Chapter Text
—
Dear diary,
I got into Zhongnan Summit Sect Academy! I found this bunch of paper lying in the classroom today, so now I’m writing down my feelings about my first day so that I remember my happiness forever. Some books I’ve read before call it a ‘diary’, so that’s what this is gonna be called from now on!
—
Zhongli Quan is seven years’ old when he enters Zhongnan Summit Sect Academy.
He’d been the only new student that day going through those imposing, impossibly towering stone gates with nobody to send him off. All around him had been a cacophony of voices, young and old and male and female shouting choruses of enthusiastic farewells, good luck’s! and see you soon’s! He’d watched from the corners of his eyes as fathers and mothers hugged their children goodbye and told them to pay attention in their classes, as grandparents cheerfully pushed good luck charms into their grandchildren’s hands, as aunts and uncles wished their nephews and nieces all the best, all the while as he weaved through them, unnoticed and unremarkable to all.
If the world around him that day had been an ocean whose waves interlock and overlap with one another, then he’d been the lone boat that had drifted through it all, heading straight towards the ceremonial hall to meet his new shifu instead of lingering at the entrance and exchanging last-minute goodbyes with parents that he did not have.
Truthfully speaking, he’s never quite remembered how his parents looked. When he had been even younger, he hadn’t even thought that he had parents, because all he recalls of the earliest years of his life is a lone caretaker, of whom he doesn’t even remember the face of. What he does vaguely remember is asking her questions — have you ever met my parents? Where did they go? Why did they leave me alone? And to those questions, the only reply he’d ever get is an indecipherable look from her that he will come to recognise as pity, and a single, clipped reply, “how is your revision going? You know that the Sect selection exams are coming up, right?”
The caretaker had not come to send him off on that day, either. Zhongli Quan had woken up the morning he’s to set off for the Academy to a single, packed bag and a note that wished him all the best in life. Later on in life, when Zhongli Quan thinks back to this moment, he will find himself wondering if it’d been her intention all along — to get him to study hard so that they can both eventually be rid of each other.
At present, however, he had been fine with it. Seven year old Zhongli Quan had long since come to terms with the fact that he doesn’t have parents, and that’s okay. It’s no big deal, because he’s always had his books and his intellect for company, anyway, and had been the top scorer in the Zhongnan Summit Sect Examinations. It had been enough for him, because who needs all that when he now, finally, has the security of warm clothes, a warm room, and a really cool shifu who will guide him and a potential path to becoming an Immortal?
Seven year old Zhongli Quan had found the idea of becoming an Immortal a very exciting one. Seven year old Zhongli Quan had kept a list of things that he’d wanted to do when he eventually became one — because obviously, he would! — and he’d written them down meticulously, line by line, on the bundle of scratchy, calligraphy paper that he’d found discarded on the classroom floor. The bundle of paper is his self-proclaimed journal, and he writes in it twice a day, once after he wakes up and once before he sleeps. He’s decided then that he will use it forever, and that it will be his number one journal for the rest of his life.
Zhongli Quan is seven years’ old when he writes that he wants to save the world. He’d tucked the bundle of papers into his uniform and told himself to bring it everywhere with him so that he remembers what he’s studying and aiming for. He brings them to class and uses it to tell himself to pay attention. He brings them around for examinations like his own good luck charm. He lays them on the table next to his bed when he sleeps, and tells himself that one day, all his wishes will eventually come true.
—
Dear diary,
Shifu said today that being an Immortal means serving the people. He also told us that in order to work towards becoming a good Immortal, I have to think like one, so I’m now gonna start thinking like an Immortal and write down all my wishes on everything I’m gonna do once I become one!
Number 1 — I will grant all the wishes of the people because that’s what Immortals do with their magic
powers
Number 2 — I want a cool, BIG shiny temple so that the people feel happy and safe
Number 3 — I will catch all the bad guys in the world! And I want a cool, Immortal name
Number 4 — I will save everyone! And then they’ll be happy I saved them and I will be happy for them and
everyone will be happy
Number 5 — I want a dog
Number 6 — I dunno what else to put here but shifu says that six is a lucky number so having a number
six will help me make my wishes come true faster. Maybe I want a cool side-kick
—
Zhongli Quan is ten years’ old when he becomes the top student at Zhongnan Summit Sect Academy. It isn’t difficult, no matter how his peers try to frame the tests as impossible and complicated, because studying’s all a matter of memorising and applying, after all, and he wishes that he can have them see things the way he does so that they can also become top scorers in their own right. The only subject that he somewhat struggles in is sword cultivation which he doesn’t like, but that’s alright because he’ll just practice more and get better eventually.
Unfortunately, his peers don’t seem to see it that way. They just think that he’s exceptionally smart (he’s not) and exceptionally talented (he’s really not), and now everybody wants to be his friend because they think that they can then be exceptionally smart (that’s not how it works) and exceptionally talented (that’s really not how it works). But Zhongli Quan cannot deny that he doesn’t like the sudden, newfound attention, because for the first time in his ten years of life he’s talking to people and people are willingly talking to him and they like him (him!!!), so he doesn’t end up trying too hard to convince them that they won’t see a difference in their grade if they hang out with him.
They start sitting around him during lunch hours, and he regales them tales from the three classics with his own opinions and takes of them. Sometimes, shifu will even join them, and turn the storytelling sessions into impromptu philosophy classes for everyone involved. Zhongli Quan has always liked it when that happens. It’s fun, and for the first time in his life, he feels like he is a part of something. Ten year old Zhongli Quan becomes known as ‘that one who tells really cool stories’, a reputation that will cement him as a sect favourite for a long time to come.
Zhongli Quan is ten years’ old when he makes his first, proper friend, a boy who follows him around the Sect grounds like a lost duckling whose name is Liang Ji, and he is tiny despite the fact that they’re both around the same age. Liang Ji is different from the other disciples who vie for his friendship, because their friendship is built on their mutual dislike for sword cultivation, which is extremely important because it’s so hard to find someone who agrees with him. The ways of the mind are far superior to the ways of the sword, after all, in Zhongli Quan’s opinion, and…while Liang Ji doesn’t quite seem to agree with the overall sentiment, they can at least agree that sword cultivation is boring, and that is enough for the basis of a genuine friendship.
Liang Ji starts sitting next to him in class and Zhongli Quan finds out that he struggles exceptionally much with his work, but especially in literature and philosophical studies. He cries a lot because of how much he struggles, and tells him how much he wishes he can just get better because he wants to become an Immortal so, so bad too. Ten year old Zhongli Quan can relate to such a strong yearning — who doesn’t want to save the world, after all? — and realises that this is his first opportunity to truly embody the spirit of an Immortal — he can help his friend get better at his studies.
He starts tutoring Liang Ji in the hopes that his friend will eventually grasp the concept behind effective studying, giving him extra classes outside of Master Donghua’s official lessons. He runs Liang Ji through the six main schools of philosophical thought at night and asks him to recite the ways of Daoism and the ways of their sect. He coaches his friend through Libai and Dufu’s most famous poems, and shows him all the ways to compose his own. These classes help not only his friend but also Zhongli Quan himself, for he gets to revisit the concepts that shifu had talked about during class and then try to explain it in ways that Liang Ji will be able to understand. The additional classes are taxing and, during the periods before exam season, run late into chou shi sometimes, but their hard work does pay off when one day, months after Zhongli Quan begins these extracurricular classes for his friend, shifu announces with no small amount of surprise that Liang Ji’s results have shot up tremendously, coming up just behind Zhongli Quan’s top score. His friend had actually managed to do the impossible — he’d made the jump from being almost third last in class straight to the top three in just months.
