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32. Angry Little People
🕑 Added 2025-04-13 22:00:06 +0000 UTCJiang reached the training yard Elder Lu had told him about just before the second bell rang and stood alone under the thin morning light.
The yard was smaller than he expected—flattened dirt surrounded by stone, with a few practice dummies leaning crooked against the wall and an open rack of worn training weapons off to the side. No other disciples in sight. No sound but the wind brushing low across the tiles behind him.
To be honest, the relative privacy was a relief. He hadn’t spent this much time around other people… well, ever, really. His ‘fellow disciples’ – as Elder Lu insisted he call them – were happy enough to leave him alone, but even just spending time in proximity to other people was vaguely annoying.
He settled in to enjoy the peace and quiet.
After nearly half an hour, though, Jiang was starting to wonder if he’d gotten the location wrong. The directions had been clear enough – second bell, training yard by the eastern wall – but there was no sign of anyone else arriving. He’d come here straight after finishing his assigned task, and the location was isolated enough that there weren’t any other training grounds nearby that he could have missed, so it probably wasn’t his fault.
Just as he was considering giving up to go and get some cultivation in, someone finally stepped into the training grounds.
Jiang hadn’t known what to expect, especially after Elder Lu’s warning to not mention the disciple’s looks. He’d sort of assumed that this ‘Li Xuan’ had been disfigured or scarred somehow and was embarrassed about it, but assuming that this wasn’t just some random person who’d wandered in here…
Well, he looked barely older than Jiang himself. Thin and wiry, with deceptively delicate features framed by dark hair pulled roughly back from his face, the… boy? was wearing the robes of a Sect disciple with the sleeves pulled up far enough to reveal lean, muscled forearms.
The young man’s eyes flicked around the yard before landing on Jiang, expression twisting into faint irritation. “You’re the one Elder Lu took in?”
Jiang blinked. “That’s me. And… you are…?”
His expression darkened slightly. “Your instructor.”
Jiang blinked, eyes flicking briefly to the side as if checking for someone else. Finding no one, he returned his gaze to the youth in front of him. “So you’re Li Xuan?” he double-checked.
It wasn’t that he was doubtful, exactly – cultivators were supposed to be immortal, so looking young didn’t necessarily mean anything, but, well…
A vein visibly twitched on the young man’s forehead. “Is there a reason you thought otherwise?”
Jiang shrugged, already resigned to the fact that he’d offended his new instructor. “No?”
For some strange reason, his response didn’t satisfy Li Xuan. “Really?” the man asked, voice dripping with scepticism. “So there’s no reason you stared at me like you were expecting someone else to walk in?”
“I mean…” Jiang hesitated, scratching absently at his chin. If the disciple was already feeling insulted, there wasn’t much reason to hold back now. “Elder Lu said not to mention how you looked, and I’m—”
He cut himself off as a sudden weight pressed down on him, instincts screaming to him about danger.
Li Xuan’s expression had barely changed beyond his mouth pressing into a thin line, irritation tightening the edges of his youthful features. “So Elder Lu mentioned my… appearance. How thoughtful of him.”
Jiang wisely – if belatedly – kept quiet this time.
Li’s eyes narrowed, clearly unimpressed by Jiang’s silence. “Well then,” he continued, voice coolly conversational, “I do hope my appearance meets your exacting standards.
Li’s eyes narrowed, clearly unimpressed by Jiang’s silence. “And tell me,” he continued, voice coolly conversational, “since you obviously had expectations about your instructor, what exactly were they? An old, weathered sage, perhaps? Or maybe a hulking brute covered in scars?”
Jiang hesitated, then shrugged cautiously. “Something like that.”
Li Xuan’s jaw tightened. “And instead, you got me.”
Jiang opened his mouth, paused, and then closed it again, silently counting it as a victory that he’d managed to avoid responding.
Li clearly noticed, because his expression darkened. “You can say it, Junior Brother Jiang,” he said, voice carrying a dangerous undertone. “I look like a child. It’s hardly news.”
“I didn’t—”
“You didn’t say it?” Li interrupted sharply. “No, of course not. No one ever says it. They just look at me exactly the way you did and then act like I can’t see them thinking it.” He took a deliberate step forward, eyes locked on Jiang. “At least have the backbone to admit it.”
