Chapter 36:

hapter 36:

~~~~Tai Su~~~~

You can tell a lot of things about someone from the way they act. In my old life there was even a saying about how a man's character is evident in the way they shake hands, with a firm confident handshake showing a respectful attitude, a too loose one a lack of respect, a too strong one the fact you believe yourself superior over the other and so much more ways one can interpret it.

In the Empire of the Blazing Sun, said benchmark was how one stood or carried themselves when meeting someone, as handshakes are not something one does here. No, here we clasp our hands as opposed to shaking them, but it does not carry the same implications, it's merely a gesture one does when you greet them.

It's an important one, but how you do it tells you little about the person.

The man in front of me had what one would call a loosely confident stance, as he used the spear that used to belong to a bannerman as one would use walking stick. Only bannermen and some of our family members came equipped with spears, so this was a statement of power, of confidence and because he was waiting for us to come to him from the moment he saw us as opposed to sitting, a statement of respect too.

He could be nobody else but the leader of the sorry lot in front of me.

"It stinks." Ya Xue mumbled.

We were far away that they could not hear us, yet, still it didn't hurt not to mention such things where people can see or hear you. People don't tend to like seeing their work insulted or mocked.

"Unsurprising, large groups with limited supply of water to clean themselves with tend to stink, also dying tends to do that." I said.

I could smell it, the stench of death and suffering, one came from my nose and it smelled of shit, the other from my meridians. Someone died recently and their suffering was so strong it still lingers.

My friends and family did not react to the knowledge that someone died recently, the people here didn't look like the type of people that would prevent it.

The leader looked somewhat competent or at least used to social grandstanding and his advisors to his back looked somewhat confident, but the rest of them? They didn't look like cultivators, they looked like scared animals one needs to look after lest they hurt themselves more. They were certainly scared of us too.

I couldn't see the exact number, but if they split into three like we do and is standard then there should be something like thirty of them and only eight of us, and yet I can taste the fear.

Now that we were close enough to one another I could see how he looked, and he was an unremarkable and somewhat handsome man with brown eyes and sharp features. His eyes were sharp though, in a way that went beyond just their shape, there was a calculating intelligence there that told me the man in front of me is someone I should be careful with.

"Greetings friends of the Lemon Banner, I am Feng Shan, the leader of this group." The man, Feng Shan, declared cheerfully as he thumped his fist to his chest.

We were close enough now, that talking did not need to involve shouting.

It was an obviously exaggerated display, but it wasn't meant for us, but for the people behind him. The tension held in each of them dissolved.

They looked worse than vagrants and yet they trusted Feng Shan, which meant the man was doing well by their standards, their situation was just… shitty.

"Ha, well met Feng Shan, I am Tai Su, the leader of this squad." I greeted back and offered my hand for him to clasp.

He took it with a smile as we clasped our hands.

Behind me my subordinates relaxed slightly, while in front of me his own breathed a sigh of relief. I could see that he was doing the same thing I was, gauging each other's subordinates and his smile of relief matched mine.

Two leaders clasping hands is a sign of peace and friendship and informs their subordinates that no fighting is to occur today. We separated shortly after and now the time for theatrics was over.

Now it was time to talk business.

"Yes, please follow me to the center of the camp, we can talk there with a bit of privacy." He said.

"Yes, I'll come talk. Yu Zong, Bao, I'll let the two of you to look after everyone, make sure nobody is insulting anyone." I answered and turned towards the two women.

"You can count on us." Bao answered.

"We'll make sure nobody tries anything." Yu Zong continued.

I turned back to Feng Shan to ask him to lead the way, but he beat me to it.

"Ya Ming and Huang will show you around and make sure nobody bothers you, everyone else can go back to their duties. Please follow me." Feng Shan said and pointed to the two individuals in question.

So that's Huang then?

I saved his face into memory, I'll be having a talk with him later.

"Let's go." I replied simply.

The 'center of the camp turned up to be the stump in the supply depot. Calling this a camp was a partial descriptor, it was a refugee camp, not merely a normal one.

The people around us did not bother us as we walked but I couldn't help but look at them, some looked like they were cultivating, others were trying various exercises in the hope of Awakening, while others just looked miserable as they reconsidered their lives.

Some were wounded too and I saw at least one man without an eye. Something did catch my attention beyond their whispers, some of them had meat in their bowls.

'It seems this group has had ample experience with the cherries and the wildlife.' I thought.

There's no other source of meat here after all.

"Here. We can talk now." The man said.

I put my backpack down near the stump. Both of us sat on the stump, our legs crossed beneath us and it was up to me to act now.

"How bad is the situation?" I asked simply.

I needed to know what I was dealing with and if I could help with anything. I had no intention of staying, but that didn't mean I couldn't help.

"Our food situation is tight, five more days of food even with the rationing we're doing, your medicine, is nearly finished as it only works on open wounds and I'll need to try and brave the river and the beasts that seem to go wild near it to get water. We've started having to try mushrooms to see if they're edible and someone already died." He enumerated, each item causing one of the fingers of his left hand to go up.

That's… impressive.

Five days of food when all they had was whatever little supplies they had left after the road? Assuming they packed like the rest of us roughly a week and a half of food to two weeks of food, then they should have ran out of it a week ago. The fact they had meat now, even if they had to give people the bare minimum told me the man had been doing a decent enough job, especially when you consider that rationing means half portions.

