Su Yan's face reddened. "I'll return it when I'm done reading. Don't be so impatient."
Xiong Qianli was a bear yao of Mount Xiao, an old acquaintance. Su Yan spent his days wandering mountains as a snake catcher. Wild paths led to wild encounters. Most yao couldn't match his qi and blood, built up through years of Grand Unity Daoyin Art. He had "befriended" many local yao through force.
His cultivation had hit the ceiling at Qi-Gathering. So he extorted scriptures from every yao he met, searching for the path ahead.
"Are we really not eating him?" Yuan Qi whispered, eyeing the bear. "I'm hungry."
Xiong Qianli bristled. "You plan to eat me after all!"
"I don't eat yao," Su Yan said. His stomach growled loudly.
The bear shrank further into the corner.
Su Yan searched the cave. Behind him, the bell bumped and clanged against stone. The storm hid the noise from pursuers, but barely.
He found only old pots, worn books, and sweet potatoes. No meat.
"I don't eat people!" Xiong Qianli protested. "You forbade it. I even gave up chickens and dogs! Those sweet potatoes are from my field!"
Su Yan sighed. "Fine. Vegetables won't kill me."
He roasted sweet potatoes over the fire. The bear crept closer and begged a few.
Yuan Qi glared at him. "This is your cave, your food. Why act so pathetic?"
Xiong Qianli wiped tears. "You never got beaten by him..."
Yuan Qi's eyes watered. "Brother, you share my suffering."
Su Yan frowned. "Xiong Qianli, I thought we were friends. You speak behind my back!"
The bear whispered to Yuan Qi: "He grabbed a stone and squeezed juice from it. Said if I didn't hand over my scripture, he'd squeeze my head the same way and make me drink it."
Su Yan's face darkened. He ate in silence.
Yuan Qi whispered back: "He used the same stone trick on me. Terrifying!"
"Gangster behavior," Xiong Qianli muttered. "Worse than us yao."
Yuan Qi nodded. "Brother, what books do you read?"
Xiong Qianli brightened. "You read too?"
The two yao discovered they were kindred spirits. They would have talked all night if Su Yan weren't there.
Su Yan finished the medicine, split into poultice and broth. Yuan Qi lifted the cauldron with his tail and gulped it down. Su Yan applied poultice to his own wounds.
"Yuan Qi, the Great Bell taught me internal sight," Su Yan said. "It heals internal injuries and refines organ-qi into primal qi. I'll teach you."
He explained divine sense, the white jade door, the Realm of Silence. "Open your inner realm, and you'll see your organs like inverted mountains. Five colors of qi. Gather them, and you achieve the five qi returning to origin. At that level, yao king is within reach."
Both yao listened intently. Yuan Qi had fought Su Yan for three days before losing—his natural talent was exceptional. He grasped the method quickly, entering meditation within moments.
The bear struggled, brain working slowly.
Su Yan returned to his own practice. Half-closed eyes. Golden light pulsed beneath his lids like sprouting shoots.
The jade door appeared. He pushed through, entering the Realm of Silence once more.
The impossible colors dazzled him. Qi-streams arced like rainbows. Inverted organs poured five-colored waterfalls. Primal qi gathered, transformed into thunder, into blazing suns roaming his inner landscape.
He drifted on the currents, healing old wounds.
Then, in a flash of lightning, he noticed vast dark regions he had missed before.
"What's there?"
Between thunderclaps, he glimpsed enormous mountain ranges stretching like dragons. A river crashed from the sky, threatening to drown the peaks. And between mountain and river stood a colossal gate, spanning heaven and earth.
Black iron gleamed in the lightning.
Then darkness swallowed everything.
Su Yan's heart hammered. He flew toward the darkness. At the edge, his divine sense wavered.
He pushed forward.
His sense shattered.
Su Yan woke on the cave floor, head splitting. Nightmares swirled—horrors he couldn't remember upon waking.
Yuan Qi and Xiong Qianli stared down at him, relieved.
"You scared us!" Yuan Qi said. "While you slept, Qianli and I became sworn brothers. I'm the elder."
"I'm the younger!" Xiong Qianli beamed. "We have so much in common, we'd have to marry otherwise!"
Su Yan rubbed his temples. "In the Realm of Silence, I saw a gate. A threshold. Beyond it lies a new realm."
The yao froze.
"A way forward?" Yuan Qi's voice trembled. "Past Qi-Gathering?"
"Absolutely," Su Yan said. "A new path."
Yuan Qi wept with joy. "Our people have been trapped at Qi-Gathering for eternity. If you've found the way, you're a hero to all yao!"
Xiong Qianli bounced, tears streaming. "Yao will rise!"
"Overthrow human tyranny!" Yuan Qi howled.
Together they shouted: "The world belongs to humans now, but it will be ours!"
Su Yan sat up, ignoring their celebration. "But don't you find it strange? None of you achieved internal sight. I, a human, did it first. Maybe demon arts aren't demon arts at all. Maybe they're human arts. Lost human Qi Refiner arts."
"Why human?" Xiong Qianli threw an arm around him. "Qianli and I discussed this all night. Our conclusion: you're a yao who looks human! A human-shaped variant!"
Yuan Qi leaned in, grinning. "A-Yan, one day you'll show your true form!"
* * *