(Day 140 Continued)

  The trouble didn’t come from the match. It came afterward. Chen Rulan had gingerly helped Pengfei stand as the boy cradled his injured arm, nearly blind with pain.

  But not blind enough to miss the interaction between Chen Weidao and his disciple. Neng was looking horrified, seemed suddenly guilty about the wounds he had inflicted. But his master was congratulating him, patting his shoulder in a fatherly manner.

  “Excellent work. You did well not to forget your technique, even when faced with such brutish tactics.”

  Neng gulped down the emotions on his face, nodding along, and Pengfei saw the boy trying hard to believe the words. Beginning to smile.

  --That bastard!-- Pengfei thought as he was shepherded past the pair, looking up at Elder Weidao. --It’s all his fault Neng is acting like this!--

  There was saliva filling Pengfei’s mouth. He forgot that Chen Weidao had saved his life on the day he arrived at Kunlun. He forgot the respect that was due to an elder of the sect. He forgot the Confucian principles that had shaped his education. And in a delirious lapse of judgement, Pengfei spit onto Chen Weidao’s foot.

  Everyone saw it. Elder Weidao looked down, Chen Rulan stopped in his tracks, and since Pengfei leaned against the man for support, he had to stop as well. Neng looked between his master’s foot and reddening face.

  Then, Neng was swinging his training sword down at Pengfei’s head. Chen Rulan caught the weapon in his bare hand, dropped Pengfei, and all hell broke loose.

  ******************************************************************************

  (Day 141)

  Pengfei laid on the bed in the main room of the Medicine Hall, one dim lamp still burning in the late night. The very early hours of the morning. Each breath was painful. His arm swelled in a dull ache now. Nothing compared to the sharp crack of the initial injury, or the snap that had set the bone back in place. But this throbbing was ever-present, keeping sleep at bay.

  Not that sleep was a real possibility. The shouts and anger that had followed him to the sect’s clinic had disappeared for a while. Chen Lei had taken in the patient and banished the other elders. Chen Rulan’s argument with Weidao had lingered outside long enough for Pengfei to hear words like ‘blatant disrespect’, ‘grave offense’, ‘punishment’ and ‘excommunication’.

  Enough to put him in a panic all through his treatment and the hours since.

  Voices returned now. Chen Lei had disappeared earlier in the evening but now the doctor came striding through the clinic to find the source of the noise. A door opened and closed, momentarily revealing Elders Chen Weidao, Chen Rulan and Chen Ji, as well as Patriarch Hongzhang. The doctor joined them and dispensed with their attempts at discretion.

  “Another one! This is getting out of hand, Weidao.”

  “We’re not here to discuss that. This is – “

  “I don’t care what you’re here for! I’m not going to stand by while your – “

  “Enough.” Chen Hongzhang’s voice silenced the squabbling. “There is something we need to clarify.”

  The door opened and the patriarch led everyone inside.

  --Shit, here they come.--

  “Good, you’re awake.” The Sect Head said.

  Pengfei struggled to sit upright, tried to stand, but Chen Lei pushed past the others and kept the disciple on the bed. Deprived of that, the boy made a weak attempt at a martial salute. It was pathetic to behold with a splinted wrist.

  The elders surrounded his bedside. They eyed him and each other.

  --Did... did Neng tell them that …--

  “Pengfei, did you intentionally spit on Elder Weidao?”

  --Thank the fucking heavens.--

  But the men standing around his bedside still seemed as if they were judging a capital crime. Pengfei gulped and cast his eyes to the floor.

  “Yes, Sect Leader. Elder Weidao, please forgive me.”

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  Chen Rulan shook his head, the patriarch sighed.

  “You ungrateful little dog.” Chen Weidao spat. “I want him excommunicated!”

  “Elders, please, I’m sorry I –“

  Hongzhang immediately waved away Pengfei’s pleas and simultaneously dismissed the angry elder’s demands. “No one is getting excommunicated.”

  “Some time in the cliffs will set him straight.”

  “That’s your answer for everything, you old fool.” Weidao barked at the head of the Discipline Hall.

  “Half a year?” Chen Ji asked the patriarch.

