Vol 3. Epilogue

As far as Sister Su was concerned, she and Daoist Mei had gone from desperate rivals to firmest allies. She would no longer hear a single bad, or even cautionary, word about her new sister.

“It is quite obvious. She chose the most optimal outcome for the greatest number of people. It relied on her taking a leap of faith. Trusting in her assessment of both Brother Wang and yourself. An act of commendable wisdom and courage. I, naturally, will meet honor with honor, and develop the best system for maximal happiness for everyone in this marriage.”

Sister Su forced herself to her feet and staggered over to her desk, grabbing blank sheets of paper, setting out ink and a clean brush. Volumes of law, biographies and courtly records fell from her ring like an avalanche tumbling down on a large, unsuspecting, man.

“Oh… good. And… what will Brother Wang think about all this?” Tian struggled to keep in the laughter.

“He will be delighted, once he knows. I will have everything organized first. That way he only has to nod, and all will be well. And stamp the marriage contract, obviously, but I will handle the administrative minutia.” The thought that the twenty six year old Wang might not want to be married clearly did not occur to Sister Su. It seemed useless to mention it now.

The books were opened and references found, while Su’s left hand was wholly involved with grinding the ink. Dog-hair brushes, immaculately clean, were laid out on top of books with titles like “The Thirty Six Stratagems of the Bedchamber” and “Phoenix and Dragon Contending.”

Brother Wang was a big man, easily surpassing six foot one. Tian could only trust that he was tall enough and broad enough to take on the combined might of Sister Su and the soon-to-be-if-not-already Martial Aunt Mei. Though how the sects were going to resolve that little issue was mercifully not his problem.

He thought, for all of five minutes.

“Junior Tian Zihao, kindly drag your troublemaking ass up to my Windblown Manor. Now.”

Tian didn’t know that flying clouds could slam into the ground hard enough to make a booming thud. The one from the Manor did. He meekly stepped onboard, and was whisked directly to Elder Feng’s office. Very directly. Straight around the back of the Manor, up to her walk-out windows and deposited, swaying slightly from the speed and sudden acceleration changes, onto the carpet.

“What a generous, compassionate, caring young man you are. Truly an emblem of virtue for the younger generation,” Elder Feng said, in much the same way a judge might lead up to pronouncing death by four horses.

“What a pity you can’t offer a shred, the tiniest shred, of that thoughtfulness to your Elder. Someone who has, for most of a year now, been wracking her brain trying to keep her Sect alive, keep the Alliance she worked very hard to make intact, and keep five deeply wounded children from killing themselves and each other. Which, with the way some of you looked at knives when you thought no one was watching, was damned hard! Do you know what a suicide watch is? Can you even imagine spending a year doing it for five people and managing the sect’s diplomacy at the same time?!”

Tian cupped his hands and bowed. He didn’t really consider the Elders reliable, but there was no question that, like Elder Rui, Elder Feng had done her best for him. For all of them.

Elder Feng exhaled hard and recovered some of her composure.

“In fairness to you, most of the time I was trying to guess which day moral disgust would see you walking off into the jungle without a backward glance. Others had me a bit more on edge.”

She rapped the table, failing to notice her knuckles were leaving dents in the ancient wood.

“Let us quickly review. You arrived at the Courtyard and picked a fight at the welcome banquet. All good stuff, you really slapped their faces to a rosy pink. Cheered me up no end, and you worked splendidly with your Sister Hong to humiliate both juniors and elders. Your Brother Wang really walloped them too. The array? Adequate. Loved how you finally clicked with the crane, and even picked up on the lesson about leadership I was hoping you would learn. Ditto the waterfall. Junior Wang was the real hero there, loved the chair idea for oppression, but your man-bird dominance pose was memorable. I think it was the combination of repeated dominance displays, followed by the surreal image of a literal crane displaying dominance over them. The tinge of unreality, making them doubt their own lives. That really ground in a feeling of humiliated inferiority in dozens of promising juniors.”

She slammed back a small cup. Tian could smell floral wine.

“Publicly naming the scions of two of the Courtyard’s leading lineages the Fried Dough Daoists and making it stick was delightfully petty. So much so that I ‘accidentally’ addressed my counterpart as ‘Elder Oily,’ and had the pleasure of watching the other Heaven Watching Scholars hide their snickers.”

She poured herself a fresh cup from the slim porcelain carafe on her desk. “Jungle? Fine. Battle? Fine. Luring in more horrors? Excellent. Multiple possible right answers, but meeting elaborate schemes with simplicity and minimal action gave both juniors and seniors alike fits. The elders sure got the message, and I can tell you, they didn’t enjoy receiving it from a Junior. At high speed. Open palmed. To their face. In public. Cranes can fight, but will fly away if there is no hope of winning. Can array masters?”

Her smile was downright infernal. “You now have a reputation for unspeakable ruthlessness at the very highest echelons of the Five Elements Courtyard. And you are going to have a considerably more benevolent reputation when word gets back to the sect about how you healed Junior Lin’s dao heart. Not that she isn’t going to be a screaming migraine for those old bastards she calls her family.”

That got a savage smile from her, even as she downed the cup.

