Chapter 21 — Meeting Elder Mao

Elder Mao pointed at the sofa chairs beside the table, and Shen Yue and Lin Che moved without complaint. He pushed a cup in front of each of them and returned to his seat.

“Liuhe Breathing,” said, without preamble. “How long?”

Lin Che glanced briefly at Shen Yue, who gave nothing.

“I started about five weeks before the incident with Yang Zichen,” he said. “So just under two months in total.”

“And your current stage?”

“Completion.”

Elder Mao’s expression did not change in any meaningful way, but he lifted his cup and took a sip of the green tea. “And you’ve since moved onto something else.”

“The Hollow Bell Technique,” said Lin Che, holding nothing behind. “Shen Yue introduced me to it, or, I suppose more accurately, I picked it out myself after she gave me a couple of options.”

“Mm.” He set his cup down and looked at Lin Che for a couple of seconds, maintaining eye contact throughout. “Your reflexes.”

Lin Che waited.

“They are quick,” said Elder Mao. “I noticed it when the door opened — very small things — the way you adjusted your footing on the threshold and the way your eyes moved in a new room… have you been training any martial techniques?”

“He hasn’t started any yet,” said Shen Yue. “We’ve kept the focus on foundational methods.”

Elder Mao looked at her for a brief moment before going back to Lin Che. He gave him a brief look, and it contained a question he was clearly not going to ask in front of Shen Yue — an acknowledgement that he already knew the answer, as though the two of them had arrived at a private understanding that the third person in the room was not yet party to.

Lin Che took a sip of tea.

“I would like to test your strength,” said Elder Mao. “Not today, but we can arrange something suitable before the raid. I wish to establish a baseline.” He folded his hands together on the table. “A man who has been practising cultivation for under two months surviving a direct encounter with Yang Zichen is certainly something.”

“I was lucky,” said Lin Che.

“Almost certainly,” said Elder Mao pleasantly, turning towards Shen Yue. “Which brings me to what I wanted to discuss with you both together. The holy land.”

Shen Yue’s posture shifted slightly beneath the table.

“The site requires practitioners at or below the Qi condensation realm to enter. The team we have is young and undertrained. What we need is someone who is low stage and who has demonstrated some capacity to handle unexpected… physical situations. Your husband fits that profile unusually well.”

“He’s only been practising for two months,” said Shen Yue.

“Which is precisely why he qualifies.”

“There are noises coming from the central chamber and the team on site is already frightened,” she rebutted back.

“Which is why I’d like to send someone with a working nervous system and a demonstrated record of not panicking when someone points a knife at him.” He said it without any particular emphasis, but Shen Yue’s eyes moved to Lin Che in understanding.

Lin Che simply looked at the steam coming off his cup.

“It isn’t just the operational concern,” said Elder Mao, after a moment. His tone shifted into something slightly softer. “Yue, your condition.”

Shen Yue was very still.

“The Yin physique places particular demands on the people around you,” he continued. “Specifically on those in close physical proximity over sustained periods. It is a significant factor in why the arrangement with Lin Che was made.”

Lin Che said nothing.

He had known roughly about Shen Yue’s medical condition and why she was constantly warming herself up with tea and an electric blanket. Shen Bowen had dropped hints about it, and he’d even consumed her medication and melted his body from the inside out in one of his loops.

But having it stated plainly by someone else in a quiet room in the middle of the morning was a different experience.

“Since your husband is already in that role,” Elder Mao continued, “it seems reasonable to also make use of him in this one. The exploration, if successful, could be of significant benefit to the clan and to resources relevant to your condition.”

“You’re asking him to walk into a site where we don’t know what’s in the central chamber,” said Shen Yue.

“I’m simply informing him that the opportunity exists and allowing him to make a decision,” replied Elder Mao.

Both Shen Clan members looked at Lin Che, who had been occupying himself with a staring contest with a table instead. He looked up.

“What’s the timeline?” he asked.

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“Three to four weeks depending on what the decoding team extracts from the sigil photographs.”

“And the team going in with me?”

“Currently six people — you would not be going in alone.”

Lin Che thought about it for a while, or at least sat there in silence for however long it takes to make a decision. The truth was that he had already made his decision some thirty seconds ago when Elder Mao said Yin physique and Shen Yue had gone still. And besides, he could always try again if things went awry.

“Alright,” he said.

“Lin Che—”

“If there are resources in there that help you”, he said, looking at his wife, “then it seems worth the difficulty.”

He expected her face to morph into something grateful, but it shifted into something much more complicated than that instead.

Shen Yue broke eye contact and looked back at Elder Mao. “I want to be kept informed of every update from the decoding team.”

“Of course,” he said, reaching for a small notebook. “There is actually something I’d like your help with this afternoon, if you’re available. The younger disciples have their outdoor session and Practitioner Wei is recovering from a back injury. Would you be willing to supervise?”