A Thousand Li: The Fourth Fall releases on Amazon, Kindle Unlimited and Audible in a couple days! As we gear up for the release, we’re thrilled to share an exclusive sneak peek of Chapter 1...
Chapter One
Ominous black clouds gathered high above the mountain range, lightning crackling along their edges illuminating shadows within. The deep pall cast by the shadows shrouded the city and the Verdant Green Waters Sect, the air underneath unusually dry and filled with electric promise. The clouds swirled, unnaturally and slowly, the beginnings of a funnel forming as the winds blew erratically. Wisps of moisture and leaves and dust marked the funnel’s touchdown position at the other end of Heaven Ascension Peak, the tallest and steepest mountain in the range.
A short distance away on a nearby cliff, the watchers stared with bated breath. Amongst the audience for this unnatural event were numerous famed Elders of the sect. The Fairy Yang Fa Yuan, she who commanded the feared Whispering Blossoms organization, a female-led coterie of individuals who sought to stem the abuse and corruption of the dark sect and set aright malodorous practices that had rooted within the orthodox.
The former Buddhist monk Liu Tou He, Heaven’s Flaming Staff, who offered words of wisdom and compassion and the searing punishment of the Heavens in equal measure. Where martial cultivators might decline to intervene, the Elder might take action, so the laymen whispered. No wonder the number of petitioners grew every passing day.
The Department Head of the Verdant Green Water’s apothecarists, Li Liu Tsong, the Jade Hand. The weakest in terms of cultivation among the numerous watchers, but well respected for her outstanding knowledge and skill. With the retirement from public duties by other more senior members, Elder Li was the foremost apothecarist of the sect.
Numerous other Elders of less fame were present too. Few would give up the opportunity to witness another ascension, though none stood as close as those three, powerful personages whose presence made the heads of lesser sects bend at their very attendance. None were great friends with the one who sat upon the peak, a storied figure in his own right.
And one other was there.
An honored guest, an interloper. Yet one who had returned again and again to the sect, so none gainsaid her presence at this time. Nor would they dare, for it was her return this final time, after a long absence, that had been the catalyst for the event.
Yang Mu, the Merchant Princess of Seven Kingdoms. The Golden Merchant, whose wealth and network of contacts stretched across thousands of li and multiple kingdoms, even to fabled Nanyue and the frozen north. Even so, she stood apart from the trio, the pale glitter of her robes and her unnatural stillness giving watchers the impression of a silver statue staring at the peak—and the individual who floated there.
The reason for the commotion, the cause of the cloud bank and the lightning that struck.
Long Wu Ying, the Verdant Gatherer, Head of the Department of Wandering Gatherers, Honored Elder of the Verdant Green Water Sect, Wielder of the Bloody Ren, Bearer of the Heart of the Jian, and Seven Winds Body Cultivator.
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The crowds below were as clear as if he could see them. Sight would have given him less information, in truth. For he could sense the way the winds had to move around their bodies, the way they shifted with each breath and each impatient twitch. Inhale—and the world seeped into his body, the familiar scent of jasmine and tea, of honest sweat and soap beads, of all the basic elements of chi and more. Grass and earth below, the humid moisture of heavy clouds above. Twisting metal flame and hot air mingling and pulsing in his hands.
Exhale—and with his breath his aura stretched farther, expanding across the mountain peak and the slopes below, the skies above and the clouds that funneled energy down into him. He wove this energy through his body and his aura before directing it to what he clutched.
Golden runes floated around him and across his hands, dancing in intricate designs and coming apart as he guided the formation through sheer will alone. Formation flags and stones sunk into the land around him had long ago cracked and broken under the intense heat put out by the item he held. All the while, he tore the energies from the heavens and pulled them to him, encompassing the pulsing heart that sat between his hands. A still-beating heart, but one that no longer bled—burning but never shrinking.
