Dao of Language

I shift among the sheets with a muffled groan, chasing that cool corner of the pillow that at some moment existed and that now seems to have vanished, while a string of complaints about summers and their heat parades through my drowsy mind.

I am about to add the sweat on the nape of my neck to my list when that small part of my head that never quite shuts off entirely raises its hand politely and clears its throat to point out to me an inconvenient detail for my list of curses, which is that here there is no summer.

I open my eyes all at once at that and with it the grogginess finishes clearing, because in this corner of the world where I have been living for twelve years there are no seasons worthy of the name and the temperature is the same throughout the whole year, with variations so small that I am incapable of noticing the difference.

I stay still a moment, still lying on my back, while I notice the heat, a heat that doesn’t fit with anything I have known, as if someone had turned on the heating and then forgotten about it.

And then, now fully awake, I do the math. Master Mu said that day, while the red cloud devoured the sky, that the surge would take between a year and a half and two years to reach here.

I add up the months elapsed since then, review them a second time out of pure habit, and in the end I have no choice but to let out a long sigh against the ceiling of the bed.

The math checks out. The fire Qi surge, after traveling the world, has finally arrived here.

Out of curiosity, more than anything else, I close my eyes again and concentrate to begin perceiving the Qi that surrounds me. And the moment I do it, I realize that something is wrong because the Qi I have before me is not as it should be.

Fire Qi particles fill my surroundings in such quantity that when I try to make an approximate count I have to stop and count again, because the first impression seems exaggerated to me.

But it is not, and the reality is that almost half the Qi that fills my room is fire Qi.

I stay looking at that tide of fire Qi a moment more, fascinated in spite of myself, since the fire Qi has not limited itself to adding to the environment, but rather has invaded it, replacing the neutral Qi to the point that the latter has ceased to be the majority in the surroundings, something that, as far as I know, should never happen under natural conditions.

And, as always when I see something new, my head wastes no time in beginning to unravel the implications.

The first reaches me almost immediately, and it is not pleasant, at least for me. Because to cultivate, at the point where I am, what I need is neutral Qi. The fire Qi, for someone like me, who has no core nor way of taking advantage of it, is no more than something useless floating in the air. And if now half the Qi of the room is fire, which serves me no purpose, that means the quantity of available neutral Qi has been reduced almost by half.

The second implication is the opposite face of the same coin, and it is just what Master Mu called, with that sad smile of hers, a blessing for a few. Because all this fire Qi that for me is a hindrance, for anyone who has a fire core and knows how to use it is a true gift fallen from the sky. While I drag myself along gathering the crumbs of neutral Qi that remain, they will be able to absorb that fire by the handful, with barely any effort, and watch how their cultivation skyrockets, at least in everything having to do with fire.

The ascension of the fire cultivators has begun, at least in this part of the world.

I let out another sigh, this one resigned, and I think the usual thing, that when it isn’t one problem it’s another, and that the universe seems to have a special ability for getting me into messes I don’t seek out.

I stop concentrating and open my eyes to contemplate the room, which is now an oven, and the first thing I do is remember with nostalgia air-conditioning units.

I would give, at this precise moment, an embarrassing quantity of spirit stones for a good air conditioner, one of those that with just the press of a button turn an unbearable day into something civilized.

But since air-conditioning is not an option and complaining isn’t going to lower the temperature a single degree either, I do the only thing I really can do, which is to mentally review the catalog of talismans I would be capable of manufacturing and mark the ones that could be of some use in a situation like this.

I am labeling a few as I review them when the door opens and Lianhua enters as every morning.

She enters with her usual discretion, and the first thing I think upon seeing her has nothing to do with the day awaiting me, but rather with how profoundly unjust the world is, since Lianhua is perfect.

There is not a drop of sweat on her forehead, nor a lock out of place, nor the least indication that the heat that is melting me on the sheets affects her in the slightest. She walks toward the wardrobe with the same serene step as always, fresh as if she had just strolled through a garden on a spring morning, and that is because Lianhua, unlike me, has the Fire Gate open, the one that is supposed to grant greater resistance to temperatures.

I look at her from the bed with all the rancor a person soaked in sweat is capable of gathering and emit a groan.

“Lianhua”, I tell her. “I swear that if it weren’t because by the time I finished opening it the surge would most probably have already passed by, I would set about opening the Fire Gate right now.”

Lianhua, who has already reached the wardrobe and has begun to open the doors to take out my clothing, doesn’t even flinch at my words.

