Chapter 26- Finding the True Metal Between Fire and Water

“Thank you for leading the way, Prime Servant Candidate Tian.” Wang bowed very properly, and offered Tian a single fried bread stick. “Please look after me in the future as well. I will be in your care.”

“Please specify who I should betray to maintain your favor, Prime Servant Candidate Tian.” Sister Su bowed and offered two bread sticks. “As you can see, I am already much more sincere than certain people scheming for your position.”

“Fools, they cannot see your greatness as I do, Prime Servant Candidate Tian. They are only fit for field labor, or the mines.” Lin handed over exactly enough tea to fill one teapot.

She seemed excessively pleased about calling someone else a potential servant, in Tian’s opinion, but since she had given him some of the Harmony Village Tea he had been looking for, he was prepared to assign her to the comparatively pleasant laundry. He glanced over at Liren.

“Nothing from you? I fear cleaning out the Tiger Latrines may be your future calling.”

“I refuse to yield to petty tyranny. Perhaps once you reach the lofty heights of Actual Servant. Also, more importantly, would tiger latrines be a latrine for tigers, a latrine made out of tigers, or a latrine made by tigers?”

“You underestimate the greatness of the Eight Directions Palace. It’s all three. Special breeds of tigers, obviously, they take hierarchy even more seriously than we do. Some are born to be latrines, others to make them, and fewer still to use them. Don’t look down on the job, these are tigers worth knowing.” Tian nodded very wisely.

“I am moved beyond words by your blatant favoritism. I think I have a half eaten malt candy here I can offer…” She started patting her robe. “I swear I had it in a pocket somewhere. I’ll find it eventually.”

“No hurry, I can rent you a shovel until you find it. You don’t have to rent it once you give me the candy, of course. Then you can buy it with a loan against your future wages. A great benefit.” He eyeballed the tea for a moment longer, then grinned. “I can finally do something I’ve wanted to do for ages.”

He pulled out a tiny green orange skin, long since dried almost brown. It had been carefully split open so that the flesh could be removed while keeping the skin largely in one piece. Tian set out an ordinary tea pot and his fancy kettle, as well as a few cups. He carefully loaded the tea into the orange skin, doing his best to keep everything reasonably intact.

“If it was being done properly, I’d leave this to age for a few years, but we can call this a trial run. These are the skins of the Solar Oranges that Liren and I found. I thought they would make amazing tea oranges if we could get some Harmony Village Tea, but Sister Lin is the only person I know who has some. So now that we can bring all the pieces together…”

“Tea time?” Brother Wang asked with a grin.

“Yes. Consider it the broadminded generosity of a prime servant candidate, before I have you assigned to the lead mines.”

“Does the Mountain have lead mines?” Brother Wang asked.

“No, you will have to make the lead first, pack it into the ground, then mine it. I’m sorry, but I can’t provide you with any meals until you start pulling lead out of the ground. I have quotas of my own to meet, you see. Fearing the strong and bullying the weak, that’s how you make prime servant candidate.” Tian looked over at Lin. “I usually infuse my tea with my elemental understanding, but if you would prefer I didn’t-”

She waved her hand with forced casualness. “If there is one thing this trial teaches, it’s don’t be petty. Let’s see what’s so damn special about your tea.”

Liren coughed and looked pointedly at Wang, who rolled his eyes and produced a few bags of roasted melon seeds to share.

Tian poured his vital energy into the kettle, warming it to boiling before pouring it over the orange. He let it steep for almost a minute, poured the wash over his tea pets, then refilled the pot. He let the tea steep a little longer than he usually would, just to give the flavor of the dried orange and the tightly bundled tea a chance to develop, then poured for his guests, and finally, himself. A tea service short on ceremony, but full of affection.

“Mellow but a touch astringent, kind of woody, but you get a little hint of the orange… pretty good, I’d say.” Liren gave her evaluation, and the nods around Tian’s little tea table agreed with her.

Tian found his hand stroking the table. It was the same one he had picked up in the Redstone Wastes, a short-legged thing meant for people sitting on cushions or little stools. The wood wasn’t anything precious, and the bottom of the legs were pretty scuffed. A mortal might not even want it in their house. It had become something invisibly important to him. He never really thought about it, but would miss it dreadfully if it should break. Was that, too, yin? New pleasures and an old table, a moment of tranquillity livened with joy.

