Unintended Cultivator

While Sen took a couple of days to recover, physically and mentally, from his time out on the mountain, he was amused to watch a quiet but persistent power struggle develop between Uncle Kho and Ma Caihong. The part that Sen found most amusing was that struggle was about him, while it didn’t actually involve him directly. Both Uncle Kho and Ma Caihong wanted to take up the task of teaching him their skills immediately. For Uncle Kho, that meant formations and the spear. For Ma Caihong, that meant a range of interconnected medical skills and, to Sen’s surprise, more jian training. While most of what they wanted to teach him made sense, that extra Jian training baffled him. He eventually asked Ma Caihong why she wanted to provide him with more training in that.

“Feng laid an incredibly strong foundation that will prove very useful to you over time. Yet, he is a true genius with the jian. He’s passed many of his insights on to you, but it may take you decades, even centuries, to truly grasp all of what he has shown you. Until you do, his straightforward style of jian combat can prove insufficient if you face stronger opponents, which you assuredly will. Having a style that focuses on misdirection as an alternative may well save your life one day.”

“I see,” said Sen. “Thank you for explaining.”

While it might not have been obvious to Uncle Kho, Sen could see that he was losing the battle. After four days, Uncle Kho announced that he would forgo teaching Sen for the time being. His stated reason was that wandering cultivators were often injured and far from convenient medical aid. Therefore, it only made sense to give Sen some extra time to learn what he could from Ma Caihong about it. In some ways, Sen’s days didn’t change that much. He practiced every morning in the courtyard. In the afternoons, Ma Caihong would train him in the jian for a couple of hours. The familiarity of that routine gave Sen a certain amount of comfort. Later in the day, though, things were much less predictable.

Some days, Sen would find himself wandering far from the house to retrieve some plant or root or mineral that Ma Caihong needed. As Ma Caihong’s teaching style was subtle, it took him a while to realize exactly how much information he was absorbing on those walks. Sometimes, she would ask him to identify plants. If he got it wrong, she’d stop and examine the plant. She might point out some feature of the plant that would help him pick it out more accurately the next time someone asked. Other times, she’d ask him whether a plant had beneficial or poisonous qualities. She’d also ask him what kind of qi affinity a plant showed. At first, he hadn’t even understood that question. He’d just assumed that all plants had a wood affinity. Bit by bit, though, she showed him how to extend his own spiritual senses to the plants.

He learned through observation and a lot of trial and error that plants were wildly diverse in their affinities. Even two of the same plant might show completely different qi affinities. Ma Caihong had actually laughed at his stunned expression the first time he found a plant with a metal affinity. She’d harvested the plant and then had him dig down beneath where it had grown. He’d eventually turned up a stone that had an odd orange cast to it. When he showed it to her, she’d nodded as though it was the expected outcome.

“The stone has a bit of iron in it,” she explained. “When iron mixes with air or moisture, it breaks down. Then, you get that orange color. It’s essentially degraded iron. Here, it leeched into the soil. The plant absorbed it along with nutrients and water, which let it take on a metal qi affinity.”

As the warm weather gave way to the chill of autumn, though, they spent less time outside and more time creating things with the plants and other components they had gathered over those months. Again, it took Sen time to understand what Ma Caihong was doing. Sometimes, she would explain to him in extreme detail. For example, there were very specific ways that some plants needed to be prepared. Some could only be ground, while others could only be cut, and only cut in certain ways. At other times, she would ask him questions about the components. What affinities does it have? What other components did he think would work best with them? Why?

Sen quickly discovered that his understanding of how different kinds of qi interacted was simplistic. It was true that plants with air qi affinity and water qi affinity would work together, but only up to a point. Too much of a plant with a water qi affinity would disperse the air qi. Metal and fire qi affinity plants didn’t mix well if mixed directly together. Yet, earth qi materials could interrupt the potentially damaging aspects of the fire qi affinity components and let them mix with the metal qi components. Sen would fall asleep at night sometimes while mentally mixing and matching components, only to wake up in the morning with a host of new questions. Eventually, though, Sen noticed a blank spot in the education he was receiving.

“Yes?” Ma Caihong asked.

“I have noticed that everything we make is a poultice, lotion, or potion.”

Ma Caihong lifted an eyebrow. “Is there a question hidden in there somewhere?”

“I am curious, why do we never craft pills?”

Ma Caihong straightened at that. “I wondered if you would ask me this question. First, pills are a very difficult skill to master. You can destroy literal acres worth of good materials trying to craft a pill and still fail. A poorly crafted pill is as likely to harm you as help you. It’s often more practical and less costly to just buy the pills you need. Second, pill refining takes special tools. The tools are very expensive to buy and maintain. Even a small cauldron is more money than many people see in a year of labor. Finally, you don’t like pills.”

Sen blinked at the unexpected answer. “What?”

“I could teach you to make pills, but to what end? You don’t like taking them. I can’t imagine you’d want to spend your time making them. Besides, knowing how to make poultices, lotions, and potions has a lot of value for a wandering cultivator. As a rule, the only tool you need is one of these,” said Ma Caihong, lifting a plain pot off a hook on the wall. “While you must show some care in mixing the components, there is simply more room for error. If you make a mistake, you’re far more likely to craft something less potent than something lethal. If you do that, you heal slower, but you still heal. When you are injured and far from aid, better to heal slowly than not to heal at all.”

Sen was surprised at the thoughtfulness that Ma Caihong had put into her teaching. She had considered what his life would be like. Master Feng had told Sen often enough that his path would be that of the wandering cultivator, at least for a time. Ma Caihong had used that as a baseline, focusing on materials that he could likely find and tools that he would have on hand. More than that, though, she’d recognized his disdain for pills and, knowing that, had left off teaching him a skill he would likely have hated. Something inside Sen broke then. It was a lingering resentment from their first encounter. It had made him distance himself from her in some ways. She had surely seen it, and yet she’d taught him anyway. Not only had she taught him, but she’d taught him what he needed to know, rather than what she thought he ought to know. In a flash of understanding, he came to see that while she had indeed been teaching him about medicine, the teaching itself had been a medicine for his very soul.

Sen bowed deeply to Ma Caihong. “Teacher, I am grateful to you for what you have taught me. I am also grateful to you for choosing the knowledge you shared with so much care.”

Sen looked up to see Ma Caihong smiling at him.

“And now, Lu Sen, I think it’s finally time for you to call me Auntie Caihong.”

“As you say, Auntie Caihong.”

As if something had been waiting for Sen to utter those words, he felt a block that he hadn’t even known existed inside of him crack apart and qi flooded through him.

“Well, that’s unexpected,” said Caihong, who went to a cabinet and pulled out a stoppered bottle. “Here. You should drink this.”