Volume 2 Chapter 3

  Yin had been collecting rocks lately. He was nine years old, so that wasn’t exactly behavior that would upset or concern his parents. The way that he’d been whispering to himself might have drawn some concern, but he only did that when he was confident nobody was round.

  “Is this one special?” he asked. “No, it’s just a rock,” he concluded, and he skipped it out over the pond. He picked up the next one that he’d found during his exploration of the little forest outside of the village and examined it. He examined it . “Hao? Is this one special?”

  There was no answer from the heavenly ancestor. Three weeks had passed since he’d first been visited by the kindly spirit, and sometimes he could hear the voice even in his waking hours. He found that the more that he reached for Hao, the more that Hao was able to reach back.

  Still, he didn’t want anyone to think that he was crazy. He was too old to be playing with imaginary friends. Or imaginary ancestors, as was the case. He still had no concrete evidence that Hao was real. It could just be a really weird set of dreams.

  Hao had told him to find a spiritual rock, and that he would reach out to Yin when he found one. So Yin searched, collecting dozens of nice rocks and examining them thoroughly before tossing them into the pond where he sometimes swam and also fished.

  He went through all of the stones that he collected, then went looking for more. Then, in the way of nine year old boys, he got distracted and forgot what he was originally doing until his stomach called him home.

  That night his meeting with Hao was tense as the ancient spirit chastised him for his lackadaisical nature, then promptly forgave him without expecting an apology. “I suppose it was too much to think that you’d find a spiritual stone on your first day. Although I’ll bet that your cousin could.”

  “So go be his guiding ancestor,” Yin said cheekily. “Oh wait, he doesn’t want you. Anyway, I don’t know what I’m supposed to be looking for. You didn’t tell me much yesterday before you turned into a chicken so how was I supposed to know how to find one?”

  “That is...a fair point,” Hao admitted. He sighed. “The truth is that the only thing that differentiates a spiritual stone from a normal stone is that it has a spirit inside it. Lesser spirit stones have had spirits inside them in the past. Some spirits will be satisfied resting in any stone, but that’s not true for the sort of spirit that you will bind. But we’re not ready for that step yet. We need to get you into a sect, so the easiest way of doing that is to buy your way in with a spiritual stone. After that we’ll raid their records to find a spirit worthy of you.”

  “Sure, whatever,” Yin said. “Can I get more of those figs?”

  Hao sighed and conjured his memory of the imperial water figs and shared the memory with the boy he was attempting to cultivate. He truly did wish the boy all of the best, it was just hard for him to deal with someone so young.

  He had to tread carefully as well; his battle with Tan had left him weakened in ways that were difficult for a mortal waking mind to comprehend. He couldn’t even rebuild his own palace, not with the lingering shards of Tan’s intent lying everywhere. But the very dream-immortality that had guaranteed Tan’s victory over Hao in their dream battle had allowed Yin to rebuild what his cousin had so meticulously destroyed.

  Except for the lingering sharp shards here and there, Hao reflected, recalling when he had traced his hand over one of the banisters only to lose a finger. It had taken so much effort to reattach. Fortunately, as long as Yin accepted him in his dreams, Hao would slowly recover from that encounter.

  And if the day came when Yin tossed Hao out on his backside, well, he had hundreds of other descendants to knock on dream’s door.

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  “This is the stone you’ve been looking for,” Hao’s voice said in his ear, clear as day, just as Yin was picking it up. The boy cried out and dropped it in surprise, getting a strange look from the girl he was with.

  “What’s wrong with you?” she asked.

  “Nothing,” he said sheepishly. “There was a spider beneath the rock, that’s all.”

  “Whatever. Hand it here, I want to throw it,” she said.

  “No, not this one,” he said quickly.

  He’d been enlisting the other kids in his stonehunting lately. It had been going on for months now, a few hours every day. Everyone thought that he just liked throwing the stones in the pond, which was fine. He didn’t mind sharing the stones with the other kids if they helped him pick the rocks in the first place, and so it had turned into a group activity, except the only rule was that Yin had to inspect each rock before it was thrown.

  It was a weird rule, as far as the other kids were concerned, but they didn’t mind because they’d counted and it seemed like Yin always picked more rocks than he threw, so they came out ahead on the arrangement.

  “What do you mean not this one? Give it here?”

  “Here, throw this one instead,” Yin said, sticking the ‘special’ stone in his pocket and handing her a different one.

  “Whatever. You’re weird,” she said, and she threw the stone. It skipped twice, and she celebrated.

  When he was alone, he took the stone out and examined him. It was gray, with a green line through the middle and a pink line towards one side. It was a normal rock as far as he could tell.

  “I don’t get it, what’s special about it?” he whispered.

  The voice of his ancestor didn’t answer. Frowning, Yin put the stone back in his pocket and ran home.

  He abruptly lost interest in skipping stones after that day, but in the way of children that wasn’t such a weird thing, and nobody really commented on it.

  Six months later, after he’d turned ten, the cultivators came to collect their taxes. Nervously, Yin approached them with his special stone in his hands.

  “Sirs, would you perhaps like to look at my special stone?” the boy asked nervously. “If you listen closely, you can hear it whisper.”

  The cultivators exchanged looks, then laughed. They examined the stone, pocketed it, and continued to collect their taxes. When he objected or asked for it back, one of the cultivators flicked him in the forehead.

  It was like getting poleaxed. He lie in the dirt blindly until his parents arrived, kowtowed and apologized for their son’s actions, then dragged the boy away. Fortunately the cultivators had shown mercy, and although he never got his spiritual stone back, he wasn’t seriously injured. Just dazed from a Qi-infused flick.

  In his dreams, Hao Shen raged. Not only had they assaulted his great-grandson, but they had robbed him! It was an outrage.

  And together, Hao promised Yin, they would take down the entire Cloudy Mirror Sect. But in order to achieve that sort of strength, there was a level of danger that they would have to embrace.

  Yin listened to the old man’s plan with increasing nerves. After all, he wasn’t just suggesting that they do this in his dreamscape, which the two of them together were in complete control over these days. If things went wrong, then Yin would die for real.

  It took him another six months and another encounter with a bully for him to make his mind up.

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