The end begins now.
The Fourth Wall is coming soon. Returning June 1st, Wu Ying takes his final steps on the path of cultivation—a journey shaped by duty, destiny, and the unyielding pursuit of the Dao. The full book releases everywhere July 1st, but today, we invite you to glimpse the beginning of the end.
What Came Before
Decades have passed since Long Wu Ying became a cultivator of the Verdant Green Waters Sect. He has faced a variety of calamities and windfalls, rising within the ranks of the Sect while losing his Master, then being banished and following the wind and his heart to all the corners of the world. He has met many disparate individuals, made friends and enemies alike, and developed his understanding of the jian as he grew in strength. From powerful spirit equipment to boon companions like Liu Tou He and Yang Mu, Wu Ying has gained much during his journey to cultivation.
After his triumphant return after being banished for a decade, Wu Ying was tasked with the development of the Verdant Green Waters Sect’s Wandering Gatherer program. Beating off internal challenges, Wu Ying established the program, and over a decade of careful nurturing passed in the blink of an eye, numerous students learning his methods and methodology and spreading Wu Ying’s influence and the Sect’s far and wide.
However, all was not well in the wider world. A multi-nation drought increased the pressure faced by the people, forcing the long quiescent, warmongering kingdom of Cai to seek new conquests to feed its people and its armies.
To forestall an invasion of the neighboring state of Wei, the kingdoms of Shen and Wei formed a pact and maneuvered to find a diplomatic solution with the Cai in the form of spirit-binding peace treaties.
Unfortunately, the entire series of peace negotiations was a ruse.
Betrayed by a power-hungry faction within the Wei, the Shen entourage and the Wei loyalists were beset by King Cai Meng De and his elite guards, as well as the traitorous Wei cultivators. Though expecting some form of betrayal, the Verdant Green Waters Sect and the Shen kingdom could not forecast such a wide-ranging conspiracy and the full, hidden strength of the Cai.
In a desperate gamble to fight the half-Immortal Cai Meng De, Wu Ying attempted to ascend to immortality. However, he experienced a conflict between his Body and Spiritual Cultivation, a clash of daos that blocked the merging of the two.
Even his attempt to bring down the ire of the heavens upon the King of Cai failed, leaving Wu Ying broken and grievously injured. Only the use of miraculous pills from Yang Mu’s many treasures and his stubborn will allowed the wind cultivator to recover, but during that period, Meng De came—at great cost, as numerous luminaries of the kingdoms fell.
As the all-devouring dao of Meng De threatened to swallow all that he held dear, Wu Ying chose to sacrifice his World Spirit Ring and all the resources within. The powerful World Spirit Ring, an artifact that contained a continent within, was too much for the nascent Immortal to swallow whole.
Cai Meng De, the half-Immortal king of his namesake kingdom, fell at last.
In the resulting chaos, true Immortals and dragons descended to contain the damage, creating a new mystic realm. To guard over it and the Wei border, the remnants of the Wei loyalists and the surviving Shen kingdom forces stayed behind, watching over the new land.
As for Wu Ying, he was not to be seen. Unconscious after his latest gamble, Wu Ying was whisked away at the end of the battle to recuperate.
If a man with a broken and conflicting dao could be healed.
Chapter 1
Cultivation, at its heart, is the defiance of the heavens.
That was the first thought Wu Ying woke to.
The second was the pain.
Pain was a constant and enduring facet of his life now, a perpetual ache that encompassed his entire body. In the last few weeks, he had gained a new appreciation for the various forms suffering could manifest as.
The slow throbbing of a torn ligament, the dull ache of tired and overused muscles, the sharp, shooting pains of nerves and skin rubbed raw. The explosive jolts that came from movement around broken bones and bruised organs. He knew them all, had made friends and close allies with such desperate agonies long ago.
None hurt as the soul-deep wound that conflicting daos of body and spirit had awakened within him.
There were no words for that anguish, though it dwarfed all others.