I could also see him getting worried as I was deep in thought.

"I have no intention of staying, my group and I have enough food and water for three days of activity and we want to push hard to reach the sect. I am willing to part with a bit more medicine, and see what we can do to help you today as well as see if we can't replenish our water supplies with you again and find some fruits to eat to top off our supplies." I replied eventually.

It was true, large groups meant more problems, just dealing with the defecation issues was a chore as it meant we needed to constantly move or go further and further away each time one of us needed to piss and shit. Then there's the interpersonal issues.

Bao and Yu Zong may think Da Xiu and I don't notice the fact the two women don't like each other, but we know our wives, we know that the two women are acting overly friendly with one another to such an extent it can't be anything but forced. Ya Xue can only do so much to keep the peace between the two when I'm not there, but I can smell both of their emotions even if I didn't know the two of them.

It's touching in a sense that our wives want to make our plans work and are willing to try and put their distaste for one another away and pretend it's not there, but it is tiring to pretend I'm not seeing it, and more tiresome still to keep everyone from fighting.

If I were to join his group then I'd need to do the same or them as well and more, as the number of problems a group faces multiplies with each new member.

"What assistance can you offer?" He asked.

"We have a list of edible fruits and their descriptions, we did not bother recording mushrooms as we can't trust them, we can give you more medicine, Awaken anyone that still needs it, look over your tools and see what you have and what you need, help you with your water expedition, letting you copy our map and other things depending on what you need." I enumerated.

His eyes widened with each thing I said.

"You have a map? How, is it because you are bannermen?" He asked shocked.

I shrugged.

Believing that the bannermen get preferential was a given, but the Blazing Fist Sect did not seem to operate on those principles from what I got so far. Maybe… I am not sure but from what I could see in the manuals they gave us they seemed wholly uninterested in giving any of us an advantage.

What we got was what we got and we only had ourselves to blame for it.

"The sects are part of the Armies of the Empress, this entire trial is a training mission which means we could have requested supplies, from medicine, to food and knowledge to copy and even paper and rope. My squad was the only one to remember it and so we got first pick of them. It's how we managed to get enough food for constant physical activity since we started." I answered.

The man looked at the sky, his gaze far beyond what his eyes could see. I could only imagine what went through his mind.

"How much food were you allowed to take?" He asked airily, as if the very notion was something of passing intellectual curiosity.

"Enough for a week of constant physical activity for five people, as there were only five of us then." I answered.

That made the man give me a soft nod and his mind went somewhere else.

"If we had that much food we would have already finished the Trial, trying to deal with little food and limiting our physical ability was what kept us back for so long." He bitterly stated

"I doubt most of those that were with you would have been accepted if you tried to go as you were now, this trial is meant to also show how one acts once Cultivation Awakens and they change and become more wild and less restrained." I said.

That got him to fully focus back on our conversation, his musings left to the side.

"I thought it was because we were doing it wrong that most of us acted weird, you're telling me this is normal?" He asked.

"Most?" I asked back.

"Yes, Lee Kai my quartermaster said he felt nothing different when he awakened." He answered.

So another Ice Blooded? Do I bother with informing him or not?

No, this Lee Kai did me no wrong, and what is likely to happen is that the camp will turn against him, assuming they believe me. Better to just pass it off as some weirdness if they didn't catch on themselves.

"Da Xiu, one of my subordinates has a cultivator in the family and while he didn't outright state it, he told him that cultivation fundamentally changes you and what we've experienced fits. Your quartermaster may just be the type to recover fast or it's something else going on.

We can ask back at the sect which is which, but I can Awaken everyone to make sure they pass. I will need a meal for today if that's the case, so that we can rush to the sect entrance." I revealed.

I probably shouldn't reveal so much, but I've decided on something as I saw Feng Shan react to my words. It was subtle, but the man was overwhelmed. It is entirely possible the man doesn't even have enough time to bother with thinking about harming us, he needs to keep his camp busy operating with all of its issues.

"Is it something you can teach others to do?" He asked.

"No, only Ya Xue and I can do so because we have Water Meridians." I answered.

"The former cherry girl. I still remember her from the first day and how she held the banner up." He said with a raised eyebrow.

" Will that be an issue? She left them once they tried to kill her for joining our squad." I asked pointedly.

A single thought settled in my mind in that very moment.

'If he wants to harm her, then he will die.'

Ya Xue's history was an issue, I knew this, she knew this, everyone in my squad knew this. It's for that reason that she had been silent since I decided to go and meet them and tried to do her best to not draw attention to herself.

I am willing to help these people, first and foremost because it's the right thing to do and secondly because it will probably be looked favorably on by the sect members observing us, but my willingness to help others has a limit and that is when the one I am helping wants to harm my family, and Ya Xue is my concubine so this makes her family in a sense.

Once the line is crossed you die and I accept nothing else.

The man in front of me saw me tense and I could smell the fear in his soul and see the way his body reacted once its mind realized that it is in danger.

"No, if you guarantee for her I'll intervene on her behalf." He said with a vigorous shaking of his head.

"Good, now let's talk how we can coordinate and what you've done so far."