Shifu had been thoroughly impressed when he’d found out the reason behind Liang Ji’s improvement, and had told Zhongli Quan that he saw great potential in him. Ten year old Zhongli Quan couldn’t have helped but to bask in the compliment, revelling in the excited, almost-euphoric feeling of being praised for his hard work for what had been the first time in his life. He turns around to congratulate Liang Ji afterwards, and catches sight of a gleam of challenge in his friend’s eyes as they regard him and shifu.
“I’ll beat you next time!” Liang Ji'd said, jokingly, after classes had concluded that day, when they sat down in Zhongli Quan’s room for their nightly tutoring sessions. “Just you wait, Zhongli Quan!”
“I'd like to see you try!” Zhongli Quan had replied with a grin, with all the carefreeness of a ten year old. They’d stuck their tongues out at each other, and that had been the end of that discussion.
Zhongli Quan had been ten years’ old when he fulfilled a wish for the first time. He’s happy that it’d been for a friend, and he’s happy that it’d worked out nicely in the end. His confidence skyrockets at his achievement, and he’s convinced that he’d really found his life’s true calling — to grant the wishes of the people and make everybody’s lives happy, and to embody the spirit of what it means to truly be an Immortal (in the making!).
—
Dear diary,
Liang Ji’s been scoring top three in our classes consistently recently. I think I did a pretty good job after all! We’re probably gonna stop these classes soon because he’s getting better at revising on his own and shifu wants me to use the extra time after class to practice my – ugh – martial arts, but the classes have worked out in the end! I also fulfilled my own wish of helping others too by fulfilling Liang Ji’s one…huh. Is this what shifu means by ‘what goes around comes around?’ Does this mean that if I fulfill seven more wishes, I’d get all my wishes seven times over too? I’d love to have seven dogs and seven sidekicks! Seven temples sound cool, too, but a little much, I think. Maybe two temples, if I’m gonna have seven sidekicks. I don’t want everyone to be too squeezy.
—
Zhongli Quan is eleven years’ old when he questions Zhongnan Summit Sect Academy’s rules for the first time.
Zhongnan Summit Sect Academy has about a thousand school rules that no student ever fully follows, with the sole exception of five rules that cannot ever be broken by any of the disciples who study within its premise. Those five rules have been ingrained into Zhongli Quan’s mind for a whole four years, and he can remember them even in his sleep at this point: thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not lie, thou shalt not kill unless strictly necessary, thou shalt not bring harm to others willingly, and thou shalt always spread goodness into this world.
Zhongli Quan hasn’t questioned it much for the four years that he had studied in Zhongnan Summit Sect Academy. These five rules aren’t hard to follow, after all, and he’s never seen the need to break them before, but one day, while he’s out going through sword forms with his shifu out in the sect ground’s stone garden, he sees a cat. He’s never seen cats in their premise before, for animals don’t usually venture close to the imposing four walls of Zhongnan Summit Sect Academy, but he’s pretty sure that this cat doesn’t quite look quite like how a cat should — they are quite literally skin and bones, and walks with a limp, for one of their paws is cruelly mangled, likely beyond salvation. Zhongli Quan pauses in his forms, and simply stares at the poor little cat for a long, long time. The creature is shivering, for the days are getting colder, and every step that they try to take sends flickers of pain radiating through Zhongli Quan’s own heart as he watches the cat shakily settle down in a corner between two slabs of wall and rest.
“Shifu,” he says then, quietly, “can I do anything to help them?”
Master Donghua casts a look at the fitfully resting cat. Eleven year old Zhongli Quan recognises it as the same look that his caretaker had given to him all those years ago, whenever he had the courage to ask her about his parents.
“No,” his shifu says, after a long time, and he feels something heavy like despair settle frigidly within his lungs at how definitive the word sounds, “it is far beyond the stage of saving, Quan’er. It is kindest to just leave it be now, and for nature to take its course with it.”
But that…cannot be right. That cannot be right, can it? “But, shifu,” Zhongli Quan asks again, urgently, “surely there’s something we can do? Ease their pain? Even a little? Lighten the burden that they’re feeling? We can’t just…stand by and do nothing, can we? That’s not the way of the Dao!”
“The way of the Dao is reserved for people, Quan’er.” Master Donghua says again, this time a few degrees colder than before, and the pain that squeezes Zhongli Quan’s heart twists with a vengeance at his shifu’s uncharacteristic, callous words. “Just leave it be, my disciple. Continue with your forms, your last one had been incorrect.”
Eleven year old Zhongli Quan had not been able to ‘leave it be’. How can he, in good conscience, leave the cat be, when all he sees from the corner of his eyes as he goes through the stupid form is their suffering? How can he, a future Immortal in making, willingly ignore the suffering of something that is alive, something that is currently feeling very real pain?
Zhongli Quan cannot stop thinking about the cat long after his sword cultivation class is over. He cannot stop thinking about them during dinner, for all he is aware of is how he’s safely indoors, enjoying a good meal, while the poor cat lays outside, most likely hungry, injured, and wet and cold, for it has taken to pouring outside sometime during the evening. He cannot stop thinking about it even after dinner, when he and his peers sit for evening meditation, because all he can see whenever he closes his eyes is the cat’s prone, shivering form curled in that corner between two stone slabs as they try to seek out any meagre sense of comfort.
He confides all this to Liang Ji after evening meditation is over, pulling his friend aside to speak his mind to him, hoping for some other input on this matter.
“I mean…if shifu says to leave it be, then you should leave it be.” Liang Ji says, hesitantly, after he’d finished regaling what’d happened that afternoon.
“But they’re clearly hungry!” Zhongli Quan feels pure, unadulterated frustration for the first time in his life at eleven years old. He wants to give in to the petty feeling bubbling within him and stomp the ground petulantly, and only barely manages to reign himself in, because he is eleven now, and he will talk things through maturely. But seriously, why is he the only one who cares whether a cat starves or not? Is the cat not a living being capable of feeling hunger and pain too?
The questions pour into Zhongli Quan’s mind, untamed and unbidden in their intensity that surprises even him. He’s never truly questioned his sect and his shifu and his friend before, after all, and usually, when this happens, Zhongli Quan will be the one who’s aware that he’s not thinking correctly, who’s aware that he’s asking all the wrong questions and needs to be guided back onto the right path by his shifu.
This time, however, that feeling is wholly absent from his chest. For the first time since he’d moved into Zhongnan Summit Sect Academy, he doesn’t think that he’s in the wrong. He doesn’t think he’s in the wrong for thinking different from his shifu, nor does he think that he’s in the wrong for asking so many questions this time.
The realisation of this makes him feel…something, but he doesn’t give himself the luxury to dwell upon it. Instead, Zhongli Quan takes a deep breath to temper the frustration bubbling in his chest, and tries again. “Fine, fine. If you don’t wanna help me help the cat, then I’ll help me help the cat. You just help me brainstorm ideas, or something. Maybe…maybe I can sneak something for them? Leftovers from dinner, maybe?”
