Heaven's Laws - Lifestone - Chapter 45

Outwardly Huifen was as being as soft and longsuffering as she knew how to be, but her spirit was disquieted, and her trepidation only grew. As they played, Chao came out of himself and even seemed to enjoy it at times. She didn’t let up or let him go off and do his own thing. Never had he put himself in danger during his cultivation until now. He was the most careful, mindful person she’d ever known. But after seemingly turning his new technique on himself, and what he’d done to the murderer, she was lost with what to do.

He hadn’t targeted himself on purpose. Of that, she was sure. He’d gotten carried away. Lost in himself. That wasn’t just common for him. It was what he did. But never had he expressed such anger in cultivation.

After what Prince Jin’s violation, she had known exactly what she had to do—despite how difficult it was. She needed to come to grips with what had happened to her. To be convinced in her own mind of who she was and who she wasn’t. To face her weakness, lack of wisdom, and the reality that she couldn’t always be in control. But she also had to develop a strategy of how to face it if it ever happened again. She wasn’t responsibility for what had happened to her, but she was stronger for it. She had done that.

She wanted to counsel Chao to do the same, but she feared leaving him alone. So she did the only thing she could do. If she couldn’t leave him alone, then she wouldn’t. Even as he gathered energy with his mother’s gathering technique, she was keeping an eye on his every move.

This was likely a once in a lifetime mistake. Something that would never happen again. He’d faced the perfect storm of emotion and tragedy, but she couldn’t take chances. There was also another possibility. One she didn’t dare to believe. She wouldn’t believe it.

Elder Kang had warned her on their first meeting. His expression had still been frozen at the time, so he came off like he was half-insane. Only her own master’s word that he was trustworthy kept her from tearing him apart when he confessed to putting Chao in the mine. He’d explained to her the process her future husband had went through. Only one other person had ever responded as Chao had. The successor of the Hayka Cult. He was the type of man that took obsession for power to the very limit and had terrorized an entire region.

Father Zan was said to have once been possessed by the same kind of obsession but took it even further. It wasn’t just one region of some lower realm that he had treated like his own personal natural treasure repository. He’d refined worlds of cultivators until he reached the heights of some unknown realm…

If the successor of the Hayka Cult had been such a person, and so had Father Zan, did that mean Chao had the potential to be the same? She’d seen it more than once. He had closed himself off completely from the world and spun his core at a speed that no one else could match. Was that not the peak of obsession? It endeavored to outdo enlightenment itself. What’s more, he was only in the Sky Realm yet had an ability with the laws unheard of even by the Divine Envoy and Divine Elder Law of the Fire Phoenix Sect. Was Long Chao a monster?

She knew why his new vortex technique frightened him so much. It had horrifying potential. She hadn’t mentioned her own plight but knew how he felt at least to a limited extent. She hadn’t practiced Frigid Falling Star since she’d advanced to the Overlord Realm except in the Training Construct. She’d been able to destroy mountains in the Sky Realm. Now at the Overlord Realm, she could destroy Phoenix City in a matter of seconds. Just one blinding fit of rage and she’d regret it for the rest of her life.

Gritting her teeth, she forced herself to acknowledge what she already knew. He wasn’t the Hayka Cult successor or even his father. He may have the capacity for such evil but he’d never fall so far. She wouldn’t let him.

She laughed aloud to herself.

Chao flinched in response but kept on cultivating.

She’d once questioned whether he’d be ruthless enough to follow her. Now she was determined to help him temper his demons. It was something she couldn’t do alone. She’d come to understand that there were somethings you just couldn’t—and some that you shouldn’t. That why she’d agreed to forming their discipleship group. It’s also why she wasn’t going to leave him to himself but insist that he play his music for the sect’s disciples and spend time with their discipleship group like they always did. She’d sat everything aside during her recovery after her sexual assault. Only Chao and Pangfua had remained by her side. She wasn’t sure if it was a mistake, but she believed it would be for him.

She contacted Pangfua and requested to have Chao speak with the man she had mentioned. She then returned to her own qi gathering but didn’t take her eyes off him.

***

Chao felt like a shadow of himself drifting through the world. There were moments color came back. When playing his music in the water and fire cultivations chambers. When seeing Li Qiang, Zhu, Diu, and Eu-meh. They needed him so he had to put his worries aside and attend to their needs. And mostly his Huifen. He knew she was neglecting her own grief to be there for him. He tried to reverse it. To reassure her he was okay so that she could take care of herself, but he just wasn’t all there the day after everything had happened. Parts of him had shutdown and they weren’t listening to him.