~~~~Shen Xifeng~~~~

Seeing different groups of cultivators finding each other is always an interesting thing to see.

Cultivation removes your inhibitions, your habits, your doubts and some of your limits. It takes days to build yourself back to something functional, albeit some people can do it in hours, and some like the ice-blooded and some rare geniuses never even notice it when it happens.

The first time at least, each advancement from one tier to the next repeats the process, which is why the survival test does what it does. It tells us the sort of man or woman you are and what you do when there's nothing left of you but your own will.

Humans however are not solitary creatures, we exist in societies and those societies shape us and that includes cultivators. Cultivators form their own structures their own ideals and their own societies when left to develop on their own and while such things are curbed once they are allowed into the sect, during the Trial it's where these not-quite cultures collide.

Each cultivator group develops in a unique way compared to each other, each possessing a different mentality and attitude towards various topics and ways of doing things.

"It's always interesting seeing different cultures collide." Min Min said from my side.

Both of us were looking over the two leaders discussing their own actions and plans for the end of the Trial and where to go from now from their side.

"Yes, it's one of the more pleasant parts of the Trial when such interaction are friendly." I replied and nodded.

Min Min could have been my twin despite us having been born a century from one another and with not a single individual of our families mingling since the older woman was born and possibly long before too. We styled our clothing and mannerism to look like one another to mess with people and because we liked the idea of one of us pretending to be the other when one needed rest and due to this we were close.

It didn't mean however that we had the same opinion on many things.

"It's interesting even when they are not sometimes, unfortunately not this time, is Young Mu still observing the cherries?" She asked.

I most certainly disagreed on that. I've seen far too much violence for it to be interesting, I much preferred when different peoples put aside their differences and learned to work despite of them.

"Yes, from what I heard, all of them but two decided to unite into one group further south at the base of the mountain." I answered.

"Oh, is Mao Ma going to get his wish for some good seed?" She asked eagerly.

"Perhaps, the two of them don't seem that bad, but I doubt they'll complete the trial. They haven't even bothered with cultivating and are just enjoying the forest, treating it like a vacation, they've moved far south and away from the mountain." I answered.

There's always some odd-balls out. This is however the first time since the founding of the sect somebody just decided to go into the forest and just… not care for the Trial. I'll see if I can go talk to them, maybe they'll have something interesting to say about it before we erase their memories of the Trial.

"Think they're trying to go feral?" She asked.

Both of us snickered at that.

