The rain did not stop until it froze or burned in summer, thunder tried to make itself known, roaring out in the shifting air, lightning forked above the clouds, curving, and crashing in streaks unknown to the mortal sky.

  Hao found his way to the old servant’s dorms before nightfall. Climbing the slope on the outskirts to a hollowed-out mountain even further from the Sect. Open to the sky, it gathered more rain than sun as the remaining curved wall blocked its setting. The place that was turning into his home in recent days. He ran most of the way but had to find a light pace that didn’t disturb Grandma He’s sleep in his arms.

  The door to the building he was coming to love popped open, he maintained his light footsteps as he stepped in. Not minding the rain and mud on himself. He sought the comfort of the fire and the people inside for just at least a moment.

  Meiqi and Zhengqi, mother and daughter, were quick to stand. They were ready to run for weapons, Hao, their Young Master, had been out for large swaths of time in recent weeks. They flinched when they saw his appearance.

  “Young Master, what is going on?” Meiqi asked, her steps becoming still.

  Hao turned a corner into the room, rain dripping from him, placing the wet Grandma He on a bed. “Can you check her for injuries, Zhengqi?” He said, using her name for the first time in conversation. But his voice made the rain seem warm.

  He stepped aside from the fire. Staring down into fresh embers of the fire they, Meiqi, just started. He pulled a few pieces of wood from the Spirit-Holding bag, bound to his chest. A few large logs appeared in his hand. He let one clatter to the ground as he pushed the other into the young flame, before giving it an inhumanly long breath as the fire roared.

  The two older women were quick to help, they moved far faster than Hao did. Zhengqi was a medicine scholar before being forced to work at the medicine hall as a servant. She was quick to lend her expertise.

  Meiqi helped her daughter where she could, but she did not have such skills. That did not mean she was a fool. Her skill lay in people’s minds, reading and manipulating, Hao thought she always knew more than she led on too. Her slender fingers ran underneath his collar as she tried to remove the outer part of his robe. “Hao, they would dry quicker, I can rinse them too if you want, they are soaked through.” She said, her voice holding a softness seldom heard. Rarely did she speak in their motherly tone.

  “Leave them,” Hao said, his voice nearly toneless. His face was the same, a piece of wood. He made it so before he entered the building, he did not want them to see his hatred or tears upon greeting them.

  “Does Young Master plan to go out just before the night starts?” Meiqi asked, her broken nails digging into his shoulders, “Surely not…”

  Hao did not answer, watching the flames flicker.

  Meiqi dug down hard, pulling on his back, “Before, maybe it was fine, but now the rains have started. There could be a storm tonight.” She pulled hard the longer Hao’s silence lasted, yanking at him, hard every once in a while.

  “Young Master. She is fine, just a bruise. Other than that, she is cold and dirty. Should we tend to her?” Zhengqi asked, her voice an echo as she remained looking down, pulling a dry blanket over the old woman she stripped.

  “Yes, if she wakes, help her bathe too if she lets you,” Hao said. He stood, the night had just begun. In the bed next over, right next to Grandma He, Hao pulled Grandpa He from the bag. Then he turned and ran.

  Zhengqi did the opposite, she rushed over, seeing the old man’s condition. She knew he could not be good coming out of the Spirit-Holding bag. “He-he is not alive, who would do this to an old man? His face is badly swollen, his arms and legs have fractures…”

  Hao already knew, but hearing the words was like holding open a festering wound. Greater grief, greater anger. He almost yelled at her to stop. The sound of his teeth grinding sufficed.

  “Could you make his condition look better? We will bury him when she wakes up.” Hao said, starting back towards the door, but Meiqi predicted his movements faster than him. “Move,” he said.

  “I will not let Young Master do something foolish, you are already planning to go to the Mid-Summer Cave. I will let you do what I think you are.” Meiqi said, there was a real softness in her eyes. Not her typical look, no mockery or cheekiness in her eyes, just care and love, Hao wanted to believe it more than she did, but it faded as it appeared. “They are the old couple from the library. I can recognize that.”

  “Move,” Hao said, as surprised as the others.

  “Firstly, Young Master must tell me what happened,” Meiqi said, her words were slow. He could see her tactic to delay. She was his teacher, as for months now he learned what he could, he knew she was hoping to let time calm him. He stepped forward one more step, all the same.

  “Only one planning to kill would have such an expression and eyes,” Meiqi spoke again.

  Hao froze, still to the words. He tried to hide away what he could, but the fire crackling beneath his skin made it hard to hide the haunted, sad expression.

  He answered her, short and quick, wanting to step out the door and turn the sect into a red festival, a short one, but bloody all the same. A story that could make a demon weep to soothe this new sensation of grief. His teeth echoed like grinding steel each time he let his jaw rest.

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  “Even so, I will not let you go,” Meiqi said, after a long back and forth. “Young Master will have plenty of chances to kill his enemies in the future. Doing so now will not benefit you in any way. It will only cause you trouble,” her voice was colder than Hao’s.

  “I do not care! They killed him because of the painting he made of me,” Hao said. His body in a tremble. His eyes closed to sprouting fire, explaining the situation worsened his mood rather than improving it. He reached around Meiqi for the door.

  “Young Master. I have done the best I can in a short time. Surely you will be here for his burial,” Zhengqi said. Her words were a bucket of water. She meant for them to freeze Hao, and they almost did, but looking back at his Grandpa He stopped him the rest of the way.

