Chapter 3- Confident is a Strong Word

The enfolding mists cooled the nerves and the senses, easing one into indifference. There was neither good nor bad, liked or disliked. Even “up” and “down” were increasingly becoming uncertain, as the plants and rocks blurred into the soft grey.

“Illusory array?” Tian murmured.

“For sure.”

“Yep.”

Burning Heaven and Liren answered almost simultaneously. Tian shook his head. The question was what the Emissary wanted to test.

“Usually, the people making the arrays don’t want you to know it’s there,” said Tian.

“It’s the entrance to a testing ground. Hard to conceal it.” Liren shook her head. He could hear the irritation in her voice.

“True.” Tian had kind of thought such an august existence could come up with something a bit more new, though.

“‘True, true.’ Do you even hear yourself?” Liren got more and more twitchy, her voice turning nasal and irritating. Tian narrowed his eyes, but kept his mouth shut. The silence stretched for a minute, then Liren turned around and looked him dead in the eyes.

“I hate that about you. I hate that someone can push you and you just take it. Sliding the grudge into your storage ring, and just carrying on. You don’t even keep all the grudges. How fucking smug do you have to be, to be so holier than thou? You forgive me? You forgave Brother Fu? What the fuck is that? Did you think about anyone else for even one second when you decided that?”

“No. Not for even one second.” Tian smiled and nodded.

“Did you spend even one second thinking about what I needed? What I need now?”

“Nope. I hoped, of course. But really, it was all about me.” Tian’s smile got even wider.

“Oh you little bitch.” Liren hauled her arm back and swung straight at Tian’s nose. His smile didn’t flicker. The fist stopped just as skin touched skin.

“Not even a flinch?” Liren asked, but it wasn’t her voice.

“She isn’t the sort to hit me.”

“Ah. How nice to see young love. I wish you well on your path together.”

“Thank you, Senior.”

“No, don’t thank me. That was me giving you a reasonably painless exit to the trial, and you didn’t take it. Now you are in for Hell.”

Liren vanished, and she was replaced with fire. He was burning. He could smell his skin charring, feel his limbs twisting, feel his nerves exploding, the water boiling out of his skin, the sizzling fat spitting droplets of him and blinding his eyes. Eyes that only survived long enough to catalog the horror being done to his body.

He could feel it all. Smell it all. Taste it all. It was real. It was really happening. He was going to be burned again. Worse this time. He would burn to death!

His body spasmed, the remaining muscles contracting with uncontrolled strength, all energy going into a desperate jump. Anything to escape being burned!

And then he paused. Every nerve screamed at him, this was real. It was all far, far too real. Except. He forced his panicking animal brain to take a single breath. Then he forced it to take another. He was in an illusion array. The fire came out of nowhere. Higher level illusions operated directly on the brain, bypassing the senses. In a sense, they were indistinguishable from reality.

His little training couldn’t possibly have taught him to resist an illusion on this level. But it did give him enough to barely gather himself. To remember that he could bury his fingers in the fur of an illusory tiger, and suffer no harm.

He was burning to death. Tian forced himself to sit down and settled into the lotus pose. The smell, the vile smell of burned flesh burrowed up his nostrils, before his sinuses were corroded and lost to the fire poison. His eyes were gone now, just holes for pain.

Tian’s ruined stumps of fingers managed to find his rosary. He exhaled, and started counting his breaths. Not bothering to chant. Just breathing, and enduring. It was an illusion. And if it was an illusion, then he was suffering no true harm, and he could endure. It was a chance to temper his mind. That was something rare.

He kept telling himself that. His nerve wavered several times, but held. Then the fire went out.

Tian gasped, his vision returning in stabs of light, even though the grey mists still filled every corner of his vision. His skin was smooth and whole, he had all the fingers he was supposed to, he could breathe without searing his lungs.

“I really wronged those kids from the Five Elements Courtyard. They were taking it easy on us. Illusions are terrifying!”

This is operating miles and miles above your level. Well done for enduring it!

“Was she reading my mind?”

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Kind of, yes, and she’s basically reading the minds of everyone here. Don’t worry, I’m protected from such superficial methods, as are memories of me. It’s… more complicated than calling it “mind reading” really captures, and it’s both more and less powerful than you would think. Still, very good job enduring it.

“She knew about the Xia. Knew I had been burned.”

Maybe? Or she picked up something she can work with. I can one-hundred-percent guarantee she doesn’t care even a tiny bit about them. If you think about it, it would be weirder if she did. Also, fear of being burned alive is really, really common. Who wants to die in a fire?

It took Tian a minute to process that one.

Grandpa was right. It was time to stop fearing others finding out his origin. Hiding who he was was something a sick child had to do. Someone afraid of hurting those close to him. But he had told Liren, told Fu, and while he wouldn’t rub it in his brothers’ noses, some day they might learn about it too. And that was fine.

He was Tian Zihao, born six years old in the West Town Dump. He had been someone else before he was born, but then, hadn’t they all?