Jiang considered it for a moment, but even he could spot the trap in those words. He coughed awkwardly. “Sorry,” he said, going for honesty, “Didn’t mean to be rude.”
Li Xuan’s jaw tightened, clearly unimpressed with the response. “Oh, you didn’t mean to, how wonderful.” He stepped closer, deliberately into Jiang’s personal space, forcing Jiang to look down slightly just to meet his gaze. Li’s eyes narrowed sharply. “Since you seem to be missing some basic survival instincts, let me be very clear. From this moment forward, you will refer to me as ‘Senior Brother Li’. And for the record—” his voice dropped to a dangerous murmur, “—the next time you openly stare at me like I’m some sort of curiosity, Elder Lu’s instructions or not, I will make it a personal mission to beat respect into your bones. Clear?”
…This was a really bad time to be a smart-arse. But if he was going for honesty…
It probably said something – very unflattering – about him that he barely hesitated. “Clear. Though, just to clarify… do I actually have to respect you, or is pretending enough?”
A vein pulsed visibly on Li Xuan’s temple, and the pressure in the air redoubled. Surprisingly, though,
Li exhaled sharply, stepping back and forcing an unsettling smile. It didn’t reach his eyes. “You know, Jiang Tian, I’ve been instructed to provide you with some basic combat experience. It occurs to me now that gentle instruction clearly won’t suffice in your particular case. Perhaps a more… hands-on approach is required.”
He moved to the weapons rack without another word, deliberately selecting a wooden training sword. Jiang watched warily as Li turned back toward him, twirling the blade with practised ease.
“Pick a weapon,” Li instructed flatly, his polite smile edged sharply enough to cut.
Jiang eyed the rack of training weapons, briefly considered asking whether running away was a valid option, then decided better of it. With resigned acceptance, he picked up a practice sword that looked mostly straight.
“Ready?” Li asked, a hint of malicious anticipation threading his voice.
Jiang shrugged. “Sure.”
He really wasn’t.
— — —
Jiang limped his way across the inner courtyard, grumbling the whole way. His ribs ached. His arm hung stiff at his side. His left leg twitched every few steps like it hadn’t quite remembered how to work properly.
Li Xuan had called it “conditioning.”
Jiang called it “getting slapped around with a stick by someone five inches shorter and ten times faster.”
The man reminded him of a needlefox pup – those cute but nasty little burrowers that screamed like they were dying even when they were the ones doing the killing. He’d tried to catch one once, back home. Got a bite through the wrist and a lesson in respect for things that looked smaller than they were dangerous
At least he hadn’t passed out. That probably counted as progress.
He passed a few disciples on the way to the healing halls. None of them offered help. One or two glanced his way, noticed the bruises, then glanced elsewhere. One laughed. Jiang didn’t bother figuring out who. His breath hissed through his teeth as he took the stairs up to the side entrance of the hall, each step a negotiation with his knee. He’d tried limping on the other leg for a while, but both sides hurt about equally now.
“Better you learn it now,” Li had said, voice maddeningly cheery as he swept Jiang’s legs out from under him for the fourth time. “It’s practice for when you have to fight a superior opponent, which, judging by what I’m seeing here, would be everyone.”
To be fair, Jiang had lost every fight he’d been in since he’d become a cultivator, but he didn’t like to think about it like that. Sure, he didn’t particularly care if everyone thought he was terrible at fighting, he cared if he was actually terrible at fighting. And while the average bandit wasn’t going to be as much of a challenge as a cultivator, it was well-known that Gao Leng himself was a cultivator. That was the level he needed to be at before he could even think about rescuing his family.
Jiang pushed through the doors to the halls of healing, grunting as the motion exacerbated his injuries. Li Xuan was careful enough to ensure that his injuries were mostly cosmetic – every inch of his body was bruised, but none of it was broken.
Before he could limp his way to the front desk – and the concerned-looking outer disciple sitting behind it who’d clearly seen how pitiful he looked – someone grabbed his shoulder.
“Hold up a moment,” came an imperious-sounding voice. Jiang turned to see an outer disciple he vaguely recognised as having been in the entrance exams. One of the wealthier aspirants, naturally.
“What?” Jiang bit out through his teeth, yanking his battered shoulder from the man’s grip.