  The old man’s face had become recognizable. The swelling drained away, with only discolorations remaining. The sight of the man’s peaceful face struck new cords.

  Hao was stunned in his state Meiqi took a step toward Hao, who flinched as she wrapped her arms around him. She was shorter than Hao, something he took little notice of until now. Her actions and words always made her seem large.

  “Young Master should feel grief and sorrow, but do not let it consume you. Young Master is an Islander; a people who worships life. You have left those precepts behind out of wisdom, but do not abandon yourself,” Meiqi said.

  Her arms pulled Hao’s head down. She was clumsy and weak compared to the old and feeble cultivator Grandma He. The only reason she succeeded is because Hao relented and let her. “You must let them flow away for now, and remember them.”

  “Mother! Do not turn him into some sort of beast for yourself.” Zhengqi said, her voice shaking Hao awake.

  “Only with a demon’s heart will you find the ideal advantage in all situations.”

  “Is that what you wish for me? You want me to be a demon, worse than some fiend for slaughter?” Hao asked.

  “I do not wish to force anything upon you, I simply want revenge and safety more than you,” Meiqi said, whispering into his ear. “If you do not want such a thing for yourself. Then experience it once so you never fall, to become something worse. Or get entrapped by the evil heart of another.”

  Hao embraced the older woman back, she trembled as much as he, more perhaps. Does she know this feeling? Meiqi was a mother whose husband was not around. Did she sing or dance alone over her husband’s corpse, mourning until tears could no longer come? What about Zhengqi? Zhengqi had a daughter Hao had never met.

  Hao released her and pulled himself away. Zhengqi was trembling, she was not clearly angry or full of grief, but her face was twisted with uncertainty. Hao passed her sitting on the bed closest to the window. A damp cloth was stuffed there. The same as he had done on his first night in the bed, slowly the cloth froze, turning to ice.

  Unable to sleep, unable to clear his mind. He looked at the second step of the ‘Seven Colored Steps’ again. Each of the images hurt many times more than the last. He let the Second stage sear him. He could almost smell burning flesh as he rammed his entire mind, unstable as it was, into the technique.

  He felt no joy when he finally comprehended some of it. Far from perfect, but enough to make use of the second stage. His flesh and bones ached new aches from the grinding of World Energy to the technique’s energy flow. He forced it through step by step. A foolish action that brought danger, but now he could reap the rewards.

  A few hours passed. The coldest of the night came through the window. At midnight, Hao stepped outside. He had to crawl through the darkness to find a place to sit in the cold. If they were looking for information on the Mid-summer cave, that means they will enter it.

  He practiced the second stage he just learned until morning came. At first light, he dug up two large tiles from the courtyard floor. He carved them into tombstones. One would be used for the type of burial they practice on the Islands. The other would be for a land-style grave.

  Hao was pounding the Islander-style gravestone into the nearly vertical mountainside around the back of the house, waking the others. It only read Grandpa He, as he did not know the man’s first name. But the name mattered little to Hao, he would remember the man as he was, not the name he was given.

  The sound of stone grinding on stone, called the others outside during the early morning, each of them was bathed. Hao’s only bath was the rain and ice that melted off him as he worked. The three watched as he started the landgrave, digging deep and setting the stones. Lastly, passing by the three women to retrieve the man himself.

  When Hao started to refill the dirt, his Grandpa He’s face started to disappear behind the dirt. Grandma He insisted on helping. Of course, he didn’t let her do it alone. She was stubborn about the last few handfuls.

  Meiqi and Zhengqi knew neither of the people well. The living or the dead, but they knew a similar pain, even if it was no longer fresh, it was just as vivid. They sat down and comforted her as she mourned her husband.

  Hao sat far off on the wet ground, looking at the scroll, the painting that caused this. A brilliant painting, with striking colors, and intense expression on the faces of the people. Without a doubt, the one who painted would get in trouble with most of the Sect for it.

  At the forefront was a cliff, with writing along its face, a poem, or a letter, a message of the sort, smudged and scratching in its center; ‘A crane above a river, letters scraped away, a new child fallen into the lap of the old from the Everspring. Below him, all.’

  In the painting, Hao was atop the cliff. A dusk-black robe, his hair blooming black and gold to the edge of the scroll. The ocean was below the cliff, closer than the water, a stony beach, with people scraping their knees on sharp rocks for the stones below him. They all fought for a place to bow. Young and old, great, or nothing, anyone that the old men felt like adding was added to the scroll. A few faces stood out from the rest, one more than most—Mo Bangcai. All bowed or tried to, blood soaking the shore while Hao looked out at the ocean from above.

  Hao stood from his musing, walking from the newly established gravesite, “Look after her until I get back, please.” Hao started walking away. He was never much for farewells. They will be inside the Mid-summer cave.

  Hao, in his walk, crushed the dried-up flakes of inert beast blood in a large pill-like ball. Never take it out of the bag.

  At the food hall, he entered through the back door, it was open in even the earliest hours of the morning, even before the winds. Senior Tuzai was there, standing where he always was. No beast before in front of him.

  Hao said nothing, first showing his progress with the Second Stage of the ‘Seven Colored Steps’. His skill proved he understood little, but grasped a thread of comprehension. Then he pulled the ball of blood from the bag and watched the man drool.

  “Teach me death, life’s equal,” Hao said, and with just those words, he saw a face more terrifying than any a human could make.