Chapter Text
This year’s Luotian Grand Assembly has become quite the spectacle. The arena is filled with an audience who have flown in from all over the country, and the number of contestants has quadrupled compared to last year.
This is no shock to anyone, since the Eight Supreme Skills have resurfaced after decades of being hidden.
It all started with Feng Baobao, the long-lost granddaughter of Wu Gensheng, and is said to be the heir of the Supreme, Origin of Qi. After being targeted by the Quan Xing, she has become a hot topic among Yiren circles.
The Feng Family of the Council of Elders has always been known to possess the Supreme, Dispatch of Detained Spirit. But it is only until recently—when the All-Encompassing Guild has gotten wind of Feng Baobao—that Feng Shayan is revealed to be its successor.
Both women are rumored to be participating in the competition, and that is enough for everyone who covets the extraordinary power that the Supremes are supposed to give you to attend the assembly. Add in the additional prize of the Supreme, Tongtian Talismans, and now even those who are merely curious have come out of the woodwork.
Even the most reclusive Wu-hou Sect has sent out its representatives.
In the aftermath of the Jiashen Calamity, Zhuge Bagua Village has closed its doors to any outsiders. Some say it’s to save what little face they have left, for one of their own had joined the Quan Xing during the Calamity. While others say that it’s because of greed—that they have been hoarding one of the Supremes all these years. Little do they know that there is some truth to both reasons.
Feng Hou Qimen—invented by Tian Xiaodie, wife of the then fifth son of the main family. She joined the Quan Xing as one of the Thirty-Six Rebels and created the Supreme with the knowledge of Wu-hou Qimen, secretly taught to her by her husband, Zhuge Yunhui.
When she was brought back to face the elders of the clan, her husband begged and begged for her to be spared. In the end was a compromise: she would live, granted that the Supreme would never be taught to outsiders and would only serve the clan she now owed her life to.
However, it is a curse as much as it is a blessing. No one since Tian Xiaodie has learned to control it. It would burn the Inner Realm of anyone who dared to learn it, stripping away all ego and sense of reality.
No outsider has ever seen Feng Hou Qimen, for it is both the Zhuge Clan’s most brilliant legacy—
—and its greatest shame.
To seek the truth of oneself is to seek the truth of the world. We are a reflection of the universe, and it—in turn—is a reflection of us. This is what Wang Ye has internalized throughout the years of studying under Master Yunlong.
He has read all the scripts Wudang can provide him and has practiced every discipline his sect can offer. Everything that he can get his hands on that wonders about how the world works and our place in it, he has learned. All to the ends of seeking the answer to the question he has had since he was a child—Who am I?
He hasn’t found his answer yet, even after five years of sequestering himself in the mountains. But he is a patient man, and he knows that many scholars cannot answer such a question in their lifetime anyway. With his cultivation, he can afford to wait. He is content where he is at this moment in time.
However, his grandmaster seems to think otherwise.
“Go down the mountain, Xiao-Wang Ye,” says his grandmaster one day. “Wudang still needs a representative in the Luotian Grand Assembly. Why don’t you participate? Being cooped up in the mountains is not productive. Go make yourself useful and not just tease your master all day!”
He doesn’t want to go at first, saying, “There are plenty of other disciples better than me. Why not send them instead?” But that night, he calculates the fortune of the assembly and almost dies trying to get an answer to his query.
So, he has no choice but to attend. After all, if there is something that threatens the balance of the world, then he must see to it that it doesn’t succeed. What greater threat is there other than three—possibly four—of the Eight Supreme Skills in the same vicinity at the same time?
The first few days, he merely observes.
The so-called heir to the Origin of Qi is a quiet girl, powerful but not as much as Wang Ye had expected. She is great at adapting and has good instincts, but he has yet to see any divine art from her. She blends in the background and is greatly overshadowed by her shameless, loudmouthed bodyguard.
The heir to the Dispatch of Detained Spirit is a spitfire of a woman who barely has any control over her inherited art. She uses the same spirits, and—if Wang Ye were a lot less kind—he would say that the Supreme doesn’t deserve the title as it doesn’t seem to have many tricks to show off with.
They will be easy enough to deal with. At least, Feng Baobao will be reasonable if he talks to her. He won’t need to fight Feng Shayan since he has asked the Tianshi to put her into a different bracket—she’ll probably fight to a draw with someone else if not get defeated.
The heir to the mysterious hidden Supreme of the Wu-hou Sect, on the other hand…
Wang Ye has learned all about fortune telling. Given the chance to learn about yourself, the first thing you’d learn is how to read fates, right? What better answer to Who am I? other than what you can be?
He has heard about Wu-hou Qimen and how it is the backbone of the secret Supreme. He is knowledgeable in Qimen Arts, and just with one glance—one shift in the winds—he knows how true this rumor is.
The Zhuge Clan has sent two members of the main family. While Zhuge Bai—a young boy who couldn’t possibly be over sixteen—can’t hold a Qimen chart open for long, Zhuge Qing—a man who is about Wang Ye’s age—controls everything within his established territory.
