A Sage's Journey (Original Xianxia)

Hm, not quite as long as I would have liked, but then, I am not going for a minimum word count here! I am just trying to entertain~

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While your father, and mother, dealt with the subprefect sent around to take the thug away, you quietly and efficiently, hide the book that had been a fan but was now a book and that confuses the hell out of you, but you roll with it, and just hide the book. No need to reveal it for now. You want to read it first.

It’s not your fault you enjoy reading.

More troubling though, is when you mentioned the strange woman before the subprefect had shown up to your parents, neither had seen her. Which is impossible, because either she had to come through the front, and pass by you and your mother, or go through the back, and pass by your father. Thankfully, you managed to pass it off as thinking you had seen someone go in or out, and not having talked to the person.

Either way, while your parents are dealing with the subprefect, you get stuck with the task of cleaning the front room up. Which wouldn’t be too bad, if you hadn’t broken the broom, and mother is not happy about that. Not in the slightest, judging by the look in her eye as she looked at the remains of said sweeper upper. So you have to pick everything up by hand, or sweep with a rag to gather up bits of broken stuff.

It’s annoying work, and a punishment you don’t think you deserve, considering you stopped the thug from harming mother, or yourself, or taking what little money the bakery brings in. Nonetheless, when you have finished that, you head to your tiny room, and pull out the book.

You’re not sure what you will find in it, but you suspect something interesting, or at least unique. It is with mild trepidation that you crack open ‘Baby’s First Enlightenment: How to start a Sage’s Journey right’ to the first chapter, and begin to read:

Shoes...really? I-if one of the Immortals really did write this, then why are they talking about shoes? This makes no sense! This book is weird and must be a fake, a trick. But, just in case, you will read on a bit more….

Maps now? What is this? A book on Sages, or..or...a travel itinerary?!

“Resplendent Lotus, I have been calling you for the last ten minutes!” your mother chastises you suddenly from your bedroom doorway. “Go to bed! The sun has long gone down and we wake in only six hours! You will need your rest if you are to help your father. Go go, put the light out and go to sleep!”

“Y-yes mother, of course mother,” you chirp, startled by her words. Did it really take you all day to read just that? Where has the time gone? Shaking yourself, you tuck your book away in a hiding place, and blow out the light after your mother withdraws from your room.

You will worry about it tomorrow. For now, you will sleep.

So, you have begun reading the book given to you by Sun Wukong (and if you hadn’t realized it was Sun Wukong, you should be ashamed of yourself. I don’t think I could have telegraphed that any harder, dammit), but time moves on and a new day approaches. What will you do in the new light of dawn?
[X] Continue to read the Book
[X] Find some good shoes
[X] Look for good maps of Catai
[X] Find a Sifu to teach you to punch people in the face
[X] Ignore yesterday and go back to your regular routine

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Just as a warning, I will probably not be writing more excerpts from the book, since I have little idea on what should go in it in the first place.

Also, just as a thing, none of the votes are bad. Some of them are...suboptimal, depending on what you are looking for, but again, none of them are objectively bad, or worse than any of the others. They just signify a different road travelled. Kind of poignant considering the quest's subject matter, actually!

 

[X] Find some good shoes
No. of Votes: 4

Having thought of it, I should have used sandals instead of shoes, but alas and alack, I didn’t use sandals, I used shoes. What this means is that I will be using sandals instead of shoes from here on in. I will not be changing it in the previous, part, at least, not right now, because of confusion reasons.

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In the morning, you wake to mother pounding on the door, calling for you to get up and get moving, so you can help with setup. It’s a pain, but you drag yourself out of your comfy bed and get to go about your morning routine. When your gaze flicks past the hiding spot for the book underneath your pillow, you pause and almost, almost grab it.

In the end, you pass it by and just continue to get ready, absently putting your hair into a topknot to keep it out of the way. You have work to do, and maybe, after the morning chores, you can head off and see if you can find some sandals. You have been meaning to get a new pair for a bit now, after all.

You’d honestly forgotten until the book, which you somehow spent hours reading and not realizing it, had reminded you. So, uh, thank you Sun Wukong, whoever they are.

Either way, you put it out of your mind, as you go about the carting and carrying and cleaning and talking to early customers, and so on and so forth. It’s a grind, and it’s every morning, but you are used to it and it is life and you kind of want out now. Yes, a journey does sound good and different.

But you do not want to abandon your family. Mother and Father do rely on you, after all, and you know one or two of the customers come in and buy stuff simply because they hope to gain a glimpse of you. Or so they say.

Well, no matter, you just need to finish carrying this rack of steamed buns and then you can get cleaned up, put on clothes that do not smell like a bakery, and go see if you can find a good pair of sandals.

* * * * *

Yuzhou.

The city within which you live. It is loud and judgemental and bright. It is also comfortable, known, and predictable. You are fairly sure you didn’t like the city at the beginning, when you moved here at the age of four, but it’s grown on you and while you still can’t say you love the place, you don’t hate it. Or at least, you dislike it less.

It’s noisy most hours of the day, and it smells of burnt oil,of sweat, of blood, and of waste. It’s not clean, and it can never be clean. Not with the hundreds, if not thousands, of people living in such a packed place. Worse still, is Face.

Face. Looking respectable, while wallowing in human filth. That’s father’s opinion on the matter, although he too tries to look maintain Face. If only so our customers don’t abandon us because of some preconceived notion. Mother though, she loves it. Is in her element when she is working on gaining Face.

Or helping others lose it.

You, you do not care either way. It is what it is and you live with it and let push you when it will not hurt, but hold firm when it conflicts with your own priorities. Something about bamboo bending and flexibility or some such saying you heard ages ago.

Neither too hard, nor too soft what a minute.

…

You are frozen in time. The whole world seems to have stopped and your breath is harsh in your ears. Your heart pumps loudly, rhythmically. The Blood pounds in your ears. Your vision narrows to just pinpricks and you know nothing else of the world except the nothing you are viewing.

You feel empty, adrift. Lost. That little spark, burning behind your navel gets hotter, brighter, bruning you to ash, only for your heart to *Ba-Bum* refresh you, reshape you. Make you unburnt, unbowed and new again. Ready for that white hot fire to burn you to ash again.

The cycle repeats and you feel Eternity. You understand the need for good sandals. Neither too hard, too tough that they hurt your self, nor to soft, that they let your self be harmed. Further, it makes sense, and you can see the way that your Way and The Way flow, how they interact, how they merge, how they-

“Oi,don’t be stopping in the middle of the street, girlie!” shouts a large, rotund man as he hauls a cart behind him, having barely stopped himself from hitting you. “Now get; I have deliveries to make and you are holding up traffic!”

-and you have lost it. It’s gone, all gone. You dimly feel yourself shuffling out of the way as you shed tears at the loss. It was...you can’t explain it, you can barely remember but a fragment of it, but you can feel at least some of it, some of that knowledge, inside you. You’re...you’re not sure how to reconnect to it, to learn that just out of reach knowledge, but you will.

Now that you know it exists, that it is right there, you will grab it, and you will learn it. You will know Something. Your Way has told you that, told you it will lead you there.

But for now...for now, you will go buy a new pair of sandals.


After buying sandals, what will you do?
[X] Buy a map
[X] Read more of the book
[X] Learn to face punch.
[X] Meditate on what you have discovered

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Hm, not exactly how I envisioned it coming out, but I guess it is what it is. I think I managed to communicate everything I wanted to communicate, but I guess only time will tell if I did or not.