“There aren't any leftovers from any of our meals.” Liang Ji points out, rather unhelpfully. “The chef always makes just enough because it’s bad to be wasteful. Remember?”
“Ah…right.” Zhongli Quan frowns. He falls into contemplative silence as he wonders how he should go about handling this situation, before another idea strikes him. “Weeell…what if I brought them a little food from the kitchen? The chef’s no doubt done preparing breakfast by now, so if I take just a little bit for them–”
“Zhongli Quan!” Next to him, Liang Ji cuts him off, and his gasp borders on horrified terror. “You– that’s– do you know what you just proposed?! That’s stealing! That goes against everything that we stand for! It’s wrong!”
Zhongli Quan is eleven years’ old, standing in a darkened hallway with his friend’s scandalised stare boring into him, when he contemplates, genuinely, for the first time, if the rules of Zhongnan Summit Sect Academy may not be wholly right.
The rules are there to uphold the morals and discipline of how an Immortal — or anyone who is dignified and educated — is supposed to act, but…surely every situation is different from the other? Zhongli Quan finds himself wondering, for the first time, how one is supposed to measure the balance between something like right and wrong, because, yes, maybe a wrong act is wrong on its own, but what if…it may just be the correct thing to do when it’s related to the context of a situation? Surely the good that it does will…cancel out the wrong of it? Or something? Like…if Zhongli Quan steals from the kitchen for himself, then that’s probably wrong, but what if he’s stealing from the kitchen for someone else? That means he’s technically helping someone else, right? Which plays into the whole thou shalt always spread goodness into this world, right?
Zhongli Quan had never once entertained thoughts like these for more than a brief moment before in his four years of studying in Zhongnan Summit Sect Academy. The intensity of how…rebellious the thoughts are scare him. He briefly feels a flicker of uncertainty for the almost-forbidden questions churning in his mind, but that flicker snuffs out quickly when he digs deeper into himself and finds that no, he isn’t actually uncertain about his newfound epiphany.
What he thinks he’s uncertain of is consequences, but…consequences and punishments are reserved for evildoers, right? What Zhongli Quan is doing isn’t evil — it’s the opposite of evil, isn’t it? This is him fulfilling his desire to save all those who need to be saved, after all! He’s doing it for a good cause, and if that isn’t thou shalt always spread goodness into the world, then he doesn’t know what else it can be considered, which means that…maybe when this is all over, shifu will definitely understand where he’s coming from, right? When he eventually explains his thinking and his stance to Master Donghua, surely…surely his shifu will get his perspective.
Shifu is a good person, he thinks, somewhat terrified, to himself, on repeat, like a mantra, shifu will understand.
“...Well,” Zhongli Quan decided to summon every ounce of confidence for what he’s about to say next and focuses his attention on making sure that his explanation sounds convincing enough for his friend to get behind his thinking instead of thinking about shifu, “think about it this way. It’s not stealing, per se, I’ll just be giving up half my breakfast portion for them. I mean, that portion’s gonna be mine tomorrow anyway, right? I’ll just be…pre-claiming it tonight and giving the cat half my portion now and reserving the rest for myself tomorrow morning. That’s not really stealing, right?”
Liang Ji gives him yet another horrified look. “And now you’re trying to distort the truth and mix up what’s right from wrong,” his friend whispers faintly, sounding like he’s about to pass out. “Zhongli Quan, that’s…you’ve never…what’re you doing? All this for a cat that’s gonna die?? Are you stupi– no, are you suicidal?! What if shifu finds out???”
“Shifu will understand. Please understand me, too.” Zhongli Quan repeats the words that he desperately hopes will be true. “Every living being deserves kindness,” he tries once more to make his friend understand, “isn’t that what shifu teaches us? Thou shalt always spread goodness into this world? Even the cat. You should’ve seen them, Liang Yi, one of their paws is basically gone. They didn’t do anything to deserve this suffering…and the least I can do is provide them some comfort, even if they are ultimately set for death.”
“You’re going to get into trouble if someone finds out.” Liang Ji stresses. “Why are you doing this?? What do you even stand to gain from this??”
Zhongli Quan feels his heartrate pick up double at Liang Ji’s words, because he realises that, yes, there is a very large, very real chance that he will get into trouble for this. He’d been a top student in Zhongnan Summit Sect Academy for over two years now, after all. He’s someone that his shifu holds in high regard, and he knows this. He knows that Master Donghua is seeking to recommend him for the Immortal Trials that are set to take place in a few years’ time — he’d overheard his shifu talk about this before. Is he really doing this? Staking his future on his beliefs, instead of simply letting it go and complying with what his shifu wishes? Going against a very core rule of Zhongnan Summit Sect Academy? All for a cat that he’d met that afternoon that he cannot stop thinking about?
The papers of his journal — the ones that he’d been carrying on himself since he’d been seven, feel heavy against his chest. They’re a constant weight that Zhongli Quan has gotten used to after years of tucking them into his pockets, and his heart hammers again them right now, fast and slightly-irregular as he contemplates what he’s doing. He thinks back on words that he’d written four years ago, words that are currently, safely bundled up against his chest, carrying the eternalised desire of his younger self — to grant all the wishes of the people because that’s what Immortals do with their powers.
Zhongli Quan thinks about how powerless the cat is. Outside, the rain has stopped, and all he can imagine is how cold they must be. He wonders if they are still in the same corner they’d been in that afternoon, and wonders just how miserable it is to be injured, starving in the open with no clear destination in mind, and no sliver of salvation in sight. He thinks of how miserable it must be to curl in on himself to preserve what little heat there is, and wonders how the cat must be doing that right now. He feels his chest twinge at the thought.
He thinks of how he has every ability to relieve them of their suffering, even for just a little, right now. What is a little rule-breaking when it’s the only price required for saving someone? Will he really play by the rules if the rules prevent him from granting the wishes of others next time, too? Can he live with himself if he does that?
Zhongli Quan may not fully know what he is doing in the moment, but he knows this — the cat may not be able to say it aloud, but he thinks that he knows what they will wish for if they are able to: I wish for anybody to notice my suffering, even if it’s just a little.
“Saving others,” he says levelly, channeling every bit of his determination into his sentence as he shoots Liang Ji what he hopes is a look of steely determination, “will always be worth it. It doesn’t matter if it’s a person, or an animal. If I can help them, then I will help them.”
Despite the sureness of his words, they still waver slightly in spite of his best ability to keep them steady. Under Zhongli Quan’s skin, he feels his throat constrict almost painfully from the adrenaline rush of the choice that he’s making. Blood pounds in his ears. He feels his heart slamming against his throat, his lungs squeezing air into tight, bated breaths.
“Please don’t tell shifu about this.” He implores, and takes Liang Ji’s hands in his own with an urgent squeeze. He feels his friend tense under him from the contact, but he has to get his point across. “You’d not only be helping me. You’d be helping to do good, too. Saving a life? You’ll be part of saving this cat’s life too, and I’m sure they’ll appreciate it. Please, Liang Ji. I’m begging you on this.”