“It would be a way of resolving the problem, Zhāohuán Wen”, she concedes with that neutrality of hers that serves equally to agree with me as to point out to me with the utmost politeness that I am saying something silly. “Although, indeed, opening a gate takes its time, and the heat probably would not wait for me to finish.”

I nod without too much enthusiasm, because she is right, and I watch her begin to set aside the garments from the wardrobe to prepare the day’s attire, that clothing that on a normal day already strikes me as uncomfortable and that today, with this heat, seems to me directly a torture.

And it is precisely that idea, that of spending the day sweating under several layers of fabric, that makes a light bulb go on in my head.

“Wait”, I tell her raising a hand. “Not that clothing, there is a change of plans.”

Lianhua stops with a garment half taken down and turns toward me with an eyebrow raised, waiting.

“Take out the outfit I used on my tenth birthday”, I tell her. “The one I made taking inspiration from the Celestial Fragment of the Sands.”

Lianhua’s eyebrow rises a bit more, which, in her repertoire of contained gestures, is equivalent more or less to anyone else crying out to the heavens.

“Does it seem a good idea to you, Zhāohuán Wen?” she asks me with caution, returning the garment to its place as she does so. “It is no special occasion to use that outfit.”

“That it is no special occasion?” I reply to her, and I point with a broad gesture at the whole room, the sweat and the rumpled sheets. “Doesn’t the heat that is making seem special enough to you? Because to me it does, and a great deal.”

I make a pause, just enough to take a breath, and continue before she can object anything.

“Think about it a moment”, I tell her. “That outfit I copied from the clothing used by a sect that lived in a place where it was this hot, or more, throughout the whole year. People who had to deal with these temperatures daily and who, on the basis of centuries of suffering them, hit on the most suitable clothing to bear them. And here I am, about to die of heat solely to impress a court which, be it said in passing, couldn’t care less whether I cook alive. You tell me which of the two options makes more sense.”

Lianhua holds my gaze an instant, weighing, and in the end she lets out a small sigh, the one she reserves for when she has decided that it is not worth arguing with me because I have already decided what I am going to do.

“As you order”, she tells me, and begins to rummage at the back of the wardrobe in search of the outfit. “Although I must warn you that Guifei Xiang will most probably tell you that it is not appropriate for you to use that clothing.”

“Let her say what she wants”, I reply without the least hesitation. “It is very easy to have opinions about other people’s clothing when one has the Fire Gate open and doesn’t notice the heat there is. I am the one having a hard time and, therefore, I am the one who has the right to take whatever measures are necessary to alleviate it. And if those measures involve dressing in a way that scandalizes half the court, well, let them be scandalized.”

Lianhua responds nothing to that, which, knowing her, is her way of telling me she does not intend to give me any more advice, and she limits herself to finally taking the outfit out from the back of the wardrobe and to beginning to dress me with it.

The difference is immediate and almost obscene.

The light fabric brushes my shoulders without the least discomfort, the crossed straps and the short skirt leave my arms bare and allow my skin to breathe in a way that the clothing I normally wear would never permit it, and although the heat is still there, suddenly it turns out much more bearable.

“The jewelry box”, I indicate once dressed, pointing at it with my head. “Take out some of the jewels you brought from the Celestial Fragment of the Sands, since if I am going to do this, I intend to do it well.”

Lianhua obeys without a comment, opens the jewelry box and, after a moment of searching, goes taking out the pieces that best combine with the outfit. The wide necklace of lapis lazuli and gold, which she places on my chest with care, and the bracelets with the reliefs of scarabs that she adjusts on my wrists.

When she finishes, I observe myself to the extent that I can and nod to myself, satisfied, because the difference with the sleeping clothes, which were already light by the usual standards, is notable. And if I compare this sensation with the one I would have right now stuffed into my habitual attire, there is simply no comparison.

I am enjoying that small domestic triumph, reveling in how civilized the morning has suddenly become, when the door opens all at once again and Xia enters.

She enters talking, as almost always, and in the middle of the process of a complaint.

“Wen, it’s horribly hot”, she protests even before closing the door, fanning herself with one hand. “You can’t even breathe, seriously, in the kitchen it seems like…”

And there her sentence cuts off all at once, because she has just lifted her gaze and stays stopped in the middle of the room with her mouth still open from the word she has left half-finished, looking me up and down with eyes that grow ever larger.

“…”, she makes a sound that doesn’t quite become a word, blinks, and starts again.

“Hey! That’s not fair!” she exclaims pointing at me with her finger, indignant. “You with that nice cool clothing and me cooking in the uniform. I want to put on something that doesn’t make me as hot as what you’re wearing too.”