“I’ve had tea oranges before, but this is a pretty good orange. You might want to get your hands on some older Harmony Village Tea, though. With care, you can age it for decades.” Lin suggested.

“I would love to. Regrettably, we are in a giant bird cage these days.” Tian gave Lin a look. She gave him one back.

“You know all the tea varieties are the same kind of tree leaf, right? The difference is in processing and the land the tree grows on. We have a lot of old folks who love their tea on this mountain, and some of them, at some point, learned how to process tea.”

Tian thought that was an excellent point, and rewarded her with a fresh cup. She sniffed and took a long sip. Her eyelids dropped, as her eyes focused down on the tea.

“What a strange thing. It’s not just the taste of the tea, it’s in the warmth of the cup and the texture as the tea fills your mouth, pouring down your throat into your stomach. Fire and water, but not a fire of obliteration, or illumination. A Tea Fire. I couldn’t have imagined such a thing. And then there is the water carrying that fire, spreading through your body, filling you, moistening your organs, vivifying you. Making supple what was brittle. Not the water of winter’s death, or of spring rains, or still ponds or deep rivers. A small water, warmed by humans, shaped by humans, connecting humans, yet still part of nature.”

She looked up at Tian and smiled, and it was the warmest, truest smile he had ever seen on her face. “It’s a bit lacking in metal, though.”

Tian raised his cup and sipped the tea. It really was just ‘pretty good.’ The flavors needed time, years really, to properly age and mellow together. That was fine. He had the time, and there was nothing cultivators loved so much as a project.

“I’ll work on that.” Tian chuckled, and refilled the tea pot.

Refreshed and restored, they set off. Tian’s mind was still on what Sister Lin had said. Metal condensed water, generating it in the elemental chart. The aspect of earth he always found in the cup and the mountain the tea grew on, but metal always seemed so far removed from what he felt made a good tea service. He tried to make up for it with precision, an aspect of metal, but it was lacking. Something else must be found.

Coin purchased cups and tea leaves, but Tian discarded that thought immediately. Tian’s heart was illuminated by a clay lamp, not deafened by the clatter of a golden abacus. What parts of himself exemplified metal, and how could he bring them out in his tea? He meditated on it as they walked through the chiming music of the stone forest, enjoying the moment and savoring the chance to think about the important things.

It wasn’t too much further until they reached the next barrier on the path, which came in the form of a giant sculpture garden. It was a few dozen yards in diameter, with statues ranging from the size of Tian’s palm to towering figures more than twenty feet tall. Each was vividly painted, leaving no question as to what the statue might be representing.

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There were fast moving waves, licking fire, trees, rocks, rich earth, homes, terrified people, livestock, the animals of the woods and fields and oceans, all in distress. Above them all were a broken mountain, and two furious deities, one dressed in blue and white, the other in red and black.

“Gods of fire and water? Emperors? Supreme cultivators? It’s the wrong shade of blue for our uniform. Do any of you recognize any of this?” Tian asked.

There was a bout of synchronized head shaking, though Tian thought one of the denials looked a bit hesitant.

“Sister Lin?”

“I don’t know exactly what it is, but it does remind me of a story I heard. But I heard it from my uncle, who had been living in the Green Dragon Kingdom, so it might not be relevant.”

“Eight Directions Palace covered multiple kingdoms. Who knows if Green Dragon Kingdom is one of their successor states?” Liren encouraged her. “Let’s hear it.”

“There isn’t much to tell. It’s a creation myth from the local religion. Basically the god of water and the god of fire got into an argument, which then escalated into killing uncountable numbers of living creatures and eventually breaking the heavens with a bit of knocked over mountain. Eventually, a goddess intervened, settled the two of them down and patched up the world. She managed to stop the fires and the floods, heal the earth, and eventually fixed the hole in the heavens. Unfortunately, the damage was so severe that the whole planet got tilted. This explains why the heavens are spinning and rivers flow from west to east.”

“They don’t, though.” Sister Su objected.

“The two biggest ones in the Green Dragon Kingdom do.” Lin spread her hands. “Like I said, it’s a story from the local folk religion. The statues made me think of it, but I don’t know if it’s at all connected.”