Chapter Text
In one world, Meng Yao is born a boy. His mother wants to make him a cultivator, foolishly trusting an uncaring, cruel man. He’s taught to seek his father’s name, and when his father finally visits the brothel he lives in, Meng Shi looks between her son’s ragged clothes and his father’s golden silk. She tells him who the man is.
In one world, Meng Yao becomes Jin Guangyao, and he dies a wretched man. He dies with unfulfilled dreams and desperations. Betrays his loved ones, kills half of them. He’s reviled, hated, cursed, and knows no peace even in his damnation.
In this world, Meng Yao is born a girl.
Meng Shi is protective of her only daughter, her little jade, and she still wants her to become a cultivator. But she does not tell the girl of her father. Instead, Jin Guangshan visits the brothel when little A-Yao turns ten, and he stares after the girl, who already looks so much like Meng Shi had when she had been young. And Meng Shi watches in horror as the man she’d considered her knight in shining armor asks after her daughter- his daughter. What the fuck. Meng Shi may be a romantic, but she hasn’t worked as a prostitute for fifteen years untouched. She knows about the monsters that pretend to be men.
Thankfully, the brothel owner is not cruel enough to sell a child. When Jin Guangshan finally leaves, Meng Shi gathers her precious daughter in her arms. Presses a kiss to the side of her head and makes her swear to never go near Lanling.
Even at that age, Meng Yao is startlingly pretty. Delicate, like her mother, with dark hair and pale green-gold eyes like her father. She’s also startlingly clever. Meng Shi knows where she got it from- the heavens know that Jin Guangshan was once a cunning general, before his man-whore ways and love of decadence degraded his reputation.
Meng Yao, ever the dutiful daughter, learns all the tricks and talents her mother has to offer. Instead of spending money on cultivation manuals Meng Shi saves her money beneath the floorboards of their tiny shared room. She’s not supposed to be paid; her allowance from the brothel is for makeup and pretty things to make her clients want to stay. But Meng Shi was once the most beautiful woman in the brothel, well-educated and talented at both the guqin and dancing. Her clients, even now that she’s become more of a back-room prostitute, sometimes leave her with trinkets and coins. Meng Shi is no fool. She’d once been the third daughter of a prosperous trading family, after all, before the family fortune was stolen by an uncle who poisoned her younger brother, and sold Meng Shi into debt. Meng Shi, at the age of fifteen, then, had already been raised to be the future wife of some minor scholar or wealthy man. She knew how to appear valuable.
In the eyes of everyone save for Jin Guangshan.
“A-Yao,” she tells her daughter one day. “Why don’t you go work at the Qi family’s tea shop?”
At eleven Meng Yao knows how to write and read. She’s a natural at the guqin, as her mother had been, and is remarkably talented with the needle. Meng Shi knows her daughter is a pretty, adorable child, and the Qis dote upon the little girl. They are an elderly, childless couple, and make enough money that they feel no qualms in spoiling Meng Yao. They have no idea her mother is a prostitute.
Their tea shop is the perfect place for Meng Shi to shelter A-Yao. It’s closer to Yunmeng’s central markets, and a fair amount of low-level cultivators visit the shop to take a break from night-hunting.
Meng Yao visits the Qis and asks shyly about working as a tea-server for their small shop.
“Mother is getting weaker these days,” she tells them sadly. Tears brim in her large, doe-like eyes and her voice trembles. “I don’t want her to work so much, grandmother, and I’m not old enough to ask for work anywhere else… I’m sorry, I don’t want to be a burden.”
Grandma Qi coos over the little girl. “Don’t you worry, A-Yao,” she comforts the young child. “Of course you can work here. Pah, my back is getting tired anyways! And you can give the customers their teas without having to bend your back as much!”
She chuckles and hands Meng Yao a piece of sticky candy. “Now go along, A-Yao. You must come every morning to help me dry the teas.”
