(Day 215 Continued)

The evaluation in the Medicine Hall had been excruciating.  Chen Lei prodded the boy’s cracked ribs, then invited each of his students to do the same.  The process repeated with the broken wrist.  Bruises and contusions were palpated.  One lucky disciple got the honor of stitching up Pengfei’s brow.  He did so with a steady hand and a dull needle.

There wasn’t much more to do in terms of treatment.  A little ointment, a splint for the forearm.  But time was the thing that healed all wounds. 

“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 weeks.”  Chen Lei pronounced.   “It should go without saying, but you’re not to do anything physically strenuous until then.  No training.  Certainly no sparring or horseback riding.”  

Pengfei nodded silently, looking off to the side.  He did not want to meet anyone’s gaze, particularly an elder, after his humiliation at the hands of Jin Neng.  The doctor did not force a response.  Instead, he took a small bag from a nearby table and extracted a pill.  

“Take this, it will help you sleep.” The doctor held out the little orb.  “Pain is always worst at night, and the first day is the hardest.  You can go back to your dormitory tomorrow.”   

Pengfei examined the medicine he had been given.  It looked like one of the grain balls that had fed him during his period of confinement in the cliffs.  Lumpy, unappetizing.  He put it in his mouth, chewed with a grimace, then quickly drank from a water skin left behind by one of the medical disciples.  

The Medicine Hall was as busy as Pengfei had ever seen it.  Chen Lei did not wait for thanks from the disciple, just moved on to the next patient.  The infirmary was nowhere near full capacity, but the beds hosted enough of the Jin generation to fill the long room with noise.  More victims of the sect’s tournament with busted lips, black eyes, cuts and scrapes.  

There were some groans and curses but this was not a battlefield tent filled with wounded soldiers.  Many of the injured young men soon forgot their pain and reverted to more jovial attitudes.  They recounted their bouts with each other, inflated the stories to mythic proportions.  

Visitors came and went, bringing more news from the sparring matches.  Nanxi even came by, but Pengfei was not in a mood to receive him.  He thanked his friend for the concern but sent him back to the training ground to watch the continuing fights.

Pengfei laid back and stared at the ceiling, letting the words of others merge into a sea of background noise. When the initial surge of frantic energy washed away, he sank further into melancholy.  The defeat.  The pain, worsening despite the medicine.  A natural waning after all the waxing emotions of the morning.  They all contributed to his blue mood.  But there was a sense of betrayal too.  

He recalled the smile Neng had worn after landing an injurious blow.  

–He wanted to hurt me… enjoyed it.–

Pengfei sighed.  The relaxation of his face brought something unexpected to the surface.  Tears he didn’t know he had been holding back.  He sniffed against them but could tell it would do no good.  He turned to the corner of the room and away from the eyes of the others, even though no one was really looking.

His crying wasn’t particularly loud.  Just a leaking from the eyes and an occasional deep breath.  No dramatic sobs or wails.  But he judged himself even for what little there was.

–So pathetic… been crying way too much lately.  Over the fights I’ve lost, Pema, missing my mom…–

He found that dwelling on one sore point made all the rest spring to mind and feel all the worse.  He caught himself thinking of home, something he had tried to avoid since coming to Kunlun.  It was never a place of particular happiness, but there had been bright spots.  All the comforts afforded to a child of privilege, and a warm and caring mother.  

But for as many real worries as he had, Pengfei found himself deeper in self-pity and reproach.  Sad for feeling sad.  

He was berating himself further when a throat cleared behind him.  Hours had passed and the guests of the Medicine Hall had mostly cleared out, but enough noise remained to mask the approach of Chen Rulan.

Pengfei wiped his eyes surreptitiously and turned to greet his teacher.  Before the boy could even try to sit up, the elder waved him back down to the bed.

“A hard day.”  Rulan observed evenly.  

 “I’m … I’m sorry I disappointed you, master.”  Pengfei lowered his gaze, ashamed, still floundering in his emotional low, the raw feelings held back.

