The study smelled of old paper and cheap incense. I clutched a cup of cheap tea as I stared past Guo Xuan's forehead. For what felt like an eternity, Guo gestured with the passion of a true believer, his voice a droning wave of esoteric theory that washed over me and crashed somewhere on the far wall.

  “…and so you see, the true path of the Uncarved Block is not in action, but in the potentiality of non-action! Wu wei! The common practitioner seeks to shape the Dao, but the true master allows the Dao to shape him!”

  “It should flow like water, right?” I offered, trying to project an aura of profound understanding. Behind me, Rana had gone from standing respectfully to actively trying to use my patched grey robes as a physical shield against Guo Xuan's relentless sermon. As a devout follower of Ahura Mazda, she was about as prepared for a deep dive into Daoist internal alchemy as I was to fly. But then I wasn't much better, all my knowledge on Daoism came from the occasional movie with a daoist priest or the odd video I'd scrolled past.

  “Precisely! Water! A perfect analogy, Brother Zhang!” Guo glowed, thrilled to have found a fellow intellectual in this provincial backwater. “Too many these days are obsessed with the external forms, the cinnabar fields, the grand circulation… I totally agree that internal alchemy is overexplored and eating mercury pills is probably the wrong path to immortality. It creates heat, agitation! It disturbs the natural harmony of the three treasures!”

  My own internal alchemy was threatening to boil over. I needed to steer this conversation away from the celestial and back to the terrestrial before he asked me a question I couldn't bluff my way through. I saw my opening when he paused to take a long sip of tea.

  “Forgive my impertinence, Brother Guo,” I said, bowing my head slightly. “But it is a curiosity… this temple. It is… eclectic. A marvel of spiritual engineering, to be sure. Why would a man of your learning and martial sect agree to administer such a place? The harmony here seems… multifaceted.”

  That was the most diplomatic way I could phrase it. The question worked like a charm. Guo Xuan's face lit up, his philosophical intensity replaced by the conspiratorial glee of a man who's landed the easiest job in the empire.

  “Ah, a practical question! Excellent!” He leaned forward, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “Opportunity, my brother! A gift from the heavens themselves! Vice-Director Song, a great and benevolent patron, you see. He needed a resident scholar, someone to lend the place an air of legitimacy, to answer the questions of the rare discerning visitor.” He winked. “The pay is… astronomical. More than I'd see in a decade at a proper monastery. And for what? I sweep the floors, light some incense, and spend the rest of my days in quiet cultivation. It's perfect!”

  He let out a contented sigh. A bead of sweat traced a path down my spine, cold despite the room's stuffy heat.

  “He even offered me a side contract,” Guo continued, completely oblivious, “Some business about a bounty on a fellow named Zhang RuLin. A handsome sum.” I reached for my sword only to realise I had not brought it. “But I am a man of peace.” Guo continued, “That killing business… it creates ripples. Disturbs the natural flow of things, you know?”

  I managed a tight-lipped nod, my throat suddenly as dry as the dust on the floor.

  Guo Xuan shook his head, a look of rhetorical confusion on his face. “Frankly, I don't know why he needs me here. He pays me this fortune to watch over what? A temple? It's not like someone is going to walk in here and steal a Buddha statue, right? Hah!” He laughed, a loud, booming sound that echoed in the quiet study. Rana flinched and I laughed along nervously “What a thought! Who would even want it?”

  A village guard, his face pale and slick with sweat, stumbled into the room, panting for breath.

  "Master Guo! Bandits! A whole army of them! Three hundred strong, maybe more! They're marching on the village!"

  My mind raced. Three hundred? We only had eighty-seven men in total. I asked cautiously, "Are they the ones encamped on the nearby hills?"

  The guard shook his head frantically, trying to catch his breath. "Encamped? No, I'm talking about the ones on the road! The ones coming for us!" He looked at me as if I were a simpleton. "You must be new here. You mean the Black Wind Cliff boys? Nah, they've been here a while, rather nice fellows, actually. But they're outnumbered five to one! The merchants fleeing up the road say these new bandits are real cutthroats. The Black Wind won't stand a chance, they'd be better off staying in their camp."

  A sharp tug on my sleeve made me turn. It was Rana. She was pointing. Guo Xuan was no longer listening. He was scrambling around his desk, stuffing scrolls and texts into a large cloth sack. With a sweep of his arm, he cleared his inkstone and brushes into the bag, then unlocked a small drawer and began pulling out several hefty ingots of silver.

  Rana, finding her voice for the first time since Guo found us, stepped forward. Her voice was soft and feminine, which didn't seem to surprise Guo at all, "Brother Guo, what in the name of the Eternal Flame are you doing?"

  Guo Xuan didn't stop his frantic packing. He looked at her ruefully, a sad but resolute expression on his face. "My contract was to administer a temple, little sister. A bandit army is well above my pay grade." He paused, tying the neck of his sack with a practiced knot, and offered a perfectly authentic, period-appropriate Daoist justification. "A wise stream does not try to smash the boulder in its path; it flows around it. This is a very large boulder. To resist would be to invite chaos, to disturb the Dao. My duty is to preserve my own harmony, not to be dashed to pieces."