Meng Yao learns how to run the shop very quickly. After a few weeks, Grandma Qi learns the girl can read and write, and even do some math. “Ah,” she says, contemplating. “A-Yao, would you like to learn how to do accounting? My husband’s getting on with his years, can’t even read the numbers properly anymore. But he can teach you how to manage the money, how does that sound?”
Meng Shi is delighted when Meng Yao reports back with the news.
“Say yes,” she advises. “I want you to learn, A-Yao. Remember what I told you- everything can be a weapon.”
Meng Yao loves her mother. She loves her in the way only a child can love their parent. And Meng Yao also loves power.
Knowledge is power, Meng Yao thinks. And that’s something she can steal away without anyone noticing.
+
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One day Meng Shi overhears one of the younger girls in the hall.
“Did you hear? The Jiang Sect is holding a discussion conference at Lotus Pier next month.”
“So suddenly?”
“There was a demonic disturbance in Lang city earlier this summer, no? Don’t you remember that man who came through last week? He said the cultivator family in charge of the area was wiped out.”
“Ah! What a great fortune for us,” the second girl said dryly, “after all, discussion conferences mean more clients.”
Cultivators, Meng Shi knows, pay well. But many of them are twisted, plagued by ghosts and sins.
As much as Meng Shi recognizes the chance to add to her meager fortune, she also knows there is a danger for her daughter. It is also an opportunity. While female cultivators rarely travel outside of their clan lands or sect affairs, a fair number flock to the discussion conferences. A fair number of them pass through the streets where the Qis run their shop.
“Mother,” her little jade murmurs. “Is something bothering you?”
Meng Yao does not know her father is the esteemed Jin Guangshan. Meng Shi has only ever told her that her father was a cultivator. That is enough for Meng Shi to convince her precious jade to listen carefully to the cultivators who pass by the tea shop. That is enough for Meng Yao to want to be one.
“A-Yao. Mother will be very busy in a few weeks,” Meng Shi says.
Meng Yao inclines her head. The look on her face is much too serious for a girl barely eleven years old. “I understand, mother,” she says solemnly. “I will stay at Grandma Qi’s for the nights.”
“For the days too,” Meng Shi corrects. “And remember to look for young women with swords. Do not talk unless you’re talked to first.”
Meng Yao nods determinedly.
She’s precocious for her age, but Meng Yao is still a child. Her ears perk up at the tales of great cultivators, battling spirits and ghosts and demons. She smiles at the few cultivators who frequent the tea shop, and they find her a cute child with a too-large imagination. Meng Yao is also very small for her age. Part of it, she supposes, is due to the small meals she is used to. It is still a tool Meng Yao knows how to use well.
She clings to the more kinder, gentler customers. Cultivators accompanying their sisters or wives. Cultivators who have daughters or sons around Meng Yao’s age. They’re safer, Meng Shi whispers. But do not trust them too much.
Meng Yao doesn’t trust them very much. She knows not to.
However, most of the women who regularly visit the Qi’s tea shop are not cultivators. They cannot tell Meng Yao fancy stories. They cannot show off their hand at the sword or saber, and Meng Yao cannot watch them closely and memorize every single movement she sees. She cannot practice the common women’s tea-drinking with the wooden practice sword she hides underneath her bed roll.
She learns gossip from the women instead. Meng Yao listens. The seamstress who makes clothes for the Jiang Sect disciples teaches her how to choose the best fabrics. The widow, whose husband left her two children and an orchard, shows her the difference between healthy plants. Meng Yao listens. Meng Yao learns.
The month of the discussion conference arrives. Cultivators start booking inns, and begin to crowd the streets of Yunmeng. Meng Yao wakes in the morning, washes her face and hair in the stream near the tea shop. She joins Grandma Qi for breakfast, and kneads the rice flour for sweet rice cakes. Customers start trickling into the shop as the sun climbs higher into the sky.
