Volume 2 Chapter 2

  Yin Wei was vaguely aware that he was dreaming. That was a relief, since it was one of those dreams where clothing wasn’t a thing, and he would have been humiliated if he wasn’t fairly certain that this wasn’t real.

  He was standing in a rocky beach, where the sea met the shore. He was looking out at the lake—no, this was an ocean. He’d never seen an ocean before but this is what it must smell like, he thought. The salt and the foam smelled invigorating, and he wanted to go for a swim.

  Maybe that was why he didn’t have clothes on, he thought. Maybe this was one of those dreams where you went swimming.

  “Oh there you are,” a voice called to him. A kindly voice of an old man. “But why aren’t you dressed? Here, let me help you.”

  And suddenly, in the way of dreams, Yin was dressed in green and red silks. He turned around to find the owner of the voice, who was as kindly and old as Yin had thought.

  “Who are you?” Yin asked.

  “I am Hao Shenlong,” the voice answered. “And I am your ancestor. You’ve finally matured to the point where I can guide you in your dreams, young Yin Wei, and so I thought that I would come say hello.”

  Yin blushed. “Were you watching long?”

  “Hmm? No, I only just arrived,” Hao said. He stretched his back and sighed, looking around at the rocky spires and the beach. “Well, that isn’t entirely true. I’ve been here before, but not in your dreams. This is the foundation, you see.”

  “The foundation of what?” Yin asked.

  “Of my home, of course,” Hao answered. “Come, walk with me for a while, grandson.”

  “You’re not my grandfather,” Yin corrected.

  “Great-grandson then,” Hao admitted. “But family is family, is it not? Do we really have to specify exactly how many generations it’s been since I fathered your grandmother?”

  Yin blinked as the man’s story clicked into place. Nobody did know who his grandmother’s parents were, he reminded himself. It was a little bit of family lore which had slipped into his consciousness and never escaped.

  “Okay, say I believe you,” Yin said, cocking his head. “Why are you showing yourself to me now?”

  “Well, if I’m being honest with you, it’s because your cousin is a self-assured rotten little turd whose path will set him wasting his potential as a dirt farmer when he could rule the four empires,” Hao said unashamedly.

  “My cousins aren’t that bad,” Yin said defensively.

  “Not those cousins. Cousins on your grandmother’s side of the family,” Hao explained. They continued to walk through the foundation to the palace. When had they started walking, and when had the beach become the ruins to a palace? Oh right, this was a dream, never mind.

  “What does a cousin that I’ve never met have to do with anything?” Yin asked.

  “Well, if I’m being completely honest, he was my first choice to inherit my wisdom and insights. But since he turned me down, I had to go searching for the next most suitable candidate,” Hao explained. He touched a ruined painting and a wall rebuilt itself so that he could hang it. The painting was still ruined, but when Yin looked again it had mended itself.

  But he still couldn’t comprehend it.

  It was too profound.

  Yeah, that was the word, profound.

  “How old are you, Yin?” Hao asked. He shook his hand, which was bleeding. How had he cut it? Yin didn’t know, but he would know soon.

  “Nine,” Yin answered.

  “Clever boy for nine. You knew this was a dream right away, didn’t you?”

  “Being naked was a pretty good hint. Thanks for the clothes,” Yin said.

  “Don’t mention it, don’t mention it. Would you mind helping me a bit? My power is a little weak right now, but these are your dreams, so if you help me I should be able to rebuild my home that that little brat destroyed.”

  “Huh? Yeah, I suppose,” Yin said, and for the next few hours, he carried things around and helped Hao to put the palace that had been ripped to shreds by a terrible, terrible thing that Yin could barely comprehend. It was violent and malevolence incarnate, although Yin could only feel the edges of it, but those edges were sharp as knives, and he often found his hands getting cut.

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  But then Hao would appear and say a few words, and the wounds would be gone. Just like magic.

  If he was being honest with himself, Yin had no idea what he was doing. He would pick up the shards of a vase, which would cut him, and then he’d be healed. He’d place it back where it had been, and the shattered pieces would be whole, along with an entire section of walls with tapestries and gilded reliefs. It made no sense how he was rebuilding the palace, but then again it was just a dream.

  After the palace was restored, he felt much better. Hao was proud of him, and that was important. Hao was a good old man, and if he listened to him then he’d go far in life.

