NOVEL NEXT Chapter Nine - New Perspectives
Chapter Nine - New Perspectives
Cai Bingtian
Cai Bingtian spun his body as a fulcrum, the soft rope winding around the bare barrel of his chest, the meteor hammer responding readily to his movements. A flinch up and then a kick out of his booted foot, and the copper hammer portion of the weapon flew out to hit an invisible opponent with lethal force.
He reeled the weapon back in, wrapping the rope around his wrist and elbow to turn its direction and then around his throat to get it facing the proper way to smack an invisible assailant in the face just behind his head. Practicing that over the years had given him more than one headache, that was for sure. If he had misjudged the length of the rope even for a moment, the heavy copper bell of the hammer would have hit him in the face.
The clapping might have startled a lesser practitioner, but Cai Bingtian had been practicing the meteor hammer for nearly a decade now, and his spatial awareness was on a level rarely seen. He'd known Nie Ruyi was entering the training yard before she even rounded the corner enough to see her. The beautiful mortal woman was clapping gently, the sound barely clearing the early morning air.
"Nie-shimei!" He called, reeling the meteor hammer in, and wrapping the rope up in a loose coil around his forearm. "What brings you here this early in the morning?" He asked. It was a well-known secret that she generally didn't rise until midmorning unless awoken by her assistant, Song Fengling. Today, the woman's fine, soft brown hair was pulled up in an intricate log of buns, half of it a glistening curtain down her back. Flowers adorned the bun, with small silver chains dangling along her temples to join a huasheng set at the peak of her forehead, just where her forelocks parted.
For all that her hair was fancier than normal, her clothing, however, reminded him of his own days as a junior disciple. The robes sleeves were held tight to her arm, thanks to some laced bracers made of tooled leather, and the pants she wore were tucked into fine boots. She must have been given new clothing by the Sect Leader, so that she would be able to train effectively. When she turned those forest green eyes on him, he couldn't stop the helpless grin that spread on his face. She really was too beautiful for this world, wasn't she?
"I was going to start the day with a walk, maybe try some of that movement meditation that Song-shidi mentioned to me. Then I saw you practicing, and I couldn't help but stop by." Nie Ruyi said, her eyes darting down to the soft rope weapon still around his hand. "Is that hard to learn?"
"Oh yes. Incredibly so." Cai Bingtian admitted, hefting up the heavy hammer, and holding it out to her. She took it appraisingly, her fingers drawing over the soft curved lines of the copper orb that made up the hammer. "The Meteor Hammer is one of the most difficult weapons to learn, and it takes years to master. It requires the kind of focus and spacial awareness that most youngsters just don't have."
"So it would be a bad place to begin." Nie Ruyi concluded, and Cai Bingtian was once again startled by how quickly his grin came to life. She was so smart, picking up on things that should be foreign to her so quickly.
"Yes, it would. Are you looking for a place to begin, Nie-shimei?" He asked, "Generally, new disciples start with a practice sword, or knives. They're understood to be the easiest beginning. Or, we could start you out with hand-to-hand. Although, Lao-Shidi is much better at that than I am." Cai Bingtian laughed at his own inside joke, leaving Nie Ruyi staring at him with confused amusement.
"What would you recommend?" She asked, and he had to admit, he respected her a little, for deferring to someone with more experience.
"Me personally? I think that a sword would be the best place to start." He crossed the training grounds to the racks of weapons kept there and clean for anyone's use. He picked up one of the lighter, shorter practice swords, wood with a metal core, and handed it to her. "Start slowly, with the sword-forms. Practice them over and over until you're able to do them with your mind shut off, and your body moving on its own. If you can do that, you might be able to defend yourself on instinct alone."
"...sword forms?" She asked, tilting her head to look at him.
"Ah. You've... never held a sword before." He frowned, wondering how he could have forgotten that. "I could get you a book on the sword forms later today. And I'd really recommend joining one of the beginning classes. It's usually taken by outer sect members and initiates, but I think it'd work well for you right now. You'd have a teacher and fellow students you can practice with."
