Chapter 24:

Chapter 24

~~~~Tai Su~~~~~

Human experimentation is not something that is foreign to me.

In my past life it was a common enough phenomenon that ranged from trying and adding a new flavor into your food to see how it tastes and went all the way to new and inventive ways of cutting someone open in specific ways to see what happened.

The spectrum of human experimentation is vast and ranges from benign to extremely serious or even amoral and what I wish to try on the ice blooded woman would probably fall on the more amoral side of things than the benign one.

"Ten more push ups." I ordered to the woman who I am going to test some of my ideas on.

"Why is this… necessary?" She asked through gritted teeth.

Her upper body strength was lacking. She could march and carry things but, her ability to do push ups was lacking. Twenty push ups is no reason to be so out of breath, not when you can force march for days with little sleep.

"Qi moves in your body to strengthen it, the more physical effort you put, the more it does so and is expended from your body. You've noticed this and I have no doubt your manual says this as well. I need to reduce the possible influence of your Qi to see if it's mine that has a result on you and not merely our own interacting." I answered.

She remained silent as she struggled through the set. She managed to complete them at least which was something at least. Mei Lin was not a quitter at least.

Once the twentieth push up was done she fell down on the grass and gasped for breath.

"Here, drink some." I said as I offered her some water from my waterskin.

She greedily took it and sucked it dry in seconds.

"Thank you." She said coldly as she gave me back the waterskin.

I put it back at its place at my waist and gave the woman my hand to bring herself up which she silently took.

"Follow me, this shouldn't take long at least." I said and headed back to the stump.

All of the supply drops were made the same way, a strange looking circular stump without any roots beneath it that was as wide as a man is tall, an obviously made fireplace nearby, a small stash of firewood and occasionally something that looks like it would hold supplies.

"Was the supply spot there filled with any resources when you found it?" I asked.

The thing looked like a cage in all honesty, a wooden cage that should hold something in it, and yet it was always empty.

"No, I assumed someone got here first and just emptied it." She replied with a shrug.

I could feel the unspoken question even without this strange Qi sense. The woman was testing the limits of my senses as well it seems which was fair.

"We found another and it was just as empty, but it was further north. Also please vocalize your thoughts, I can't actually hear what you think. I only get a vague impression of your emotions and your are more difficult to feel than the others." I answered.

Both of sat on the large stump at the same as she looked at me curiously.

"So how is this supposed to go?" She asked.

"Just give me your hand, I'll try to imbue my Qi with my emotions and you'll have to tell me if you feel anything weird. If you do, try describing it to me and if it hurts you tell me." I asked.

She proceeded to do that as I thought as to what emotion should I try first. I need one that's easy to explain in words and so I tried to push my love for Bao into my Chi and sent it to her.

Pushing Qi out of my body was not difficult, but slow. Especially as it felt that it was far slower than normal now that I tried to fill it with my emotions.

"Would you mind if I ask you some questions? I want to know more of what will happen to my siblings once they become cultivators properly." She asked.

"Sure, but I'm pretty sure your conversations with the girls were more enlightening than anything I could say." I replied.

Bao and Yu Zong told me early in the morning when they woke up that she has spoken with them and I could easily imagine why. She was going to be suddenly dealing with a new challenge and she wished to prepare for it.

"Yes, Bao Xiaoli and Ya Xue were the most revealing. Also I am feeling a sense of coldness in my hand. It's as if something took everything that made me me from there, is this hate?" She replied.

Cold? I am feeling warmth, that makes no sense. Maybe it tells her what I feel for her? The Coldness could mean that I sent her what sort of love I feel for her which is none.

"No, I will try something else in quick succession, tell me if you feel anything different. Also what did they tell you?" I answered promptly.

The question was a simple way to keep a conversation going at least.

"Your wife trusts you implicitly and her mouth has no filter. She told me she wants to drain me of blood and use it as ink to write poems about how much she loves you. Ya Xue has no sense of fear. I admitted to knowing whe used to be from among the cherry tree banners and she had no reaction to it, it was as if it didn't matter and the thought of it mattering did not cross her mind. The first sensation hurts, the second is curiosity, the third… the third is making me hungry." She explained

"I sent you four emotions, the one that felt cold was my attempt to send you my love for Bao, the next ones were in order, my desire to rest, curiosity and the last one the feeling of being ambitious." I replied once again.

I also let her take her own hand back as I considered her words.

Bao turning this homicidal is bad, especially after Mei Lin provoked her like that previously, but it's Ya Xue that's more worrying. Her not having a sense of fear or even ability to notice blackmail is bad.

"I won't apologize for Bao, you provoked her with your attempt at sowing division. Why did you do it?" I asked.