It was no surprise, for this was the ache of a broken being, a mismatch of soul and body. The merging between immortal soul and immortal body had failed, leaving Wu Ying stitched together by will and alchemical pills alike.
In his dantian were the broken shards of his core, shattered in the midst of freeing his immortal soul. In due course, the shards should have been absorbed, the remnants used as fuel for the merging.
Instead, they lay within him, as shattered as his cultivation.
Lying on his back, in the room that had been set aside for him at the top of the inn run by the Platinum Sages, Wu Ying stared at the mid-morning sun that streamed in through the open window. A part of him noted that they had once again allowed him to rest—over his own protestations.
Bird calls drifted through the window, mixing with distant voices raised in conversation and chants, for the inn was located not far from the temple it serviced and a major trade route. Not exactly on the route, though that would have made most sense for commerce. Then again, the customers who visited the inn were not idle passersby.
In fact, the clientele of the inn was so selective that another inn had formed opposite the first to take the castoffs of the selective pair of Nascent Soul cultivators who ran this building. After all, even customers who dared to trade might not brave a night in such a building. The quiet pressure a pair of such cultivators wielded through just their existence could quail even the most stalwart of hearts.
Or such auras turned and tuned into Wu Ying’s distress, wielded to keep him intact. Swaddling him in cloths of power and dao alike.
Like a newborn child.
Gingerly, Wu Ying peeled off the silk-stuffed blanket that helped keep the autumn chill at bay. He had lost track of the months he had been recovering, early days and nights blending into one another. Medicinal baths and acupuncture needles, herbal broths and cultivation pills swallowed galore. His back and front were a map of red and black circles of bad and diseased blood drawn to the surface, released from deep within as cups were applied, over and over.
Not just cupping. Numerous trivial cuts and pricks from needles to release bad blood, to allow chi and energy to flow properly. Firm massages and steam baths, where he sweated out impurities and created gunk that was but a stone’s throw away from being as odorous and insulting as when he had first started cultivating. He knew and was somewhat amused by the fact that most of the impurities exuded were collected, processed, and resold by Lady Yang.
After all, broken half-Immortal that he might be, it was still an Immortal’s blood and sweat.
There was a thought there, some great philosophical point about the castoffs of the great being treasures for those below. A musing on the structures of the world, the imbalances that existed and were perpetuated by the world and society.
His jaw clenched, anger rising within him at the thought.
Pain arrived not long after as he doubled over, clutching his chest as his heart threatened to tear itself apart. Soul and body at war again, heavenly wind rejecting his anger, his rebellious soul. He spasmed as he coughed again and again, face growing red as he fought for breath.
A voice from one who had been carefully watching from afar but was now by his side. A hand on his back, patting and rubbing it, pouring precious chi into his body. He struggled, even as powerful auras clamped around his body as it threatened to tear itself apart, pressing body and spirit together. Twin auras of yin and yang working together to heal and contain.
Again.
So many times now that Wu Ying knew what he had to do. He fought to calm his heart, to bank the incandescent rage that had been born within.
To regain his peace, lest he be torn apart.
“Calm. Calm, please.” The hand on him, pouring chi within and trying to aid his healing, grew strained with urgency. Tears—held back by force of will—stained her voice as she spoke.
A part of him raged, screamed, and protested the unfairness of it all. He had come so far, nearly reached the end only to find that the last wall was one he could never climb without first lowering his head. No ascension without bent knee, no heavens for him if he refused to bow to those who cared not for those below, whose rules caused harm far and wide and offered no succor.
He had seen too much, done too much to believe in the unending beneficence of the heavens.
The farmer within who had suffered droughts and floods alike, whose crops had burnt under harsh sun or were lost to broken fields and still had taxes to pay to uncaring lords, scoffed at his own foolishness. The world had always been structured this way. There had always been those who were heaven-blessed and those who were less fortunate.
Karma and fate cared not for the feelings of those they washed away in their unending deluge. Protesting never fixed the dyke or sowed the crops.