“I’m not your master.”  The words sounded harsh to the disciple’s ears, but the elder softened them with what he said next, placing a hand on a young shoulder.  “And I am not disappointed in you.”

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 the 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, aware even then of his peers.  The embarrassment.  But no one laughed or judged.  The others in the room made a point to look away from the scene.  

“So… silly…” Pengfei eventually said over a sniffle, as he slowly regained his composure, sitting up from his prone position as the elder perched on the empty bed opposite.

“Don’t pay it any mind.” Chen Rulan assured and swept his hand over the room at large.  “Do you know how many of these boys have bawled their eyes out to me, or one of the other elders?  All of them have done it, 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.”

“There’s much I could say.  ‘There are no friends on a battlefield or in a ring.’  ‘The match isn’t over until you step off the platform.’  But the truth is, yes, he went after you hard.”

“Why do you think he did it?”

Chen 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 found unconventional ways to test him.  Motivate him.  Maybe your friend is getting some of that now.”

“That’s…,” Pengfei was about quibble, but stopped short.  The compliments Elder Weidao had paid him in the Scripture Hall, the talk of his advancement.  And the look on Neng’s face afterwards.   

–Was it just a ploy to make Neng jealous?  Get him to rough me up?  Why?  Just to see what his disciple could really do?–

Pengfei seethed at Elder Weidao’s ploy and was even more infuriated with Neng for falling for it.

“That bastard!”  Pengfei hissed, then remembered he was speaking of one elder in front of another.  But Chen Rulan only laughed.

“Haha… I think we can let that one slide, given the circumstances.  But don’t think too harshly of Weidao.  I’m not sure how much of it is intentional.  These things have a way of repeating themselves across the generations.  And don’t be too angry at your friend either.  Insecurity can be very powerful, especially when you’re young.”

Rulan’s words did little to soothe the anger roiling inside Pengfei, but the disciple just nodded, as his teacher continued.

“Besides, the two of them have taught you a valuable lesson.”

“And what is that, elder?”

“The strength of weapons.“  Chen Rulan looked at him seriously now.  “You’ve reached a decent level with the jian, for a child.  Maybe you felt like you were catching up.  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.”

Chen Weidao’s words came to him again.  The implication that he was improving faster than the other disciples.  An utter lie.  

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.” It was a conclusion he had reached hours ago.  As he grappled with his own mortality again, the elder came to his point.

“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.  As much as I may have wished for it to be.  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 enjoyable as well, in its own way.  But Pengfei had not found the same satisfaction with his wooden training sword that he had felt run up his forearm as he landed a powerful blow. 

“Is it really that bad?  Aren’t there people who use their bare hands 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 preference for the bare-handed martial arts 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 might be crazy.  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?”

“I don’t think I have a choice, do I?”

“There are external training methods…waigong.  Body cultivation.  I’ve heard that at the highest levels, a person can become impervious to blades.  And neigong methods that support such training.  But Kunlun doesn’t have this knowledge.”

“Then… I suppose I’ll continue with the jian.  At least during the group practice.  I can spare a few minutes here and there for something besides the empty-hand.”

“Training so little won’t do much good.”  Chen Rulan reiterated the root of Pengfei’s problem.  “But – ”

The elder reached to the empty bed next to Pengfei’s.  A large box sat there, previously unnoticed.  Chen Rulan must have set it there before he announced his presence to the disciple.  

“- perhaps there is another option.  One of the questions I’ve pondered in my life is the overlap between weapons training and bare-handed.  Something like the jian is almost antithetical to the fist, at least in the early stages.  Different stances, different ranges.  So, training something like the ‘Arhat Fist’ does little to prepare you for wielding a sword.  Six hours spent practicing one art is six hours wasted for the other.”

Chen Rulan patted the top of the wooden box.

“But what if there was something more similar to the empty-hand?  Perhaps then, training with the fist would actually benefit the weapon and vice-versa.  You could follow the path you’ve chosen and still stand a chance of surviving when blades are drawn.”

