v4c13: Siblings in Failure

The office was cold and sterile. Ri Zu sat before the Master of the Medical Pavilion, Lishu, with her hands in her lap. He was staring at her, his face devoid of emotion, before he spoke.

 

“You already know your shortcomings. I can see it in your eyes. We both know what exactly you lack—that being knowledge of the more esoteric resources that you must use.” he said, as he absently flipped through the seventy page exam on his desk.There were quite a few markings indicating mistakes—though he had awarded part marks for when Ri Zu had just written ‘This disciple does not know’ which was odd. He was right, Ri Zu was simply too inexperienced with the absolutely enormous array of spiritual Plants he had tested her on. At least the practical had gone better.

 

“Your practical abilities, however, render this shortcoming mostly moot. I will praise your ability to adapt and improvise, as well as your command of poison—though naturally there are some rare poisons your control will not work on. But there is one thing that pushes you into failure. Your outlook.” Master Lishu flipped through her written test. To the part of the exam that had been on ethics.

 

Ri Zu had honestly been surprised that the Shrouded Mountain Sect had a portion on ethics, but apparently even these strength obsessed fools had something that wasn’t about inflicting or healing damage.

 

“Ri Zu’s outlook?” she asked.

 

“You are too soft, too kind, and too mortal. You are too concerned with preserving life, at the expense of the patient’s cultivation. “ His words were calm and matter of fact. “For a mortal, a broken meridian doesn’t matter. But for a cultivator, it is everything. An operation that has a 90% chance of saving a life, and a 10% chance of saving one’s cultivation, would and should be discarded for one that has a 50% chance of saving the life and a 50% chance of saving their cultivation.”

 

Ri Zu frowned heavily at the statement. He was telling her it was better to kill someone, than work to save them. Ri Zu knew that she should have probably kept her mouth shut, instead of talking back to the man… but the words fought their way out anyway. “Losing one’s cultivation would indeed decrease the quality of their life but as long as one lives, you can learn to stand again. As long as you are alive, you will have a second chance.”

She glanced up at the man with the stone visage. He was cold and hard, with exacting standards. He lived in the most decadent place Ri Zu had ever been in, and yet his own pavilion was spartan—Master Lishu took his job extremely seriously. For all his coldness, his eyes watched like a hawk for anything that could harm those under his care, or for anything that would worsen their conditions. Anything that dared to harm his charges would have been destroyed utterly. Ri Zu could not understand why he would let a person die for a meridian.

Master Lishu looked directly at her. “I thought so too, once upon a time.” he stated simply. There was no disgust in his eyes, no contempt for her answer—instead, Ri Zu saw what looked slightly like pity. “The world is not so kind. Weakness is preyed upon. I have seen it far, far too many times. I have seen the strongest of experts beg for death, when they learn how far they have fallen. I have seen the joy in their enemy’s faces, when they discover their rival is powerless.”

 

It would have been easy, if he had dismissed her. If he had scoffed at her words. Instead, the man looked at her with tired eyes, his mask dropping for a brief moment, before he became cold once more.

 

“You are young, and full of passion. You imagine that you will be different, that you shall challenge the way of things. It is your right to do so. We are cultivators, we challenge the heavens itself.“

What was natural to one person… was challenging the heavens to this man. It wasn’t something Ri Zu had ever thought about.

“You have failed this examination, Hong Ri Zu. But I would be a fool to waste your talent and send you to be a menial laborer. Tell me. What do you think is the best option to rectify these things? You cannot yet be a full member of this pavilion, yet neither will I send you away.”

 

Ri Zu thought for a moment. “Ri Zu requests to be assigned as a maid to the Medical Pavilion during her time in the Mountain Pavilion, to ease the burden on the true doctors while she rectifies her deficiencies.”

 

Master Lishu seemed amused by her idea. “I will allow you to show me your conviction. You may access the library, and the patient files we have. In one month’s time you will take this test again. And you will either change your answer…. Or score perfectly in every other question.”

 

Ri Zu bowed. “Ri Zu will show Master Lishu a perfect score, then.” she replied, and the man actually chuckled.

 

“Go then.” He commanded. “I expect you to be prepared tomorrow.”

 

Dismissed, Ri Zu bowed once more to him and took her leave, considering his words. Too soft. Too mortal.