Eu-meh came with the other fairies to the same chamber where Fairy Daiyu had died. It would’ve probably been wise for them to find a different place to cultivate, but they were cultivators. They faced their fears just as Eu-meh was facing the crowd with the veil still covering her face. Everyone knew who was beneath the veil the day after the murderers were captured. It would be a week or two before she revealed her scar to the world, but she wasn’t hiding away despite no one insisting she show such courage.

His Huifen was much stricter than normal. Chao followed her lead and called out every fumble as they struggled to focus. As powerful as his music might be, it could stir the heart but not change it. He ended up taking out his dizi flute. “You asked for it.”

He played a single screeching note, and the entire room was left chuckling. It wasn’t the easy laughter common to the group. They laughed almost out of habit as much as because they found it funny.

“It’s not that bad,” Zhu said aloud. Her heart wasn’t in it, but everyone knew why she’d said it. It’s what Fairy Daiyu would’ve said. Their late friend’s timing had been better, and her sarcasm had been the sweetest kind.

There were a few weak chuckles, but the group was soon lost in the memory of their friend who had left them.

When Zhu started to tear up, Li Qiang got up, walked over to her, and sat down beside her. The two of them would’ve never associated with each other if it wasn’t for the Daiyu being Li Qiang’s cousin. Chao had always considered Daiyu one of his wife’s followers, but there was far more to her than that. Knowing what he knew now, how she’d once bullied his Huifen and changed so drastically, what would it have taken for her to humble herself and call her target Big Sister?

After their session was finished, Chao followed his wife to the first floor where he assumed they were going to see Sage Pangfua. When they exited the Divine Spire entirely and headed to a small stone building the joint sect must have constructed recently, he was confused. “Fen’er, what is this place?”

“We’re going to meet with an elder you’ve met before,” she replied.

“Okay.” Before they reached it, he asked. “How are you?”

“I’m managing.”

“Sorry, I haven’t been in my right mind. Let’s talk tonight.”

“Yes, husband.”

There was nothing in her tone to give it away, but he knew by her choice of words that she didn’t intend on holding him to it. He gritted his teeth. He wasn’t angry with her but himself. He’d been able to ignore his own emotions after killing Prince Jin, so why was he so affected now? What was difference?

As soon as he stepped into the small building, Chao recognized the man sitting in the middle of the floor mediating. Elder Gen was the Armory Master of the joint sect. He then took in the building. It was little more than a stone hut ten meters by ten meters, but it was full of hundreds of weapons. Swords, spears, axes, and more lined the walls from top to bottom. The Fire and Ice Phoenix Sects had brought their own armory to the Divine Spire.

He noticed how old the man looked. There were deep wrinkles at the corners of his eyes and forehead. The elder’s beard was peppered with silver. Rarely did a cultivator show such age unless they were in the twilight of their years.

Chao noticed he’d surpassed the man’s first or second level Sky Realm cultivation. Considering Elder Gen was showing his age and at the early Sky Realm, he’d have to be hundreds of years old.

He remembered the elder as generous and wise. He didn’t remember him being so old though.

“Hello, Sages,” Gen greeted without opening his eyes.

“Senior Gen,” Chao replied, bowing immediately.

“Elder,” Huifen said, mimicking her husband. “Sage Pangfua has recommended we come and see you.”

“Yes. Yes. I’ve heard.” He was silent for a moment before cracking open his eyes. He blinked them repeatedly as if waking from a nap. “It pleases this old one to see you, Little Lotus, but I request you give me some time alone with your husband.”

To get a reaction out of an ice fairy takes a special talent. Hearing him use the nickname Father Zan had given her caught her off guard. “Of course, Elder Gen.”

Seeing his wife turning to leave without saying the many words she must have had prepared also left Chao disjointed. He wasn’t even sure why he was here except that Pangfua had recommended it.

“Shut the door behind you.”

Huifen obeyed.

“Take a seat,” Elder Gen ordered.

Chao did as he asked and sat across from the sect’s weapon master. He opened his mouth to say something when a cheery expression came across the old man’s face and he removed something from his spatial ring. It was a large jug.

“Spirit wine. Drink with me.” A few cups appeared on the floor between them, and Gen began to pour.

“Senior, I fear acting foolishly if I get intoxicated. Just last night I made a dangerous mistake when cultivating.”

The man laughed. “I can’t afford the type of spirits that can make a Sky Realm cultivator drunk. This is just to take the edge off, and help an old man remember his glory days.”

“I see…”

He took the cup that was handed to him. When Gen drank, he did as well. He wasn’t fast to swallow it but swirled it around in his mouth. “It’s good.”