It was a question that's been bugging me. I don't understand how women act normally but what she was trying to do made no sense.

She looked thoughtful at my question but took her time articulating her answers.

In the distance her two brothers were put through the paces of a physical warm up by Da Xiu and taught how to use their axes properly, or at least decently. They weren't war axes, but wood axes and the two are different. War axes, the one handed ones more so than the two handed ones, are things of speed and precision meant to cut through soft spots and punish mistakes by allowing you to move and react faster than your opponent.

Wood-cutting axes are none of that. They are things of brute strength as they are meant to cut through wood. They'd do well against light armor provided they are sharp, and a sharp object hitting you is going to hurt, but they are not weapons, merely tools one can turn into weapons.

"Why are you helping us like you are? Teaching my brothers how to fight properly, treating us as equals, even letting me earn myself a place at your side?" She asked suddenly.

In front of us Haoran had managed to fall on his side as he somehow over extended during the repetition.

Neither of them had built their bodies for fighting or endurance. At most they trained themselves to be able to march but it was obvious that they had nobody and nothing to teach them what they needed to train to fight. They were already getting tired after a short training session.

"Give me your hand, it's easier if I show you as I think I managed to figure out what went wrong before." I said simply.

I looked to the side and took her offered left hand. I focused and pushed into her the reason why I've decided to help her.

Her hand withdrew as if she just touched a hot stove and her long hair did a good impression of a cats hair from how startled she was by what she felt.

"What is that?!" She all but hissed at me.

She was clearly startled by what I sent her which made me smile, ice blooded indeed. This thing is supernatural, as there's no way what I sent her could get her to react like this.

"How did it feel?" I asked simply.

She looked suspiciously at me but then her cheeks started to flush a soft red and a soft smile hit her before she realized. She put her mouth at her hand to check if she wasn't hallucinating before her eyes turned fearful.

"It felt as if molten rock flowed through my veins and it burned and hurt, but then it… felt good. It felt as if I had just eaten a good filling meal, but only in the part you touched and a bit beyond it, what was that?" She answered.

Her right hand was now touching the left as if trying to find the warmth it used to have, but instead only finding an empty void.

"Kindness, more specifically the kindness and well being I wish to offer you and most of everyone I meet that hasn't wronged me." I answered.

What she felt was what I felt when I looked at people. I liked helping people, I liked seeing them smile, thanking me for their help or even just becoming something worthwhile.

When I helped teacher Hao Wen, this is what I felt, this desire to see a person that meant well be happy. It doesn't burn me, it is just a soft hum of heat that is constantly there. If this actually burns her then whatever is wrong with her is more than just her brain being wired wrong.

There's something deeply wrong with the way Qi affects her mind and what I assume to be her head meridians. I have them too, they start around my eyes and tongue and proceed to go down.

"Can… can you send some again?" She asked meekly.

I looked in her eyes, I knew those eyes, I remember those eyes even if I never saw them in this life. They were the eyes of desperation, of a creature desperate for any shred of connection and love.

They were the eyes of an addict.

I shook my head.

"No, not until we find out what's keeping you like you are right now." I answered simply.

"Keeping me?" She asked puzzled.

I had a hunch which I wanted to pursue. If Qi can carry emotions and the meridians can carry Qi and absorb and change emotions then they can also do so passively if they are in the brain.

"How many Meridian branches are in your head?" I asked simply.

"Three main ones, one in the brain, mouth and eyes." She answered promptly.

I smiled at that, finally something I can focus on. I have two meridian branches there in the mouth and eyes and it seems I found the culprit.

I turned from her and tried to find Bao, thankfully she was easy to spot as she and Yu Zong were near one another.

"Bao please bring me some writing coal and paper. I need to draw something." I shouted to Bao.

She and Yu Zong were looking over the cultivation manuals, including Mei Lin's to see if anything worthwhile in it that would help us.

She heard me and proceeded to bring me two coal pieces half of which were covered with a thin cloth and two white pieces of paper

"Here Tai, how are things working out?" She asked as she put in front of me two sheets of paper and the writing coal.

It wasn't a pen, not even the bulky ones I saw teacher Hao Wen sell but I liked using it as it was easier to keep sharp even if it needed to be cleaned from my hands once I used it.

"Give me your hand." I replied.

She did as I asked puzzled and I sent her my love for her.

"It's soo warm, I love you too Tai!" She exclaimed and charged me.

Said charge quickly turned into a hug which I returned with warmth. So it seems that each time I try to send an emotion, said emotions is laced with my own opinion on the receiver.

I can't send my emotions for a different person, I send them the love I hold for them, or the hate, or the curiosity, but they'll only feel how said emotion relates to them.