“Rather rude, aren’t you?” the disciple asked rhetorically, a faint gleam in his eye. “Talking like that to a fellow disciple is hardly becoming of a member of the Azure Sky Sect. Then again, from what I’ve heard about you, I suppose it’s to be expected. I think I’m going to have to challenge you to a duel to satisfy my honour.”
For some reason, Jiang got the impression that this wasn’t a random encounter. How the hell did he manage to piss off whoever this guy was enough to challenge him? He’d thought that the random challenges were finished with once he’d been accepted as a disciple. Surely, by now, people didn’t still believe he was a coward – or whatever they were justifying the duels with.
Elder Lu had told him that he needed to accept any challenges people made – but as far as he knew, that had been limited to the duration of the entrance exams. Besides, right now, he had the perfect excuse.
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed,” he said sarcastically, “But someone already beat you to it. Unless you find particular joy in fighting the already injured, you’ll have to wait.”
Jiang wasn’t sure which part of his response was the offensive part – for all he knew, it was all of it – but either way, the disciple’s eyes flashed with genuine anger instead of the performative offence from before.
“Now listen here—” the man started to bluster.
“No, you listen,” another voice cracked out from behind them. Jiang turned to see Elder Yiaolin striding out from deeper into the building. “I don’t know what backwater village you crawled out of, young man, but here in the Azure Sky Sect cultivators are expected to comport themselves with dignity.”
An expression of barely contained glee crossed the disciple’s face. “There’s no need to trouble yourself, Elder,” he said pompously, “I was just about to ensure this boy learnt that lesson myself.”
“I was talking to you.” Elder Yiaolin retorted. “In case you didn’t realise, these are the halls of healing. This disciple clearly has reason to be here, but unless you are exceptionally good at hiding your injuries, I don’t believe you can say the same.”
The man’s mouth opened, closed, then flattened into a line. He didn’t argue, which was either good sense or fear, though he did send a poisonous look Jiang’s way as he apologised profusely and left.
Jiang watched him go with a resigned expression. Clearly, he’d just made another enemy, and unless he was mistaken, there were going to be more challenges in his future. Even worse, he didn’t think Li Xuan would care if he was already injured by the time their lessons started – the sadistic inner disciple would probably just call it ‘good practice’ or something.
“Well, boy, are you just going to stand around feeling sorry for yourself?” Yiaolin called over her shoulder, already striding back into the building. Jiang hurried after her, wincing as he went and sparing the outer disciple manning the desk a quick nod as he passed.
Yiaolin led him to the closest bench and gestured sharply for him to sit. Jiang dropped onto the bench with a grunt, then hissed through his teeth when the motion jarred something in his side.
Yiaolin knelt beside a low chest, rummaging until she found a jar of something pungent and pale green. She popped the lid and dipped two fingers in without looking at him.
“You’re more bruised than any of your last visits,” she said as she started smearing the salve across his ribs. “So unless a group of outer disciples took offence to your face all at once, or you’re unusually clumsy getting out of bed, I’d say something’s changed.”
Jiang scowled. “I’ve been training.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Training?”
“With Li Xuan.”
Yiaolin paused mid-swipe. “…Li Xuan?”
Jiang nodded grimly. “Yeah. That angry little midget hits like he’s trying to collapse a building. Calls it ‘combat conditioning.’ It feels like I’m getting smacked around by a damn needlefox pup.”
Yiaolin blinked. “A what?”
“Needlefox,” Jiang said. “Tiny things. Look like little bundles of fluff. Big eyes, twitchy noses. Cute enough until you try to pick one up—then they start screaming and biting and don’t stop until you’ve got holes in your arms and your pride’s bleeding out onto the dirt.”
Yiaolin bit her lower lip and turned away, shoulder twitching slightly. She stayed that way a few moments longer than strictly necessary, still smearing salve onto the forming bruise across his side.
When she finally straightened, she was composed again, though her mouth twitched once at the corner. “You probably shouldn’t mention that comparison where he can hear you.”
“I wasn’t planning to,” Jiang muttered. “Unless he hits me in the face again. Then I might.”
“Somehow, I don’t think that will stop him from hitting you in the face. In fact, I rather suspect it will make things worse,” she said dryly.
“It’d be worth it,” Jiang swore, knowing it wouldn’t be.
He was almost tempted anyway.
Comments
Anton Helgason
Seems like Li will become someone's best friend
