[Young Master Xian]—❈—59:: Conversations in a Cultivation Circle [II]

… Her eyes move to me. “Which brings me to another matter.

“Tell me about this Sun Emperor.”

“He’s a dick,” are my first words.

Mother blinks at me, clearly not expecting that reply.

“Well, to be fair he’s not that much of a dick anymore,” I admit. “Now, he’s mostly just being a tsundere.”

“Tsundere?” Mother asks slowly.

“It means a person who acts like they don’t like you even though they do, simply because they think liking you will make them seem less impressive or cool or whatever,” I explain.

Mother has an expression on her face like she’s wondering if I’m okay.

Deciding to set it aside after a few seconds, she says, “I understand he gave you the idea to stop the Wild Qi.”

I nod. “He said there were two options; one would definitely kill me and the other might.”

“What was the option that would have killed you?” Mother asks.

“I… didn’t ask,” I say. “It didn’t exactly seem relevant.”

Mother nods, accepting that, then she asks, “What caused the corruption of Wild Qi? All the Suppression Division has been able to ascertain is that there’s a hidden realm at the heart of it. The story is that you three went out there looking for some missing mortals, and that’s how you came upon the corruption. This story though is obviously not the whole truth, and The Sunrise Empress wants to know everything that took place within the hidden realm.”

My skin turns cold. “The Empress!?” I ask.

“Qigang, that expulsion of Wild Qi is the worst anyone has seen in recorded history,” my mother says. “If you hadn’t stopped it when you did, it would have crippled the Empire. The Sunrise Empress is meeting you tomorrow to hear your story. That story will determine if you’re rewarded, or if you even get to leave the palace alive.”

Shit! Shit shit shit shit SHIT!!!

I turn to Xiuying and Meng Yi to see the same terror I feel mirrored in their eyes.

“Qigang,” Mother calls, and I turn to find her leaning forward, a deadly serious look in her eyes. “You know me well enough to trust when I say that I do not want you to die. So I am giving you this chance to let me help you. Tell me everything.”

I swallow.

It’s clear what she means by everything. She’s not just talking about the Wild Qi storm, she’s talking about everything.

Turning to Meng Yi reveals an expression I expect: acceptance, resignation.

Telling my mother everything means letting it be known that Meng Yi helped hide what she thought was the murder and body snatching of her sworn master. And if I lie that I somehow fooled her, then it’s worse because then she looks incompetent.

I don’t know what the punishment for either of those are, but I’m pretty sure it’s worse than a small fine.

Deciding to play the only card I have left, I say to my mother, “Fine. I’ll tell you everything, but you have to promise to—”

“I’ll protect your servants,” she cuts me off. “Pan Cai has informed me of your bond with them. Letting harm befall them will make you… difficult.”

“Okay. Good,” I say, then add gratefully: “Thank you.”

Mother nods in acceptance.

I tell her everything. Everything that I can remember, and asking help and confirmation from Meng Yi and Xiuying about the things that I don’t.

The only thing that we all tacitly agree to not tell her about is the reward power.

When I’m done, Mother sits and thinks for a long time, leaving the three of us to fret silently as we await her decision.

To be honest, I’m not too worried.

Everything I’ve seen of my mother in the short time I’ve been here has only confirmed my suspicions and my knowledge of her from my scant memories: this woman is a cultivator through and through.

Sure I’m a piece of her dead son’s soul merged with the remnants of several others from alternate realities, sure I’m technically a creature formed of Wild Qi, and sure if these facts are ever found out they would definitely be used as ammunition against us politically and probably worse.

But you know what else I am? Powerful. Unique. Useful. And more importantly, by telling Mother all this, I’m basically putting my life and autonomy in her hands.

Until such a time as I’m strong enough to fight the whole world (which we can safely say is less than likely to ever happen), I have to stay under Mother’s umbrella of protection. Because if I become too headstrong, too willful, if I refuse to help her attain her goals, then she doesn’t need me anymore, and she can ensure that no one will touch me with anything but a five-foot pole with a pointy metal end.

So, when after a minute of silent deliberation, she says, “This is what we’ll do,” and begins to lay out a new story that’s mostly true but alters key elements to leave me as innocent of any wrongdoing as possible, and all without even the slightest bit of sadness or grief at the death of her actual son, I’m largely unsurprised.