And, without her realizing it at all, she has just gifted me the best idea I have had in a long time.

“Xia”, I tell her, and I notice how a smile spreads across my face. “What you have just said is the most intelligent thing I have heard so far today.”

Xia, who was prepared for a refusal or for me to laugh at her, is left bewildered for a second before interest lights up her gaze.

“I mean it”, I continue, and the idea takes shape as I speak. “You are completely right. And taking advantage of the fact that we have the best excuse in the world, which is the fire Qi surge and this heat from a thousand devils, the Zhāohuán and her servants are going to establish a new fashion in the Imperial Palace.”

Xia’s face lights up entirely, as if I had just announced to her that the kitchens are going to begin serving dessert at every meal, and she begins to bounce on the spot unable to contain herself. But in Lianhua, who has witnessed the whole exchange in silence, I notice beneath her habitual stoicism something very much like resignation, the expression of one who has just understood that she is going to have to supervise the practical consequences of one of my ideas.

So I dedicate to her a smile that I am sure does not fool her in the slightest.

“Lianhua”, I tell her. “Take me to the study, please. To the cultivation room not today, since between the heat there is and the quantity of fire Qi floating everywhere, for the moment I have completely lost any desire to cultivate.”

“As you order, Zhāohuán Wen”, she replies, positions herself behind my chair and begins to push me toward the door.

But upon passing next to Xia, who keeps bouncing, I remember something and turn my head a bit toward her.

“By the way”, I tell her. “Until the new clothes are ready, you have the days off. There is no need for you to go to the kitchens to endure even more heat than there already is.”

The effect is instantaneous. Xia lets out a shriek of pure joy that is probably heard at the other end of the Pavilion, thanks me hurriedly with three or four different versions of the same sentence and, before I have time to add anything, runs out of the room as if she were being chased.

I stay looking at the door through which she has just disappeared and, for an instant, I wonder what the devil she might be plotting, because I know Xia and I know that that face of happiness combined with that speed of exit augurs nothing calm. But since I have no way of finding out from here either, I push it from my mind and let Lianhua take me out into the corridor.

And there the parade begins, because as we advance along the corridors of the Pavilion, every handmaiden we cross paths with stays looking at me with a mixture of surprise and curiosity that none manages to entirely disguise, which is understandable considering that the last time they saw me with this outfit was during a themed party surrounded by fake dunes and, of course, not first thing in the morning on the way to the study.

Lianhua opens the door, positions me in front of the desk and, as soon as we are inside, draws the bolt. As soon as the latch fits into its place, I take out of the drawer the box with the talisman papers, the bottle of ink and the brush, and arrange everything on the table while I finally decide on the talisman I am going to attempt to create.

And then the problems begin, because up to now everything I have been practicing have been simple talismans, the simplest I know, and the one I am attempting to create is of a different complexity, since instead of one simple function it has several functions that have to coordinate among themselves.

I dip the brush, breathe deeply and begin to write.

And to no one’s surprise, I fail.

The first paper consumes itself between my fingers as soon as I finish the first part and begin the second because I have been careless in the distribution of the Qi and the balance has broken, leaving a small pile of ashes on the desk. I furrow my brow, take another paper and start over, determined to better control the flow at that point.

Ashes again.

I try again, time after time as when I attempted to create my first talisman, but the result is always the same.

But I do not give up, because if there is something I have learned practicing this discipline it is that there is no other way. Each failure teaches me exactly at what point I overdid it, and each burned paper leaves me a bit closer to understanding how to manage that transition that resists me so much. So I clench my teeth, empty my mind of everything else and concentrate solely on the brush, the ink and the flow of Qi.

And at last, after a quantity of attempts I prefer not to calculate, it happens.

The brush finishes the last rune, I pour the last drop of Qi in the exact quantity and the paper does not consume itself, but rather stays there, on the table, perfect, charged and ready to activate when someone needs it.

My first Freezing Talisman.

I stay looking at it and a wave of satisfaction, much more intense than the one I felt with my first barrier talismans, invades me, since this is something different. The barrier talisman I achieved by mastering the control of the Qi in a simple tracing, but this talisman is much more complex, which means that while I was burning paper after paper I have taken one more step in the development of the discipline, and the proof of it is there before me, on the desk, in the form of a written piece of paper.

I am still reveling in the sensation when I notice the light coming in through the window, and upon making a quick calculation I realize that, between one failure and another, the breakfast hour has come upon me.

“Lianhua”, I tell her turning toward her. “Take me to breakfast.”

And in saying it, out of pure habit, I make the gesture of stowing the talisman among the folds of my clothing, just as I usually do with any small thing I want to carry with me.