Three young women enter the shop. Meng Yao recognizes their robes as that of the Lans- she’s never met one in person (until today), but she knows that their headbands and blue-white robes are the Lan Sect’s signature. They seem gentle. Yet Meng Yao keeps her distance- the Lans are at best a quiet bunch, and at worst absolutely silent.
The women leave soon anyways, taking their paper packages of sweets and tea leaves. Meng Yao does not have the chance to observe them for long.
It is near noon when the next female cultivator visits the shop. This one, Meng Yao notes, is unaccompanied. The first thing Meng Yao takes in is the woman’s stature. She is tiny, surprisingly so for a cultivator. Her dark, glossy hair is braided up the sides and into twin loops. It is a very distinctive hairstyle, and Meng Yao wonders if it is a Sect thing as well.
The woman’s face is difficult to read. She has a regal nature about her, almost scholarly in attitude. Her head glitters with the slim jade hair pins that hold the braids in place. They all look expensive, and extremely sharp. Her silk robes, surprisingly, look a bit different from what Meng Yao is used to seeing. The pale green waist sash is long, like a skirt, held together with a black silk belt. On the woman’s shoulders lies a short white cape of thick fur. Meng Yao cannot see any sword on the woman- in fact, if it were not for the way she walks- silent, deadly- she would have not been able to tell that she was anything other than a wealthy madam.
“Do you sell any baitang-guo here?” the woman asks. It takes Meng Yao a moment to stop staring at the varied jade pendants hanging from the woman’s belt to realize she’s the one being asked.
“Oh!” the girl exclaims. “Yes, of course madame-“
“Cui-daoshi,” the woman corrects. “Bring me one plate and a pot of your oolong tea.”
Meng Yao hesitates. “Daoshi, I’m afraid our shop does not sell oolong tea. May I suggest the huangcha instead?”
Cui-daoshi levels a contemplating look at her. There is no malice, nor cruelty in her gaze. Yet Meng Yao still feels a small shiver travel down her back. She smiles as politely as her eleven-year-old face can manage.
“Alright then,” the woman says.
Meng Yao busies herself with the stores of tea leaves. Out of the corner of her eye, she watches the woman settle into one of the seats by the large, opened windows.
The Qi’s tea shop is settled in a modest area of Yunping city. Yunping, being as close to Lotus Pier as it is, is a somewhat bustling city filled with wealthy traders. The view the Qi’s second floor has is a nice one; certainly not the very best, but it still looks out on a colorful market square.
Meng Yao doesn’t know why a woman who looks like a wealthy-enough cultivator would visit the Qi’s. The tea shop is of course a better spot than the brothel streets Meng Yao grew up in. It is still not the most popular, nor fancy, street.
She cuts the fluffy white baitang-guo into neat squares. Then she hesitates. This is an opportunity, Meng Yao can tell. When will she meet a cultivator like this woman again? There’s no telling if the woman would ever return to the shop. Even while she’s here, Meng Yao knows it will be a gamble, talking to her. While Meng Yao is very good at getting adults to dote on her (at least the ones blessedly unaware of her parentage), cultivators are very different from the market-people of Yunping.
Taking a deep breath, Meng Yao recalls the most prominent pendant the woman had been wearing. It had writing on it- a single character Meng Yao is not familiar with- with a carefully carved flower in the background. She copies the shape onto one of the larger squares of the cake. The steamed rice flour is easy to cut and carve.
When Meng Yao arrives at the woman’s seat, she settles the tray down at the table gently. For a moment she pauses, hoping that the woman will glance at the food and offer her a word. Meng Yao can catch a conversation if the cultivator starts it first.
A long breath passes before Cui-daoshi finally looks away from the window. She looks at the cakes and says nothing. Meng Yao’s cheeks flush slightly and her heart drops with disappointment. Another failure, she tells herself. It’s alright. There will be another cultivator Meng Yao can try to speak to, someday.
The girl murmurs a small please enjoy your time, before rising to leave the table. She’s just turned away when a voice calls her back.