Deeply disturbed, but not surprised.

The first, and most stressed, part of Mother’s plan is this; under no circumstances, even upon the threat of death, am I to ever let it be known to anyone outside this room that the Celestial Plum I found is divine rank.

Sure, it’s obvious as sunlight that it is, but under no circumstances am I to agree, confirm, or in any way, even suggest that it is.

The highest rank Celestial Plum anyone is known to have eaten is sage rank, and the man who ate that became the founder and first emperor of our Sunrise Empire, the undisputed most powerful nation on The Continent.

See, Celestial Plums are incredibly sensitive things. So sensitive that, simply sensing the gaze of a creature capable of cultivation is sufficient to permanently halt their growth.

Ergo, they cannot be grown on a farm, and finding one in the wild means that it will no longer age and grow in power, since Celestial Plums are elder plants, meaning that they grow in rank as they age, as opposed to static plants that do not.

For the first hundred years of an elder plant’s life, it is beast rank, and for the next hundred and fifty, it is peasant.

Simply put, an elder plant needs two hundred and fifty years of growing just to get to sage, and another two-fifty on top of that to get to noble.

To be divine, it must be at least a thousand years old.

Obviously, the odds that anything will grow in a Qi rich environment for a century plus, without getting found by something that can eat it is highly unlikely. This is why almost every Celestial Plum that’s been found, was found in a hidden realm.

The natural rarity of the plant, paired with the unfarmable nature of it, means that even The Sunrise Empress, with all her wealth and all her status, has only been able to get her hands on a peasant rank Plum so far.

My mother herself has never even laid eyes on one.

As it stands, there are already several very powerful people more than a little ticked off that it was a useless idiot like Qigang who lucked onto the highest rank Plum ever recorded. Telling them, especially The Empress, that it was in fact a divine rank Plum, which by all rights I should have submitted to Her Divine Majesty immediately... well, let’s just say telling The Empress that I peed in her morning tea might actually go over smoother.

When she’s done running me through what our new story will be, Mother says, “If everything goes well, then we can use this greatly to our advantage.” She looks thoughtful. “Perhaps we might even be able to leverage this one act to get you permission to cultivate a divine meth—”

My qi surges violently, entirely without my volition.

Mother quirks her head at me, and I place a hand on my chest, feeling my qi simmer softly as the sudden flare dies down.

“I don’t think The Sun Emperor likes that idea too much,” I say, surprised and confused at the rather clear intent coming from my soul.

Mother’s eyes narrow at my chest like she can see Sunny sitting on his throne through it.

“I think it’s time I meet this Sun Emperor,” she says.

“You can do that?” I ask.

“I can,” Mother says. “Go to him. I’ll follow.”

“Just like that? We don’t need like a special ritual or something?”

Mother looks at me for a long moment. “We are going to need to improve your knowledge of cultivation fundamentals,” she says.

“What’s fundamental about taking a trip into someone’s soul?” I ask, very reasonably.

Mother doesn’t answer, instead she says, “Go to The Sun Emperor. I’ll follow.”

Alright then.

Focusing in that way that is becoming familiar, I open my eyes to find myself in Sunny’s throne room, the man himself seated on his ostentatious throne like an untouchable God.

“Hey, Sunny,” I say. “So uh… you probably know already, but my mother is coming over to talk to you.”

And doesn’t that just sound ridiculous.

I am a grown ass man, for Heaven’s sake, and here I am feeling like my Mom is coming to school to talk to the principal.

Sunny says nothing. And I’m just about to ask if he heard me when I feel Mother’s presence behind me.

I turn to find her staring at herself. From her hands to her body, and then the floor, like none of it makes sense.

“Is everything okay?” I ask.

Mother looks at me, then to Sunny as he leaves his throne and approaches us.

Before us now, he bows, deep enough to show great respect, but not enough to denote servitude.

“Xian Qi, Thunder Dragon Goddess, you honour an emperor with your presence,” he says.

Mother bows back, accepting his respect. “The true honour is to stand within your halls, Sun Emperor,” she says.

My brain short-circuits.

“Sunny… what the fuck?” I ask calmly.

The Sun Emperor and my mother look at me.