Useful yes, but also limited which means that I like it more. The last thing I need or want to see is people using this technique to send me the emotions they meant for others. At least when I receive said emotions I know that the person means them.

"I love you too Bao, if the others aren't too busy please call them too, I think I found something out and the others as well as Lin Mei's siblings should probably be here to see it too." I told her.

"I will, Tai!" She exclaimed happily and proceeded to do just that.

Perfect, now let's draw two rough outlines for the head to the side, a nose, a tongue, the brain, the eyes and so on.

I finished both of them and presented one to Mei Lin. The others came just was I presented the drawing to her.

"Draw roughly where your meridians are based on what you feel, this will make sense once you see where mine are as well." I told her.

She looked strangely at me, but silently did as I asked.

I also drew my own, on my own copy and drew roughly how the meridians felt in my body, and how they moved through my neck and towards my mouth and my eyes and how they ignored my brain.

"Done." She said.

That was fast, good thing I suppose. Meant she was very motivated to see where I am going with this.

"Almost done myself… and done. Here let's compare." I said.

The two drawing were nothing alike.

Mine had my meridians go through the throat and then diverge at my nose even if it did not reach it. I think it reached some part of my olfactory system.

I can't recall exactly my biology lessons from a lifetime ago but I think there were some special nerves there? Nonetheless when it reached there it started branching out into my tongue and my eyes.

Mei Lin's Meridians on the other hand? They went straight to her brain, the lower lizard brain I think that was, they formed a massive clump there, then spread into the rest of the brain with some small number of the eyes while nearly half of them went to her mouth and even her teeth.

"This is why you're an ice blooded. Your Meridians go through your brain which regulates how you think and most of your emotions are absorbed or destroyed before you can form them properly. That burn you previously felt? Must have been me overwhelming the passive absorption, similar to how you heat metal too hard and it starts deforming." I explained.

I quite literally overwhelmed her meridians with the emotions they have been absorbing which explained the original pain. Then when the emotion started spreading she fed on it, like some sort of emotional vampire.

No judging from the way her meridians went through her mouth, I'd say she's actually some sort of vampire that feeds off emotions.

Can you move the Meridians? Can you grow more of them to get different abilities? These questions and more ran through my head as I considered the implications of this.

"Mine doesn't feel like neither of that that." Ya Xue said.

"Mine does, albeit I think it does not go as far up before spreading as yours Tai." Da Xiu interjected slowly after.

Yu Zong and Bao said that they felt the same as him.

So mine were normal or at least close enough to it, but Ya Xue's wasn't? I need more data, this is getting exciting.

"Ya Xue please take a piece of paper and draw what you feel as well, that might explain how your own senses are affected." I asked her.

She immediately ran to where Bao and Yu Zong were previously and came with a piece of paper.

I quickly drew the same head I made on my and Lin Mei's sheets and she proceeded to draw her own best impression of her meridians.

Hers were wildly different from both mine and Lin Mei's.

"That's weird." I observed as I compared the three sheets.

He meridians clumped in her throat and from there spread to her ears and mouth. Around her ears there were an ungodly amount of them, while her tongue barely had two branches. They looked vestigial at best too, as if them being there was a formality and not something needed.

"What does it mean?" Yu Zong asked seriously.

"I guess that it means that she can use her ears to make sense of Qi, and maybe her mouth, while I can smell and taste Qi. As for Lin Mei? I think she and every single Ice Blooded have their dormant meridians eat their emotions by default but this is a guess. I learned little more than you did to enter the sect." I explained.

Teacher Hao Wen definitely did not explain this sort of thing to me at all. This is inference based on my past life's knowledge of biology combined with whatever scraps of knowledge I managed to piece together these past few days.

"So there's a cure?" One of the twins said.

I think that was Haoran Lin? He's the more talkative one.

"Yes Haoran Lin, I can insert my own emotions into Mei Lin to make her feel them, and I assume that once she manages to get enough control over her meridians then she'll be able to feel them herself without me being being there. I don't know how to do that, but we know what's most likely causing her issues" I answered.

Cheng Lin went to hug his sister at that and his brother quickly followed him. The sister looked overwhelmed at the love her two brothers sent her even if she could not return it yet.

"Does that mean we're taking them in?" Da Xiu asked.

"If the rest of you agree, then yes. This is not something I can agree to by myself." I answered.

I now had the knowledge I wanted to learn and more, as well as a link, or better said chain that would keep the Ice Blooded woman loyal.

I remember her eyes when she asked me to give her more, they were the eyes of someone that would move mountains to get whatever they craved and if she could be as loyal as those eyes implied then having that sort of person as your subordinate was ideal as long as you could provide whatever they craved and you stopped them from turning into a mess of a person.