Pengfei looked between the elder and the box on the man’s lap with increasing surprise and excitement. “Sir…is there such a weapon?”

“I’m not sure myself.”  Chen Rulan spoke frankly.  “But these…. Maybe these are worth a try?”

The elder opened the box.  Inside, there were two short swords.  Blades about the length of Pengfei’s forearm, measured from elbow to wrist.  A wide distance from the single edge to the spine.  They might be considered distant cousins to a meat cleaver, but Pengfei instantly found them more elegant than the kitchen tool.  The rounded point of the blades, the curved quillion that guarded the knuckles and then ran up the back of the blade… it all looked very ‘martial’.

“These… these are for me?”  Pengfei asked, reaching his good hand tentatively for one of the hilts.  Chen Rulan did not retract the weapons.  At his nod, the disciple picked a short sword up out of the box to feel the heft of it.  And as he held it, he realized he had seen these weapons before.  In the back of a wagon.  

“You bought these in Hotan, on our first trip there.  That was even before I began to learn the ‘Arhat Fist’… how did you know I would need these?”

“You were already neglecting the jian in favor of the ‘Heaven Shaking Fist.’  I came to a similar crossroads when I was about your age.  I wasn’t sure which direction you’d take… but I had a feeling.” 

Pengfei and the Taoist master both smiled.  Then, the elder gave an awkward cough and took back the weapon, replacing it in the wooden box, and standing.

“Enough of this.  We’ll take a look at these again once you’ve recovered a bit.  Do you need anything before I leave?”

Pengfei almost said no, but felt a sudden twinge in his broken arm.  He pointed to the bag of pills that still sat on the nearby table.  The same medicine that Chen Lei had given him some time ago.   

“Master, can you hand me a couple more of those, please?”

“Stop calling me master.”  Chen Rulan attempted some gruffness, but it was a thinly veiled façade.  He plucked two more of the pills from the bag and handed them to the boy.

Pengfei popped them in his mouth and swallowed them with a draft of water, not wanting to chew and taste them again.  He was setting the water skin back down when he heard the shouts of Chen Lei.

“What are you doing!?”  The physician yelled as he ran across the room to Pengfei and Chen Rulan.

The disciple cowered at the doctor’s sudden ferocity, trying for a reasonable explanation.  “I’m sorry elder, my arm is still hurting.  The first pill didn’t seem to do – “

“You have to let it digest, 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.  “Never dare to touch anything in my clinic again!”

The doctor was already turning 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… should I try and vomit it out?”

Chen Lei restrained the disciple 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.

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Hello loyal reader!

I hope you are enjoying the “Crescent Moon Blade of Kunlun”. I’m still enjoying writing it, and plan to continue for a long time to come. I have a lot of ideas for Pengfei, and even some rough ideas for other stories taking place in the Central Plains and surrounding areas.

I think I’ve developed a lot as a writer. I’ve been going back, editing and revising some of the early chapters and working my way forward again, while trying to post new content as well. I think in the next few weeks, once I have fifty chapters written and edited, I will begin posting to RoyalRoad.

Nothing is changing in my publishing philosophy for now. A lot of people use RoyalRoad to funnel readers to subscription sites like Patreon and generate income. Not ruling that out for the future, but still no desire or plans to do so. Everything stays free! I just want to post somewhere that I can get a bit more exposure and share with other wuxia enthusiasts.

Part of getting seen on RoyalRoad is having cover art. So, I’ve commissioned a couple pieces from some very talented people. It’s still in the works, but you can check out a few preliminary sketches below! We get a peek of Pengfei a little further along his martial arts journey.

I’m thinking that this will be just the first of many more pieces.

Not exactly sure what RoyalRoad’s rules are as far as cross-posting. If possible, I’ll keep all my chapters here, even as I begin posting there. If that’s not kosher, I’ll probably keep this site for the latest chapters, and hopefully a growing portfolio of artwork from lots different artists.