For a long moment, the hallway is silent. Zhongli Quan feels the cacophony in his ears crescendo to impossible volumes, until the silence of the hallway is drowned out by the sound of his own irregular breathing and irregular heartbeats rattling in his chest.
“…Fine.” Liang Ji finally says, after a pause that goes on for just a second too long. “Your secret’s safe with me.”
“Thank you.” Zhongli Quan breathes. The relief that he feels at the concession is palpable, and he does not think too much about much else as he shoots his friend a grateful smile for his willingness to help him before taking off from the darkened hallway.
Zhongli Quan is eleven years’ old when he breaks the sect rules for the first time. He takes in a deep breath that is shakier than he’d expected from the nerves running through his body, and swivels on his feet at the end of the corridor in the direction of the kitchen. He feels Liang Ji’s gaze burn into his back as he marches for the kitchens with a bravado that layers thickly over the wild, tremulous fear that threatens to claw its way out of his throat, fuelled by nothing but wild determination and shaky confidence.
He is eleven years’ old when he steals for the first time in his life. He’s never stolen anything before, so he doesn’t quite know what he’s doing as he clumsily portions out a little of his morning porridge from his bowl in the sect kitchens into a small container with hands shaking from both nerves and inexperience. He then wraps the container haphazardly in a small piece of cloth, before swinging out of the nearest kitchen window as quietly as he’s able to and makes his way through the open sect grounds under the cover of night, sneaking back to the stone garden where he’d first laid eyes on the cat.
The relief that he feels upon seeing that the creature is still there, still curled up in the corner and still trembling fitfully, quells some of his fear when he sees them still curled into the corner. Zhongli Quan cannot quite help the smile that breaks out over his face at the sight and hurries over, unwrapping the small container in his hands along the way so that he can lay the small cloth in his hands over the cat’s prone form such that it somewhat resembles a blanket.
“For the cold,” he offers them, uselessly, because cats cannot speak, “and…erm. Here’s some porridge, too. It’s still warm from the kitchens, so…eat it while it’s hot?”
The cat lifts their head from where it’d been tucked between their paws, and blinks at him with their big, wet eyes that instantly quietens the buzz of anxiety that still surges through his veins. Zhongli Quan finds himself smiling harder at them despite his best efforts, and slowly lifts a hand to pet them behind the ears. He’s pleasantly surprised to find no resistance from them, and lets his tentative strokes become bolder and slightly firmer against their fur.
“I…don’t know how much longer you have, er, Kitty— is it okay if I call you Kitty?”
“Meow.” The cat says, bends their head down, and actually begins lapping at the porridge. Zhongli Quan feels the relief spread, mellowing out the rest of the adrenaline and fear that he feels at the entire situation. He shoves all other thoughts away, and continues to stroke the cat’s head as they eat. From this close to them, he notes that the cat…is actually quite adorable. Their fur is black, and despite how matted it is, it’s still somewhat soft to the touch. Their eyes seem to be a gradient of browns and ambers, and Zhongli Quan finds himself wondering, absently, just how different their life could have been if he — or anyone else who’d cared, really — had, for whatever reason, found them earlier. Would their paw have still been injured this bad if he could’ve, somehow, helped prevent that? Would they still be on the brink of starving to death if they’d met somewhere else, under different situations?
He feels a twist in his heart at the unwarranted thought. He hadn’t been fast enough to save this cat from its fate.
“I don’t know how much longer you have, Kitty,” Zhongli Quan whispers, once again, and tries not to think about the finality of that statement, “but…I hope this is something, at least. I’m sorry I couldn’t do more, you…you don’t deserve this, Kitty.” He blinks, and feels a slight dampness around the corners of his eyes, and feels his lips stretch slightly into a melancholic grin. “Nobody deserves this.”
“Meow.” The cat says again. Thank you, it seems to say, for noticing me.
Zhongli Quan is eleven years’ old when he feels the purring of a cat under his palm for the first time in his life. He is eleven years’ old when he gazes at the trembling little creature, and revels in wonder at the feeling of choosing to do what is right. And as he continues to stroke Kitty’s head, he knows for a fact that he had made the correct decision that night.
—
Dear diary,
Kitty is gone. I…don’t know where they are now, but when I went out to give her food once again last night, they’re… just gone. The blanket I’d gotten them is still there, but Kitty themselves are nowhere to be seen. Shifu says not to think too much about it, but I’m worried for them. Did they actually get better? Had they regained enough strength to carry on? How does a whole cat just vanish? I don’t know, but I suppose that concludes my nightly kitchen escapades. Can’t say I’m super happy about it, but it is tiring, sneaking into the kitchens every day. Oh, and another thing — how did shifu find out about me feeding Kitty, anyway? I could’ve sworn that I was really careful with covering my tracks…maybe being an Immortal really does give one a sixth sense? I guess I’ll find out when I become an Immortal. Though really, I’ll probably need to rewrite the rules a little after I become one so that they become more reasonable. I’m kinda lucky that shifu didn’t say much about the porridge thing.
Liang Ji’s improved so much too at this point. He’s basically the second top scorer in our sect now and we hadn’t needed an extra lesson in months! He’s been slightly less willing to talk to me recently, though, after the whole Kitty thing…I guess he feels conflicted for helping me keep things from shifu. Understandable, I guess, but shifu hadn’t even been that mad. I think he also wants shifu to notice him more and doesn’t wanna get in his bad books, but shifu already notices him plenty, right? In a positive way? I swear he’s overthinking this.
—
Zhongli Quan is thirteen when he has his first major conflict with Master Donghua.
It isn’t a pretty one, and he thinks that the quarrel with his shifu is almost worse than the actual punishment. He stands his ground despite it all — something that he perhaps may not have dared to even consider almost three years ago when all he’d wanted was his Shifu’s approval or six years ago when he’d entered the sect for the first time.
How can Zhongli Quan not stand his ground, though? Where is he in the wrong in this scenario? Is he just… not supposed to help the beggar that he’d encountered by the foot of the mountain, then? Is he supposed to just leave him be, just like how Master Donghua had wanted him to leave a poor cat be, almost a year ago by this point? Just so that he can uphold the way of the Dao? The words of his teachings are words that he abides by, and yet, he’d only realised recently just how contradictory in nature some of them are in relation to others. How empty some of these words are, upholding nothing but a sense of false platitude with their unrealistically righteous and impractical expectations.
“You taught me yourself that it’s important to spread kindness into this world.” Zhongli Quan is thirteen years’ old when he points a finger at his shifu for the first time, fuelled by rage and quite literally nothing else. He wonders how his younger self would’ve felt, seeing him treat the shifu that he’d looked up to with such blatant disrespect. “You told me yourself to never stand by and watch the common folk suffer! He was suffering, can you not see?!”
“But did I teach you to steal?” Master Donghua snaps back. The old man has his back turned to him, as he always does nowadays whenever they get into one of their arguments. It’s almost funny — Zhongli Quan hadn’t quite known when it started to happen, but somewhere in the last one year, he and his shifu hadn’t had been able to hold a proper conversation without it somehow devolving into a quarrel of sorts. It’s such a far cry from how their relationship used to be in his early years in the sect, when Zhongli Quan would go as far as to willingly seek out his shifu so that he can babble about Romance of the Three Kingdoms with him for the whole afternoon. “Did I teach you to lie to me? You dare twist my teachings to explain your treachery?”