“Wait,” Cui-daoshi says.
Meng Yao feels her spirit lighten immediately. Has the cultivator noticed her little touch? Is she willing to speak to her? Heart in her mouth, Meng Yao turns and bows a little to the woman.
“Do you need anything else, daoshi?”
She does not dare to say anything else. Holding stone-still as Cui-daoshi studies her, Meng Yao swallows quietly.
The woman has the eyes of a tiger. It is slightly unsettling, but mostly very intimidating.
“What’s your name, child?”
“It’s Meng Yao, daoshi,” Meng Yao responds.
Cui-daoshi taps a finger on the rim of her plate. “Did you cut this from the rice cake?”
Meng Yao nods. “Yes, I thought your pendants were very nice and wanted to try copying one onto your order. I’m sorry if I… made a mistake. I can change the slice for another one?”
“No need,” the cultivator says. “Meng Yao. Do you know how to read and write? Do you know what this character means?
She does not, in fact, know what the character means. The girl blushes. “I know a little of writing,” she answers, “but I did not know what the character meant.”
“First time seeing the pendant, first time seeing the character.” Cui-daoshi hums. “And you can already copy it so nicely. Tell me, Meng Yao, were your parents cultivators? I can only imagine a few reasons for your penmanship at that age.”
“My father was a cultivator,” Meng Yao says, truthfully. “He died before I was born, though, and my mother raised me on her own. It has always been her dream to let me become like my father.”
That, of course, is a lie.
“Hmm.”
Cui-daoshi runs a hand over the talismans on her belt. She looks contemplative. Then, she plucks not a pendant, but one of the two fans that dangle from her hip.
With a sharp sweep of her hand, the cultivator opens it. She places the intricately embroidered silk fan on the table so that it faces Meng Yao.
Meng Yao has seen plenty of fans in the brothel. After all, many of the women doll up and dance and talk with their clients for hours, and often enough fans are a popular tool for acting coquettish. Meng Yao herself knows the basic fan dances her mother taught her when she was young. And still she has never seen such a… unique fan.
The embroidery, for one, is of impeccable quality. It does not depict flowers or plants but rather a sloping landscape, dark green against the navy silk. There are tiny black characters that line the edge of the fan. The wood itself is a dark, dark black-brown as well- Meng Yao has the feeling that the fan will not break easily.
“Can you read these characters?” Cui-daoshi points at the line of black running across the top of the silk.
“Most of it.”
“Take a good look, and then copy it by memory.”
Meng Yao widens her eyes. This- this is a test. What does she get if she passes it?
She reads through the characters quickly, and the ones she doesn’t recognize, she memorizes the shape of. It’s not difficult. Meng Yao has always had an exceptional memory. Uncanny, her mother had said with a sharp smile. Good.
Cui-daoshi hands her a strip of paper and a small broken piece of charcoal. Meng Yao tries to make her letters as neat as she can.
“Tell me what you think this says.”
“It describes an unbreakable river,” Meng Yao answers. That doesn’t make much sense, though. “Like… a mountain vein? Something about flexibility and resilience, too.”
The cultivator arcs a brow. A resemblance of a smile creeps up her face, and Meng Yao feels her anxiety dissipating bit by bit.
Cui-daoshi takes the paper Meng Yao wrote on, and inspects it before holding it in her palm and closing her eyes. Meng Yao, wondering what she is doing, leans forward subconsciously.
Then- oh!
A faint glow envelopes the woman’s hand. It looks like a swathe of gold sinking into the paper. Meng Yao swears she sees the letters shine brightly, before the glow fades and Cui-daoshi straightens her palm to show Meng Yao the paper.
“Take it,” she tells the girl. “Try tearing it.”
Meng Yao carefully tugs at the paper.
“Not like that,” the woman sounds fondly exasperated. “As hard as you can.”
Meng Yao thinks the woman is a little odd. Her heart is still beating wildly, though, from her first time seeing actual cultivation (with spiritual energy!) happening in front of her.