But I stop my hand halfway through the gesture.

Because, of course, I am not wearing my usual outfits. I am wearing one with a design that leaves half my body bare and that, whatever its merit when it comes to combating the heat, doesn’t have a single hiding place where to put a talisman. I stay an instant with my hand suspended in the air, feeling slightly ridiculous, and in the end I have no choice but to let out a sigh and give up.

“You carry it for now”, I tell Lianhua, holding out the talisman to her. “And note me down on the list that I have to find for this clothing some kind of bag, or purse, or whatever, that allows me to carry things on me.”

Lianhua takes the talisman with care, stows it somewhere in her own attire and nods, without a comment about the fact that I have just discovered, all by myself and after the fact, a rather evident flaw in my great morning idea. Sometimes I think that her greatest virtue is not loyalty nor efficiency, but the enormous quantity of comments she keeps to herself.

Then she positions herself behind my chair and finally takes me to the breakfast hall.

When we enter, my mother and Lingxi are already seated at the table, having breakfast. Lingxi, at her usual side, barely lifts her gaze upon hearing us enter and right away returns to her own business with her habitual discretion. My mother, on the other hand, does look at me, and the moment she lays eyes on me she arches an eyebrow with that elegance so her own that manages to make of a single gesture a complete sentence.

“Wen”, she tells me while Lianhua brings me closer to the table. “May I know why you have put on the costume from your tenth birthday?”

I smile at her, settling into my place.

“It is not a costume, Mother”, I reply to her with all the tranquility in the world. “Or it is no longer one. This is the clothing used by a sect that lived in an environment where it was exactly as hot as it is right now, but throughout the whole year. That is to say, it is precisely the most suitable clothing for the temperature we are having. The birthday thing was a representation, but its true usefulness is in conditions like the current one.”

My mother blinks, surprised, and I watch her process my words for an instant before comprehension peeks onto her face, that comprehension I know well and that means she has just guessed what I am plotting.

“Are you thinking of using that clothing always, while the fire surge lasts?” she asks me slowly.

“It’s not only I who intend to use it”, I reply to her without disguising one bit. “I intend to have Lianhua and Xia also wear similar outfits, adapted to their rank, of course. And the best of all, the truly good thing about the plan, is that this is not going to draw the attention of the Sect in the slightest.”

My mother slightly furrows her brow, not quite understanding, so I explain it to her.

“Because it is no new invention”, I tell her. “If I pulled out of my sleeve a strange garment that no one has seen, someone would begin to ask uncomfortable questions about where I got the idea. But everyone knows that this is something I copied from the Celestial Fragment of the Sands and they saw it at my birthday, and against that there is nothing to object.”

I see how my mother takes a breath to initiate a reply, that reply Lianhua had anticipated for me in the room word for word, so I decide to spare her the effort and interrupt her before she begins.

“Don’t bother, Mother”, I tell her gently. “I know perfectly well what you are going to tell me, that it is not appropriate, that the court will murmur, that a Zhāohuán should not skip the dress code. And I am going to do it anyway, whatever the court may say.”

And here, I cannot help it, I smile in a mischievous way before letting loose my best argument.

“What’s more”, I continue. “I bet you whatever you want that all those who now criticize me for my attire are going to change their tune very soon. Because one thing is to be scandalized from the comfort of having the Fire Gate open, and quite another to have to spend months sweating under five layers of silk because they don’t have it. I tell you that, after a few weeks of heat, those same ones who today point at me with their finger and don’t have the gate open are going to stop worrying about whether I skip the dress code and are going to begin worrying about how the devil to change their own clothes without it seeming like they are copying me. And by then, the fashion will already be established.”

My mother listens to me, and I see in her eyes that spark that appears when, much to her regret, something amuses her that she knows she should not approve of. She does not say that I am right, because that would be too much, but neither does she try again the reply she had prepared, which comes to be the same thing.

“In any case, making a single garment for me is within my possibilities, that I can manage”, I add, moving on now to the practical part of the matter. “But making a complete wardrobe for three people is another story. So, for that, I am going to have to borrow your dressmaker.”

“Since you are so determined, as far as I’m concerned there is no problem at all”, she tells me, and for a moment I think the matter is settled there.

But then she makes a small pause, leaves the cup of tea on the table with a deliberate gesture, and a very different smile, much more calculated than the previous one, peeks onto her lips.

“Now then”, she continues, and I notice the change of tone perfectly. “Since you are going to go see my dressmaker, there is a small favor I would like to ask of you.”

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