“And you were right- there was a big set-up around the temple. Huge temple defending array. The clay soldiers come to life and you have to form yet more arrays to suppress them if you want to study them. Defeating them, at the Earthly Realm, is quite impossible. Kind of taunting- ‘Oh, you like your fighty, stabby stuff don’t you? There is a huge opportunity here, but none for you! We don’t even want it, we are just practicing our arrays, lah dee dah.’ Regrettably, Daoist Mei wasn’t given the activation talisman for the temple protecting formation. Not being considered reliable, due to her not being part of a Manor. And her well known loose morals.”

Tian grinned, then suppressed his smile. Not the time.

“Which leads me to why I’m drinking this three hundred year old Sweet Wind Valley wine by myself at four in the afternoon in my office.” She waved the cup menacingly. “You already met or exceeded my hopes for the trip. And nobody really cared about Mei and Wang. One was playing the other, and if both were sincere, then there would be two broken hearts at the end of it all. I might care about Wang, but they didn’t care about Mei. So no problems.”

“Ah.”

“Oh we are well past ‘Ah.’ You are usually very careful. So why, Junior Tian, DID YOU THINK THAT YOUR LITTLE TEA PARTY WASN’T WATCHED BY THE ELDERS?!”

“You… never seemed to mind if other people knew about my tea, so…”

“OTHER PEOPLE Junior, aren’t a sect called The Five Elements Courtyard! Other People don’t break through to the Heavenly Person realm after a pleasant tea session. No tribulation lighting, ancestors be praised, but you know what? For most people, breaking through to the Heavenly Realm is the pinnacle of their ambition. Having a revelation about the dao in the process isn’t even something they can dream about. Yet you serve it up with a smile and disgraceful rice crackers. Sounds like Mei had a real revelation too- she’s bound for the ‘Ascending Phoenix Aerie’ with the other young ladies. Their equivalent of Core Disciples, with the understanding that many of them will be raised to their Direct Disciple equivalent.”

She exhaled heavily, her eyes flicking back and forth under heavy lids. “Coiling Dragon Pool. Before you ask about male core disciples.” She pinched the brow of her nose. “For Heaven’s sake, do the math, Junior! Your father ascends with a revelation powerful enough to trigger a heavenly tribulation, at the youthful age of two hundred and four. He is now a direct disciple. And not just any disciple. You want to guess who accepted his first disciple in six hundred years?”

“I couldn’t possibly, Elder.”

“I’ll give you a hint- it rhymes with Grand Elder, Daoist Master Starsieve. Which makes Disciple Fu disciple brothers with the current Sect Master!”

“Ahah. Ahaha. Ha. Ha. Go Dad?”

“Oh yes. Go Dad. Indeed. Did you… somehow… fail to connect the whole “Crush their next generation to establish the superiority of our own next generation” strategy to your own father’s elevation? Even if everything was going well, his breakthrough would be legendary. You might, just possibly, maybe, potentially, have noticed that things are not going well. The sect needs a rising legend. Direct Disciple Fu is it.”

She waved an elegant hand as she built momentum.

“So we have your famous father, who has become the new God of every elderly Level Nine and every frustrated reformer in eight kingdoms, then there is you, politically untouchable wildling that you are, who can give insights into the five elements via a cozy, if rustic, tea session. There is the Courtyard’s new direct disciple who is plunging headlong into what sounds like a three way marriage with Juniors Wang and Su. Two juniors who happen to be your close siblings in the sect and between your, and my, patronage, guaranteed high fliers as well.”

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Elder Feng fluttered her dainty fingertips, as though she were wishing her problems would fly away too.

“Mei breaks through right after you thoroughly, comprehensively, crushed the Courtyard’s youngest generation. And slapped their elders so hard, they will carry your hand print for years. Which puts an interesting spin in at least two directions on the whole ‘crushing the younger generation of the Courtyard’ assignment.”

Another small cup filled, and emptied. Then Elder Feng pressed on.

“You promoted someone to their upper echelons who doesn’t come from an established faction. Bad enough, and they all heard what she said too. So their core or direct-disciple tier disciple is a prime candidate to be poached by us. And I will be trying to poach her. I’d be crazy not to! Which means they are going to be very, very prickly about her. A lot of fine young gentlemen, and their enablers, are going to want to take steps about her, and I don’t mean apologize or make amends. But they can’t, because she is the rising hope of a humiliated sect! All going on while I’m trying to get those scheming, slimy, snobby, scumbags to make the regional array that we need. I know you disdain flowery words, so I will simply describe the present political situation as fucked!”

“I think Brother Wang was more hoping for a slow, sweet romance, actually. I don’t think he’s seriously thought about marriage at all.” Tian volunteered, desperately trying to pretend he didn’t hear an Elder repeatedly losing their composure.

“What does that have to do with anything?” Elder Feng snapped. Then softened her voice. “Two people you admire and desire, two people you pursued, hoping to devote themselves to a life with you? Most of us can only pray to be half so lucky. He wasn’t lying to you, he really did try to flirt with Su. He was just so damn arch and playful, she missed it entirely. Meanwhile, the poor girl was trying to flirt by arguing the comparative virtues of compulsory public service while glaring at him like a cat with distemper. This is what they all want, just faster than anyone expected. He’ll adjust.”

“Respectfully, Elder, all the things you mentioned sound like good things for us. If nothing else, threatening to steal away Daoist Mei would encourage them to cough up the goods, wouldn’t it?”

“Funny you should say stealing away. You look like you are about to get packed up.”

Tian forced his mind back on track. “Am I in danger?”

“Oh yes.”