Feral creatures are creatures raised in civilization that run from it and return into nature. It's usually a term used to describe farm animals returning into the wild like their ancestors, not people. We are however speaking of cherry banner trash, so the term seems oddly fitting.

I doubted that's what's going on. Cherry Bannermen live in an extremely stifling environment, the two lovers have probably decided to enjoy their first time away from their families doing whatever they wanted.

I am certainly rooting for them, maybe master will allow us to bend the rules and just… return them somewhere else in the Empire? I heard good things about the western parts of the empire, so maybe they would like it?

I'll think about it later, Master Fu Jian will probably say yes if I ask, and the two children of the cherry banner deserved some reward for not turning into animals like the rest of their kin.

"No, also pay attention, the leaders are now looking over the map."

"We shouldn't have let them make a copy of it, back in my day we weren't allowed to do that." She whined.

"Master changed the rules to sabotage lone wolves that think ahead, but refuse to cooperate with others. You can't do everything alone and the limited time they have to find something useful is made vastly shorter if you think you can be smart about it and just copy the map without looking for useful supplies or knowledge." I replied, my tone flat.

The Trial is made to reward a certain type of individual emerging, said type of individual being those that are moral, smart, willing to work together with others, willing of standing up for what is right and being willing to defeat evil when it emerges.

Both of the leaders in front of me had those qualities to one degree or another, Tai Su being smarter and Feng Shan being more willing to work with others. Both of them had all the qualities we looked for, but it was clear from their interactions where each excelled more than the other.

That woman knew that, but she still loved to whine about ' how things were done in her days.' I like to do it too, it's good fun, I just hate it being done to me.

Feng Shan was looking constipated as the map copy was presented to him and he was shown the lemon's route through the forest.

"What path did they take?" I asked, as the two leaders were discussing things.

"The standard one, they went west, looked at where the mountain is and just headed south and collected whatever groups they saw once the fires started being lit, your group seems to have been hopping from supply drop off to supply drop off." She answered.

"Yes, they believed those spots carry supplies they could use." I replied.

Both of us snickered again.

Those spots are where petitioners leave letters and packages, where disciples and practitioners leave their own supplies at while they train in the forest or meditate and also serves as meeting spots.

They are not in use during the Trial, so nobody left any supplies there, except at the northernmost one where someone forgot some fire wood. It's probably what caused the lemons to be certain that their theory is correct and that somebody else has emptied them.

"I still can't get over how they misunderstood it like that, anyway what are the news with the foxes? Are they still occupying that town?" Min Min asked.

"News came just an hour or so ago, I came here originally to tell you about it before I noticed that our two groups were interacting. The fox ancestors went to the Empress to explain themselves, the Empress allowed them to stay as long as they restrict their activities to just protecting some woman and pretending to be servants." I answered.

This is what master Fu Jian told me at least. It felt as if he left something unsaid but the Trial takes precedence, so he probably does not to distract us away from it for now.

"They are second tier cultivators Shen, one of them would be the sort of force one sends when they want to take over a town and the surrounding area, ten of them are the sort of thing you send to keep the entire Prefecture safe." She replied with an arched eyebrow.

That is only technically true. Ten Foundation Establishment Cultivators could be used to keep a region the size of the Orange Prefecture running and cowed, provided they had enough support staff and people to man garrisons, assuming there wasn't a sect nearby that is, but the point was made.

That is an excessive amount of security to give to some random woman.

"I know Min, but the foxes managed to convince the Empress that whatever that woman managed to do deserves that level of protection, and she allowed them to continue to stay provided that they only do what they were brought there to do and nothing else." I replied with a shrug.

Sometimes the actions of the Empress and the Fox Ancestors made no sense, or only made sense centuries later. This was just more of the same.

Hopefully the result is worth it this time.

"What is her name?" She asked.

"Oh?"

"The name of the woman receiving this much protection, and why is she receiving it?" She clarified.

"I don't know why she is receiving it, but her name is Hao Wen." I answered.

I quite frankly wished to know that as well, unfortunately the Trial takes priority. Once the Trial is done however, I can just go to ask them about it and remind the foxes that they are in Imperial lands.

The foxes seem to need a reminder that when you come into someone's territory, the least you could do is announce yourself and explain why. Fortunately Golden Core cultivators tend to remind cultivators of lesser tiers that they need to behave in a way that is hard to forget or ignore.