The Life of Ran Ling

"What?"

"That cold and sensitivity is what everybody else feels. You're walking around with only two layers of robes, your inner and outer ones. Your hairs not even swaying on the wind. Even at the steamed buns stand that you were at, I thought that you would notice how that little boy was going to huddle under the tables to try to get warm," the God of Strength tried to explain kindly.

It wouldn't do much good for his charge to panic right now and flee into the night, especially back to the town where the child would once more be under the purview of the God of Secrets.

That split second of coldness wasn't supposed to happen after all.

The God of Strength, Bearer of the Metal Carts, took a deep breath and tried to continue onwards.

He had been renowned in life for the sheer power of his body. Born as a mere commoner and accidently developing a strong golden core through his exercises, he had quickly become known as the boy with inhuman strength, famous enough throughout the local villages for a rogue cultivator, travelling by donkey through the remote countryside areas, to want to see him.

The rogue cultivator offered him an apprenticeship, and through her tears, his mother accepted, proud of her son and for his unique talents. She packed him bags of rice and let him go out into the world.

The rogue cultivator was extremely helpful and exceptionally well learned, as he trained young Ran Ling, the future God of Strength, through mostly practical experiences, preferring to teach theory whilst on the road to review the prey that they had recently slain.

Eventually, after a particularly bad night hunt, involving a tiger that had become a Yao, the rogue cultivator had become critically injured, after having decided to use his body to distract the Yao while Ran Ling had snuck up behind the beast to deliver the finishing blow.

Ran Ling hoisted up his master onto his back, and had run, day and night, following directions from the delirious man whose life he was desperately trying to save, to a large town where a prominent temple could give aid.

Unfortunately, Ran Ling had been too late.

His master had lost too much blood from the initial blow, his wounds had become too infected over the course of the journey, and Ran Ling learned that, for an entire day, on the final stretch through the town and through the Temple doors, he had been carrying a corpse on his back.

His beloved master had passed away in his arms.

And his beloved master had not undergone a soul cleansing ceremony, returning back to life once more as a fierce corpse, his life's work unfinished.

He had not finished teaching Ran Ling all that he needed to know to become a cultivator. He had not finished teaching Ran Ling how to deal with resentful, fierce corpses. He had not taught Ran Ling about the effects and cures for corpse poisoning.

And he had not taught Ran Ling where he should go next, to further his education.

Ran Ling stood at the gate of the graveyard, watching as his master rose in full putrid, rotting glory, and held, now, both his swords out.

It was then, that Ran Ling learned what strength was.

It was then that he learned how to become infected with corpse poisoning, and how to deal with resentful corpses.

It was after, that Ran Ling learned how to deal with corpse poisoning, and how he ought to continue his education.

Two men, cultivators of prestigious sects, came to pay their respects to Ran Ling's mentors, bowing to his grave, providing incense, and a small basket of candy, Ran Ling's master's favourite sour ones.

They cured Ran Ling of the poison, aiding him as he scrambled to place his master's body back into the earth, his hands slipping from the fabric of his clothing from the rainwater and blood.

The soil that they attempted to place over him was course, rough, and always rapidly thinning in Ran Ling's arms as he sought to bury his master, his teacher, his surrogate father.

When all was said and done, with nowhere else to go, Ran Ling asked the two cultivators, who had arrived, to teach him how to fly, joining their sect of pale blue and green clothing miles away at the peak of a mountain, where there were servants to do all the chores, while the cultivators practised to immortality, shunning the world around them.

It was not enough.

It was never going to be enough.

These people charged exorbitantly for the price of not even an hour's work.

Ran Ling made his speeches to the elders, and were shunned for his common dialect and manner of speaking, through their wheezy gasps of their stale throats, dying despite all their meditation.

Ran Ling made his speeches to the councilmen, shunned for his lack of economic insight, and how the sect would collapse from having no funds, golden pins and broaches in their hair and prostitutes in their beds.

Ran Ling made his speeches to the teachers, shunned for his youth and little combat experience, as if swordplay could possibly convey moral superiority between people.

And Ran Ling made his speeches to the students and servants, their lives so unimportant that in the end, they did not even matter to the rest, considering each and every one of the teachers could easily dwarf all the efforts of thirty of their students.

The pain of Ran Ling's deceased master did not decrease, until he had left that place, buying a donkey in the dead of night, and simply not returning ever again.

To night hunt for the rest of his life, sending money back to his mother, practising Inedia to avoid costs, was what Ran Ling did, dying happily and at peace in the small shack that he had grown up in and in the same bed his mother passed away in.