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Rin had initially conceived of Altan as simply a good, strong fighter. Now she could see that he was, in every sense, a genius. His fighting technique was a study in trigonometry, a beautiful composition of trajectories and rebounded forces. He won consistently because he had perfect control of distance and torque. He had the mathematics of fighting down to a science.
“I have taught her class the crushing sensation of disappointment and the even more important lesson that they do not matter as much as they think they do.”
“You know, animal-based martial arts weren’t developed for combat,” he said. “They were first created to promote health and longevity. The Frolics of the Five Animals”—he held up the Yinmen scroll that Rin had spent so long looking for—“is actually a system of exercises to promote blood circulation and delay the inconveniences of old age. It wasn’t until later that these forms were adapted for fighting.”
But I can teach you the key to the universe,” Jiang said grandly, before bumping his head on a low-hanging branch.
“There are five principal elements present in the universe—get that look off your face, it’s not as absurd as it sounds. The masters of old used to believe that all things were made of fire, water, air, earth, and metal. Obviously, modern science has proven that false. Still, it’s a useful mnemonic for understanding the different types of energy. “Fire: the heat in your blood in the midst of a fight, the kinetic energy that makes your heart beat faster.” Jiang tapped his chest. “Water: the flowing of force from your muscles to your target, from the earth up through your waist, into your arms.
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Asking Jiang for clarification was inevitably infuriating. His answers were always bizarrely worded and absurdly phrased. Some didn’t make sense until days later; some never did. If she asked him to explain, he changed the subject. If she let his more absurd comments slide (“Your water element is off balance!”), he poked and prodded about why she wasn’t asking more questions.
Jiang moved through the world like he didn’t belong there. He acted as if he came from a country of near-humans, people who acted almost exactly like Nikara but not quite, and his behavior was that of a confused visitor who had stopped bothering with trying to imitate those around him. He didn’t belong—not simply in Sinegard, but in the very idea of a physical earth. He acted like the rules of nature did not apply to him. Perhaps they didn’t.
Psychedellic brain
He lectured as they climbed. “Martial arts came to the Empire by way of a warrior named Bodhidharma from the southeastern continent. When Bodhidharma found the Empire during his travels of the world, he journeyed to a monastery and demanded entry, but the head abbot refused him entrance. So Bodhidharma sat his ass in a nearby cave and faced the wall for nine years, listening to the ants scream.”
Buddha reference
Soldiers and sympathizers would don monks’ robes and shave their heads, but train for war within the temple grounds. In sacred spaces like these, they plotted the overthrow of their oppressors.”
Badass
This is the basis of what you are taught at Sinegard. This is the common core that is taught to the Imperial Militia. This is what your classmates are learning.” He grinned. “I am showing you how to beat it.”
He made her do the same exercise blindfolded, and then admitted later that he just thought it would be funny.
“Your state of mind is just as important as the state of your body,” Jiang lectured. “In the confusion of a fight, your mind must be still and steady as a rock. You must be grounded in your center, able to see and control everything.
“You darling child,” he said, spinning toward her. “You brilliant child.” Rin’s face split into a grin. Fuck it, she thought, and leaped up to embrace him. He picked her up and swung her through the air, around and around among the kaleidoscopically colorful mushrooms.
He waved his hand. “Irjah can’t teach you anything you couldn’t learn by yourself. Strategy’s a limited subject. Spend enough time in the field with Sunzi’s Principles by your bed, and you’ll pick up everything you need to win a campaign.”
Self mastery is often self taught
“Who are the gods? Where do they reside? Why do they do what they do? These are the fundamental questions of Lore. I can teach you more than ki manipulation. I can show you the pathway to the gods. I can make you a shaman.” Gods and shamans? It was often difficult to tell when Jiang was joking and when he wasn’t, but he seemed genuinely convinced that he could talk to heavenly powers.
She could lead troops of her own within a year of graduating. She could be a nationally renowned commander within five. She couldn’t throw that away on a mere fancy. “Sir, I just want to learn to be a good soldier,” she said. Jiang’s face fell. “You and the rest of this school,” he said.