“What treachery, huh?” Zhongli Quan challenges. He doesn’t think he’s ever felt this bold before, but he doesn’t quite care about that at the moment. He can still remember the old beggar, after all, at the foot of the mountain, trembling and alone with nothing on him besides the clothes on his back and a bowl in his hands. He still remembers seeing the desperation, the desolation that had been reflected from those lifeless eyes of his — emptier than Zhongli Quan has ever seen on any person before. Those had been the eyes of someone who’d given up living, who’s being dragged through each day by a thin thread, one that can snap at any time and any day and send him careening over to the other side without so much as a spared thought.
Those had been the eyes of somebody who had already given up, and the sight of it had shaken Zhongli Quan to the core. In the face of something like that, then, what else was he supposed to have done when the poor man had all but whispered to him, voice raspy and tone weak, “may you please be so kind as to give me some coin, young boy? I haven’t had a proper meal in days, please?” Was he supposed to have just left him there? Ignored him? Was Zhongli Quan not supposed to have helped him?! “Would you even know treachery if it hit you in the face, huh? Treachery would’ve been what you did afterwards, chasing him away instead of offering him something, anything that’ll give him relief!”
A single streak of lightning is the only thing that gives away Master Donghua’s wrath at his words. It hisses through the sky, outlining his shifu in a glow of white that promises something dangerous if Zhongli Quan does not shut his mouth, right now. Thunder rumbles overhead warningly, shattering the brief silence that befalls them. The image of his shifu sends chills down Zhongli Quan’s back, and despite the anger still very much surging through his veins, he feels a trickle of fear for the first time since this argument had begun. He quails slightly at the look of sharp fury blazing alight in Master Donghua’s eyes when his shifu whirls around to finally face him for the first time in their whole argument.
“I chased him away,” when Master Donghua speaks again, his shifu’s voice is stone, a harsh clap of iciness that spills in from all around Zhongli Quan that threatens to strike him down right there and then, “because you, Zhongli Quan, deigned to steal from the sect coffers. I chased him away,” another quake of thunder, louder than before, booms from the sky outside, and Zhongli Quan cannot help the way he involuntarily flinches from the harshness of it, “because you stole, and then you lied to me about it. I chased him away to punish you for your insolence, Zhongli Quan, because you have been getting too bold and you forget the ways of our sect!”
“The ways of our sect teaches us to spread kindness into this world,” Zhongli Quan seethes, despite every fibre of his body screaming at him to shut up, because he apparently has a death wish today, “I did it for the greater good. I upheld the ways of our sect! I helped him!”
“A wrong action for a good outcome does not make your action right!” Master Donghua booms. “A wrong action speaks louder than a good outcome! You did not uphold the ways of the sect, Zhongli Quan, and you will do well to cease your childish beliefs of what it means to ‘help’ someone.”
“It’s not childish for wanting to help the world!” Zhongli Quan really does seem to have a death wish today. “It’s not childish to find whatever means possible to do good in this world! Isn’t that what you taught me? What goes around comes around? How can we teach kindness to this world if we don’t even be kind ourselves? How else is anyone expected to remember us if we don’t actively spread it out? How am I being childish about this?!”
“A wrong action follows you for the rest of your existence.” Master Donghua’s tone is still impossibly gelid. “It is a stain that you will never be able to get rid of, no matter the goodness of your intention. Kindness is a necessity, but its memory fades with time. But wrongdoing? A crime? You will never be able to make the world forget it. It will define your existence. Such is the way of this world, Zhongli Quan, so cease your childish fantasies. You will do very well to remember my words.”
“But that’s so stupid!” Zhongli Quan cries. “That doesn’t even make any sense! I’m not committing crime if my goal is to help people! Giving aid to the poor isn’t committing a crime! I wouldn’t even have had to steal if you’d done something to help him too!”
“Stealing is a crime!” Master Donghua roars. “No matter how you try to justify it, it is wrong! Which part of that do you not understand?!”
“But I’d have still saved someone at the end of the day!” Zhongli Quan fires back, one more time. “What gives anyone the right to judge what process I took to get them the help they need especially if the world isn’t gonna help them either?! Why am I wrong?! Tell me, shifu! I don’t understand, so TELL ME!”
Master Donghua turns away from him again. Just as suddenly as the onslaught of thunder and lightning had appeared, they ceased abruptly, as if they had never been there. The room plunges into silence once more, and disciple and master stand, face to back, for a lone, tremulous second of tepid calm. The only sound that can be heard is Zhongli Quan’s ragged breathing as he stares desperately at his shifu’s back, as he waits for an explanation he will likely never get. For just a single moment, Zhongli Quan dares to let himself wonder if he’d actually done it, if he’d actually managed to finally convince his shifu to see things from his perspective.
Does shifu understand now that he didn’t know what else to do? That he’d only broken into the sect coffers because he’d told him to leave the beggar be, that they didn’t have any ability to help, and didn’t want to help him himself? What else could Zhongli Quan have done? He’d given the man his coat, and he’d given his waterskin, but those aren’t going to help the man put food in his stomach, right? Zhongli Quan had taken a total of five coins from the sect’s reserves — quite literally nothing compared to the mountains of glittering gold that sits in the vaults. Five gold pieces for the peace of mind of somebody down on his last legs, what’s wrong with that? What’s the problem with that??
“You really are still very young.” Master Donghua says, eventually, heavily. The slight bit of hope fluttering in Zhongli Quan’s chest at being understood dies. He opens his mouth to argue again, but his shifu holds out a hand in warning, and he instinctually bites back whatever other words that desperately wants to say. “Seeing as this is the first major offence that you have ever committed, I will only punish you, and I will not report it to the Heavens.”
“I already told you-”
“But, Zhongli Quan, you listen now, and you listen well.” Master Donghua’s words are cold again, colder than anything he’s heard coming from his shifu before. “There will be no next time, do I make myself clear? I anointed you Eldest Disciple for you to uphold the image of our sect. Tarnish that image again, and I will not be so lenient nor show such mercy. Do you understand me?”
“I wasn’t tarnishing anything, I-”
“Do you understand me?”
Outside, lightning flashes again, and the thunder growls in warning. Zhongli Quan takes an involuntary step back, and finally, for the first time this evening, decides to swallow his rebuttal instead of trying to defend his position again. He simply nods at his shifu’s back mutely.
Master Donghua lets out a sigh. “Good.” He says plainly. The ice thaws from his voice somewhat, leaving behind only notes of placid neutrality in its wake as he turns on his heel to walk out the door. “Your punishment is to copy the sect rules fifty times, and to recite the Ways of the Immortal every night for the next five months to me so that you can have your memory refreshed on what is right and what is wrong. You’re dismissed.”
Zhongli Quan is thirteen when he gets into a serious argument with his shifu for the first time. And yet, despite everything that had transpired that evening, despite every word that had been spoken by Master Donghua, he walks out of the argument feeling more sure than ever that his shifu isn’t — cannot be — right in his stance. Because if the way of the Immortal is to uphold empty morals over tangible action…
…Then…will Zhongli Quan even be able to fulfill what he wants to do when he becomes an Immortal?
