Dao of the World Walker (Xianxia) Book 2

As Yang walked through the garden Senior Brother Yu Bin moved alongside him, and Yang turned to look at the variety of plants growing in the carefully layered beds.

”Senior Brother, are you interested in plant cultivation?”

Senior Brother Yu Bin glanced at the garden with a mild expression. ”All this?” He waved a hand over the beds. ”I did not plant them. The senior sister who lived here before me did. I started taking care of them after I moved in because it seemed a pity to let them die.”

”She did not take them with her when she moved to the inner sect?”

Senior Brother Yu Bin was quiet for a moment as they walked toward the cave entrance. ”She did not move to the inner sect,” he said. ”She died.”

Yang stopped. ”I apologise. I did not think before speaking.”

”It is fine,” Senior Brother Yu Bin said lightly. ”How would you have known? I did not know her either. She was a senior sister who I had never even met before I was assigned this cave. I just felt it was a pity to let the plants die along with her.” He paused at the cave entrance. ”It was difficult taking care of them at first. Now it is just part of the morning and I do not think much about it.” He glanced back at the garden once and then at Yang. ”Let us leave it there. It is your first time here. Come in.”

”Welcome to my humble cave residence,” he said as Yang stepped inside.

Yang looked around.

It was almost four times the size of his own cave, and unlike his own it had the settled feeling of a place that had been lived in and arranged over years. Personal effects on the shelves. A sleeping area separated from the main space by a low partition. Yang thought briefly of his own cave, bare except for the painting from Senior Brother Cheng Mo still hanging on the wall, which he had not thought much about since coming to the sect. He ought to look at it properly sometime. Something had always seemed different about it and he had never found what. Perhaps Senior Brother Lin Yi or one of the others might know something when they next visited, if he could show it to them.

Senior Brother Yu Bin guided him to a low arhat bed with a small wooden table in the centre and disappeared briefly before returning with a kettle and two tea cups. He poured both and passed one to Yang.

”This is from my hometown. It has a rather strong kick to it. Try it.”

Yang took a sip.

The best comparison he had to was of a strong coffee, the jolt of it immediate and direct, though the taste was entirely different, earthy and slightly medicinal with no similarity to anything he had drunk before. He did not entirely like the taste but the effect was impossible to miss.

”You like it?” Senior Brother Yu Bin asked, watching his expression.

”I do,” Yang said. ”It is very different from the Jade Spirit Tea.”

”I keep Jade Spirit Tea for guests,” Senior Brother Yu Bin said, ”though I do not drink it myself. Most cultivators seem to prefer it. I find it rather unremarkable.”

Yang kept his agreement to himself and set the cup down. ”Senior Brother, shall we begin?”

”Please.” Senior Brother Yu Bin straightened slightly.

”I should warn you, Senior Brother, I have never taught anyone, so I am unsure how good of a tutor I will be. But I am willing to try. The best way, I believe is to start by watching you work,” Yang said. ”Could you make a qi barrier talisman for me?”

Senior Brother Yu Bin reached for his supplies without hesitation, took a blank sheet of talisman paper, and began to inscribe.

Yang watched him work through the full inscription. He was genuinely surprised when it reached completion. He had expected it to fail partway. He made notes of what he observed and waited for Senior Brother Yu Bin to look up.

Senior Brother Yu Bin set the brush down and looked at Yang with the expression of someone anticipating a verdict.

Yang looked at the talisman and then at him. ”Senior Brother, there are a number of issues here. I should say I am surprised you managed to complete it at all. You follow the correct strokes and the correct order but your qi input is uneven throughout. It is rough in a way that will limit both the quality and the durability of what you make.”

Senior Brother Yu Bin looked down at the talisman. ”That is why I needed your help,” he said, without defensiveness. ”How do I improve the qi distribution? I manage well enough with techniques but when it comes to inscription, something is always wrong.”

Yang studied the talisman more carefully, following the qi flow through the inscription. ”Before I explain the specific issues here, Senior Brother, I would like to see your basics. Could you make an illumination talisman?”