"That does sound like a good idea." She turned those jade eyes up to him again, and he almost looked away. Holding that gaze, he smiled at her instead. What was it about this woman who made his heart quiver? He'd only ever felt it with one other person, and they had become his greatest rival in recent times. Was his heart saying she too, would challenge him in ways no one else could? Cai Bingtian had only ever suffered if he ignored his intuition, so perhaps...
"Or, you could just ask Song-Shidi to teach you too. He's got quite the little crush forming." Cai Bingtian couldn't help but tease, just to see a little bit of pink rise to her cheeks.
"Yes well, he's twelve. A child, and what's worse, one who knows more than I do in this subject. I don't want to give him too big a head, you know?" she sniffed, turning up her nose as if a haughty young misstress from some prominent clan.
"Ah, you want to save some face for yourself. I understand." He nodded wisely, before tilting his head. "You know... I've been meaning to ask. Why do you coddle the boy so?"
Her gaze turned sharp, "What do you mean?"
"Well, you filed a formal complaint against me for sending him against the Tourmaline Grove cultivator. Song-shidi hasn't had the chance to fight against anyone truly powerful other than Lao-shidi and myself. It was invaluable experience for him, and safe enough too. So, what makes you want to protect him from something so important?" He laid it out as clearly as he could, hiding his incredulity under a humouring smile.
"...He's a child." She said, emphasizing as if he hadn't heard her the first time she'd said it. "He shouldn't be fighting anyone. Much less a grown woman capable of slaughtering other fully grown men and women."
"Oh. I see." His mind turned over this information. "At what age do people begin combat training in your world? Or are you all peasants, who learn only when drafted for a war?"
"...People in our world only learn combat training if they want to." She frowned, clearly upset with this conversation. Was violence truly so rare in her world? How enviable. "The wars there are voluntary, in most free countries. And certainly no one gets drafted until they're of age. Eighteen, usually, or older. It's considered a crime of the highest magnitude to train and use a child in a war." She lifted her head, and there was that diamond-strong will that earth spirit vein users were so known for.
"What a lovely world you must live in." He answered, and he meant it. "Here, children are taught to defend themselves from when they can walk. If they don't, they don't live to adulthood, usually. Monsters will get them, or slavers, or killers. Most don't get formal training though, so noble families train their children to defend those lower than them. Or, children join cultivation sects and learn to battle the monsters so that others don't have to."
"...How horrible... Children should have the chance to grow up. Fighting is so... damaging." Her face was clouding up, pink under her eyes and her brow drawn tight. She looked close to tears. "Children who grow up in wars or fighting for their lives turn out... wrong. Hard, and indifferent to the suffering of others. They have nightmares and stress-responses their whole lives that could just be avoided if they didn't have to fight."
He wondered how she knew all of that if her world was so perfect.
"Better that than dead," was his response.
She snorted as if she couldn't accept that. The beautiful creature was still mulling it over when the late-morning bell rang out its call to classes. "I hate to leave you so abruptly, but I have a class to teach. I'll be here training every morning around this time until I have to leave again. Do you want to join me then?" He asked, smiling. It might be fun to have a new shimei to spar with.
She nodded, a small smile showing up on her face. "Sure. That sounds lovely." Her eyes lit up as she seemed to remember something, "Oh! Would you be willing to show me around the town tomorrow? Lao-Zongzhu gave me an allowance, and there are some things I want, but I have no idea where to go. I was going to ask Lao-Shixiong, but he's in closed cultivation, whatever that means."
It meant that Lao Xiaojun had gone overboard with the pills again, and was now sweating off the after-effects somewhere within the closed compound deep on the mountain. Instead of saying that, Cai Bingtian nodded, "That sounds lovely, Shimei."
She nodded, that all settled, and then set the heavy wooden sword back on its rack. Then, with her brown hair swirling, she headed for the sect buildings again. He wondered if she would get lost. It'd be funny to see her frustrated over it all, later.