Wu Ying was no child. He had no right to protest. He could only do what farmers had done all their lives. Lower crown and bear one’s burdens.
The farmer knew that to survive, one had to bend knee.
Yet another part of Wu Ying raged against that inevitability. The Long family had long led their village, been their guardians, been their protectors. Farmers they might have been, but also swordsmen. Individuals who held their lives and the lives of others in their hands, at the edge of their blade, who guided fate by virtue of skill, dedication, and training.
“Hun dan! It’s the worst so far. He’s tearing himself apart. Adjust the formations, my love. Or else he’ll draw more heavenly chi and a calamity upon us.” Deep-voiced Boss Yang, shouting orders outside the room.
For Wu Ying, just another screaming voice amongst the multitude in his ears, in his mind.
No more, no more farmer, not any longer. He had chosen the path of a cultivator. He had chosen to defy the heavens.
For the first time, Wu Ying realized that perhaps Master Cheng’s choice to make Wu Ying his apprentice was not about random fate or past karmic ties. Perhaps he had seen within Wu Ying a fellow rebel, a man who defied the structures laid forth by the heavens themselves. Though Wu Ying had never walked the same path, perhaps they had journeyed in the same direction.
Hating the structures both were forced to live within. Hating the balance of the world and wishing to change it in their own ways. Refusing to bend to a fate that everyone said was inevitable.
“Ying, please, please stop. I know you hate it, I know… but you have to stop. You can’t keep doing this, not now. Just wait. Please…”
He knew he should.
Stop. Calm. Rest.
Set aside his burden and anger for a minute. Two. A day, a week, a month. He knew he should, as his heart raced and thundered, fists clenched so tight they dug into flesh, bringing forth a red spray of blood. Breathing ragged as air refused to enter, his chest tightly constrained, shuddering as he tried to inhale and the wind refused to enter.
Wu Ying knew he should, but he could not find it in him today to do so. After all, he had spent so long in control, in tortured pain and a hazy existence. He was tired of compromising and being in pain.
The morning light was gone, clouds gathered outside in a massive cyclone. A howling wind that brought with it scents of a thousand li of lands, people, and animals alike, reminding him of a world to see. He heard voices, he swore, familiar ones.
Impossible ones.
Voices of those he might leave behind, if he forced the issue. Better to do it, to find a balance now, to make himself whole or die trying…
Even if he left behind…
“I’m sorry, Ah Mu. That cyclone will take us all if we don’t stop him.” Boss Yang, calm and firm.
The hands on his back were pulled away, the sudden loss of chi sending him deeper into a spiral, his labored breathing stopping entirely. His beating heart froze.
Then a blow, hard and fast and precise alongside his head.
No pain as it impacted his temple.
Just unconsciousness and the dubious peace of sleep.
***
He drifted in and out of consciousness.
Soporifics were poured down his throat, healing draughts and alchemical pills, cupping and mild blood-letting. Needles emplaced to stabilize his health once more, even as his soul raged and drifted, drawing upon the flow of the world unconsciously. Trying, again and again, to heal itself, to complete a merging that could not be completed—like a square peg aiming to fit in a round hole.
Barriers glittered in Wu Ying’s mind, showing up in his dreamlike state as his stunted and damaged spiritual sense saw the world. His injured soul that had empowered such sixth sense was in disarray, offering visions of brightly lit darkness and rainbow-colored shadow figures that whispered around him.
Barriers and formations, so numerous and loose and constantly under assault as the raging heavens and cackling hells sought him. Formations meant to guard against the attacks of an Immortal, burning up under assault of heavenly and hellish chi.
A whirlwind of wind and wood and fire and air rotated above, slow and vast, shrouding distant villages and mountains alike. Dark rain clouds lingered, never releasing their desperately desired bounty, scents from lands far and wide lingering in the air. The world waited, as though with bated breath, for the air was heavy with promise and moisture.