The heir has hidden his skills at first during the preliminaries. No matter how many times people have taunted him and asked him about the Supreme, he never fully showed past his Wu-hou Qimen.
That is, until Wang Ye and he finally faced each other in the arena.
“Wang-daozhang, do you look down on me?” Zhuge Qing says. His foxlike grin tells Wang Ye that it isn’t said with contempt or derision, but rather with genuine curiosity and perhaps some amusement.
“What gave you that impression?” Wang Ye says while he blocks the oncoming attacks from the other. The audience oohs and aahs as they watch the dance between Wu-hou Bajiquan and Wudang Taijiquan.
“I’ve been watching your fights. Just as much as you win with your Taiji, you also win because you take advantage of the space. You stand in the most auspicious position and redirect your opponents to a less auspicious one. Wang-daozhang… you’re also a Shuist, aren’t you?”
In lieu of answering, Wang Ye invokes the character, “Kun: Boulder Toss!” A huge earthen wave brought him way up high, trying to sweep Zhuge Qing into its raging tide.
“Oh? Qimen sorcery?” There is a manic glee that lights up the other’s face as he also casts the same spell. An even bigger tsunami carries the other, looming over the Daoist.
Wang Ye has been expecting this. He hasn’t dared to use Qimen Immaculate Scrutiny while watching Zhuge Qing’s previous fights, but he doesn’t need it to know that the other is manipulating the space somehow.
He has been standing in the kun direction while Zhuge Qing has been in the xun direction. The latter shouldn’t have been able to overpower his spell, and yet he did.
He closes his eyes, and when he opens them again, they glow an ethereal blue. With Immaculate Scrutiny, he finally sees Wu-hou's hidden divine art.
The Four Plates of Zhuge Qing’s established Qimen Chart rotate at the heir’s will. The kun direction isn’t fixed anymore. Rather, it changes as his own position changes.
“Li: Purgatory!” Wang Ye invokes the character for fire, and the Qimen chart changes again as the other casts his own spell.
“Xun: Sandalwood Succor.”
Using a wood-based spell to counteract a fire-based spell? How arrogant!
However, against everything that Wang Ye knows about the Wuxing, the sandalwood tree that sprouted in the middle of the arena from Zhuge Qing’s spell absorbs the wall of fire from his, extinguishing it without letting a lick of flame touch the other.
“Wang-daozhang, Wang-daozhang... I’m sure you know full well that you’re not going to win against me.” With a flick of the wrist, Zhuge Qing says, “Xun: Wind Rope.”
Wang Ye evades the spell by a hair’s breadth. One wind rope almost catches his wrist, but he cuts it with the palm of his hand, reverting to Taiji again for its dexterity.
“You can cut through my wind ropes? How fascinating.”
The smile on the other’s face makes him click his tongue and glare at him. Doesn’t this guy take anything seriously?
“Kun: A Thousand Prisms,” he says, and countless ice shards appear around them.
“Hah! Do you think that such a simple kun spell can defeat me? Wang-daozhang, you really look down on me!”
This move is a gamble, really, that heavily depends on Zhuge Qing making a mistake—that the other burns his qi too fast while using the Supreme, fast enough that he runs hot and his mind wouldn’t be clear enough to notice what he’s doing.
Fortunately, when Zhuge Qing rotates the Four Plates again, Wang Ye now stands in the dui direction. He pinches the third knuckle of his third finger as he silently casts a different spell. The many ice shards scintillate, reflecting and refracting light into iridescent sparkles.
“You’re the only one to not ask me about my Feng Hou Qimen despite being a Qimen practitioner yourself. If anything, shouldn’t you be a lot more curious than the others?” The other also stops using Qimen spells, deeming the ice shards harmless. He meets Wang Ye’s open-palm fists with strong arms and elbows. “I quite like you, Wang-daozhang. So, I’ll give you a chance to surrender. I don’t want to humiliate you.”
Wang Ye rolls his eyes and doesn’t say anything. He grabs Zhuge Qing’s wrist, only to be grabbed in return. Their arms twist and tangle, bringing them closer to each other. With his hands incapacitated, he kicks the other’s shin, but it is dodged. He tries again and again to gain an advantage, and soon enough, their legs also get tangled. Inevitably, one of them tips them both to the ground.
Wang Ye lands on top of Zhuge Qing, both arms secured to his back in some parody of a lover’s embrace. He feels laughter wrack the latter’s body as the infuriating man says, “Daozhang, you’re too cute, ah~ How about this… if I tell you about my Supreme, will you calm down?”
“I don’t care about your stupid Supreme!”
“Oh?” The squinting blue eyes go slightly wider, finally opening enough for the dancing lights to reach them. “Haven’t you heard, Wang-daozhang? Feng Hou Qimen lets you control everything within its territory. It’s too hot today, isn’t it?” The Qimen chart rotates, and Wang Ye shivers as a cool breeze sweeps through them. “I can make it so that it feels like late autumn. Within this chart, I am king.”
“Tsk. You should let the world move forward on its own. You’re taking an entropic universe and forcing it to be recursive.”
