10. Half-assed Like Caterwauling Cats

The best part of the day was when they all gathered in the main hall of the house in the morning with the wide doors slid open to let in the light while they ate breakfast.

After breakfast and basic chores, they sat around working—Yanli with her embroidery projects, Meng Yao and the boys on their studies, and Lao Wang doing nothing much at all other than napping in his excessively padded chair. Despite the dilapidated siheyuan and the Burial Mounds haunting the landscape and the simple, unadorned linen and cotton robes they all wore, it was exactly the kind of simple domesticity that Yanli had always dreamed of as a girl.

Eventually, all the boys would all troop into the courtyard to work through their martial art forms, and Meng Yao would at some point wrestle A’Cheng and Ying’er into meditating under the pear tree. Or, at least, he tried.

“Ugggghhhhh,” Wei Ying groaned and fell over. “This is borrrrring!”

“Stop distracting me!” A’Cheng kicked out with his foot, but Wei Ying rolled away.

“Boys, stop fussing,” A’Yao said with a bland and hostile smile on his face.

“Who are you calling boy?” Ying’er yelled, jumping up, ready to fight. “You’re not much older than us!”

“Is this how Yunmeng Jiang does it? Half-assed like caterwauling cats?” Lao Wang asked, gnawing at some jerky. It was his favorite snack, which, given his toothlessness, Yanli did not understand at all, but it was easy enough to make from cheap cuts of meat.

“No,” Yanli said with a shake of her head. “That is what head disciples are for, to keep everyone in line.”

“Mn.” He swayed forward in his chair a few times and eventually rolled up onto his feet. “Ying’er! Get over here!”

“Hmph.” Wei Ying kicked dirt aggressively before coming up to the porch. “What do you want?”

“Ying’er,” Yanli said warningly.

“This Wei Ying apologizes for being rude, honored grandfather,” he answered automatically with a stiff and recalcitrant bow.

Lao Wang pointed at the front gate. “Go run around the house for 500 steps. Count ‘em. I want to see you passing that gate at least ten times.”

Wei Ying stared at him in disbelief.

With a loud thump of his cane, Lao Wang shouted. “Go!”

Wei Ying spun around and ran off.

Yanli glanced over at Lao Wang, speaking softly. “Can you even see that far?”

“No, but he doesn’t know that,” Lao Wang whispered back with a grin. He waddled to his chair and sat down with a huff. “Kids like that, they can’t keep still for love or money. Gotta send them out on runs to tire their brain out.”

“But his meditation practice—”

“Bah. Counting his steps will stand in for counting breaths, and by the time he gets back he will be of calm mind, and can do a few minutes of intense qi circulating. That will get him farther than trying to hold him down.”

Yanli slowly looked up from her embroidery frame, a now-distant memory of their first night with Lao Wang surfacing. The boys had been fighting, and he had pulled them apart with an unfamiliar martial arts move.

“Grandfather, did you ever train at a sect?” She asked, whispering.

He was silent for a long time. A’Yao and A’Cheng were deep into their quiet meditation, still and focused as they sat next to each other. Outside, the sound of Wei Ying running around the house was a soft drum beat.

“It was a lifetime ago, child.”

“But…you don’t have a golden core? You don’t cultivate?”

She felt terrible for asking as soon as the words left her mouth, as he obviously did not, given his age and health. Even the weakest cultivators like her aged slowly, and rarely developed most of the ailments of aging even when they did. The very ancient cultivators she had known appeared to be simply worn out, not broken.

“No.” He glanced off to where the Burial Mounds sat, ominous in the distance and far too close. “War is a terrible thing and destroys good men in many different ways. There are horrors out there that I cannot bring myself to speak of, even now.” He settled down in his chair with a sigh.

She reviewed everything she knew about him, pieces falling into place like a puzzle. He had been a pickpocket who never got caught, who had taken in orphaned children and taught them how to survive. When her boys came to rescue her in Yunping, he had helped them get there and provided cover for them. He claimed to have lived his whole life in Yiling but had no relatives there or any other connection that she had ever noticed, or he had ever mentioned. In fact, as she thought about it, she realized that he had not actually claimed to be from Yiling, he just never corrected other people’s assumptions about him.

Yanli was much wiser to the world than she had been six months ago, and she was certain that without Lao Wang’s protection those first few days, both she and A’Cheng would have been snatched up by human traffickers and sold to a horrible fate. Wei Ying would only have been able to rescue them so many times.

“That is why you were not surprised about Sect Leader Jiang casting us out.”