“A reminder not to look down on the mortal realm.”

He nodded before taking another drink.

“It goes good with torture.”

In the middle of swallowing, Chao choked, coughing half the wine back into his cup.

Elder Gen’s expression narrowed, but still seemed jovial. “We laugh at some jokes, not because they’re funny, but because the alternative is even worse. Sage Chao, do you know why you’re here?”

He suspected he knew, but he needed confirmation. “No, Senior.”

Tilting his head back, Gen slurped down the rest of his cup and poured another. After taking another drink, he answered. “Before becoming a cultivator, I grew up in the castle of a mortal kingdom. It wasn’t a small one. The city in which the castle resided had a population of one million people. Early in life I was found to be talented in combat and with the sword. So I was made to live in the castle. I trained with the nobles and officers’ sons. I was bullied in my early years, but there were the whispers of war. Even the most proud don’t overlook skill when their lives are on the line.

“I was lucky to be befriended by a young lord. We grew up together. He dreamed of the glory of battle, as much as he enjoyed warming young maiden’s beds. He didn’t start out a good man.

“Once the war had finally started, his father was kill in battle and my friend became king. That sobered him quickly. Who struck the killing blow on his father was never found out, but the group of men was routed and captured. My friend executed everyone of them himself. He turned to me, his most talented officer and friend. He would not be able to do the same in the future, so he asked me to become his King’s Blade.

“He knew what he was asking me, for he’d done it himself. He believed his executioner shouldn’t be a many that sought the position, and should also be close enough to him so that he was aware of the barren he made them bear. And so, at the age of nineteen I became the King’s Blade.

“We were at war. That was only the beginning. It wasn’t long before spies were caught in our midst. Once again, my friend didn’t want some stranger to interrogate them. It needed to be someone close to him. And so the King’s Blade also became an instrument of torture.”

Elder Gen took a break to down his cup, pour another, and down that as well. Once his cup was again full, he took a small swig and swallowed. “My friend the king didn’t hide behind walls of stone but was always on the field with his men. The only nobles at his side wielded swords and not words. If they weren’t honorable, it was forced upon them. The enemy that attacked our home wasn’t there to just take land, plunder, or slaves. Their grudge was an ancient one. Their goal was to eradicate us.

“It seemed a war without end. Half our population was wiped out in the first seven years. Many of those died from starvation. We saved and protected those that we could, but we were destined to lose. My friend had gone from drunkenness and stealing maidens’ virginity to a life of tireless service. In the end, there was no distinction between noble and commoner. There was just military rank, skill in combat, and the shared desire to survive.

“In the little downtime my friend had, he didn’t rest, but turned to the music he’d once used to seduce young girls’ hearts. He’d never been as talented as I was with the sword. Yet, he had a mind for music like nobody else. He was able to express exactly what he was feeling. That wasn’t all. His music inspired those with little to no training to take up arms. That is what made him king. Where he marched, his people marched. When his music sounded, so sung the hearts of his people. He didn’t start out a good man, but the tragedies of war made him a great one.”

Chao knew this story, though it had taken him some time to realize it. On the pages of one of the songbooks he received in the Golden Palace, he’d found the description this mortal king and a number of his songs.

Leaning forward, he waited in anticipation.

Elder Gen continued. “There was a group of cultivators traveling through our region when they caught wind of my friend’s marching song. They flew down from above to address our musicians and were surprised to find our king amongst them. They were living legends as far as we were concerned, so we brought the army to a halt to show hospitality. The fairy leading them was an elder of the Fire Phoenix Sect. That was about four hundred years passed. She spoke with our enemy’s king. It took a single conversation. They left and never returned. She saved tens of thousands of lives and invited a few of us with the talent to join her sect. I was amongst them.

“My friend insisted I go. He said that he’d called upon me to do more than any person had a right to ask. He started to rebuild our country after my departure. Per the deal he’d struck with the fairy cultivator, he also began to compose. One song a year was the deal they struck.

“As for the fairy that recruited me to the Fire Phoenix Sect, her name was Fairy Mei. She died a century ago.”

Chao didn’t immediately respond when his Senior’s story was over. He mapped the main events and people’s names in his mind.

When Gen had returned to his drink, Chao dared to ask. “What was your friends name?”

“Xiao Longwei. No relation to your wife’s family.”

He knew this famous composer as Lord Longwei. To think this elder who had helped him pick out his first weapon in the sect had known this king personally. He removed his pipa from his spatial ring. It just felt appropriate.