  “Very good, Yin. Very good,” Hao said, smiling down at his great-grandson. “Now then, let me fix you something to eat. Do you often eat in your dreams?”

  “No, I don’t think so,” Yin admitted.

  “Well, let me prepare for you a spirit chicken pot-pie. It’s a simple dish, but it was one of my favorites while I was alive,” Hao said. “Yes, I think that will do just right. And when we’ve finished with that, why don’t you tell me about your life, Yin? Once I see things a little more clearly, then I’ll be able to give you the best advice.”

  Yin looked down to find himself at a table, with a large pie in front of him. He began to dig in, talking excitedly about his little life as the son of a merchant family. He wasn’t in the main house, but the main house had just gotten imperial recognition, which meant that good things were bound to happen to him and his parents.

  Hao nodded and smiled and listened attentively. He opened his mouth and said--

  Cockadoodledoo!

  Yin opened his eyes, blinking in confusion. Oh, right, it was just a dream, he reminded himself. Then he stretched and began doing all the usual things that he did in the morning.

  ~~~~~~~

  That night, Hao once more found himself on the rocky shore, but seconds after realizing that he was in his dreamworld he was suddenly dressed in the same red and green silks and sitting in the palace that Hao had built in his dreams. Or had he built it? Well, it was a palace and it was in his dreams, he knew that.

  “Welcome back, Yin,” Hao said. “Tell me, have you ever tasted the Rain Lotus Fig?”

  Yin shook his head. “That sounds fancy. Like something out of a story.”

  “It’s very real. They were one of my favorite fruits when I was alive,” Hao said, and he pushed a bowl of figs to Yin. The bowl was filled with water, with the fruits on the bottom. “When you take the figs out of the water, you must eat them very quickly. They’re very inconvenient to harvest because you must submerge them in water before plucking them or the flavor escapes. They have to be submerged all the way until they reach the emperor’s mouth.”

  “You were sneaking treats from the emperor when you were alive, huh?” Yin said, grinning at the old man. He grabbed one of the figs from the bowl, gasping at the realism of the ice cold water. He thought that it would wake him, but it didn’t.

  If the cold water didn’t wake him, then he thought surely the taste of the divine fruit would. He moaned in pleasure, savoring every second that the flavor was on his tongue.

  “So, before we were so rudely interrupted yesterday—by a rooster no less—I was about to start giving you my advice,” Hao said.

  “Why does this taste so good?” Yin asked. “And why is the water actually wet? I didn’t accidentally wet myself in my body did I? No, it would have been warm…”

  “This is more than a dream, Yin. It’s a visitation,” Hao explained. “But that’s not very important. You just have to listen to me and follow my advice. I can honestly say that it is entirely in your own best interests to do so. And it is in my best interest that my descendants thrive. My paternal pride wilts at seeing the sad state of your life.”

  “What’s so sad about it?” Yin asked, eating another date. Or was it a fig? He didn’t really know the difference. But how had he known that it might be a date? Weird. Oh right this was a dream.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to belittle you. You’re a good lad living the best life that the fates handed out to him. But you have the potential to be so much more.”

  “More like what? Richer? I’m only nine, nobody takes a nine-year-old merchant seriously. Except other nine-year-olds, I suppose, but they’d just be playing with their parents’ money too,” Yin said.

  “Very clever, yes, you’re entirely right. But no. I mean that you’re wasting your cultivation potential.”

  “I can’t be a cultivator,” Yin said reflexively.

  “What makes you say that?” Hao asked, grinning patiently.

  Yin explored the question, and he found that he didn’t have an answer except “I don’t know how?”

  “Well, Yin, you’re very lucky, because I happened to have been an exceedingly powerful and wise cultivator when I was alive,” Hao said. “And it’s in both of our interests if I pass on that knowledge to you.”

  Yin looked down at the dates, figs, raisins, whatever they were. This wasn’t just a dream. He remembered how he had cut his hands on something that he couldn’t understand or define in his last dream. That something hadn’t been directed at him at all, it had been like picking up broken glass. Dangerous, but only because he was stupid enough to pick it up.

  Was this like that?

  “I’m listening,” Yin said eventually, eating another fig.

  Hao grinned, and began explaining how to unlock his spiritual senses.

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