  “We need him for the horses. At least every other month.”

  “So, he alternates. One month in the caves, one month in the valley. For a full year.”

  Chen Weidao snorted at the head of the Discipline Hall. “Puh! Only a mind as broken as yours could propose something so asinine.”

  “I think it sounds perfectly reasonable.” Chen Hongzhang contradicted.

  --A year!? No, no, no that’s… I can’t do that!--

  Elder Weidao seemed equally unpleased, though it was perhaps for different reasons.

  “Bah!” the man said and stormed out of the clinic.

  “That’s enough for the night.” The Sect Head said tiredly. Chen Ji nodded and both men departed together.

  “You too. He needs sleep.” Chen Lei ordered. But Chen Rulan shook his head.

  “Just a few minutes.”

  The doctor sighed. He extracted small bag from one of his sleeves, took a pill from it, and gave it to his patient.

  “Take this, it will help you sleep. Pain is always worst at night.”

  Pengfei examined the medicine he had been given. It looked like one of the grain balls that had kept him fed during the period of confinement in the cliffs. A reminder of the punishment he was seeing back to. Lumpy, unappetizing. He put it in his mouth, chewed with a grimace.

  “You have until I get back with the tea.”

  Chen Lei set the little bag of pills down on one of the nearby beds and left the teacher and student to themselves.

  “A hard day.” Rulan observed evenly.

  “I’m … I’m sorry if I embarrassed you, master.” Pengfei lowered his gaze, ashamed, floundering in an emotional low.

  “I’m not your master.” The words sounded harsh to the disciple’s ears, but the elder softened the delivery by placing a hand on the young man’s shoulder.

  That gesture of kindness had a strange effect on Pengfei. The reservoir of his sadness overflowed, the dam burst. Tears flowed freely and he could not help but sob. It was like that little warmth the elder had shown was the permission needed to release everything that had been pent up.

  Chen Rulan didn’t say anything, just left his hand resting on Pengfei’s shoulder. The disciple tried to rein himself in.

  “So… silly…” Pengfei eventually said over a sniffle, as he slowly regained his composure.

  “Don’t pay it any mind.” Chen Rulan assured. “Do you know how many of the boys here have bawled their eyes out to me, or one of the other elders? All of them. Most of them more than once. And emotions run wild after a hard fight. Everyone knows it.”

  Pengfei accepted the consolation, giving a faint smile. They sat for a time in the silence, until the elder spoke again.

  “Are you alright? Besides the obvious injuries.”

  Pengfei hesitated but spoke truthfully. “It’s a lot… I feel weak. And angry maybe? Neng was my friend… he went out of his way to hurt me. Not to mention the others he went after. But… sir, I don’t want to disrespect the elder again but… did Chen Weidao make Neng do those things?”

  Rulan fidgeted with the pommel of the weapon he wore about his waist. The sword-breaker. The iron bar-mace. He flicked a piece of dirt to the side. He sighed, raised his eyebrows. The mannerisms of someone considering a hard truth, remembering an old wound.

  “Chen Weidao went through something similar as your friend. His master had very strong views about how best to prepare the disciples for the real world. Motivate them. Don’t be too angry at Neng. The teacher is always a strong influence on the student… sometimes too strong.”

  Rulan’s words did to reassure Pengfei.

  --The distraught look on his face after the fight, or the smile after his master congratulated him, which one was the real Neng? Maybe I’ll find out when I see him again… in a year.--

  And at that though, Pengfei couldn’t contain himself.

  “Ugh, what the hell have I gotten myself into?”

  He reached out his good hand and retrieved another of the pills that Chen Lei had left, chewed the bitter medicine.

  “It’s not that bad. You’ll see some of your friends every other month. You shouldn’t go completely mad. And you’ll have plenty of time to practice your martial arts. Weidao and his disciple given you a lot to thing about in that area.”

  “Like what, sir?”

  “The strength of weapons.“ Chen Rulan looked at him seriously now. “You’ve catching up with the jian, slowly. But now you’ve seen how much better some of your peers really are. Unless you devote yourself to the sword, that gap is only going to get wider. “ The elder pointed to the bruises on Pengfei’s side and his broken arm. “In the real world, against real steel – “

  “I know. I would have been dead twenty times over. Even when I began to treat his sword like a stick, I was overwhelmed.”

