“I’m sure I said something about the elders coming to an agreement. I remember my lips moving and everything.”

You are offering the opportunity for fire and earth cultivators to deepen their understanding of fire and earth, for free. His commanding officer would kick his ass up over his ears if he didn’t latch on to the opportunity with all four limbs. He’s being a good corporal by hauling in his squad before tipping off the rest of the garrison too.

“Corporal?”

“Ten man commander, whatever.”

Brother Wang and his opponent had fought each other to a manly draw, bumped fists and staggered over to the tea session. Tian was privately sure Brother Wang threw the fight. It seemed that the Dao of Low Key was powerful, and not so easily changed. Sister Hong beat the hell out of her opponent, and unless Tian very much missed his guess, the art she was using wasn’t one she learned from Ancient Crane Monastery. At the very least, it wasn’t an art that was available to the Outer Court.

She still dragged her sparring partner over to the tea session, determined not to be left out. Lin hadn’t left the Manor. Maybe there was just nothing here for her.

Tian was experimenting with the soldiers. So far, he had his own tea and lidded cup, and their tea and tea kettle. He didn’t have enough of the red tea to make a batch of his tea in their kettle.

“It’s definitely stronger with your tea and lidded cup, but I still get some of it in the big pot.” Daoist Xiong smacked his lips and thoughtfully drained his cup.

“I’m not surprised. My understanding of fire is tied to compassion, which is related to hospitality. When I have people around for a tea session, I can express that through my service. With a big pot and more people, it’s harder to convey that emotion. A tea service should be full of a generous spirit and warmth that comes from the heart. It is a connection between the server and the drinker. This feels too impersonal. The emotional content is lacking.”

“Emotion? How is that related to fire qi?” A soldier asked.

“Actually, I had the same question.” Daoist Xiong nodded.

Tian stared blankly at them. Surely this was common knowledge? No, it definitely was. He had been told about the emotions tied to various elements by his brothers, and emotional disorders brought on by excessive nutrition or deficiencies in the various organs was a standard part of practically every medical textbook.

Were they just stupid?

No, probably not. Maybe nobody thought that information was important for soldiers to know. Which seemed a little weird to Tian, but so did a lot of things.

So he explained it, as best he could. How the five elements were connected to their organs which were connected to their emotions and it was all part of one vast thing humans called the Dao. That, in a very real sense, they were nothing but a collection of elements walking around and poking at other elements. The inside of you and the outside of you, the tangible and the intangible, they were all really one thing. Since that was so, understanding the feelings behind “fire” was as valid an approach as understanding how things burned in comprehending the dao of fire.

“Though I can understand why soldiers would find the burning part more useful.” Tian concluded. That got some stunned nods. It seemed that this wasn’t the basic information Tian thought it was. He was really starting to wonder just what they were taught.

“That is the weirdest take on the elements I have ever heard in my life. Who taught you something so bat- so crazy?”

“Sister Hong, you too?!”

“No, I agree with her. You aren’t wrong, I just don’t recall seeing it synthesized that way before.” Sister Su looked calculative. Brother Wang looked like he had discovered a treasure.

“I know you bums can read!” Tian exploded. Everyone was giving him strange looks, and none of this stuff was anything unusual. “Look. Look right here!” He started slapping his books on the table, opening diagrams labeling organ systems and hammering the lines that indicated what emotions they were tied to. The same charts indicated the elemental alignment too, naturally. He then flipped to pages on nutrition, hammering his points home again. Then another explaining how environmental energy imbalances could contribute to disease.

Inside and outside in constant communication. The elements and their emotional effects. The organ systems and their elemental alignments. It was all one big chain, from the heavens to the earth, from mortal to immortal. All of creation came from primordial chaos, then yin and yang, and finally, the five elements. And if you didn’t understand all that, were you really a daoist?

“Huh. I knew all that, or most of that, but I really hadn’t put it together that fire outside the body was fundamentally the same qi as the fire inside a body and it was all a piece with your emotions. Incidentally, that’s the bit that’s throwing everyone, Brother Tian.” Brother Wang scratched his chin. “The implications are… interesting.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m pretty sure that’s how Heavenly People use qi. That… connection between interior and exterior qi. And if they can use it to cut stone like mud, can they use it to shape emotion?” Brother Wang’s voice came out slowly, as though he was tasting each word.