 

Was it such a bad thing? She did not know. A worry for another day though. She had at least accomplished part of her task. While she hadn’t truly joined the Medical Pavilion, she could still search for demonic corruption amongst them while serving as a maid.

 

And Like Yun Ren said. If she came and went enough… it was unlikely anyone would question her.

 

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Che Han, also known as Fat Han, slowly dragged himself to the meeting point Yushang, Ri Zu, and Biren had agreed upon. His body was still smoking slightly from his rather… explosive finale to the examination.

 

He felt hollow. Drained. Fifteen years of studying and progress… Into the gutter. Maybe he should have listened to the others, when they laughed and joked. A Che, being anything but an Outer Sect Menial? How hilarious was that?

 

For three thousand years they had suffered the laughter of the other families around the Shrouded Mountain Sect. The loyal Che family, dying in droves. It was a wonder that they hadn’t gone extinct yet. Fit to die for the sect, nothing more.

 

He had wanted to be something different. He had challenged the heavens in his own way… and he had lost.

 

…how pathetic.

 

He called himself Fat Han willingly, taking ownership of the name his detractors had saddled him with. He had trained and trained and trained. He had passed the first hurdle, then the second… only to fail at the last moment. The Spirit Sword formula he had refined, which had never failed before, the one he had worked on painstakingly for years. It failed, exploded right in his face. Everything he had worked for burnt in an instant.

 

And that had been the end of the road for Fat Han.

 

He arrived at the meeting point: a set of benches, overlooking the valley around the Shrouded Mountain. For a brief moment he considered just going to his room to rest… before stopping himself. He had chosen his—well, he wasn’t sure if they would be friends anymore—acquaintances. They had treated him kindly, not insulting him or his family at all.

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

 

But he supposed it would be best to get used to his new role. He only hoped that the companions he had chosen would be kinder to him than his eldest cousin’s had been. They would probably need somebody to do their laundry.

 

He leaned against the side of the bench and sighed. Well, this was the rest of his life, eh?

 

Twenty minutes later, Yushang hobbled in, and he felt a shameful flush of relief at the dead look in her eyes as she used her sword as a crutch. The singed, electrocuted girl staggered so she was in front of him… then keeled forwards, face fist onto the ground.

 

“You too, eh?” he asked.

 

“…yeah.” she wheezed.

 

“I have some peaches, if you want any.”

 

Yushang turned her head so she could look directly at him, tears in her eyes. “Thanks, brother.”

 

Those words somehow made the world just a little bit less dark.

 

“Aren’t you going to sit?” he asked after a moment.

 

“I will if you pick me up,” the girl responded.

 

…How shameless.

 

Yushang stayed on the ground, Han ignoring her begging eyes.

 

The strange girl stayed on the ground though, refusing to sit up on the bench unless he picked her up and carried her, the shameless woman.

 

So she stayed that way.

 

They both looked up hopefully when they saw Biren amble in. He looked like he had taken a beating too, his clothes ragged.

 

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“And then I carried the other guy back across the line.” Yun Ren narrated to Fat Han and Yushang, recounting his own failure.

 

Yun Ren honestly could have done most of what they asked in his sleep. Field craft on the mountains wasn’t that different to what he was used to. But instead he flubbed just enough to be believable.

 

That all lasted of course, until a Spirit Beast burst out of the snow. It was a massive, white ape monster that howled with bloodlust. Yun Ren liked to think himself pretty good at understanding Spirit Beast Qi Speech, and the white ape? All it had been screaming about was eating their bones.

 

Yun Ren had used his Qi to blind it, then pulled the guy who it had been about to smash out of the way and told him to run. He had ended up having to use Summer’s Sky to poke the monster a few times before he finally managed to drive it off—and by then he had gone from intentionally failing to actually failing. He was the last across the finish line—

 

And what was the worst was that the one guy he had helped out hadn’t said a word. Little bastard.

 

—not that Yun Ren wanted him to, in the end. He would have magnanimously waved off the other guy’s concerns.

 

Yun Ren shook his head at the sympathetic looks. Fat Han from beside him, and Yushang from her place on the ground.

 

“Ah well. It is what it is,” he declared. “Just gotta get stronger and do things right next time, eh?”