”I do not know the illumination talisman,” Senior Brother Yu Bin said. ”Tell me the inscription and I will try it now so you can see.”

Yang looked at him. ”Did you not learn it in your beginner talisman class?”

Senior Brother Yu Bin had the look of someone who had been hoping that question would not come up. ”Actually, Junior Brother,” he said, ”I am entirely self-taught. I have been making certain talismans I needed for some time, but my cultivation has recently stagnated at a bottleneck and I thought it best to learn a craft while I work through it. Talismans seemed the most practical choice given I already had some familiarity with them. I have not attended any formal classes apart from the one we attended together yesterday.”

Yang absorbed this.

He thought about saying something, and then thought about his own situation. He had access to the same teachers and seniors and had spent months largely keeping to himself and working alone. He had his reasons for that, mainly a wariness on how to explain his difference and a fear of how other will react, specially considering he wasn’t particularly close to anyone but he was working on that. Senior Brother Yu Bin clearly must have his own reasons as well.

”I see,” Yang said simply, and let it go.

He picked up a fresh sheet of paper and demonstrated the illumination talisman inscription slowly, narrating each stroke. Then he set it down.

”The problem I can see in your qi barrier talisman,” he said, ”is not primarily about which strokes you make or in what order. You have those right. The problem is how you are filling each stroke with qi. The best way I can describe it is like a choreographed dance. Imagine two dancers performing the same routine. One extends every movement fully, each arm position held as long as it should be, each rotation completing before the next begins. The other follows the same choreography but every movement is slightly incomplete. Arms not fully extended. Lifts ending a moment too soon. Turns cut short. From a distance they look similar. But the quality is entirely different.”

Senior Brother Yu Bin nodded slowly. ”That is an unusual way of describing it, but I understand what you mean.”

”Your qi is going into the right places,” Yang continued, ”but it is not completing its work before you move to the next stroke. Each line needs to be fully settled with qi before you begin the next one. The qi has to feel stable and even before you lift the brush.”

He picked up Senior Brother Yu Bin’s completed talisman and pointed at two specific sections. ”Here and here. You can see the unevenness if you look at the qi flow directly. These sections will fail first under pressure.”

Senior Brother Yu Bin leaned forward and studied the areas Yang indicated. ”I can see it now that you point it out.”

”Then we will start at the very beginning,” Yang said. He took a sheet of plain paper and drew a single straight line, feeding qi into it smoothly from start to finish. ”Practice straight lines first. As many as you need until drawing one and filling it with qi at the same time feels entirely natural. Then curves. Then angles. Every shape you can think of. Only once all of those feel automatic should you return to actual talisman inscriptions.”

”Starting from the very beginning,” Senior Brother Yu Bin sighed, though not with any reluctance.

”It will feel tedious,” Yang said. ”It is still the right way.”

Senior Brother Yu Bin took a sheet of plain paper, dipped his brush, and drew a straight line.

Yang looked at it. ”Again.”

Senior Brother Yu Bin drew another.

”Better. Again.”

To his credit Senior Brother Yu Bin did not frown or express impatience once. He asked questions when he wanted clarification and worked through the corrections without complaint, repeating each shape until Yang told him to move on. He was not talented. But he was genuinely attentive and he improved with each repetition, the qi distribution becoming marginally more consistent as the session progressed.

Yang found himself paying close attention in a way he had not entirely anticipated. Watching someone else make the errors he had never made, and explaining in words why those errors mattered, was clarifying things in his own understanding that had previously been intuitive and wordless. He found his own understanding improving as he helped Senior Brother Yu Bin work through his own mistakes.

He was happy at the unexpected reward.

The more he improved at talismans, the more he would be able to combine what he knew with what he had learned in the Cardwright World. Every increase in his understanding of one discipline added to the other. He could feel the edges of those two bodies of knowledge pressing against each other.

He told Senior Brother Yu Bin to draw another stroke.

Senior Brother Yu Bin drew it fluidly.

Yang nodded. ”Better.”

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