“And you will drop that line of speculation this instant.” A lightly scuffed looking Elder Feng and Manor Lord suddenly appeared in their midst. Tian was sure they had flown through the air, but he hadn’t actually caught them doing it.

“I really must give Brother Rui my… fond appreciation… for sending such talented, insightful children for me to chaperone. Very fond appreciation.” Elder Feng’s voice was wintery. “I repeat. Drop that line of inquiry at once. I’d order you not to even think about it, but I don’t like giving orders that won’t be obeyed. I will only tell you there is a damn good reason we don’t teach you about the realms above your own, and one of them is that it impacts your chances to reach those realms. I am clear and you do

understand me.”

“Yes Elder!” Tian chorused with the others.

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The Manor Lord was more direct with his subordinates. “You didn’t hear anything about anything, aren’t going to repeat anything you didn’t hear, and if anyone asks, Elder Feng is outraged at a particularly foul joke. Punishment starts with a long time in solitary, and progresses from there.”

The soldiers bowed in unison, cupping their fists.

The Manor Lord scooped up a tea cup. “Serve.”

Tian bowed and took a deep breath. The Senior wasn’t hostile. He was trying to stop his people from hurting themselves, and presumably wanted to be sure a stranger wasn’t scamming them. That was fair. It spoke well of him.

Tian picked up the tea pot and added hot water to the leaves. He tried to infuse it with his willingness to welcome those who would welcome him. His willingness to take the hurt if it stopped another’s pain. And his compassion towards himself. His refusal to be humiliated and harmed for reasons he could not accept.

He poured the fresh tea into the tea cup. “Please.”

The Manor Lord sipped the tea. His eyes half closed, then opened again. “I know why you don’t understand why this is happening. Your level of elemental insight is too high and it has reached the point of sublimation. You focused on the fire qi, but it’s all in there. Since you have internalized it to such a high level, you don’t notice the remnants of your understanding that you infuse into the tea.”

The Manor Lord flicked his gaze over the other juniors from Ancient Crane Mountain. “It is the same for your colleagues. The less they understand, the more they are able to find the charm in the tea, because it is like nothing they have experienced before. Your sect siblings know something is special about your tea, but they are used to comparatively high qi environments, and are comparatively knowledgeable about the elements. They can’t spot exactly what is special about the tea. My soldiers are sensitive to fire and earth qi in a comparatively low qi environment. They have to recognize them, because their lives depend on it. But we don’t bother with esoteric matters like understanding it. At least, not at their level. So this hits them a lot harder.”

He smacked his lips and slid his eyes over towards Elder Feng who started shaking her head. “This was a flying visit, Manor Lord, and besides, you heard him. It’s tied to his dao of hospitality. I can’t order him to do it.”

Tian silently snorted at the word hospitality. It involved hospitality, but that wasn’t it. And then he mentally kicked himself. Elder Feng definitely knew that. She was just throwing a distraction. And judging by the sardonic look on the Manor Lord’s face, he wasn’t buying it.

“Alright. What will it cost me to give as many of my soldiers a cup of tea as you can manage in, say, two hours, junior?” He looked at Tian, who suddenly felt the full weight of the Senior’s attention. A bit like looking up at a cliff. It wasn’t falling on you yet, but you could very easily imagine it.

“Pardon? The cost? Forgive me, Manor Lord, but I don’t know how much you paid for the tea. I can’t imagine it costing more than a single spirit crystal per large pot, and frankly, I suspect it’s much less.”

There was a brief moment where Tian was once again the focus of someone immensely more powerful than himself, scrutinizing him for any signs of disrespect.

“Your time, boy. How much for your time and insight into the dao?”

Ahah. Elder Feng had hit the senior too hard, and now his brain was scrambled. Tian didn’t dare offer his meager skills to attempt healing a Heavenly Person’s brain damage. Instead, he focused on speaking slowly and with kind respect.