Zhongli Quan is thirteen when he truly questions his desire to ascend into Immortality. The question scares him, because the existence of the question implies that he’s questioning the way of the Immortal. It scares him, because it implies that he doesn’t want to be an Immortal, when that is all Zhongli Quan had yearned to strive for since he had been seven. His whole life, up until this point, is to better himself so that he can become an Immortal and help others. But what if he isn’t able to? What if there’re more rules in the Heavenly Court that are similar to the ones Zhongnan Summit Sect Academy has right now, and they prevent him from reaching a helping hand for a specific situation?
The papers of his journal feel heavy against his chest. The words written on them, some so long ago that detailed every bit of naive, ambitious dreaming that his younger self had believed in, feel like dead weights dragging on his heart. He thinks of the excitement that he’d felt, so long ago now, when his shifu had mentioned ascending to Immortality on their first day.
He thinks back to his seven year old self — what is he thinking now? Is this what seven year old Zhongli Quan could have ever expected when he’d stepped foot into the sect, alone and invisible to the world with nothing but a desire propelling him all the way to where he is now? Is this what his ten year old self could have ever anticipated when he’d secured his spot as a top student of the sect? Is this what he’s working towards? Has this always been what he’s been working towards? Empty platitudes and empty actions?
Zhongli Quan hadn’t seriously questioned it, that time with Kitty last year, because he’d simply assumed his shifu is being pedantic and unwilling to extend a helping hand to what he deems ‘lesser than himself’, but…what about now, then? Even now? Even with a beggar, who, by his own definition, is a person? Is he willing to turn a blind eye even to the suffering of the common folk who are also clearly struggling to get by? Because of rules? Because of…whatever reason that he’s using as an excuse that Zhongli Quan isn’t privy to?
Will he really want to abide by rules like that? Can he really stand to conform himself to such empty morals and intangible action? Will he even be able to live with himself if he ends up adopting that same way of thinking, for whatever reason, in the future? The fifty rounds of sect rules do not answer his question. Five months’ of reciting the ways of the Immortal does not answer his question. Master Donghua does not answer his question, and neither do his shidis, his peers, his friends, Liang Yi. None of them offer him a single, tangible answer to his queries, and it terrifies him, because if no one is able to answer his question at all…
…then what does it all mean, then?
Zhongli Quan is thirteen years’ old when he questions the goal he’s been working towards his whole life for the first time. And for the first time in his life, he does not have a substantial answer for his question, and that knowledge leaves him deeply unsettled, extremely uneasy, and more than just a little frustrated.
—
Dear diary,
I got into an argument with shifu again today. Again. I asked him what’s the point of becoming an Immortal if you can’t do everything in your power to save the rest. Isn’t that the point of being an Immortal? Apparently not. And then old man yells at me again, says something like ‘oh, you’re insulting the very essence of our sect’, or ‘oh, you’re purposely not getting the point I’m trying to make’ or just straight up implying that I’m stupid! He’s not even bothering to change up his points, I swear I just hear the same things being repeated over and over and over again whenever we argue now.
Is it really stupid to be asking these questions, though? Is it not right to bend the rules if it serves the greater good? How does that make my actions bad??? Maybe I really am stupid, because I seriously don’t understand the logic behind that. I think I need to find another shifu to talk to, just to see if this is actually the opinion of the Immortals. If it is, then…I dunno. I can’t say anything about things that I don’t know, I think.
I read a book today that says that answers for particularly difficult questions will come if I stop thinking about it so much, so maybe I’ll try that and see if it works.
Liang Ji’s really stopped talking to me as much recently and it really isn’t my imagination. I think he also thinks that I’m stupid for asking all these questions about technicalities too and I think that he thinks I’m being too rude to shifu. It’s not like I want to be rude to shifu, but he’s just so! I guess it sucks a little to not be hanging out with him as much lately, but I guess it makes sense. Maybe I should take on Ren Jian’s offer and make him my new best friend after all. Maybe we can even
I just want to help the world! Why is that apparently such an impossible thing to do??? Isn’t that the way of the Immortal?? Why does wanting to help the world come with so much red tape and invisible boundaries and whatnot????? It’s so stupid arghhhhh it’s so stupid it’s so stupid it’s so stupid it’s so stupid it’s so stupid it’s so stupid it’s so stupid it’s so STUPID it’s so
—-
Zhongli Quan is fourteen years’ old, kneeling in the rain next to a near-empty Yujing jar when he is betrayed for the first time.
“I’ve already said before, this is the foundation for the peace of the Three Realms.” From the entrance of the ceremonial hall, Master Donghua growls, and it is a terrible, rumbling thing that compliments the low rumble of thunder in the distance. The flicker of warm candlelight behind him is cruelly inviting, bathing the Immortal in a steady orange glow that stands out against the cold blue of the storm raging on around them. “It has meaning far beyond being wasted on some small village at the bottom of the mountain! What were you even thinking?!”
“I saw everything.” Liang Ji is saying, his voice barely audible over the roar of the thick curtain of rain that crashes down from the heavens. “Shifu, he was using the jar to send rain to those peasants without tacit permission! He stole the jar for over six months, and he didn’t even tell anyone! I also only ended up knowing about it because I caught him in the act, and–”
“Enough!” Zhongli Quan cannot help it— he yells. The tangle of betrayal and fury bubbling within him does not quite subside with a single syllable, but he doesn’t know what else to say. As things currently stand right now — him kneeling in the heavy rain, each drop feeling like blades slicing his skin, Master Donghua looming over him a distance away from within the shelter of the ceremonial hall, with Liang Ji standing next to him, spilling all that he’s done over the past six months —- what else can he even say in this situation?
He just…he can’t believe— hadn’t expected that his friend– that Liang Ji would go so far as to rat him out this mercilessly, in front of Master Donghua in front of his whole class, exposing all his using of the Yujing jar without so much as a single shred of hesitation right there before class had started. The memory of what had happened only half a shichen ago sends yet another spasm of pain down his chest, and Zhongli Quan thinks that all he wants to do as he continues to listen to Liang Ji’s prattling is to scream.
He cannot quite tell what trickles down his face at the realisation that yes, his friend of almost four years had so easily betrayed him. Is it rain? Is it tears? He doesn’t know. What he does know is pain, and it radiates through his chest, through his body. It hurts. It hurts so much to see Liang Ji standing in the shelter of the ceremonial hall, half hidden behind Master Donghua, seeming almost eager to reveal everything to the old man, who stands there in foreboding silence. “That’s enough, shut up, shut up, SHUT UP!”
Where had it all gone wrong?
Where had it all gone wrong with the jar? Zhongli Quan had only wanted to help the citizens of Yongle — and isn’t that what the Yujing Jar is meant to do in the first place, anyway? He’d helped…he’d helped so many people over the last six months. He knows this. Master Donghua knows this. Liang Ji knows this, too. He’s saved a whole village from the brink of the worst being of a drought by bringing rain to them. They had been on the brink of dying from famine, what else was he supposed to have done? The villagers had pleaded, the villagers had begged, their cries sometimes so desperate that Zhongli Quan could’ve heard them from the lower regions of Zhongnan Mountain, but where had the aid been? Where had the Immortals been with the salvation that they’ve always promised?