Every breath, his body wavered, threatening to spill across the barrier of material and immaterial. Every moment, wounds blossomed across his skin as old injuries were revealed and burned away, only for flesh to reform from swirling air.
The winds, familiar companions, danced across the peak and brought with them knowledge of far events and nearby tragedies. From the south, the smell of old tar and rotting meat stained the very air as a civil war brewed and a corruption deep within a kingdom spilled forth. From the west drifted desert sands and hot spices, taunting Wu Ying with hints of lands he had never visited. The memory of esoteric chants and benedictions rose in the wind even as a golden light played across his skin.
Cooling winds of the north chilled the air, controlling the boundaries of heat and joining the mix of the central winds as they rose, pulling the warmth skyward to the clouds above. Most of all the mortal winds, the eastern wind whispered to Wu Ying, of marching armies and training men.
So much knowledge, so much information.
Yet it was the supernatural winds of the Heavens and the Hells that Wu Ying focused upon, feeling their pulse and beat around him. The winds of the thousand Hells scoured the wind cultivator’s body, burrowing deep within him, ripping clear burned flesh, twisted meridians, and cracked bones from his injured form. Punishment, benediction, cleansing. The winds of Hell offered it all, and then some.
Afterward, as the winds of Hell left Wu Ying bleeding and injured, the heavenly winds returned. Wrapping his wavering form in celestial light and the dao of order and synergy, passing on blessing and recrimination in equal order from the ones above. Six Heavens, six blessings, six punishments.
Lightning flashed down from the sky once again, striking at Wu Ying’s seated body. It tore through rising wind and shimmering heat waves, dancing along unseen pathways in the air to crash into him before passing through to ground itself.
On delicate winds, Yang Mu’s whispered words rose to Wu Ying’s ears, even as his burned flesh sloughed off and his blinded eyes reformed: “Three.”
He clutched the heart in his hand, enchantments and arcane glyphs and characters reforming in golden light as Wu Ying cajoled the chi of the world to do his bidding. He could feel the heartbeat slow, the energy imparted reduced by a notable degree for the first time.
Pain was a companion, a nagging and constant companion that Wu Ying had grown used to. The moment he began the process of rebuilding his body with the aid of the jiufeng heart, Wu Ying knew he could not stop.
How Yang Mu had managed to even acquire a single heart was a story in itself, but the powerful celestial-phoenix organ gave Wu Ying a single opportunity to fix himself. The jiufeng’s nine human heads held sufficient wisdom retained in the organ to guide the wind cultivator back to the perfected human form. At the same time, from the chest of the phoenix came its great and storied mercy and the union of yin and yang.
A powerful ingredient, along with the formations and techniques to entirely rebuild a broken cultivator, to bring his body back to the state of flawlessness required to step across the river of mortality. Though Wu Ying could have existed for centuries as a mortal cultivator, that would have been all he could ever be.
Perfection was required, for the celestial bureaucracy would allow no obvious defect. Not in its vaunted halls, not among the immortals that oversaw the Middle Kingdom. A flawless mien of order and perfection, turned to mortal and immortal alike.
And what that said of the imperfect immortals who achieved such a state through fate and fortune—well, perhaps that was something to be discovered later.
Flames sprang anew from the jiufeng heart, wreathing Wu Ying in pink and white and orange. Fire destroyed, but what it left behind in the fallow earth would renew. Wood chi, woven through the formations in his aura and floating about him, surged, entering his body and mixing with water chi funneled from the heavens above.
Cycles of destruction and renewal wove themselves through Wu Ying’s body, and through the air. Flowers and grass sprouted, burned off, and fell apart in rains of ashes, even as water soaked into the earth to catch upon deep-seated roots, causing the plants to spring aloft once again.
“Four.”
Once more, a beam of lightning struck.
Yin and yang, death and rebirth. The Dao encompassed it all, and neither was right or wrong. As the heart burned, traces of human forms crossed Wu Ying’s perceptions, and he used them to guide his own, restoring portions twisted by his own mangled transformation from immortal wind to frail human.
