David

Every city David had traveled in the Middle Continent displayed their contrasting culture in the mundane - from the way their citizens spoke to the way they built their homes.

How David differentiated them in the privacy of his mind were not by the wonders their histories had laid claim to, but the differences in the relationship between the common folk and the disciples of the local ruling sect.

And these differences were stark - the most immediate advantage of having Daoist Bo as a guide was the way the crowd parted before her.

While the merchants of Bei'an showed a deep respect to the doctors of the Iron Scripture, it was quite different from the looks of adoration the people of Huzhou gave to Daoist Bo as she walked past. And much unlike the disciples of the Iron Scripture who clearly looked down on the citizens of Bei’an, Bo responded to the love and praise from the populace by calling out to them, by waving, with wide smiles.

After a while, the crowd had thinned. There was barely anyone on the street but stragglers headed in the opposite direction the two of them were.

“How do you remember all of their names?” David finally asked. Huzhou was a city of several hundred thousand, but it seemed that no matter who greeted her, Daoist Bo was intimately familiar with their problems, their trials, their daily lives.

Bo gave a light chuckle. “You’re not familiar with the differences in cultivation between the Great Sects, are you?”

Even though her words were constructed like an insult, the fetching tilt of her head, the way she leaned into him to whisper into his shoulder made her words feel comforting - friendly, even.

David shook his head.

“Well, let’s make a game of it!” she said, skipping along. “I’ve never met a good cultivator who doesn’t enjoy a bit of questioning. It is said the Scripture of Song Mountain binds the heart of every man. Where I’m taking you is known as Three Worships Hall. Two of these worshipings are Heaven and Earth. What is the third?”

David thought for a moment. “It’s not music, is it?”

Bo laughed. “No, of course it wouldn’t be something quite as simple. I’ll let you ask me questions about how we do things around here and I’ll come up with a reward if you’ve figured it out by the time we arrive.”

And so they continued along. The golden glimmer of the torches around the lake of Huzhou lit even the more residential area the road wound through.

At least it seemed at first like a residential area. The waterfront of Huzhou was lined with what looked to be traditional houses that David was sure Alice could place in a certain dynasty if she were here. They sported exaggerated shingled roofs and verandas with large, circular columns of rosewood and oak. Lights danced behind darkened window panes and gauzy curtains. Girls in scandalous dresses ushered men and women alike into the buildings - some of them raised their clasped hands at Disciple Bo as she led David up the road.

In deep contrast to the buildings were the scattering of temples on every side street - darkened, shuttered doorsteps where the candles within were easily outshone by the torches.

“I’ve always found the differences in my city to be beautiful,” said Daoist Bo. “Even when I first arrived here as a little girl of twenty six, the lights on the lake and the darkness of the city had always seemed like a licentious fantasy to me. From the filth of the world, gold. From the filth of the mind, enlightenment.”

David wished he could understand. The words tumbled out of his mouth. “Who are these temples for? I thought I would recognize at least one of the bodhisattvas.”

“If Song Mountain is the heart of Huzhou and Tang Mountain is the mind, then the Dust of Buddha is the soul of the city. The temples in the City of Ten Thousand Bodhisattvas number close to twenty thousand in the modern day.” Bo smiled - it was something wistful. “Every mortal who has an argument with the Heavens in our dusty lower realm has a statue erected in their honor. You can see Huzhou as a record of the resolve of the human race.”

She paused. “I hear they are building yet another temple soon. If you consider the Widow of the Valley your master, you have my condolences.” There was something so pure and earnest about her words that David couldn’t tell her that he’d never met the woman who had been Fairy Guan’s master, so he nodded heavily instead.

“So anyone who is Resolved gets a statue dedicated to them?”

“Goodness me, no. Only those with the courage to withstand Heavenly Tribulation could be considered worthy. Do you know what the essence of a bodhisattva is?”

David had some idea, but he shook his head anyway.

“It is someone who would put off their ascension into immortality to do battle with the woes of the world. In truth, not every statue here is of someone who counts as a bodhisattva, but the Dust of Buddha doesn’t make assumptions. Even if someone were to fail their ascension, it might be because the good deeds committed by the immortal aspirant have become impossible to sever.”

“That’s admirable,” said David, who didn’t quite know what to say.

Bo sneered. It was the first time he could have seen something that could be considered an ugly expression on her face. “Don’t let them fool you. The Dust of Buddha are just as selfish as we are in Song Mountain - if less successful. They believe that if they were to make a statue of every Immortal to ascend from our realm, then maybe one day, an immortal might look upon their sect favorably.”

