[Young Master Xian]—❈—57:: "I Will Climb"

My home here in the Xian Estate isn’t even half the size of the one back in Silver Springs.

It is the one thing I’ve so far found to be thankful for since my arrival, because my home back in Silver Springs was way too huge.

I think that manor had something like twelve bedrooms, not counting the staff accommodations, which, for a single guy who wasn’t even in the habit of hosting visiting family or friends, was beyond excessive.

The house here only has four bedrooms, meaning that between Meng Yi, Xiuying, and myself, it will be almost full.

Thank Heaven. There was always something about living in a house with so many empty bedrooms that itched at me.

Outside the house, the staff are all lined up, ready to greet their Young Master on his ‘triumphant return’ from what was essentially exile.

They are all cultivators, the weakest still only in the third layer of Ignition phase, while the strongest is a beast rank in the fifth layer of Sprouting; an older woman, with a lined face and intelligent eyes, standing in front of the assembled employees with the air of the one in charge.

I don’t recognize her. In fact, I don’t recognize any of them. But that could easily mean that they’re all new (to me anyway), as it could that I’ve simply forgotten them like I have so many other things.

I hope it’s the former. My life will be easier if I’m starting fresh with these people.

The assembled staff bow to me as one.

“We welcome our Young Master,” they proclaim.

The older woman who seems to be in charge, speaks up after. “This one is Wu Yazhu, Young Master Xian,” she says. “I have been assigned as manager of your affairs.”

“Ah. Well, nice to meet you, Wu Yazhu,” I say. “These are Meng Yi and Xiuying.” I point at each woman accordingly. “Meng Yi here already has the position of manager for me, so perhaps you can assist her instead, so she can better perform her duties.”

Wu Yazhu doesn’t even hesitate. “As you command, Young Master Xian,” she says.

Okay, glad we’re on the same page there.

Next step, introductions.

Back in Silver Springs, I’d largely avoided my staff. Many of them were obviously uncomfortable in my presence, so I’d stayed out of their way as a result.

I don’t want to do that here.

“Your mother, The Matriarch, left a message ahead of your arrival,” Wu Yazhu says then.

I look at her. “What’s the message?” I ask with some trepidation.

“She requests that you join her for dinner tonight,” Wu Yazhu says.

I sigh. I was hoping I wouldn’t have to see her again until tomorrow at the earliest, but I suppose that was a fool’s dream.

“And I’m guessing saying no because I would rather be doing anything else isn’t an option?” I ask the older woman.

She gets an expression on her face like I just suggested blended puppies might make a good smoothie.

“Um, that would be ill-advised, Young Master,” she says.

Yeah, I thought so too.

“How long until dinner?” I ask.

The woman looks thankful for the question. “About four hours, Young Master.”

So, let’s just say I need to leave in three hours then.

Still enough time for introductions.

Wu Yazhu asks if I’ll like to change the décor of the house. Repaint, change the furniture, things like that.

According to her, whatever decisions I make can be implemented as soon as evening tomorrow.

I say no. The house looks fine, and I don’t really want to make any changes that will make it begin to feel like home. Like it’s mine.

I don’t think I’ll be here long enough for it to matter anyway.

Even though the dinner is not an official ‘welcome back’ type thing, since I’m pretty sure it would have been mentioned if it was, Meng Yi still makes me dress up for it.

Draped in my fine, guilt-inducingly expensive robes of cream and lavender, I feel decidedly overdressed, up until I reach Mother’s manor to find her and my sisters present and dressed in clothes that literally radiate qi.

I panic for a moment, thinking that it is an official welcome back type of thing, but nope, just a family sitting together for a meal to welcome back their son/sibling.

I guess cultivators just want any excuse to dress up.

The dinner goes exactly as I expected. Neither Weiju, Zexi, nor I have any desire to be here, and none of us bother enough to hide that fact.

Our mother doesn’t try to get us interested either, so we sit in silence, eating expensive, delicious food that radiates peasant rank qi.

As much as I don’t want to be here, the aura of the room upsets me.

“So, Zexi,” I say, “you have a pet eagle, right? Or am I remembering that wrong?”

I have a vague memory of her siccing an eagle-looking bird on me when we were younger.

Zexi gives me a long, steady look, then she looks away and returns to eating.

I wait a few seconds. Still silence.

“The silent treatment?” I ask. “Seriously?”

Isn’t that rather juvenile?

Zexi must be feeling young today, because she elects to continue to ignore me.

Right.

I turn to Weiju.

For a woman who should be well into her sixties by now, if not seventies, she looks astoundingly young. In fact, with her soft, unlined face and bright, youthful eyes, one might think her to be younger than I am on appearance alone.

Said youthful eyes settle on me as I turn to her.

There’s a treat in them, unspoken but louder than a thunderstorm.

‘Talk to me,’ it seems to say. ‘I dare you.’

I turn my sense of self-preservation to off and smile placidly at her.

“So, Big Sis, what’s up with Jian?” I ask. “Why doesn’t he have a qi signature?”

Weiju blinks at me like I’m some strange alien creature that defies reason, then she too returns silently to her meal.

Okay then, third time’s the charm, I guess.

I turn to our mother.

She doesn’t even look at me.

I sigh.

“This family needs therapy,” I mutter.

“What is therapy?” Mother asks, near startling me.

“What?” I ask.

She doesn’t repeat herself.

Right. I guess that’s not a word here.