“Manor Lord, I don’t own the dao, so I can’t charge for it. I didn’t buy the tea or draw the water, and the kettle you already own. The cups are yours as well. I have only practiced serving tea for a little over a year, and I’m not confident in using all the tools of a proper tea service. My skills are therefore worthless. The only thing I’m contributing here is my opinion on some vague matters, and what’s an opinion worth? I am happy to serve if it will assist my Sect and its allies, but I draw wages from my hospital job, and this isn’t a hospital.”

Tain spread his hands helplessly. “People ask me if I dare a lot, and generally I do. But this Junior really doesn’t dare take your spirit stones for his tea service.”

Stillness descended around Tian. He couldn’t understand why everyone was giving him a weird look again. He had explained very clearly. It was getting very tiresome. Maybe brain damage was infectious? And why, exactly, was Grandpa howling with laughter?

The Manor Lord and Elder Feng exchanged a long look.

“Ancient Crane Mountain is going to change, it seems.” The Manor Lord’s voice sounded half amused, and half tired.

Elder Feng made no comment, choosing to straighten her slightly mussed robes and making sure the ornament on her forehead was hanging just-so.

“Young Daoist Tian, you might not value your skills, but we do. The phrasing is awkward, but I would like you to host some of my soldiers for the next hour or so, and make them welcome at your table.”

Tian bowed deeply, cupping his fist. “It would be my honor to do so, Manor Lord.”

It turned into one of the oddest experiences of Tian’s life. Tea, for him, had always been something shared between a few people. The most he had ever seen gathered around a table was at Bamboo Medicine Hut, and even there they had a couple of pots going after the initial pour. Now he was expected to host a few dozen soldiers at the same time.

It wasn’t a proper tea session. He did his very best, pouring everything he could into each pot, but it wasn’t right. The soldiers didn’t notice, but he knew.

Tian didn’t know these people. They were similar in some ways to his brothers, but different in so many others. His brothers were warriors, not soldiers. He could see the difference, finally understanding what his history books had been at pains to describe. The distance was too great to cross without getting to know them at least a little bit. And there was no time for that. All he could do was offer all the care he could for his fellow orthodox daoists.

He could see some of the soldiers stepping away and finding somewhere to meditate. There was some virtue in the cups, it seemed. Still. He didn’t like it, but he did his best. He roped in the others from the sect to keep the conversation going and improve the feeling of sociability. He even sent a soldier for snacks.

“It’s been an hour. I won’t hold you any longer.” The Manor Lord exchanged a long look with Elder Feng, then nodded slightly. “It was an unreasonable tea service, but your sincerity was clear. There will be times, inevitably, when you have to serve more guests than the bare few your current tea tray can manage. Here.” The Manor Lord fished out a wide basalt board with a deep trough carved half an inch from the edge. “It was originally going to be something else, but it will make a fine tea tray, I think. And it will make a better souvenir.”

When they were back on the sky barge, Hong caught him outside of his room. “You know, you could make a lot of money with that gift of yours.”

“How many people want to learn the compassionate yin aspect of fire qi?” Tian chuckled and shook his head. Hong looked at him like he was the perfected sage of the Idiot People. He silently promised himself that the next person giving him a weird look would get the flat of his hand.

“There were six chambers, Brother Zihao. Six. That’s five and one more. Siiiiiiiiiixxxxxxxxxssssss. Which means, to pass them, you grasped at least six truths, and in practice it was a lot more. I am incredibly angry that compassion is one of the things you learned about fire, but that’s nothing to do with you. Well it is, but… ignore that. The point is that you can find something to help almost everyone with something because no one understands the dao in the same way. Every revelation is unique, right? So everyone reacts a little differently to your tea.”

“Yes?” Tian was thoroughly lost at this point. “So? I still can’t sell the damn dao, Sister Liren. If I could, someone else would have already done it.”

“You can sell tea sessions, idiot. You can say ‘I have this incredible, top notch, best quality White Eyebrows Longevity Tea and it costs a hundred spirit crystals for me to serve you a tea session. And while I serve it to you, I’ll talk with you. And while I will inflict upsettingly cheap rice crackers on you, I will also give you a chance to understand the fundamental forces of the universe in a way you never considered before. Interested?’”