Like birth, like death, all was marked by pain.
There was no gain without price, no benefit without cost. As Wu Ying was rebuilt, again and again, he inched toward perfection. Guided by the souls of those long before, wreathed in the balanced Dao of the phoenix.
Lightning, formed from above, struck again, brightening the surroundings and highlighting skin and flesh and bone for a brief moment, blue-white light accompanied moments later by the roar of a thousand drums. It echoed off mountain slopes and along the valley, sending rocks tumbling and water shaking.
“Five.”
Wu Ying was uncertain if she counted for his sake or hers, even as the shuddering heart in his hand began to fail. There was not much energy left inside it, the souls captured within exhausted and returning to the wheel of reincarnation.
As for his own body, his own needs…it was not enough. Wu Ying could feel that the changes enacted upon him had burrowed deep, turning out bone and marrow and organs, but they were incomplete. Starting outward and flooding inward, the changes had come slowly.
Realization washed through him on a wave of pain as skin and flesh reformed. He could not take it slow any longer, could not wait for the heart to complete its job. On the edge of the immaterial, he would have to take one final step and risk it all.
He hesitated, knowing that doing so, he might leave behind those he cared for.
Spiritual senses wrapped tight around his friends, his family, who watched the striking heavens far below. Students clustered around the entrance of the department, staring upward in consternation, hoping the best for their teacher. Most of all, he hesitated knowing that a single mistake would see his true end, see soul and being scattered across the seven winds, never to reform.
To risk it all, or to end it now.
A selfish choice, to continue. To potentially rob so many of decades, maybe even centuries of company.
Wu Ying inhaled and once more searched for his resolve. Would he, could he, risk the harm and the grief he would cause if he failed? Was it not enough to live his life as an Honored Elder? To while away long nights with a loved one, to watch his parents pass on and join friends as they too aged?
He searched for his resolve, for his certainty. And found it once again in the whispers of the wind. Of lands far away, of old friends he had yet to meet again, and of new, unknown acquaintances. A world left of experiences untasted.
Wu Ying’s aura hardened and sharpened in finding his resolve. It multiplied through the surrounding area, layering itself across the mountain range and suffusing the air. A boy in the middle of a fight found the energy to block a thrust, stepping forward and headbutting his opponent. Moments later, his own weapon fell to the ground as enlightenment broke through him.
An outer-sect cultivator, pushing against the pain of cleansing a meridian and nearly failing, found the strength to struggle onward, forcing chi through the meridian and shattering the blockage. In doing so, he damaged his cultivation base and altered his destiny.
Apothecarist pills, in the midst of formation, delicately cared for by junior apothecarists, were ruined. Weapons in the midst of forging gained an aspect of sharpness and resolution as Wu Ying’s dao imparted itself to them. All across the sect, the actions of a single man resounded.
And there, high above on another peak, a Sect Head raised his gaze. He frowned and extended his own dao, suffusing the clouds above. The gathering heavenly lightning was held back, buying Wu Ying a moment.
That was all it took as he released his grip on his mortal form. Fire burned through him, sweeping deep within his entire immaterial body. Here, there was no barrier of flesh and bone, no way to stop the flames from finding the parts of him that had returned wrong. Here, Heavenly and Hellish chi could infiltrate to the fullest extent, healing and punishing in tandem, guided by the fading heartbeat of a celestial outcast.
Long moments passed before Wu Ying reformed his mortal body. This time around, he followed the heart, the template it offered him. This time around, the wind of the thousand Hells guided his rebirth, for in the Hells, man was reborn. This time around, when he reformed, he was whole.
Heavenly lightning crashed into its target through the dao that held it back, eliciting a scream of savage agony. Once again, the light of the Heavens returned to the Middle Kingdom and expressed its full displeasure.