“Several times I’ve been here, and every time you’ve treated me like an annoying fly buzzing in your ear, meanwhile my mother shows up one time and you freaking bow!? Seriously!?”

“He is rather loud, isn’t he?” Mother asks Sunny, and he looks at her like he can’t believe he’s finally found someone who understands.

“This is what I have to deal with,” he says. “Every time.”

Mother dips her head. “I apologise for my son’s lacking manners.”

Sunny waves it away. “I’m sure you did your best,” he says. “Some children are simply too headstrong.”

Somebody hold me back, because I’m to start a fight.

“How can his soul take the weight of mine?” Mother asks, and the question distracts me from my annoyance at their asshole-ness towards me.

Is that why she looked confused when she first showed up?

“Wild Qi and a divine Plum make for a potent combination, it turns out,” Sunny says. “With every day that passes, I find new applications for it, and new limits for both the soul and body.”

“But for his soul to balance against the weight of mine, there must be something adding weight to it,” Mother says.

“There is,” Sunny agrees.

Mother watches him for a moment. “You will not tell me,” she says, not at all a question.

“I will not,” Sunny agrees.

“Wait, there’s something else in my soul?” I ask. This is news to me.

What could it—oh.

What is something in my soul that is great and impossible and utterly mysterious?

Here’s a hint, it rolls from 1 to 1,000.

With my terrible (read: non-existent) poker face, it takes Mother no time at all to read me.

“You know what it is,” she says, then watches me for a moment. “But you will not tell me either.”

I shake my head needlessly.

Mother looks, for a moment, like she wants to press the issue, but then she relents.

“Is it a boon?” she asks instead.

“Yeah. Yeah, it is,” I say.

She turns to Sunny.

“Will it harm him?” she asks.

“No, it will not,” he says.

Mother nods in acceptance, then she moves on. “You dislike the idea of a divine method. Why?”

“Due to the nature of his soul, I was irrevocably intertwined with it upon his advancement to Sprouting,” Sunny says. “And after his recent—” he side-eye’s me “—excursion into a Wild Qi storm, I was warped and corrupted, and when I healed, even further melded with his soul. Any attempt to deconstruct his cultivation will result in his gruesome death as the best-case scenario.”

“What is the worst possibility?” Mother asks.

“It will warp him into a creature of Wild Qi corruption so powerful, not even you may survive an encounter with him if it were to happen at his current level of cultivation.”

My eyes grow wide.

“Why didn’t you tell me this?” I ask.

“What would it change if I had?” he asks back.

“It doesn’t matter if it will change anything, it’s my body, I have a right to know.”

“Well, now you know,” he says.

I want to say more, probably call him a few names too while I’m at it, but after a few breaths, I decide to let it go.

Sunny can be obstinate to the point of ridiculousness sometimes, getting into an argument with him over something that (as he said) doesn’t truly matter is rather silly.

“Sun Emperor, I thank you for your time,” Mother says, bowing.

“No need, it was freely given,” Sunny says, bowing too.

“I’m thankful. But regardless, I should take no more of it.”

“So long, Xian Qi, Thunder Dragon Goddess,” Sunny says. “Do not hesitate to return.”

They bow to each other once again, then Mother disappears from my soulscape.

Alone together now, I look at him. “What?” I ask. “No goodbye for me?”

He looks at me like something scraped off the bottom of a shoe, before he walks away.

I flip him off to his back then eject myself from his realm.

—❈——❈——❈—

—❈——❈——❈—

So, story time.

I edited and submitted book one to Amazon for publishing like I said I would, and guess what? They rejected it.

'Why?' you ask? Good question.

Quoting verbatim from their rejection email, they said "Based on our review, we won't be accepting your submission for publication because the book(s) might result in a disappointing customer experience."

I shit you not. Verbatim.

Now, what the fuck a 'disappointing customer experience' is, no one explained. So here I am, I guess.

The only thing that really pisses me off about the whole thing, is that I've gone and taken down book one from the different platforms. They should be back up in a day or so though.

PS: Since the story still needs to be published, I've gone ahead and submitted it to MoonQuill. Unfortunately, it will take at least one month for them to get back to me.

I'm sorry this whole thing turned out to be a big nothingburger. Lesson learned for sure.