She is meant for something greater
Sunzi writes that if your opponent is of choleric temper, you should seek to irritate him. Pretend to be weak so that he grows arrogant. The good tactician plays with his enemy like a cat plays with a mouse. Feign weakness and immobility, and then pounce on him.”
The masters rewarded bravery and creativity. If she backed off, it would be a sign of uncertainty. She had begun digging this hole for herself. She might as well finish.
Sunzi wrote that one must always identify and exploit the enemy’s weaknesses. Han’s weakness was psychological. The stakes were much, much higher for him, and that made him insecure. That made him beatable.
She fought two more matches that day. They were both variations on her match with Han—pattern recognition, confusion, finishing blow. She won both of them.
Fighting is pattern recognition
The rest of the class had learned their fundamentals from Jun. They moved the same way, sank into the same default patterns when nervous. But Rin didn’t. Her best advantage was her unpredictability. She fought like nothing they had been expecting, she threw them off rhythm, and so she continued to win.
The one advantage Rin had was that Venka had never fought with an injury. “She’s sparred plenty of times,” said Kitay. “But nobody is actually willing to hit her. Everyone’s always stopped before the punch lands. Even Nezha. I’ll bet you none of her home tutors were willing to hit her, either. They would have been fired immediately, if not thrown in jail.”
Silver spoon brat
The applause as Rin emerged from the ring was scattered at best. The audience had been rooting for Venka. Venka was supposed to be in the finals.
The herd
Nezha disappeared somewhere halfway through dinner. He was likely getting private coaching from Jun. Rin briefly considered reporting it to get Nezha disqualified, but knew that would be a hollow victory. She wanted to see this through to the finish.
No cheap wins here
He’d slapped her. He’d slapped her. A kick she could take. A knife hand strike she could absorb. But that slap had a savage intimacy. An undertone of superiority.
“Break,” said Sonnen, but she barely heard him. Blood thundered in her ears to a rhythm like war drums. Her vision was filtered through a red lens that registered only enemy targets.
“Move,” she panted. “Move.” But the masters crowded around her, a hubbub of voices—hands reaching, mouths moving. Their presence was suffocating. She felt if she screamed she could disintegrate them entirely, wanted to disintegrate them—but the very small part of her that was still rational reined it in, sent her reeling for the exit instead.
“You could act less like a dazed peasant, you know,” Kitay said as Lan laid out a spread of quail, quail eggs, shark fin soup served in a turtle’s shell, and pig’s intestines before them. “It’s just food.” But “just food” was rice porridge. Maybe some vegetables. A piece of fish, pork, or chicken whenever they could get it.
Reveals the difference in mentality amongst social classes
“What do these do?” Rin stopped in front of a rack bearing tiny wooden statues of fat little boys. The boys’ tunics were yanked down, exposing their penises. She couldn’t believe anything this obscene was on sale. “Oh, those are my favorite,” Kitay said. By way of explanation, the vendor picked up a teapot and poured water over the statues. The clay darkened as the statues turned wet. Water began spurting out of the penises like sprays of urine.
UNLOCKED A MEMORY
Rin couldn’t think of a glaring counterargument to this theory, so she conceded with silence. Debating with Kitay became pointless after a while. He was so convinced of his own rationality, of his encyclopedic knowledge of most things, that he had difficulty conceiving of gaps in his understanding.
Incapable of perspective
It came down to an intuition. A truth she knew for herself but couldn’t prove to anyone else. She was studying Lore because she knew Jiang had tapped into some other source of power, something real and mystifying. Because she had tapped into that same source the day of the Tournament. Because she had been consumed by fire, had seen the world turned red, had lost control of herself and been saved by the man whom everyone else at the school deemed insane.
“You want to know what happened to you during the Tournament.” Jiang cocked his head to the side. “Here is what happened: you called a god, and the god answered.” Rin made a face. Again with the gods? She had been hoping for answers throughout the entire break, had thought that Jiang might make things clear once she returned, but she was now more confused than ever. Jiang lifted a hand before she could protest. “You don’t know what any of this means yet. You don’t know if you’ll ever replicate what happened in the ring. But you do know that if you don’t get answers now, the hunger will consume
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Daily, she saw the proof of enlightenment before her. Because Jiang did things that no human should be able to do. The first time, he made the leaves at his feet spin without moving a muscle. She thought it was a trick of the wind. And then he did it again, and then a third time, just to prove he had utter control over it.
