was an arch built of the same stone as the stairs, with wild flowers growing out of some of the cracks in the stone. In front of the gate stood two cultivators dressed in light blue robes, the same as their guide. As they approached, they pressed their palms together and bowed.
“Greetings.”
Xinyue and her group returned the greeting.
“The Master is expecting them.” The one to the right of the gate waved them and their guide forward.
How did the Master already know they were coming?
Xinyue shared a look with Yichen before they stepped over the gate into the temple.
The inside of the temple had a wide courtyard surrounded by pagodas with stone statues of dragons and a fountain in the center of it. Trees hung over the walls from the forest, their branches ripe with fruit. Cultivators bustled about in their robes, chatting and doing chores. Young cultivators were laughing and climbing some of the trees within the walls of the temple.
Xinyue smiled as she watched the people interact, and her heart constricted in her chest. It reminded her of her time in the temple as a child, she had been lucky that her temple was similar to this one, full of warmth and light.
The guide led them over to the large pagoda just on the other side of the courtyard. The pagoda’s door was open and the smell of sandalwood incense flooded out of the pale wooden doors.
“They may come in.” A voice from inside the pagoda called to them.
The guide pressed his palms together and waved them forward before leaving them with his Master.
Yichen entered first, and Xinyue followed after him. The room inside the pagoda had hardly any furnishings, with simple pale blue cushions on the wooden floor and a small table at the front of the room. Even the screens that separated the private room from the rest of the space were made of plain white linen and bamboo. Behind the table sat the Master, clothed in blue robes and a simple piece of bamboo in their topknot; they didn’t dress as if they were the most influential person in the temple.
“You may sit.” The Master pressed his palms in greeting before gesturing to the cushions around the table. As they got closer, Xinyue saw the cloudiness that covered the Master’s eyes in gray mist. He was blind.
Hongyi opened his mouth before anyone else could. “You’re blind.” With an almost audible snap, he closed his mouth, his eyes big as he looked at General Yichen.
The Master tilted his head to the side, a warm smile still on his lips. “Some may say.”
“What does he mean by that?” Hongyi whispered loudly to Bowen, who shushed him.
“I apologize for him.” General Yichen nodded to the Master, but the glimmer of a smile was still on his lips.
“There is no need.” The Master gestured again to the seats in front of the table, and they all sat across from him. “You are here about the bandits, I take it?”
Xinyue and Yichen shared a long look. Xinyue had heard the story from her Master about a cultivation expert who could see beyond the human eye using their cultivation. It seemed as if they had met such a person, someone who didn’t need to use their eyes to see.
“Yes, Master.” Xinyue pressed her palms together as she spoke.
“I apologize for not receiving your men earlier when they came to the temple. I was in a solitary meditation and my disciples did not wish to disturb me.”
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It wasn’t unheard of for cultivation masters or disciples to go into a solitary meditation to improve their cultivation for weeks or months at a time. There had even been a story about one master who cultivated for a whole year without speaking to another soul.
“We understand.” Yichen nodded assuredly. While not against the law to not accept the Crown Prince’s troops, it did make the temple look far more guilty and more likely to house the bandits.
“You assumed that we were the bandits and cultivation experts who have been attacking the nearby villages in both the Kingdom of Wu and the Kingdom of Long.”
It was out in the open—their accusations toward the temple, as well as their reason for hiking up the large mountain.
“Yes, Master.” Xinyue nodded, and the tension caused her shoulders to tighten. They were outnumbered. If a fight broke out, she was positive that both she and Yichen could make it out alive, but she wasn’t so sure about Hongyi and Bowen.
“I would like to inform and assure you that I have not joined hands with the bandits.” It was the way he said it that gave Xinyue a flicker of unease.
“But they have made you an offer?” Yichen picked up on the intentional use of words that the Master had used. So, other temples did accept the bandits’ alliance, or at least the bandits were trying to make alliances. Xinyue filed away this information for later.
“Yes. They did.”
“And what did they offer in return for your support?” Xinyue asked. She knew the temples were not going to work for free, something had to have tempted the Masters to go against both the Kingdom of Wu and the Kingdom of Long.
“Something that many temples wish to achieve.” The Master spoke with a small, sad smile.
“Freedom.” It was a guess—one based on Xinyue’s time in the temple. She remembered the careless way the disciples were ordered about by members of the royal court, like servants or slaves; they hardly had a choice in the matter. Sometimes the things they were asked to do were easy, household chores or simple matters. But some abused their power. The haunted look in the cultivators’ eyes was something Xinyue never got used to seeing, as they were forced over and over again to pull at the cultivation for things they never believed in or wanted to do. Either they had to do what was asked of them, or be kicked out of the temple, onto the streets, their cultivation’s flow staunched by the very Master who raised them.
“Yes.” The Master nodded, his eyes seeming to fix on Xinyue on her cushion, and pinned her there. He stared his blank, gray eyes into Xinyue’s gold ones. It was only for a brief second, but Xinyue felt as if her life was laid bare for the Master to see; it was unnerving and made Xinyue tremble slightly. A second later, his eyes shifted away, and Xinyue tried to calm her racing heart.
“They want to be free of what?” Hongyi asked. Bowen shushed the man again, but Hongyi threw him a glare.