His favorite song composed by the man was The Rice Farmer’s Battle Hymn, but it was meant for going to war. He’d learned a few others Longwei had written since he’d become one of his favorite songsmiths. The one he picked was similar to his wife’s current favorite, but it didn’t turn from tragedy to triumph in the end.

When he began to play, Elder Gen downed another drink, poured another, and then sat there and listened.

How could Chao not remember Daiyu’s butchered body and Eu-meh’s face? Was that not the very purpose of woeful song? But tragedy wasn’t always a physical thing. His wife’s suffering had taught him as much. Then his mind turned to his mother. Her lessons. Her kind discipline. The delight she shared with him for the laws and her music.

Long Longwei’s song wouldn’t have it. It drew him into the memory of his father opening the door that fateful night. Zan held Mother An’s broken body. She’d never wake up.

As Chao’s own tears began to fall, he realized his eyes were already closed. He wanted to remember. To never let go.

He was unwise in doing it. To not holding back. His sound laws weren’t something difficult for him. It took him more effort to not enhance his song than empower it. It was cruel to force such emotion on someone unexpectedly, but he was unwilling to stop.

As Longwei’s song drew to its climax, instead of the horns of victory, it bemoaned a soldier’s cry. It was too long and drawn out to grant relief. Only the last line gave it’s listener a twinkle of hope.

When the song was over, Chao tried to hang onto his memories, but they were already fading. He realized what he’d just done. Opening his eyes, he found Elder Gen still sitting across from him. Instead of weeping, he found the man smiling and staring off in the distance.

How was that possible? Chao knew what had happened. His sound laws had reached a level that he wasn’t sure even a fairy cultivating Heart of Ice could remain unaffected. No, that wasn’t it either. Elder Gen was obviously affected, but instead of sorrow he was content?

“Thank you,” Gen said. “I haven’t heard that song in centuries. Longwei later married. She wasn’t a noble, but one of the first maids he’d deflowered. She’d bore his first bastard in their youth. She’d married later and bore two sons, but her husband had died during the war. I was invited to their wedding. She wasn’t beautiful but had her own charm. She bore him another son and two daughters. He wrote this song to play at her funeral. He didn’t have any cultivation talent to speak of, but he still lived a moderately long life for a mortal, dying at an age of one hundred and three.

“Ha,” the elder hooted loudly. “Thank you for letting this old man reminisce. Now, as for why you are here. I heard from Little Pangfua and Li Qiang what you did to the murderer. It’s impressive—for an amateur.”

There was an abrupt hum of a string. Chao had reacted to the man’s comment by gripping his pipa’s neck. He put it away but suddenly felt defenseless. Was his elder praising him or was it another joke?

Gen chuckled again. “I knew your father. You could say we were friends, but that doesn’t mean the likes me very much. Do you know why?”

“No Senior,” he said weakly.

“When he first visited the Ice and Fire Phoenix Sect, Fairy Mei was still alive. Though, she didn’t have many years left. Zan has always hidden his cultivation, but everyone knew he was from the Divine Realm. They were scared of him. I wasn’t. Not because I was even close to his match. There’s simply nothing he could do to me that I didn’t deserve a thousand times over.

“There’s this tavern in Phoenix City where elders of the joint sect commonly went in those days and Zan used to frequent it. No one likes to drink alone, so when he offered Divine Realm alcohol, I was amongst the first to join him. I thought the stuff would kill me, but as drunk as it made me, it’s also infused with qi. Best hangovers I ever had. My cultivation improved the next day.

“After the first few times drinking with him, he started telling us stories. Most of the time, he told them as if they happened to someone else, but often enough he unintentionally confessed they had happened to him—or were things he had done.

“So I did something that no one would do. I told him the truth to his face, knowing he could kill me at any time. That’s why he befriended me, and also why he despised me. I will not betray my friend’s drunken confidence, but I will tell you this. Your father didn’t start out a monster. It was thrust upon him much like execution and torture were thrust upon me. He became the villain as I was but was also like my friend Longwei who I consider the greatest of men.

“You were sent to me for advice, and I will do the same as I did for your father. I will tell you the truth.”

“Please, Senior,” Chao said, bowing his head low. His response was more reactionary than a conscious effort. He wasn’t sure he was ready to hear what his elder would tell him.

After the revelation that he knew Zan, Gen waited some time before he went on. But when he did, he addressed Chao directly. “You fear yourself a feral beast. A brute. Let me be the one to enlighten you. That’s exactly what you are. All men must learn to be brutal. To be violent and ruthless. To not be capable of such things puts you at the mercy of those that are. But these things don’t make a man. Honing them and bringing them under control gets you one step closer. Even that is just the beginning.