“Supernatural is a word for anything that doesn’t fit your present understanding of the world. I need you to suspend your disbelief. I need you to simply accept that these things are possible.” “I’m supposed to take it as true that you’re a god?” “Don’t be silly. I am not a god,” he said. “I am a mortal who has woken up, and there is power in awareness.” He made the wind howl at his command. He made trees rustle by pointing at them. He made water ripple without touching it, and could cause shadows to twist and screech with a whispered word.
She said this with a straight face, but she was exaggerating. Because she knew that something was real. She knew that on some level, there was more to the cosmos than what she encountered in the material world. She was not truly such a skeptic as she pretended to be.
There is way more beyond the cosmos
“But how does the existence or nonexistence of the gods affect me? Why does it matter how the universe came to be?” “Because you’re part of it. Because you exist. And unless you want to only ever be a tiny modicum of existence that doesn’t understand its relation to the grander web of things, you will explore.”
“Press your tongue against the roof of your mouth. Feel your spine elongate. Feel the spaces between your vertebrae. Wake up!”
Meditation felt like a massive waste of time to Rin, who was used to years of stress and constant studying. It felt wrong to be sitting so still, to have nothing occupying her mind. She could barely stand three minutes of this torture, let alone sixty. She was so terrified of the thought of not thinking that she wasn’t able to accomplish it because she kept thinking about not thinking. Jiang, on the other hand, could meditate indefinitely. He became like a statue, serene and tranquil. He seemed like air, like he might fade away if she didn’t concentrate enough on him. He seemed like he’d
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“Are we getting high?” Rin said. “Oh, wow. We’re getting high, aren’t we?” “I’m getting high,” said Jiang. “You’re watching.”
He's hilarious
“Ah. The law.” Jiang sniffed at an unidentified leaf and then tossed it away. “So inconvenient. So irrelevant.” He looked suddenly at her. “Why does Nikan frown upon drug use?”
Because it expands consciousness
“It is the nature of all things to have a dual purpose,” he said.
These seeds, used with the proper mental preparation, give you access to the entire universe contained within your mind.”
Now, with the introduction of psychedelic plants, Jiang drew these threads into one unified theory, a theory of spiritual connection through psychedelics to the dream world where the gods might reside.
“Do you know what the word entheogen means?” She shook her head. “It means the generation of the god within,” he said.
She struggled to formulate her thoughts. “If this is . . . then . . . then why doesn’t everyone do this? Why doesn’t anyone in the opium houses stumble upon the gods?” “Because they don’t know what they’re looking for. The Nikara don’t believe in their deities, remember?”
What you seek is seeking you
“Once there were,” Jiang said, and she was surprised at how bitter he sounded. “Once there were monasteries upon monasteries. Then the Red Emperor in his quest for unification came and burned them down. Shamans lost their power. The monks—the ones with real power, anyhow—died or disappeared.” “Where are they now?” “Hidden,” he said. “Forgotten. In recent history, only the nomadic clans of the Hinterlands and the tribes of Speer had anyone who could commune with the gods. This is no coincidence. The national quest to modernize and mobilize entails a faith in one’s ability to control world
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Don't worship God, wordship the laws of society
“But I don’t understand,” she said. “Why have the shamans disappeared? Wouldn’t the Red Emperor be all the more powerful for having shamans in his army?” “No. In fact, the opposite is true. The creation of an empire requires conformity and uniform obedience. It requires teachings that can be mass-produced across the entire country. The Militia is a bureaucratic entity that is purely interested in results. What I teach is impossible to duplicate to a class of fifty, much less a division of thousands. The Militia is composed almost entirely of people like Jun, who think that things matter only
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Once an empire has become convinced of its worldview, anything that evidences the contrary must be erased.
The world was simpler when all that existed was what you could perceive in front of you.
“Without the right mental preparation, psychedelics won’t do anything for you,” he said. “You’ll just become terribly annoying for a while.”
