Chapter 25:

Chapter 25

~~~~Tai Su~~~~

Awakening the Meridians and Dantian of somebody is an easy thing to do provided one has Water Meridians.

From what I and my group of friends have been able one needs Water Meridians at the very least to expel Qi from our body consciously which meant that only me and Ya Xue can actually make others aware of their meridians and dantian and turn them into proper cultivators.

I can't control the Qi once it leaves my body however, this is the one thing my manual made abundantly clear and that I was forced to concede. While inside my body my qi could be used, this is something all of us have confirmed, but outside of my body I need Gold Meridians to affect Qi.

"Looking over the manual won't change what it says Tai Su." A female voice said softly.

I turned towards the one whose voice belonged and squinted my eyes at her. Said woman sat down near me on the stump I was using to read Mei Lin's manual to see if it possessed any useful knowledge.

"It won't Yu Zong, but it might allow me to understand something I am not. Are the twins taking well to Da Xiu's training?" I answered.

The woman settled near me and looked over my shoulder as I was reading Mei Lin's manual. It was an… interesting read to put lightly.

"They stopped whining too much about it when he started doing the same exercises with them. Anything new or interesting in it?" She said simply.

I sighed at that, we both knew the answer to that. The answer was no.

Also, I made a mental note on that when it is going to be my turn to look after the two. Having a way to reduce complaints is always useful.

"No, it is a modified Light Meridian manual, same as Bao's, but unlike Bao's it does not give new ways to use the Meridians, it instead teaches one how to infuse Qi into their mind so they can think faster. Useful in a sense yes, but not something I wish to use for now until I am sure doing so won't ruin our control."

There were four manuals, the normal Light Meridian one, Bao's halfway light to water one, Mei Lin's Ice Blooded one and the Water Meridian one.

All of them are based on the same knowledge found in the Light Meridian tome that is most common and that knowledge is pretty limited and can be summed up in a few lines.

Qi can be used to temporarily enhance the physical stats of the body, by enhancing the dantian through the technique given inside one advances in their cultivation and if you do both enough then the body enhancement becomes permanent and you can enhance your body further. You can also enhance the meridians but that is a slow and painful process that should be done in safety.

Bao's manual told her how to enhance both the dantian and meridian at the same time, as her halfway water meridians made it so she had a far easier time to start with, even if the method there is considered slower than normal.

Mei Lin's manual on the other hand? Barely mentions physical enhancements, instead focusing primarily on mental stimulation, which thanks to her brain meridians comes easy to her. Needless to say that, until I can talk to someone that knows more of it, I am not touching mental enhancement.

My and Ya Xue's manuals are downright horrifying in comparison to Mei Lin's and the others though. They tell us how to dilute the Qi and provide horrifying descriptions of what it feels to have your intestines rupture into pieces and have your shit travel through your blood vessels and the horrifying stench your corpse will make if you let Liquid Qi settle in your meridian before it was tempered properly.

As long as both of us followed the instructions we are fine, but if we don't, then we'll be spending our last few hours of life too busy begging for death to regret it.

Due to this neither I nor Ya Xue were willing to experiment with our cultivation unlike the others. Pushing Qi and out of our Meridians was one thing, trying to use in ways or manuals did not specify was another.

"I want to ask for a favor Tai Su." Yu Zong said as her eyes hardened.

What is this about? It doesn't hurt to humor her I guess and this is an improvement over her last few days of avoiding me.

"Ask it, but I make no promise that I will provide it." I answered plainly and put the book down.

I've already read it several times, nothing in it was new or useful. I left it to the side near the others and gave Yu Zong my full attention.

"What you did to the Ice Blooded, I wish to feel what it's like." She demanded.

I thought of her request. Mei Lin attitude change was swift after she felt my own emotions.

She wanted to join us at first due to a simple calculus. We knew what we were doing and seemed unlikely to betray people and were the sort of people to allow strangers in as we've already allowed it once. Her wanting to join us meant her chances of survival increased.

Now however, things turned personal. Now she wanted something personal, something that went beyond her desire to not die, as it was something that actually animated her.

"No, not until you convince Da Xiu to agree to it." I answered after thinking about it for a bit.

I could feel the raised eyebrow more than feel it. She was incredulous at my stipulation.

"Why? I can make my own decisions, I don't need my husband's input on all of my decisions." She asked as her tone took a defiant tone.

Women don't need the approval of their husbands for most things that is correct. Among the lower strata of the Empire at least, women are considered adults in all respects and need to look after themselves and make their own decisions. They can't have their husbands decide for them, but there are exceptions.

Not all of them can be pampered noble ladies after all, people need to work when they don't have tax collectors taking wealth from others to keep them warm.

"What I have done for Mei Lin I now realize is a deeply personal and more importantly intimate thing. It's not sex, but it's something far more personal than merely having a heartfelt conversation, and as such me doing such a thing to you would be intruding into your marriage. I'm not doing that without Da Xiu saying yes, I respect him too much for that." I answered promptly.

Sharing one's emotions with another being is a deeply personal thing. I should have thought of this yesterday but yesterday the only thing I could think was curiosity and a good night's sleep allowed me to think things through.

Bao seems to enjoy my sharing my love with her at least, and I need to share my emotions from time to time with Mei Lin to keep her content but there's absolutely no reason to do so with Yu Zong. If she wants to know what that's like she can go ask Ya Xue if she'd say yes or Da Xiu for permission.

That took the wind out of her sails and she sighed in silence.

"You have been quite withdrawn since awakening. I think this is the longest conversation we've had since then. What gives?" I asked her.

She gave me an awkward smile at my question then proceeded to lay on her back.