Conversations, some he was certain he imagined. Rants and ravings by a long dead Master and bandit lord, of a Guerilla General who lingered in his nightmares and a pixiu alike. Other conversations, more likely to be real, closer on-hand.
“Can we not ask the Divine Physician to come again, Baba?” Yang Mu pleaded.
“We tried. You know how he is.” The voice so gentle, aching with pain from an inability to do more to ease a child’s hurt. “Not even for the opportunity to choose from your mum’s vault will he move, if the case does not interest him.”
Wu Ying remembered the old man, long cream and grey robes and a big head. Staring down at him, poking and prodding. Rude, but with a core that smelled of healing herbs and a presence that reinvigorated Wu Ying just by being there. He recalled words exchanged as he drifted, caught between sleep and wakefulness. Regret given voice, disinterest covering deep empathy.
“Wu Ying’s a half-Immortal who survived the final ascension!”
“It’s all too common. At least for the Divine Physician. There’s nothing more he can do for us, beyond the…”
Wu Ying wanted to stay awake but could not. He never caught the end of that conversation. He sweated, he woke. Even in his dreams, he ached and screamed and raged.
When he woke next, memory came and the knowledge that perhaps there was something…
“Could we track down an Immortal? Guan Yin? Li Tie Guai? Maybe the Peach Collector?” Boss Yang speaking, hushed and quiet. Not wishing to wake Wu Ying or for his words to carry to his daughter and give false hope.
It was all false, by now.
“Guan Yin was seen in the west. The drought there is even worse. She’s doing what she can, but she will not come for one when there are so many others to save. The Peach Collector was sighted in the south, a year ago. He was with the Colonel of the Drums, dealing with what our daughter found there.”
“It’s grown that bad?”
“Yes.”
“And Tie Guai?”
“No one has seen him in a decade.” A slight movement, the brushing of hair. “We’ve tried all of those we know. You know how they are, the ones who still interact with us, defying the sixth Heaven. Elusive, immaterial. They might aid us, but there are so few and the need…”
“So great.” Boss Yuan’s voice, laced with sadness. “And it grows worse every year.”
“Hush. She’s coming…”
Wu Ying could tell, for he sensed her even now. Yang Mu had tied their connection close, put herself and her life on the line. Like a compass point in the world that he could point to unerringly. A tree that could be seen no matter where one was.
She was there.
Always.
He wanted to get up, to berate her for risking her life and for her foolishness. He wanted to get up, to wrap his arms around her body and hold her tightly and tell her all the things he should have said, but custom and embarrassment and foolishness had stopped him from doing so. He wanted… more time.
He tried, but even the attempt robbed him of hoarded energy. He slept, dreams troubled by past regrets and wasted time.
To waken to another series of voices. Not ones that could be there.
“You’re injured!” Yang Mu’s voice, loud, far away.
“It’s nothing. Just some people trying to stop us.” Grim, worried. The generally cheerful speaker’s voice now direct, focused. “I’m sorry. We came as fast as we could, but the roads are in disarray, the borders closed.”
“The war…”
“Wars.” A gentler voice now, cultured and prim and precise. Carefully balanced in its emotions of hope and anxiety. “How is he?”
“Dying. I’m sorry. I tried, I can’t…”
“It’s okay. We know. Your parents said there is a way.”
“It’s…”
“Dangerous.” The first voice, the man’s. “Make the preparations. I’ll see him now, but don’t worry. We’re used to this.” Wry now, rueful. “He always does this.”
A sob choked back. There was no answer, no further words. Silence, then that burning presence was by his bedside. No longer harsh, but the warmth of a hearth in a cold winter, a cooking fire roasting a rack full of meat skewers.
“Don’t speak. We’re here finally. I’m sorry it took so long. We had to get some things from the Sect, but we will heal you.” A pause, then Tou He’s hand came down to squeeze his shoulder, warmth and comfort rushing through the connection. “So, rest, my friend.”
Then he really did sleep, his dreams untroubled at last.