There had been no response from the Heavens, and as the drought dragged on, Zhongli Quan had watched as the unforgiving heat silenced the people’s voices. He’d watched as life seeped out of the village, as desperation melted into despair, before finally sinking into desolation. He sees the same, lifeless eyes from the beggar he’d helped, once again a year ago by now, reflected on dirt-streaked faces a hundred times over, as the people stared at the sky, silently pleading, powerless in do anything to change their situation.
What else can he have done? What else can Zhongli Quan have done, except to use the Yujing jar? Nobody else had done anything, after all, and so he had. The Yujing par is a device that’s made for giving rain! He isn’t wrong to do this. He’s not wrong to do this. He’s not wrong for saving a whole village, and he will be damned before either Master Donghua or Liang Ji ever makes him believe otherwise.
Liang Ji. Where has it all gone wrong with Liang Ji? Zhongli Quan thought they had been friends, even if they don’t talk as much as they used to a few years ago. Hadn’t they always helped each other out? Hadn’t he asked Liang Ji to keep his infrequent escapades a secret in exchange for getting him out of sword cultivation practices only two weeks ago? Hadn’t Liang Ji agreed? What happened? Where had everything gone so wrong between him and his oldest friend for Liang Ji to rattle him out without even a little shred of hesitation or guilt?
Where’d everything all gone wrong? Was it three years ago, when Zhongli Quan decided to go against sect rules for the first time to save Kitty? Was it when he’d started earnestly questioning the legitimacy of the rules that upheld the supposed comings and goings in their entire world? Was it one year ago, when he’d broken into the vaults for five coins for a stranger in rags and argued with Master Donghua? Where had it all gone wrong?
“Ah! Y-you see, shifu?” Liang Ji yelps out in the falsest tone of fear that he has ever heard at his outburst, ducking behind the figure of Master Donghua like the coward that he is in the face of Zhongli Quan’s own anger. “He even dares raise his voice to someone he considered a friend. He’s beyond saving, shifu!”
“Shut up,” Zhongli Quan growls again. He hopes that the look he levels at Liang Ji sufficiently conveys all the contemptuous, or heartbroken, or livid rage that burns inside him, but he thinks that the rain makes it hard to tell, which is a darn shame. He wants to scream again, but he doesn't even know what else to scream at his friend that will convey just what he currently feels about everything. The “RIGHT NOW!” that tears through his throat doesn’t even feel as gratifying as he wants it to be.
“Eek!” Liang Ji yelps again in that conniving voice of his, and, oh, it grates on his nerves. Zhongli Quan thinks briefly, almost hysterically, of wrapping his hands around what he had called a friend, and squeezing until he cannot ever betray another person ever again. He thinks about it with no small amount of venom, but as things stand, all he can do is feel his hands curl into fists as they hang at his side. He feels his nails dig into flesh. It stings, and yet the pain pales in comparison to the one surging through his veins.
Zhongli Quan glares through the wet bangs hanging limply over his eyes as he watches Liang Ji scurry back into the warmth and safety of the ceremonial hall with a final squeak of, “Punish him, shifu!” He glares until the silhouette of his oldest friend, the one he’d trusted, the one who’d broken his trust like it’d been nothing disappears from view, before he turns his glare onto Master Donghua instead.
“Stealing,” Master Donghua growls, and it is a terrible, rumbling thing that is amplified by the low rumble of thunder in the distance, “lying. This is what you take away from my classes, still? This is what you take my Zhongnan Summit Sect Academy for? You dare call yourself Eldest Disciple with this kind of moral value? You dare call yourself Eldest Disciple and then callously abuse the use of the Yujing jar?”
“Oh, to hell with your precious jar!” Zhongli Quan spits out. “Those people were dying! I saved them! ‘Do all everything in your best abilities to help the needy’, we had this lesson every day for the past six months! Once again, how is this not spreading goodness into the world?!”
“You dare twist my words to fuel your wrongdoings again,” Master Donghua seethes, “you dare imply my Zhongnan Summit Sect teaches the likes of you to steal shamelessly? To lie shamelessly? To—”
“You weren’t going to do anything about those people dying from thirst!” Zhongli Quan shouts back. “Stop coming in here with your stupid morals and your empty teachings when you know that what I've done isn’t wrong!”
“Isn’t wrong? Rulai entrusted this bottle into our care, Zhongli Quan!” Master Donghua’s eyes glint dangerously as he speaks, like he is about to call down the fury of the heavens and smite Zhongli Quan from this realm of existence for good. “What you did is disrespectful, a violation of a sacred oath, and irresponsible! I teach you better than—”
“Screw off with your teachings and moral superiority!” Zhongli Quan cannot help the way his voice rises tenfold at the hypocrisy that exudes from Master Donghua— his shifu, someone he’d looked up to for years— at the moment. Deep down, he knows it’s always been like this, that Master Donghua is a man who speaks and does not deliver, and he has known it for a while now. But seeing it on full display right now? After knowing how many people would’ve died because of his indifference? After knowing that everything Yongle had experienced could have been avoided if it hadn’t been for the Immortals’ hypocritical, empty promises and falsehoods?
He feels his body shake — from anger, from the force of the mirthless laughter tearing through him, he doesn’t know. “Those people! Were! Dying! You wouldn’t even have known this stupid jar can summon rain if it wasn't for me using it on them! You’d have been content to just let it rot away on that stupidly fancy pedestal of yours without even thinking of what it could do, of the good it can do for the world! You don’t get to lecture me on how you teach me!”
“Get out.” Master Donghua turns away from the door, away from Zhongli Quan and away from the facts that he had just thrown in his face. “You clearly do not understand nor value my teachings and the values of the sect any longer, nor do you understand what it means to be an Immortal,” he pauses, slightly, as if hesitating, before continuing, “so just leave, Zhongli Quan.”
The old man ducks back through the door slowly, unhurriedly, languidly, the perfect visage of somebody who has never had to worry a day about the harshness and cruelty of life. The image of it tears another bout of disbelieved laughter from Zhongli Quan. He thinks of the irony of everything that he’s seen the past few years. He thinks of the sect, the way it sits loftily in the mountains, far removed from any signs of mortal suffering as it busies itself with teaching about conduct and right and wrong. He thinks of how Master Donghua preaches his unbending, unrelenting ideals that leave no room for helping anyone besides the ideals themselves, all the while remaining uncaring of the suffering of the people all around. He thinks of the Immortals sitting high up in the Heavens with naught a care for the people of the world, how they are supposed to help the common people but don’t, and are more content with watching the common folk die than to extend a single helping hand despite their world-bending abilities.
He thinks of his dream of becoming an Immortal — what had he written all those years ago, heart awash with eagerness and excitement to attain such an illustrious position? I will grant all the wishes of the people because that’s what Immortals do with their powers? What a joke it is to think about it now, knowing everything that he now knows. The papers under Zhongli Quan’s shirt feel wet, and every pellet of rain that hits it is another reminder of the words etched into those papers. They had once been a goal to work towards. Now, it is only a mocking reminder of how naive he had been regarding the truth of ascending to Immortality.
“An Immortal like you?” Zhongli Quan scoffs quietly, almost involuntarily, as he marvels at how superficial his whole life’s ambition had been until this point, “ha. If my only choice of becoming an Immortal is to become like you, I’d only be too happy not to become one.”