"Promise not to laugh?" She asked me back.

I proceeded to lay down near her. This strange stump was large enough for both of us to easily do so.

"I promise." I answered.

It was an easy enough promise to give, and hardly something I needed to think about.

"I like being in control of myself. Once you awakened my cultivation, it felt as if it was you that took that control from me. It took me days to get over the fear that you'll take it again if I were to approach you for too long." She said.

'I am not drunk enough to be dealing with this.' I thought silently as I stretched my hands up into the sky.

There was a faint pop that seemed to relieve far too much pressure from myself.

"Well, that's a relief, I no longer need to worry if I did something wrong to cause an issue." I declared in an amused tone.

Her not talking to me was a distant concern all things said. But it was a concern and an important one.

Most people don't realize it until they are married but your spouse matters. They influence your decisions and your opinion of others in subtle and unsubtle ways and if I did something to wrong the woman, then it wasn't just her I alienated, but potentially Da Xiu as well.

"That's it?" She asked softly.

I could feel her incredulity, or better said smell it? It's not quite smell I'm feeling, not as I am used to, but it's undeniably something similar now that I had the chance to properly focus on the meridians. I am assuming it's something like pheromones, something that I should in theory be able to smell and that my brain reacts to, but not something I am actively conscious of.

I don't know how It'd feel if I could just smell emotions like any other smell. I'd probably start wondering if something is an actual smell or an emotion which I doubt it's healthy.

"What do you want me to say? That you were wrong? That I am somehow offended? You having a strong reaction to what we've all been through is normal and I am just glad I didn't do something to cause a massive rift between us." I answered with a shrug.

"You don't care about my lack of control?" She asked.

I could feel the vulnerability in her tone, which meant this needed to be handled delicately

"Why should I? Not like the rest of us except Mei Lin are much better." I asked with a shrug.

Sometimes nonchalance was the best thing one could do. If a problem feels small, then it won't consume your thoughts too much and it's obvious Yu Zong needed to think less about this.

And wasn't that the truth? Mei Lin is the only one unaffected by cultivation, but the rest of us now had to deal with how our every whim and impulse could just push through every single block we previously had.

"You didn't, nowhere near as much as the rest of us at least." She declared, her voice like steel.

"I was, I was just better at focusing on a single task. I needed to keep you alive and united and not thinking too much, and so all of my thoughts were dedicated to that. You saw what happened when my curiosity got the better of me and I adopted an ice blooded as if she was a stray kitten." I replied.

Both of us fell into silence at that.

Cultivation removes your inhibitions, treating every whim and stray thought as the most important thing in your life. The obvious solution was to either not think, or work too much to think of nonsense and it worked well for me at least.

"You do realize she's now your concubine, not your pet." Yu Zong said after a few minutes of silence.

"I would be a fool not to." I admitted.

Concubine is a loaded term. It can mean subordinate wife most of the time, but it can also mean a kept woman and a few other things.

Mei Lin is now a kept woman, she needs me, looks after me at every opportunity and is even now with Bao and Ya Xue trying to curry favor with both as Da Xiu trains her brothers and keeps them from making fools out of themselves.

The situation is not official, but everyone, even her brothers knows this from the way they saw her act after she acted like a starved hound awaiting a treat.

"And Ya Xue?" She asked again.

I chuckled at that question even if the woman herself didn't.

"When she can decide if she wants to be under your dress or Bao's I'll consider the question." I answered.

One would need to be both blind and deaf to not see that the woman was smitten by the other two women and was struggling with what that meant.

"I am meant to be looking after the others, and yet I don't know what to do about her. I hardly know what to do about my emotions let alone hers." She said simply.

"Why is it your duty to look after other people's emotions?" I asked.

Why would she think that it's her job to look after others' emotions? We're all adults, we can look after ourselves, current circumstances not-withstanding. The thought is cute, but I'm the leader, so it's my responsibility to ensure the others are well not hers. If she wants to help then that's excellent news for me but it's not something she has to do.

"It's always been my duty. My mother is a dancer, she told me plenty of times that the duty of a woman is to make sure other people's emotions don't get the better of them, lest they take it on you." She answered plainly.

That sounds like the advice a dancer would give, which I suppose served her well. That however told me something else about why she was here, something that made me sigh.

"It's fine to be selfish from time to time. There's no need to make sure everyone is happy at all times. I thank you for thinking about myself as well when you decided to face your fear, and so consider this my first order to you. Think of yourself first sometimes." I declared with as much seriousness as I could.

My words seemed to take her words from her if the way she choked on them was any indication which made me chuckle audibly.

"I'll go replace Da Xiu on the twin duty, you go and be happy with your husband for a bit. We'll talk tomorrow on our next course of action." I continued.

I rose up suddenly and did not wait for her response as I greeted the three men in front of us and told them I'd replace Da Xiu on the twins training. Sometimes being a leader meant you needed to do things in such a way that did not allow any form of dissent, and sometimes doing so was even pleasant.

"I'll handle it Da Xiu, you go keep Yu Zong company, she's getting so bored she started bothering me as I was trying to read." I told him.

The other man sighed, but nodded shortly after at my words. He left with a mumbled apology proceeded to do as I said.

I turned to the twins and looked at the two. They were slightly winded, but still seemed like they had some energy left in them.

"As for you two, come. If you can look at me with those stupid looks on your faces, then that means you have enough energy to run. We'll do a few laps from the camp to the forest proper to get that energy out of you." I declared and proceeded to run.

The two men whined at me as they had hoped for a break, but nonetheless did as I ordered as they could not openly complain when I too was doing the same exercise.