David frowned. They continued to walk along the road. Song Mountain, looming ahead of them, was lush and squat, with many trees. Like Earth Peak back in Tianbei, its slopes were dotted with cottages and other dwellings. Even from miles away, he could see countless gardens.

“You think I’m being harsh,” said Bo, softly. They’d passed most of the whorehouses and gambling dens along the waterfront and now every other building was a temple. The temples grew larger in size and stature as they drew closer to Song Mountain Sect.

“These people, the Dust of Buddha - they put up monuments even to those who failed to ascend,” said David, trying to marshall his thoughts about the topic.

“It is said that those without a very strong connection to the world - those who are Principled, those who have Severed, they can see from the speech of the Sky whether or not an ascension was successful,” said Bo, matching his frown. “But for those who are not yet Resolved, it is impossible. The Dust of Buddha has not had a cultivator do anything more than form their core in living memory. Their Sect Master would barely count as an inner disciple in either of our sects.”

David nodded uncertainly.

“They are as obsessed with celebrity as mortals are. They go around the continent in mortal garb, drawing pictures of famed cultivators to take back to their sect, prying into their personal lives, interfering with the worship mortals have of cultivators.”

Bo was incensed in a way that only someone personally affected by this could be.

“Is the worship of mortals important?”

Bo stopped suddenly and turned to him, with a sort of playful sadness. “Oh dear, I seem to have given my little riddle away.”

Unbidden, in this conversation about Buddhist ideals, the words of Uncle Jiang came back to David - specifically his musings about the strings of karma knotted around David, around Alice. Instinctively, he knew that was the answer. “The third worship is karma,” said David, more surely than he felt.

They were at the foot of the mountain now.

“You’re farming likes?” David thought of the adulation that the girl who’d sat next to him on the party bus had given to Liu Na.

“A crude way to put it, and one I’ve never heard before,” said Daoist Bo. “But you do understand the concept better than most of my junior disciples.”

David thought of the attitude Bo had to the passengers of the party bus compared to the imperious, wine-jar shattering arrogance of the woman who’d moonlighted as a customs official. He considered the way everyone from the concert goers to the whores of Huzhou had waved to her.

A hidden door along the side of the mountain slid open and a trio of girls in Song reds rushed out.

“Senior Sister!” they shouted in unison, bowing to Daoist Bo.

“This is Daoist Ji, of the Ascending Sky,” said Bo, to the girls. “He will be someone important one day.”

Bo picked out one of the girls in particular, who wore her robes as ribbons draped across her body - and it was a beautiful body. The girl had luscious dark hair that ended at her waist, and a pair of wide, surprised eyes the color of amethysts. She was classically beautiful, in the way Alice was, with high cheekbones and long limbs. The ribbons left little to the imagination.

“Disciple Liu here will be someone important one day as well,” Bo said to David. From the rhythmic, consistent sound of the Song, David could tell that the girl had established her foundations, but the lack of that second, resounding pulse told him that she had yet to form her core.

David locked eyes with the girl who could only be Liu Na. He found a flash of disdain in them. “I’m late for my show,” she said to the two girls with her. Within seconds, they were racing down the road, against the direction from which David and Bo had come - dignified, but quickly.

When they were mostly out of earshot, Daoist Bo sighed. “Please forgive my junior sister,” she said. “This is a big day for her - she is debuting her second album. We were all rude when we were thirty three.”

David hoped he wouldn’t be.

They stepped into Song Mountain together. Unlike Earth Peak, there was no corridor that led to an atrium full of disciples - the entrance opened up directly into an enormous, well lit room which was louder than anything David had heard since he’d lived in New York.

In the back of the room were three altars with braziers burning in front of each one and a deep, fragrant incense wafting towards the ceiling. The altar on the left sat before a painted depiction of the skies on a canvas. The altar on the right sat before a depiction of the mountains, carved into the very walls. They flanked a bare altar with no idol before it - just the blank, gray stones of the wall. Karma, without any pretenses, without any frills or idols.

Hundreds of disciples, each one as beautiful as the reputation of Song mountain, sat around the room on raised chairs. They drank tea together and played with the cards that Kanhu liked. They were doing one another’s makeup, brushing each other’s hair. Some of them were doing vocal drills, others played instruments of many varieties.

And then, there was a deep, stark silence, as hundreds of eyes turned to David and his escort.

The whine of a chair being pushed - someone stood.

At first, David was sure it was a woman. He was just as beautiful, if not more so, than the girls who surrounded him. His hair was done in the sort of bun that Fairy Guan would have favored. He wore satin robes of Song Mountain Red and a hairpiece of bright green jade.

The man put down a palette of vibrant eyeshadows he’d been holding up for a girl sitting beside him with a soft clatter that echoed through the empty room. David recognized him.

“Hello, Path Friend!”