Chapter 17 — Object Driving

"Woof! Woof! Woof!"

"Chee-chee-chee-chee!"

……

The barking of the dog and the shrieking of the monkey intertwined, echoing across Dazhu Peak of Mount Canglan, shattering its quiet. Zhang Qingyue, black iron rod in hand, burst out the kitchen door in a fury: "You damn dog! You damn monkey! I dare you to not run!"

The monkey, Xiao Hui, darted in a flash onto the back of the big yellow dog, and Da Huang, already tensed for it, shot off on all four legs. Zhang Qingyue could not catch them, and could only watch as Xiao Hui pulled a face and stuffed a fragrant meat bone into Da Huang's mouth. Da Huang was so thrilled that his canine face lit with joy; had his jaws not been clamped on the bone, he would surely have grinned so wide his dog teeth fell out.

"Whoosh!"

Zhang Qingyue returned to the kitchen in deep dejection, seething with grievance. Ever since he had taken charge of the kitchen at fourteen, his cooking had made everyone sit up and take notice, and Da Huang, for all his "venerable old dog" cultivation, could not help drooling over the delicacies in Zhang Qingyue's hands—especially the meat bones Zhang Qingyue used for broth, fragrant and savory, the feast of Da Huang's dreams.

But the broth Zhang Qingyue simmered was meant for people. Da Huang, old as he was (Tian Buhui had raised him from a pup) and senior in standing besides, never received the treatment he felt due him, and was forever left drooling from three feet away with nothing to show for it. That was, until he struck up a friendship with the monkey Xiao Hui, and the scene just played out became a regular occurrence on Dazhu Peak, lasting a full two years. However carefully Zhang Qingyue hid the meat bones, with Da Huang's nose and Xiao Hui's nimbleness, the battle over meat bones invariably ended in Zhang Qingyue's defeat.

Two years slipped by in a hurry—a year and a half, really—and Zhang Qingyue had grown into a youth of sixteen, taller now, half a head above his senior sister Tian Lingsu. During this time, because of Tian Buhui's stern order, every disciple on Dazhu Peak had shut themselves away in hard cultivation; apart from the sixth brother, Du Biyan, who had gone down the mountain to travel, only Zhang Qingyue the cook had the most leisure.

For two years, unnoticed by anyone, Zhang Qingyue had cultivated on his own, and what even he could not believe was that, following the method Senior Brother Song Dayi had taught him, it had taken him only a single year to seemingly complete the second level of the Yuqing Realm, Qi Refining.

Doubts gnawed at him, but in the end he did not go to ask Tian Buhui. Song Dayi, Tian Lingsu, and the others were all devoted to their closed-door cultivation with no time for anything else, and Du Biyan, his closest friend, had gone down the mountain. So he kept the question buried in his heart. Yet now a great difficulty lay before him: Tian Lingsu had privately given him the method for the third level. He knew full well this was a grave violation of the sect rules, but late at night, standing alone in the little courtyard gazing up at the sky, a single sentence always came back to him:

No matter how hard you train, you will never match Senior Brother Qi Hao!

After ten nights, he began to practice the method of the third level.

In the Way of the Supreme Ultimate and Mystic Purity, the first three levels of the Yuqing Realm are the foundation of all arts, growing harder by degrees. Unlike the first two levels, "Guiding Qi" and "Refining Qi," the method of the third level, "Primal Qi," focuses on cultivating the Supreme Ultimate primal qi. The method says: "The primal qi of the Supreme Ultimate holds three and makes them one. Ji means the center; yuan means the beginning, moving through the twelve double-hours… Here yin and yang join in virtue, qi gathers at zi, and the ten thousand things are born." (Note: from the Book of Han, Treatise on Pitch Pipes and the Calendar.)

When disciples of the Canglan Sect reached this stage, a clear watershed invariably appeared, laying bare at a glance who was gifted and who was not: the clever broke through like a hot knife through bamboo, entering at one stroke the higher realm of "Object Driving" and from there laying a solid foundation for immortal cultivation, while the lesser disciples often stalled where they stood, and many indeed wasted their whole lives there.

Zhang Qingyue had been in the sect five years now, and had heard these things countless times in conversation with his senior brothers. But it was plain enough that every one of them had sorted him into the "lesser" category.

He walked back into the kitchen, went to the stove, filled the pot with water, then kept feeding firewood into the stove, meaning to boil some water. The bright yellow flames leapt up again, and Zhang Qingyue took his poor black "black iron rod," already two years in his service, and poked at the firewood in the stove. Once the fire burned steady, his gaze slowly settled on the rod in his hand.

This was not some revelation dawning on him; it was simply an ordinary habit—he was woolgathering.

The rod, black as iron throughout, was barely a foot long apart from the round bead at its head. Its only oddity was that beneath the black, faint veins like threads of blood ran through it, most plainly where the short rod met the round bead, so that at times it almost seemed the two had been fused together with human blood.

A sudden shudder ran through Zhang Qingyue; the thought of human blood fusing them, which had just flitted through his mind, disgusted even him. Over the years he had gradually let fade the memory of that trip into the secluded valley, but now and then, deep in the night, he would suddenly dream of that strange experience and wake drenched in sweat.

At such times he felt utterly alone, facing unknown monstrosity by himself, facing the darkness of death by himself. Every time, he could not suppress a strange agitation, and with a thread of feverish impulse, he would be seized by a feeling of slaughter. In the darkness he would even recall again, from years ago, the strange feverishness in the monk Puzhao's eyes as he looked at him beside that ruined thatched temple!

Zhang Qingyue had no idea why he should have such strange feelings, but fortunately he had one way to calm his frightened heart: the Great Brahma Prajna!

This supreme Buddhist method had the wondrous power to subdue evil spirits and cleanse the mind. He had practiced it five years, and its greatest use had been to press down the strange emotions that had arisen for no reason these past two years.

"Crack!"

Pain struck Zhang Qingyue's head; something fell to the ground—a pinecone. Fury surged in him, and he whirled about, roaring: "You damn monkey, don't let me catch you—wait, you're… ah! Sixth Brother!"

Zhang Qingyue leapt to his feet. There at the doorway stood a man of middling build with a lean, keen face and a broad smile, a small bundle on his back. Who else but the long-absent sixth brother, Du Biyan?

Du Biyan looked Zhang Qingyue up and down, clicking his tongue. "Impressive. A few years, and this kid's grown as tall as me."

Zhang Qingyue strode over and seized him hard. "Sixth Brother, why were you gone so long? We've all missed you terribly."

"Well, aren't I back now?" said Du Bi.

Zhang Qingyue pressed on: "Do Master and Mistress know you're back?"

"No. I just got in, saw smoke from the kitchen, and came over first to look. Ha, I knew this kid would be in here working. All these years—did you miss me?"

Zhang Qingyue nodded again and again, delighted. Du Biyan ruffled his hair and suddenly lowered his voice: "Come on, keep me company while I go see Master."

Zhang Qingyue blinked. "Why do you need me to come with you?"