  “Maybe you should consider changing up your training. You’ve been focusing on the fist so much. You could put it aside for a while.”

  The elder’s face was impassive, showing no indication of his true thoughts. His mouth was a thin line behind his black and grey beard. His tone was neutral. “I may be teaching you the empty hand, but it’s not my path. You won’t offend me if you choose to make things easier on yourself.”

  Pengfei sunk low at the suggestion.

  --It’s just not… I don’t want to leave the fist behind.--

  There was something unreasonable in the enjoyment he felt, moving and striking with his body. The contests with his fellow disciples as arms and legs clashed. The jian was fun as well, in its own way. But Pengfei had never found the same satisfaction with his wooden training sword that he felt run up his forearm when he landed a powerful bare-handed blow.

  “Is it really that bad? Aren’t there people who use their fists in the Jianghu?”

  “Some, but it’s not very common. More people die that way than make a name for themselves.”

  There was a long silence as Pengfei considered the words. He could feel his conflicting emotions playing out across his face. His personal preferences at war with the pragmatism of sword and spear.

  Pengfei looked to the elder. “I should train the jian… its’s so fierce. This fight with Neng proved that to me. And if the skill gap between me and the rest of the disciples… the rest of the world…keeps getting wider, things are only going to get worse.” Chen Rulan nodded along as Pengfei spoke. “But I want to continue the fist and see where it takes me.”

  The elder’s head stopped bobbing. A look of surprise turned into a subtle smile. He asked, “You’re prepared to accept that? It could be a short life. Or just mediocre. It’ll be hard to make your way in a world full of weapons. To make a mark.”

  “Yeah. I think I’m fine with that.”

  Chen Rulan sat for a moment, lost in contemplation. Pengfei watched the elder, growing more curious about what the man could be thinking as the seconds slid by. Finally, the Taoist master turned to the disciple with a question.

  “You enjoy the fist, but would you still use a weapon if needed?”

  “Sure. I have no problem using a weapon, just don’t enjoy it as much. I guess I’ll continue with the jian. I’m sure I’ll find a few spare minutes here and there while I’m sitting in my cell.”

  “You won’t have good results splitting your training time between such disparate styles. Maybe if you had started younger. But perhaps I can give you another option.”

  Pengfei perked up, but the elder didn’t explain himself. He stood, indicating the conversation was nearing its end.

  “How’s the arm feel? Can I get you anything?”

  “Thank you for your consideration, sir. If you could hand me another of those pills? My wrist is still throbbing.”

  Rulan gave the boy another of the medicine balls just as Chen Lei came back in the room carrying a tray.

  “Medicinal tea to help strengthen the bones. If you spend a little extra time practicing your neigong every day, you should be back to normal in four or five - Pengfei, what are you eating?”

  The disciple swallowed the last of the pill and hesitantly pointed to the bag still laying open on the nearby bed.

  “How many did you eat?!”

  “Three… I’m sorry, sir, my arm was still hurting. I –“

  “You need to let it digest to feel the effects, you foolish boy! It takes time! And you!” Chen Lei turned to look for his martial brother, but Chen Rulan was already making for the exit, scurrying away from the angry physician. “Never dare to touch anything in my clinic again!”

  Chen Lei turned his attention back to Pengfei “Do you have any idea how much opium you just took!?”

  “Opium!?” Pengfei blanched. He’d heard the name before. A drug from the west. Powerful. Dangerous. “Should I try to vomit it out?”

  The doctor restrained the boy as he attempted to rise, then took a slightly less alarmist tone. “No. In fact, you should try everything in your power NOT to vomit. No sense in letting three pills go to waste.”

  “But what’s going to… happen… to me?”

  His words trailed off as a strange sensation overtook him. A warm tingle ran up his spine. A sense of euphoria filled him. A pleasant tickle just under the skin. He was teetering where he sat. In what would be the last sober thought of the next day-and-a-half, he laid back before he could fall to the floor. The room spun as the first of the three pills began to take effect.