“I’ve seen a lot of righteous men do the cruelest things for no other reason than pride. Or greed. The gentry has got a lot of both.”

She nodded and returned to her work, mentally reciting prayers of gratitude for Lao Wang, his former sect, and his ancestors—whomever they were.

Wei Ying stumbled through the gate sometime later, having passed it far more than ten times. He plopped down next to A’Cheng, still gasping for air, and meditated without complaint until A’Yao called an end. That became their regular practice once forms were over: A’Yao and A’Cheng sitting down to meditate, while Wei Ying went out to run his brain down before joining them.

It was clear to Yanli, though, that their forms were suffering.

Wei Ying was perfect in his forms and A’Cheng nearly so, but they were too young and impatient to be good teachers and they only knew the sets up to level three. The Yunmeng Jiang style had ten levels of forms, total, but she had never gotten far past three herself. A’Yao caught up fast, as she expected, but they were all getting ready to plateau and she was not going to be able to coach them much further. Not to mention, in the afternoons, A’Yao and A’Cheng went into town to do accounting for hire. It was necessary work that paid well, but not something a sect disciple would have had to worry about. If they were at Lotus Pier, A’Cheng would spend all morning doing martial arts, then his afternoon in various lessons across the six arts and sect management.

(She was beginning to understand why so much of the common populace considered cultivators to be pampered and spoiled. What an amazing life a person could live when they weren’t scrambling to survive!)

Not to mention, their sword work was going nowhere. A’Yao had managed to buy a few wooden practice swords (used, but not broken), but he was already at the age of needing a real sword, and the boys would be soon enough. Spiritual weapons were outrageously expensive, which was why only sects could afford to have them made for their disciples. Even rogue cultivators often used mundane swords until they had built up a name for themselves and could charge high prices for their services.

Yanli was at a loss of what to do.

When she talked about it with A’Yao and Lao Wang, the latter brought up her old idea of hiring rogue cultivators to help train. The only problem was that not many had come through Yiling. It was odd, but A’Yao thought it was because the Qishan Wen sect was heating up the politics of the jianghu, making everyone pull back a little out of caution. He did not say it, but Lao Wang did: war was likely on the horizon.

So, when she saw two rogue cultivators wandering through town on market day, she shoved her basket at A’Cheng and hustled over to them.

They were, as most cultivators were, very beautiful. The younger was lithe and ethereal, with a kind smile, and dressed mostly in white with black trim. His companion was his opposite in every way, not just because he was in black with white trim. He was stoic and stern and broad, imposing to look at but at least he had kind eyes.

“Honored Daoren, please allow me to—” She stalled for a moment. A young single girl asking to buy tea for two strange men was just short of scandalous, and highly suspicious. “Hire you! We have, mmmnnn, a fierce ghost! In our house!” She tried to look weak and pathetic.

“JieJie? What are you talking about? We don’t—”

Yanli stepped on A’Cheng’s foot.

“Oh, yes!” Wei Ying said loudly, picking up the thread. “A terrible one! Scary! It, uh, keeps knocking over Grandfather! And he’s so fragile and, and, old! Very old! Please, Mister Honored Cultivator Sir, please help us with the fierce ghost!” He exclaimed beseechingly and clasped his hands together.

A’Cheng kept his mouth shut, but Yanli could tell he was trying not to laugh.

The vendor who had been selling the cultivators some food nodded. “The old Luo place? Doesn’t surprise me. I keep telling you, Miss Meng, to move closer to town and away from the Burial Mounds. Can’t be good for the boys, or your grandfather.” She wagged her finger, and Yanli could kiss her because her comment caused the cultivators to buy into the story. They bowed in perfect, practiced unison.

“I am Xiao Xingchen, and this is Song Lan, courtesy name Zichen. We are happy to assist you with this matter.”

“Wonderful! Thank you so much!” She grabbed her basket back. “A’Cheng, go get the burgundy thread we were looking at and then catch up to us on the way home.” She plopped a few coins in his hand. “Don’t buy the green thread! I know you want to!”

“But JieJie, the turquoise will go perfectly with that design for the pink sash!” He yelled back and disappeared into the crowd. She sighed and turned back to Xiao Xingchen, who was smiling in amusement.

“He has very particular opinions about my embroidery,” she said.

“As he should!” The food vendor piped up. “Miss Meng does the best work in the region!”

“Thank you, Auntie.” She bowed. “This way, Honored Daoren.” She gestured for them to follow.

Wei Ying bounced around them happily as they walked, pestering a very tolerant Xiao Xingchen with a riot of questions about night hunting, while Song Zichen looked on placidly.