  As an afterthought, he scrambled back to his desk, grabbed a brush, and hastily scribbled a few lines on a piece of scrap paper. He thrust the note into my hands. I glanced at it. It was a formal, if rushed, letter of resignation addressed to Vice-Director Song.

  "Here," he said, pressing the note and two of the silver ingots into my hands. "A favor, as a fellow seeker of the Way. I cannot stay, but my obligations must be met. See that the Vice-Director gets these, will you?"

  More than a little disappointed, Rana's hands went to her hips. "And what about the villagers? The old women who bring offerings? Are you just going to leave them to be slaughtered?"

  Guo Xuan paused. A flicker of genuine conflict, of shame, crossed his face. He looked towards the door, then back at us and to a Jian that he'd already added to his travel bundle. I thought, for a moment, he might actually choose to stay, to find some courage buried beneath his philosophy of convenience.

  We heard the sound of a galloping horse thundered down the main village road, followed by a loud, booming voice that carried easily to our temple.

  "HEAR YE, HEAR YE! THE GREAT KING IS HERE ONLY FOR THE ILL-GOTTEN GAINS OF THE SONG CLAN! WE HAVE NO QUARREL WITH THE GOOD PEOPLE OF THIS VILLAGE! REMAIN IN YOUR HOMES, BAR YOUR DOORS, AND YOU WILL NOT BE HARMED! AT DAWN TOMORROW, WE CLAIM WHAT IS OWED!"

  The horse galloped on, repeating the proclamation as it faded into the distance.

  "Well, there you have it," Guo said, his voice bright with self-absolution. "The villagers will be fine! The Dao provides." He gave us a final, cheerful nod and scurried out through the back of the temple.

  Rana just stared at the empty doorway, her expression a potent mix of disgust and disappointment. "He just… left."

  "He flows like water," I said wryly, looking down at the heavy silver ingots and the ridiculous resignation letter in my hands. We needed to leave, to get back to the camp and prepare for the coming dawn.

  I turned to Rana. "Let's go."

  We stepped out of the study and into the temple's main hall. But as we approached the grand entrance that opened onto the village square, we were met by a procession. An elderly woman, her back bent with age but dressed in the finest brocaded silks, was being helped up the temple steps by a younger man and woman who shared her features. Behind them trailed a whole retinue: grandchildren with wide, curious eyes, and servants, all clad in clothes that spoke of wealth. I'd seen Song from a distance, and they did resemble him.

  The moment the old matriarch saw us, she pulled away from her helpers, took two shaky steps forward, and then collapsed to her knees, pressing her forehead to the cold stone floor in a full kowtow. The rest of her family immediately followed suit, a wave of rustling silk on stone.

  "Elder Daoist!" the old woman cried, her voice thin and reedy. " You must save the Song family!"

  That confirmed it, this was Song's mother and much of his clan by the looks of things.

  "My son… he has been a good son!" she cried, her words punctuated by sobs. "He rebuilt this temple for the ancestors! He built the bridge for the village! He has brought nothing but prosperity to his home! But these last months have been filled with misfortune! First, that wicked story of a so-called filial daughter, poisoning the minds of our village, and now bandits have come to destroy his innocent family!"

  She raised her tear-streaked face to me. "Please, Master Guo Xuan is a man of great power. Please, I beg you, ask him to use his arts to save us from this calamity!"

  From the edge of the square, a villager who had been watching the scene unfold spat on the ground. "Innocent?" he yelled, his voice thick with scorn. "Your wicked son brought this curse upon us all!" Another voice joined in, and soon a small chorus of angry shouts was directed at the kneeling family.

  This was the family of the man who had destroyed the Chens. This was the family enjoying the fruits of that stolen grain, living in luxury bought with the suffering of others. Surely they must be in part responsible? The women, for Song's upbringing perhaps, and maybe his siblings for whatever insecurities that were instilled in Song's youth. Perhaps they'd been responsible for sending him through school and supported him as he undertook his exams.

  But as I looked at them, at the old woman, her love for her son blinding her to his sins; at the confused and frightened grandchildren who knew nothing of ministry politics or grain ledgers, I couldn't bring myself to hate them. A son's sins should not be visited upon his mother, nor his crimes upon his children, not that people of this age saw things this way. I thought of how Xiao Kai's family suffered when her father was imprisoned and decided I couldn't accept that.

  Rana looked at me for instructions, I could see the family reminded her of Song and the pain Layla was going through. I stepped forward and knelt down and gently took the old woman's frail, trembling arms.

  "Please, rise, Elder Madame," I said, my voice soft but firm. I helped her to her feet. The rest of the family rose with her, their eyes fixed on me.

  "The calamity that your son has brought forth will be brought to him, and to him alone," I said, my voice carrying a quiet, resonant authority. "Pindao (this daoist) will see to it that the storm does not fall upon the innocent."

  Relief washed over her face, but I held up a hand before she could thank me.

  "I cannot save your son from his path," I stated, the words heavy but necessary. "He has chosen to walk a road of corruption, and that road has its own destination. Make your peace with him as you can."

  I looked from the stunned mother to her children and her grandchildren, my gaze lingering for a moment on each of them.

  "Each person walks their own path in this world," I said, the words both a comfort and a final, somber judgment. "They alone pay the toll."

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