This world has only two languages, the language of qi, which cultivation manuals are written in, and which, if one masters they can use to communicate with qi beasts, and the language of man, the language which every single human brain in the world is wired in.

It’s rather eerie to think about, honestly, but somehow, no one can come up with a different language.

You can make up new words, but it will always follow the patterns and rules of the language of man.

So, while different places can sometimes have different names for things, we all essentially speak the same language.

Now, you would think that this would foster unprecedented levels of friendly relations between neighbouring nations in this world, but you would be wrong.

Turns out understanding each other doesn’t suddenly take away those fun little things like greed and envy and even xenophobia.

Yay us.

You know, in hindsight, I realize now that I actually use in conversation a lot of words and phrases that probably don’t exist in this world.

It’s just that the ones I usually talk to are Meng Yi and Xiuying, and they seem to have gotten used to hearing and ignoring such strangeness from me.

Mother is still waiting for an answer. My sisters too, though they try not to show it.

“Therapy is... healing,” I say. “For the mind. Or, I guess, more accurately, it’s healing for the heart. Not the physical heart, but...”

I need a better way to explain this.

“Okay, take our family for example,” I say. “We sit together for a meal, but we aren’t actually eating together. We might as well be in separate rooms for all the connecting we do.

“Every action, every interaction, is measured, considered. Our entire lives is essentially a power play.

“Family should be the people you turn to, they should be the people you rely on, but most of us here I’m sure would rather die than turn to the others for help.”

Zexi scoffs. “Only pathetic people need help,” she says bitterly. “Besides, why would anyone help you when your failure is a boon for them?”

“Our mother is possibly the most powerful person you know personally,” I say, “and yet she spends her days obsessing over how best to find the help she needs to attain the goals she’s set for herself.”

Zexi laughs. It is not a sound that implies any pleasurable feelings.

“You really don’t understand anything, do you?” she says. “You think our siblings put in all this work to help her? They do it for themselves. Our family is one of the Fifty Great Clans. Do you understand how many opportunities and benefits that affords us?”

Something broken and hateful shimmers in her eyes.

“No one cares about anyone else, Qigang. If people help each other it’s because they’re using each other to get what they both want. And all everyone wants is power.”

She rises.

“Mother, I’ve had my fill. May I be excused?”

Our mother nods and Zexi leaves without another word.

Weiju rises. “What she said,” she says before turning to walk out herself, noticeably not waiting for permission first.

In Zexi’s mind, she probably just slapped me and my sanctimonious proselytizing in the face with a cold, hard dose of realism. But the simple truth is I never disagreed with her.

Our family dynamics is, to put it delicately, shit. And society does run in ways that are pretty fucked up.

I said this myself. I just also said that we can and should do better.

This is what had set her off.

I get it though. You can’t speak against everything a person is, everything that they know and understand, and expect them to not push back.

You can’t fix a broken world with a conversation.

I wish with every fibre of my being that it worked that way, but it doesn’t.

Alone together now, Mother stares at me. I stare back.

“You did this to her,” I say. “With your hypercritical, conditional approval. Being better than me is the one thing she’s had her whole life, because of you. Because you raised her to judge her worth by how many siblings she’s superior to.”

“It is not my fault that she’s turned out to be inferior,” she says, entirely unfazed by how messed up those words are.

I stare at the woman in emotions too complex to parse apart. “Is that really how you see us?” I ask. “In levels of usefulness to you.”

“I put roofs over your heads, food in your bellies, and all the cultivation resources you need, that is more than—”

“And what about love, Mother?” I ask, volume rising.

She actually laughs, like the question is beyond silly.

“Love is for children,” she says.

I gape, wondering how a person becomes this.

“When is the last time you were hugged?” I ask. “When’s the last time you smiled simply because the world felt beautiful? What is the point of all this power, if you can’t even afford something as simple as love?”

She doesn’t look like she finds my words silly anymore. Now, she looks angry.

Good.

“If you follow this path, Mother, you’ll wake up on your deathbed one day, and around you there will be people who bear your name, but in their eyes you will find neither love nor grief.

“All you will see is greed, as they wait for your final breath so they can pick clean everything you’ve built.”

And now she laughs. A short, simple thing that shows genuine amusement.

She stares at me, an unsettling confidence burning in her eyes.

“I’ll never die, Qigang. I will ascend.”

I blink at the proclamation. Then I scowl.

“And what awaits you in this higher plane you intend to ascend to?” I ask, knowing she doesn’t know.

Not even I know, and I’m definitely the one with the most experience in transdimensional matters present.

“Whatever it is, I will overcome it,” she says, still with that same infuriating confidence.

“And if it is more of this?” I ask, gesturing at the world around us. “If this higher plane is more of the same, only now you stand at the bottom of the ladder. What then?”

“Then I will climb,” The Thunder Dragon Goddess declares, and the world shakes with her declaration.

My heart pounds in my chest, my forehead dots with cold sweat, my cultivation shudders from being so close to a stirring dragon.

I look in Xian Qi’s eyes, at the complete confidence and will in them.

Even if there are a thousand realms to ascend to, she will climb.

She will walk this path for a thousand thousand years, tearing down anything that dares to stand in her way. And all for what?

Power?

“You’re insane,” I say to the woman who birthed me.

“No, Qigang,” she says, “I am a cultivator.”

—❈——❈——❈—

—❈——❈——❈—

Thanks for reading.

This chapter was supposed to go rather differently than it did, and the conversation with Xian Qi was supposed to happen many chapters from now...

Hope you like how it turned out in the end.

Take care.