“Long Chao, the reason you lost control, above all else, is your lack of experience.”

He’d recovered enough to finally respond. “Senior, this wasn’t the first time I experienced something like this. What happened to Sage Huifen. And my mother…”

“But it was the first time you had the power to do something about it,” the man said pointedly. “If you want to really know a man, give him what he doesn’t have. Freedom. Riches. Cultivation prowess never seen in this world.”

It was like a drum thundered from heaven, rattling him. He’d been taught that there was darkness inside him, his internal demons that everyone had, but to know it and experience it were two different things.

“One of the drawbacks of being raised in a sect is that life if too safe. Trials and sparing are designed to get you close to the real thing, but they’re not the same. Your reaction to what happened wasn’t wrong. You didn’t freeze in fear or disbelief. You didn’t lose yourself so much that you just killed this murderer on the spot. If it wasn’t the right response, then when would such emotions be right? Most people never have the power and authority to do what you did, but you don’t have such chains holding you back. So in a sense, what you did was only natural. It was the purest response.”

Resting his elbows on his knees and lacing his fingers together, Gen smirked. “The great tragedy is that next time you’re in a similar situation, you won’t feel the same. Your emotions won’t be as poignant. You’ll be able to think much clearer. It’s both a blessing and curse. Eventually, you’ll feel nothing, but that allows you to do what you must.”

Chao thought through the man’s story and believed he should feel sorry for him. How many people had he executed? How many enemies had he tortured for information? That didn’t even include the men he killed in battle. But there was no lamenting or indifference in the man’s expression. Gen seemed at peace.

“Is there a way to stop it from happening?” Chao asked, remembering Kang’s warning after asking his father to refine Prince Jin. He’d doubted that making it to the apex with a clear conscience was even possible even if that’s what Zan wished for him. Kang had speculated that retaining the ability to empathize might be the best possible outcome.

The man seemed to ignore his question and went on. “You must learn control. You won’t have the same experience I did. It’s not your destiny to dutifully torture men as often as I did to keep your countrymen alive. Control is essential, but its just the foundation. Sacrifice is the glory of man.

“Your emotions don’t matter. They’re one of the many things a man often sacrifices for those in his care. Whether it be a spouse and his family, his homeland, or sect, a man is not a man until he sacrifices his own wants and desires for the good of others.”

What Gen said made a lot of sense, but should he just resign himself to ignoring his emotions? It sounded like he was saying all men should forgo feeling entirely just as ice fairies make use of the Heart of Ice technique.

Before that those, there was a strong contradiction with the cultivator philosophies he had to address. “That mean’s most young cultivators—”

“Are boys with more power than what’s good for them. There’s nothing wrong with seeking power and self-improvement, but if it never moves beyond self-seeking then that’s when real villains are born. It’s tyranny in its infancy stage. Cultivation often gives birth to such individuals. It’s a miracle there are as few tyrant cultivators as there are in this world.”

Crossing his arms over his chest, Chao did it as much to hold himself steady as anything else. It became clear to him in that moment that he was just at the beginning of his journey and still had a long way to go.

He asked the obvious question. “How?”

“That’s the hardest part. I’m not sure it works itself out the same way for any two people, but there’s one thing they all have in common. Courage. You must find the courage to be inwardly honest. Face your successes as well as your guilt and then to let it change you—but only for the better. Despair is as dangerous as any enemy. Guilt can easily leave you there, but it can also guide you as well as any sage.

“I won’t tell you whether what you did was morally right or wrong. I will tell you that you must face it. You must decide on how you will act next time, or when that time comes you will be a slave to your anger. Then after the next time, you must face what you did and decide again. Move forward. Remember failures but don’t dwell on them. Dwell on victories, then dissect them to see where you can improve.

“I would’ve likely drunk myself to death in those early days of my career, but war is exhausting, and alcohol was hard to come by. I was kept busy and forced to face what I’d done every time someone was strapped on the table before me. Facing it honestly is what saved me. I had no choice. Longwei had his music. Seeing as you play, it might be a less bloody way to come to grips with what you’ve done, and who you are.

“And one last thing. You might come to believe you deserve despair and self-loathing, but even if that were true, punishing yourself serves no one. It squanders your time and can even harm the body to make you less useful to others. Acknowledge what you’ve done if you’re convinced it was wrong, determine to do better, make love to your wife, then get back to work.
“But this is coming from one who lived as a mortal for the first thirty-five years of his life. What do I know?”

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I'm not sure if this is the actual end to this chapter, or might turn into a part one. I'll come back to it tomorrow.