She grips the paper harder and tries to rip it in half.
The paper does not tear.
“Ah?”
Cui-daoshi laughs when she sees the look of surprise on Meng Yao’s face. “Congratulations,” the woman says amusedly, “on writing your first talisman.”
She then squints at the little girl.
“How would you like to learn some more?”
Meng Yao stares at the cultivator. The woman stares back without blinking. An impressive feat, actually, considering that she also picks up a large piece of her baitang-guo and shoves it into her mouth without decorum. It takes Meng Yao another few seconds to stop gawking at the completely unrefined way the woman eats, before she remembers she needs to answer.
“Yes!” she exclaims. “I mean. Yes, I would be honored, daoshi.”
The woman laughs again. It is a surprisingly pleasant sound, void of malice or mocking. Meng Yao feels a small flush of embarrassment in her face, still. She must’ve sounded too much like a child.
(Sometimes, Meng Yao forgets that she is indeed a child.)
Cui-daoshi, it turns out, is an absolutely insane woman.
The moment Meng Yao accepts she tells her to call her shifu. Meng Yao blushes and stammers, she doesn’t think it’s appropriate. Not when she’s an outsider to whatever sect Cui-daoshi hails from.
The cultivator smirks at that. “The Cui Clan has lost our home already,” she says. “We’re attending this discussion conference because we heard of an opening. Many of our former disciples remain in Heilong-jiang. More have migrated across the eastern sea, back to our oldest roots. Nobody is going to say no to an external disciple, no matter how brief your training may be.”
And, well. What can Meng Yao say to that? She accepts her new shifu’s terms.
Cui-daoshi, apparently, is staying in Yunping for nearly a month. If her clan is named the new cultivator sect in charge of Lang city, perhaps even longer.
She begins her lessons for Meng Yao by inspecting her cultivation base.
“Undeveloped golden core, as expected. Your base is not very remarkable, but it isn’t small either.”
Over the span of the weeks leading up to the conference, Cui-daoshi guides Meng Yao through the basic steps of cultivation. Meditation, then muscle and stamina training, and then basic fighting forms. Meng Yao barely has the time to memorize everything, let alone perfect them. Cui-daoshi assures her that it’s okay. She’s not trying to make Meng Yao a cultivator in a month. She makes it very clear that that’s impossible, even taking into account Meng Yao’s unnaturally fast learning speed.
“Cultivation is more than simple knowledge, Xiao Yao. You cannot expect to improve in such a short time- most disciples begin before the age of seven, and still do not manage to form a usable golden core until they are well into their mid-teens.” Meng Yao’s shifu pauses to correct the girl’s form before continuing. “You are clever, and quick to adapt, but a golden core is a very important part of cultivation. Now, repeat those forms I showed you yesterday.”
Meng Yao works hard. She wakes up everyday feeling like her bones are stiff, and goes to bed feeling an uncomfortable burn where her core is. An unfortunate side effect of cramming, she guesses. She absorbs every single talisman Cui-daoshi lets her look at. She takes apart the forms she’s taught and pieces them together, one by one, before falling asleep.
She works hard. Cui-daoshi likes it.
“Now,” Cui-daoshi says during their third week. “Your core and body is still too weak to perform too much.”
“Understood, shifu,” Meng Yao answers seriously.
Cui-daoshi eyes her with suspicion. “I already know you’re attempting the more difficult talismans and forms alone,” she mutters. “Stop it. You’re not ready yet, I mean it.”
Meng Yao hangs her head. “Shifu…”
“We don’t have much time,” Cui-daoshi sighs. “And you told me you won’t come with me when I return with my clansmen. You have a mother here, who cannot leave, and I will not force you to do so. But you need to listen to me, Xiao Yao. Not even you can do everything in a flash. You’re talented, yes, and that means you need to be wise.”