Master Donghua’s retreating figure freezes. Very slowly, very quietly, he says, “What did you say?”
“I said,” Zhongli Quan growls, louder, and feels the years of confusion, anger, helplessness that had simmered quietly under his skin coalescing into a sudden explosion of fury — a fury that drives him up from his previous kneeling position. He feels it coursing through his body, singing a song of reckless righteousness that drowns out any potential shred of reasoning he may have had come up with to talk himself down from doing something stupid, from doing something that he may regret, “I’d sooner rather walk down a path of deceit and dishonesty than to ever willingly partake in YOUR LOT’S HYPOCRISY AND MORAL BANKRUPTCY!”
He doesn’t quite know what happens next. Looking back, all Zhongli Quan remembers of this moment is swinging his arm out as he’d stood to fully get his point across. The sound of a shattering vase had not been something he’d anticipated, nor did he even realise that he’d swung the Yujing jar into the stone ground in the blindness of his fury. The sound of crystallised jade breaking into a million pieces against the ground is what brings him back to himself, and to the realisation of what he’d just done.
For a single moment after the last piece of jade shard clatters to the ground, all is silent. The rain is the only sound that registers in Zhongli Quan’s mind, as does the raggedness of his own inhales. There is only him, the now-shattered Yujing jar, and a growing fury that sets Master Donghua’s eyes ablaze with cold fire when he whirls around to stare him down.
“Fine.”
Donghua dijun’s voice is the very thunder that claps through the darkened skies when he speaks again. “You like stealing? Lying? Fine, then. You can steal. You can lie. I’ll have you do nothing but steal, and I’ll have you do nothing but lie for the rest of your life!”
Lightning washes the sky alight with its bone-white glow. Storm clouds make way for heavenly fury, a blinding, white light that splits the sky in two and weaves itself through the Immortal’s fingers. Around him, the winds pick up tenfold, howling their screeching cacophony directly into Zhongli Quan’s ears as it wraps around him, pulls at him, dragging him closer and closer to the pulsing light of the talisman growing from between Master Donghua’s fingers. He struggles in vain to resist, and the gale only wails in response to his futile efforts. Thunder roars from all around him. Rain beats down in a relentless percussion around him, joining the howling of the winds and the drumming of thunder to form a truly dissonant orchestra of the elements.
“You, Zhongli Quan, will be cursed to never hold office nor trade, to walk the path of neither the righteous nor the Immortal.” Master Donghua’s voice booms from all around him, unrelenting and loud. “You will be nothing but a thief, and a wretched rat that will be scorned and despised by ALL!”
Zhongli Quan is fourteen years’ old when the curse that will damn him for the rest of his existence slams into him.
One moment, he’s struggling haplessly against the throes of the wind pinning him in place, glaring defiantly at Master Donghua’s enraged eyes, and at the talisman forming against Master Donghua’s fingers — one that he might’ve even found beautiful under different circumstances with its combinations of whites and blues and reds, and the next moment, his world bursts into an explosion of white-hot agony that consumes every fibre of his being, and every nerve within his body.
He thinks that he screams. He can’t be too sure about it, because he can’t hear anything over the screeching of the winds and the roar of thunder and rain. He can’t feel his legs— he can’t feel his fingers, his feet, the breath in his lungs. Every part of his body is alight with fire, an agony that feels like a thousand blades stabbing through him all at once. He feels a distinct wrongness sinking into his bones. He thinks he feels something shift in his body, something that brands itself into the essence of himself like a streak of lightning that sears itself into every part of him.
For a single, eternal moment, all he knows of the world is excruciation. He thinks that he may have very well been dead.
And then, the moment passes. As suddenly as the pain slams into him, it disappears completely, flooding him with a dizzying lightness that has him stumbling backwards haphazardly. He hits the ground at full speed, stares up silently, still defiantly, at Master Donghua, and feels…nothing.
The rain continues to pour. The thunder has fallen silent, as has the lightning. Under his (former?) shifu’s baleful gaze, Zhongli Quan coughs, pulling himself clumsily to his feet and trying not to topple again from the sudden vertigo that seizes him. Master and disciple glare at each other silently, one final exchange between the two of them, before Zhongli Quan shakily turns on his heel, and slowly, slowly staggers towards those same tall, impossibly imposing stone gates that he had once walked through, almost a lifetime ago at this point, when he’d first entered Zhongnan Summit Sect Academy.
“You are hereby banished from Zhongnan Summit Sect Academy.” Master Donghua’s voice melds together with the tinny, annoying ringing that blares incessantly against Zhongli Quan’s ears. “Do not ever let me see you in these premises again.”
Zhongli Quan is fourteen years’ old when he is expelled from the only life that he has ever known. Later on, he will realise just how dire his situation is. Later on, the consequences of his actions will hit him, and he will realise what he had done. Later on, he will find out just what such a curse that Master Donghua had placed on him will entail. But now, as he retraces his steps, as he shakily forces himself to walk towards the stone gates of his now-former school one last time in his life, Zhongli Quan believes, with his whole heart, that he had made the correct decision to stand up to the hypocrisy that his former shifu had reeked of. It’s not even the worst thing to happen, really, being expelled. The curse thing is a separate issue. It’s probably not even real. There’s no way what Master Donghua had said is true, anyway. Hold no office? Be a thief forever? Who does he think he is, the Yuanshi Tianzun??
He smirks to himself at his own rhetoric, and finally passes over the threshold of Zhongnan Summit Sect Academy’s stone gates for the final time.
Zhongli Quan is fourteen years’ old when the first chapter of his life unceremoniously closes. But in the grand scheme of it all, he thinks that he isn’t unhappy with the way everything has turned out. It’d only been a matter of time before he’d left the sect, after all, so it is what it is.
He’s fine with it.
—
Dear diary,
Damn, the water’s really gotten into everything, huh. It took three shichen to really dry everything up before I can even think about putting ink to paper. I suppose I should be glad that they somehow, miraculously, did not tear or turn into smulch.
I found shelter at a nearby inn in Yongle — and can you believe it? The owner tells me that the constant rainfall is already helping their crops! Yongle is no longer starving, and whose effort is it? That’s right, mine! Screw the old man, honestly, I know he’s just trying to scare me and whatever into never coming back to his stupid school, and guess what? I’m not planning to! I’m free! From their stupid rules and their stupid uptight morals! Just he waits. I’m gonna pass the Imperial exams with flying colours, become an advisor to the Empress herself and then propose all the life-changing laws that will directly benefit the people of the world. Who needs Immortals, anyway? Who cares about them. I don’t.
Tomorrow, I’m gonna find my way back to the nearest city and then slowly make my way towards Chang’an. And when I do, I’ll apply for the next round of Imperial exams, and then I will still be able to fulfill my wishes of wanting to save the people! And when I go back thirty years later as the country's most beloved Official, I’m gonna make that old man say he’s sorry until he’s blue in the face…and then I’ll say ‘I don’t forgive you’ after all that. Hah! Oh, I can’t wait for that day.
And Liang Ji,
I can feel change coming in the coming times. I can feel it, and I just know it. I’m gonna prove that old man wrong, and I’m gonna take control of my own fate and set my own rules! Starting from — right now!!
—