Chapter 33- Fiery Sky Soup

The middle dantian, also known as the heart dantian or the Crimson Palace- associated with fire and yang, sometimes referred to as one of the three elixir fields, and also, important point, more or less in the literal heart. Or right next to it. It can vary. Oh boy do I love Daoist internal alchemy. It’s the way it’s not really consistent, and that’s okay to its practitioners.

Not normally considered a healthy place to find a spear, the heart, but here we all are. Metallurgy is so much more straightforward. You appreciate straightforward things, I imagine. Or do I have it wrong?

The ancient spear floated in Liren’s middle dantian. Silently.

It was worth a shot. A talking spear isn’t even that unusual. Normally I’d assume you couldn’t even perceive me, but you are ancient, by the standards of this world. And things that stick around that long usually have their own means of survival. Like changing hosts when the old one dies. Or providing them with, and I’m picking an example completely at random here, but an extreme yang body cultivation art that would make them extraordinarily suited for hard yang style martial arts and spearplay.

There was more silence from the spear. The biochemical struggle between the poison and damage to Liren’s body, and the voracious cultivation arts in Tian’s, continued apace. Tian was healing too, but that wasn’t where the energy was going. Most of the focus was on breaking down all the vile things infesting Liren, and infusing her with pure wood-qi rich blood. Blood which her own Southern Mountain physique turned into fiery vital energy and the strength to fight on a little bit longer.

Not that I’m criticising. I’d do more or less the same thing. I prepared carefully for this job. Knew what kind of world I was dropping into, had saved up a big chunk, I came loaded for just about anything. You want to know what I packed for our hero here? Your genuine article Primordial Chaos Body, Nine Dragon Pulse Meridians, Supreme Godhead Seven Colored Soul Refining Light, and a double dozen other physiques, enhancements, tools and refinements, just in case he might need them.

And do I ever have them arts! Star Consuming Sutra, Beast God Law, Astral Meridian Tactics, arts for manipulating time and space, the void, fate, you name it, I got it. Giving him a Ninth Heaven Tribulation Lightning Physique and a matching cultivation art was the very least I could offer. I thought. I should be able to turn a goddamn potato into the God-Emperor with all this. An actual, literal, potato, the actual, literal God-Emperor.

But what have I actually been able to provide? Poison management, and the most unbelievably lousy cultivation art known to a cultivator penal colony. Something I learned specifically in case he needed to lock up a cultivator under very particular circumstances.

And he used it exactly once.

The thorns struggled against the surging tide. They weren’t being destroyed by Tian’s Thunderous palms anymore, so they were starting to make a return in some places. The thread-like roots dug into tough muscle, knotting and growing. They were having the most success in the most damaged areas with the least blood circulation. Places where the networks of minor meridians were broken, and the fiery vital energy struggled to reach the fleshy body it supported.

None of the surging qi fixed the gross physical damage she had suffered- the broken bones, destroyed muscles, destroyed skin. The blood seeping out of her from a dozen holes. Tian’s body was furiously trying to replace what was being lost, and Grandpa Jun was making sure the blood wasn’t rejected, but it was always a losing battle. A delaying action, until the thorns could be defeated. If they could be defeated.

Well, so it goes. All I can do is do all I can. The best, and shittiest, part of my job is that I always get stuck with someone I come to love. They truly become my grandson in spirit, every goddamn time. I am… so very proud of them all. Him especially. So. You know. Make yourself useful or I’m having my boy refine you into a novelty toothpick.

Glands inside of Tian started throbbing. Catecholamines were already flooding Tian and Hong, epinephrine making the hearts pump hard. Grandpa Jun prodded Tian’s adrenal glands to produce even more adrenalin than they already were. The thyroid was next, driving his metabolic rate up far past any healthy limits. Angiotensin wasn’t neglected either. Anything to drive up the heart rate and increase blood flow.

A flood of hormones poured into the blood stream. Tian’s heart sped up, slipping out of synch with Liren’s for a bare moment. There was a nasty couple of seconds. Then the hormones hit Liren. Her heart started beating faster, and Tian’s adjusted to match. Blood circulated faster. Wood qi, rich and vibrant, permeated the blood.

Blood from Tian’s heart, to Liren’s. It washed over and around the Crimson Palace. The wood kindled the flame around the spear. The spear might not be as alive as Grandpa Jun, but something in it was provoked. The kindling flames grew, and more wood qi pulled into the middle dantian. The fire exploded into a blaze, then poured from Hong’s heart into the rest of her body. Bright yang qi seeped into the torn and ruined flesh of her back, igniting the thorns.

Blue-black flames lit up across Hong’s back. Brilliant white at the bottom, inky black at the top. If Tian had been awake, he would have screamed at the sight. He was lying on top of Hong, the blood vessels in their legs sutured together. The thorns burned, Liren burned, and Tian burned with her.

Grandpa watched it happen with cool dispassion. They were attempting the suicidally impossible. How could there be no harm as a consequence? Besides, the little bathtub his grandson had dug was full to overflowing with tainted, but merit and qi rich, blood, water and fluids. Even the corrupting runoff from the purging process was valuable. More grist for the mill. But first they needed to finish the job.

Assuming they could finish the job.

Grandpa eased off the glands, cutting hormone production to levels closer to a healthy range. The two teenager’s hearts were allowed to rest a little easier. Nerves, particularly pain nerves, were deadened. Grandpa Jun could interpret the signals. No need to trouble Tian’s brain with them. There were so many, after all. The energy that should have been spent healing his own body was being directed largely into Liren. What was left was barely enough to keep Tian alive.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Grandpa turned his attention to the complex knot of qi spinning around the statue in Tian’s lower Dantian. Male and female bodies, joined at the head, with a lotus crown on top. A clear metaphor for yin and yang, rigid and rejecting being inescapably paired with soft and accepting. Light and dark, life and death, all one piece with each other, and everything else as well. Once you understood that, truly, deeply and completely understood it, your mind would achieve the purity and perfection of a lotus. You would be a sage.

But it was a daoist creation. It could be both a metaphor and the literal truth.

Now then. Let’s just see what happens when I make things worse.

Grandpa stopped intercepting some of the flying nerve impulses that should have had Tian thrashing like a fish on the dock. He started seizing. Small, powerful spasms, ripping open his wounds further, snapping tendons, worsening breaks. It didn’t do Hong any favors either. Her already ruined back muscles were beaten harshly by the hidden strength within Tian.

That should about do it. Sorry Grandson. Hope nothing comes up that needs me to explain something because this is going to be all I can do for you for a while. One last push…