Cui-daoshi taps the girl’s head with the edge of her fan. “I will teach you the weapons my clan uses,” she says, “and you must memorize the movements. But do not try them yourself until you spend a year meditating and cultivating your foundation. Understood?”
It is then that Meng Yao learns why Cui-daoshi does not use a sword.
Her weapons are the fans.
Spiritual fans, she is told. The bamboo skeletons are inlaid with steel and spells, carved from stalks of hundred-year bamboo that grow near the Heilong river. The Cui clan has brought as many bundles as they could when they fled the destruction of their ancestral clan home. The wood is as strong as a spirit sword’s steel, and flexible. Meng Yao marvels at the craftsmanship, dissects the spells woven into the wood and silk in her mind.
“Unlike sword-fighting, our fans rely on releases of spiritual energy and the flow of movement.” Cui-daoshi slashes down with a hand holding a folded fan. The bamboo puppet she’s brought to show Meng Yao is split in half, even though it looks like she only tapped it on the head.
“Do not try to use brute force. Redirection is key, and concentration will save your life.”
“Shifu, but why do we use fans in the first place?”
“Our ancestors were scholars,” her shifu answers, “and artists. Most of our clansmen are born small, thin, not likely to grow the strong frames of the Nie or even the Lan. Many of our disciples are women. When we were part of the far north…” Cui-daoshi trails off, before looking down at Meng Yao and grinning. “We used to be dancers as well. Assassins. Nobody suspects a pretty woman in silk robes and a fan instead of a sword. Quite useful, don’t you think?”
Of course, Cui-daoshi uses the sword as well. There’s nothing special about her clan’s sword-fighting, though- it is only a recent technique that they have started to teach their children. It’s only for show, Cui-daoshi tells Meng Yao.
Their month- and two more weeks, actually- pass by much too suddenly. Meng Yao can sense her teacher’s departure in her bones. She fears what will happen when the cultivator leaves. Will Meng Yao fade into the background again, destined to live a life of poverty and unremarkable moderation in the slums of Yunping? She can barely light fire talismans and cast weak protective barriers. Her form, she thinks, is horrible, and she can barely lift a sword yet.
When Cui-daoshi visits the tea shop for the last time, Meng Yao throws herself into her shifu’s arms and cries.
“Oh, Xiao Yao,” the woman says sadly.
Meng Yao clutches at the silk robes. She knows this is unseemly- unbefitting of a well-educated girl, her mother would say. There’s snot running down her nose, for heavens’ sake! Snot!
The girl sniffles loudly, and pouts.
Cui-daoshi runs a hand through the child’s dark hair. “You can always come and visit,” she reminds her student. “Anyone who calls me shifu is welcome there.”
“But how will I find you?”
“Lang city will be my clan’s new home, Xiao Yao. Ask for me- ask for Cui Xian.”
She crouches down to Meng Yao’s height and tugs a qiankun pouch from her waist. “Here,” she says gently. “This is for you, Xiao Yao.”
Meng Yao takes the pouch carefully.
“Are you sure, shifu?”
“Mm.”
Cui-daoshi smiles at her. It’s not one of her teasing smiles, nor her mischievous grins. It is a warm, fond little thing that hangs on her sharp-featured face.
“It has a few manuals for you, and a practice fan you can use until you come find me.”
Meng Yao watches with solemn eyes as her shifu stands up. The older woman squeezes her hand.
“Don’t forget your training, my child,” she says. “I will wait for you to come, and when you do, we will visit the bamboo groves together.”
The girl nods. She clutches at Cui-daoshi’s robes for a scant moment, before letting the silk go.
“Goodbye, shifu,” she murmurs.
Cui-daoshi pauses at the door. Turns around. Meng Yao can see the silhouette of a tall, lean man standing outside the doors, waiting for the cultivator.
Her shifu hesitates, before raising a hand up to her hair. She plucks one of her long, elegant hair pins.
“Take this, Xiao Yao,” she says. “And take care.”
Then, she is gone.