“But isn’t that how the world is anyway? Empires rise and fall. Seasons come and go. My ancestor has long since known this and could have stayed in his hometown, as it was the most auspicious thing to do. But he chose to defy all odds and fight against Heaven’s will. Why can’t I, a descendant of Zhuge Kongming, do the same?”
“Baryogenesis.”
“Excuse me?”
“All of this—” Wang Ye tries to gesture with his head, pulling at his arms still in the other’s hold “—shouldn’t have happened. In particle physics, matter and antimatter always appear in symmetry. Billions of years ago, if that had been true, then the universe would have only existed as pure light—matter and antimatter colliding into Nothingness. No Zhuge Qing and no Feng Hou Qimen. And yet. Apparently, for one billion antimatter, there were, at least, one billion and one matter. Do you know why that is?”
“…No?”
“So, with your super special skill, you also still don’t know the Truth of the world, huh. Zhuge Qing, we’re both Shuists. You should know better. To answer such a question and to understand the world in its entirety, you must observe as it was, as it currently is, and as it will be. How can I observe the world when you’re out here messing it all up?”
“Ha ha ha! You want to stop me not because I’m going against the natural order, but because I’m hindering your… research?”
“It’s the same thing.”
“Is it?” Zhuge Qing laughs again, but it becomes less natural after a couple of peals. His eyes have become cloudy, and the grip around Wang Ye slackens. He sounds like a broken record stuck in this moment of glee.
Wang Ye sighs as he carefully gets off the incapacitated man. “Hm... Even with your Supreme, you failed to see a simple spell such as Dui: Drumming Flash. Sure, I hid it behind A Thousand Prisms, but I was so sure it wasn’t going to work...” He dusts himself off before dismissing the spells and lets the other come to his senses again.
“I lost...” the other says without getting up and continuing to lie on the dirt.
“Zhuge Qing... I think we have the same problem... You call yourself the king of this space, but you don’t know what makes a king. You don’t know enough of the world—and, in turn, of yourself—to make such a declaration. Perhaps you don’t even know enough of your own skill to say that you’re its master.”
“Hah... Wang-daozhang, you really must think me so pitiful.”
“I don’t. As I’ve said, we have the same problem…” He offers a hand. “No hard feelings? You’re not Tianshi material anyway.”
“I didn’t come here to get such a lousy job.”
“You came here for the other Supremes then?”
A scoff. “I don’t really care about that. Who are other people to me?”
“Why did you come?” There has been little to no news from Bagua Village since the so-called Jiashen Calamity. They’ve been quiet all these years. “Why come out of hiding?”
The infuriating smile comes back on Zhuge Qing’s face, eyes squinting again. They’re already so hard to read when barely open, much more so when he hides them like this.
He grabs Wang Ye’s outstretched hand and pulls himself up. But he doesn’t let go of it and instead pulls Wang Ye close. Their noses are almost touching when he says, “Maybe I came here to meet you.”
“Aiyah,” Wang Ye pushes the other out of his face, “Don’t treat me like one of your fangirls. What do you even mean by that?”
“It is as you say, Daozhang. We’re both Shuists. Think about it for yourself. You’ll figure it out.” Only then does Zhuge Qing let go of his hand. And for the first time, there is a frown on the other’s face. “I will say this though… I may not have yet earned the right to call myself king, but you also don’t have that right. You have your own way of understanding the world, and I have my own. Who are you to dictate other people’s fates and what they do with them?” Then he turns his back on him.
As Wang Ye stares at the retreating Supreme heir, reality melts away, and he sees the phantasmagoria he had seen the night before he decided to come here—
A wildfire at the wake of Zhuge Qing. Destruction in his every step. Thousands upon thousands of white moths fluttering close burn so thoroughly that not even ashes remain.
He is pulled deeper and deeper into his Inner Realm, where something falls.
The landscape of his Inner Realm has taken the shape of the mountain that he’s been home to for the last five years. And deep within, a small pebble falls onto a boulder, which cracks, and soon there is a rumbling avalanche.
When the dust settles, the dark maw of a cave reveals itself.
Inside is an old enemy—one that Wang Ye had last seen when he was in senior high school, and it felt like he was screaming into the void and no one could hear him.
A growl and then a pair of golden eyes opens. It blinks at him, slowly—like a cat showing trust, or a tiger lulling its prey into a false sense of security.
A blur of white lunges at him, and Wang Ye pushes it back to the cave with a kun spell—he isn’t sure which one since it’s out of pure instinct. He can’t think with the rushing blood in his ears and the fear that latches within his bones.
“WINNER: WANG YE!” The emcees’ voices startle him back into the waking world. He doesn’t feel like a winner. How can he, when he failed to do the very thing he came here to do? He hopes Feng Baobao will be easier to convince to stop and let the Supremes get lost back to obscurity.
In his heart-mind, he feels more than he hears the indignant roars of a white tiger demon buried deep within a mountain. He ignores the heaviness on his chest as he follows Zhuge Qing out of the arena.