“Of the Kingdoms’ control.” Yichen didn’t seem all that surprised that this was the conclusion. He had been raised in a temple as well, he knew better than most how much the temples both hated and needed the royals and their governments.
“Isn’t it a beneficial system for all?” Hongyi’s head tilted to the side. “The royals and the government supply housing, food, and necessities to orphans and the like for them to train at the temple. Then they pay it back by helping us with their cultivation.”
“Those who don’t have a penchant for cultivation are not as lucky.” Bowen had a far-off look to his eyes when he spoke.
“Is it that beneficial?” Yichen raised his left eyebrow. Hongyi turned to him in surprise; he had never known the Crown Prince would think such a thing. After all, the Royal families were benefiting the most from temples and the cultivation practices of their disciples.
“They can never say no to what is ordered. They never have a choice. If they ever choose to leave the temple, or say no to those in the court, their cultivation will be ripped away from them.” Xinyue laid out the facts before them, straightforward, without flowery words.
Hongyi whistled. “That can happen?” His voice was almost a whisper.
“Yes, but after training so long in cultivation, the practice of staunching the flow of magic is not a pleasant one.” The Master spoke diplomatically. In fact, cutting off cultivation in the human body burned like a raging forest fire throughout the bloodstream. Every day without the flow of cultivation felt like the worst torture imaginable; barely any disciples who left the temple survived, and those who did hobbled through the rest of their lives in unimaginable pain.
“I never knew that.” Bowen pressed his lips together, uncomfortable with what they were discussing.
“It isn’t common knowledge,” Xinyue remembered the first time she had seen one of the temple practitioners choose to leave the temple. Her Master had tried to talk them out of it, begged them to, but the man had insisted. He knelt on the stone in the middle of the temple’s courtyard and pressed his palms together. She didn’t know what broke him, what court-member’s task was finally too much for the man to handle. But she did remember the screams as the Master went one by one to each cultivation point and stopped the flow of magic, and how he was dragged out of the temple afterwards. Thrown just beyond the gate of the temple, never to be welcomed back to the only place he had called home.
“The Royal families do not wish to discuss such a-“ The Master paused as he tried to come up with a word that would please all parties involved. “An unpleasant fact.”
“But there are laws.” Hongyi scrunched up his eyebrows.
“In the Long Kingdom,” Xinyue replied. “Not in all the kingdoms.”
“What?” Hongyi’s mouth gaped open.
“If we were in the Wu Kingdom, the troops would not have needed the Master’s permission to come into the temple. Nor would they have needed to be as respectful.” Each kingdom was different, each system different.
“What about the unaffiliated cultivators?”
“They still must belong to a temple. Even if not affiliated with the royals.” Xinyue shrugged. “They still don’t have a choice, they must work for the temple if not the court.”
Hongyi sat in silence, his mouth open like a fish as he gathered and spun all the new information in his mind.
“You mean even if unaffiliated, with yellow robes and everything, they still have to answer to the temple?” Hongyi said the words again. He turned over each one, trying to comprehend what was happening.
“The yellow robes are more of a sign of non-political affiliation. They serve whoever comes to the temple, from whatever kingdom. Disciples can move from temple to temple.” Yichen’s face was expressionless, and Xinyue wondered what he was thinking. Did he blame the practitioners for their decisions? Did he resent the temples or the royals who set these laws?
“Why don’t they run away?” Bowen’s voice was quiet and smooth, almost melodic, especially compared to the frustrated and exasperated squawking of Hongyi.
The Master rolled up the sleeve on his right arm, so they could see his wrist, and suddenly the room flooded with cultivation. Like an ocean, the cultivation he pulled from was deep and endless, fitting of a Master. On his wrist appeared a symbol outlined in bright gold: a circle with an ocean wave. As he released his cultivation, it disappeared.
“The temples are built on cultivation sites, places of amazing amounts of magic, magic that we need to survive. We can last only a few days away from one before we begin to feel the effects of the lack of cultivation. These markings appear when we turn of age, around twelve years old. They bind us to these places of cultivation and mark us as cultivators.”
Hongyi glanced at Xinyue and Yichen’s wrists. He craned his neck and almost fell off the cushion onto the stone floor.
The Master chuckled, and Hongyi straightened up again. Although he was blind, it felt like he could see everything. “They don’t have the markings if that is what you are looking for.”
“Why not?”
“There is a reason why royals carry an abnormal eye color, and they are naturally gifted in cultivation.” The Master smiled and was about to continue when General Yichen cleared his throat to interrupt him.
“Ah, I apologize. I did not mean to cause offense or to bring up an old legend.” The Master bowed a bit to Yichen, who in turn nodded. Xinyue resisted the urge to look between the two men. It didn’t take a genius to guess the legend the Master had referred to, but why did Yichen cut him off from speaking? There was something off about his reaction. Everyone in all of the Four Kingdoms knew about the founding legend.
“Not at all.” Yichen smiled, the dimple appearing.
“It is getting late, and dinner is quick to approach. Will you join us?”
“I’m afraid we can’t, we had best leave to get down the mountain before dark.” Yichen rose from where he sat and bowed to the Master. The others joined him.
“Then I fare you well. I hope you are fruitful on your mission.”
“Thank you.” Xinyue pressed her palms together and turned from the Master. She felt a moment of restlessness, like she was forgetting something, but the feeling passed as they walked out the doors of the Master’s room.
