Trust

"Hedao," Zhuding began, "How did you know of the mornings I would spend on the cliff face? Why did you watch me? Why did you let me know that you did?"

Hedao didn't reply immediately, eyes still searching the east. His hand rested on his knife hilt at his waist. He finally spoke: "I think I'll show you that place I was telling you about. The one where those like us can wander." He turned to look at him. "Would you like that, Zhuding?"

Zhuding was taken aback a moment, then despite himself, allowed some frustration to rise. "No, Hedao. I'd like you to answer my questions." Hedao looked at him stoicly, and Zhuding's frustration went from simmer to boil. "I've worked for hours at your whim, sacrificed my health, my sleep, and I think I deserve some answers—"

Zhuding's rant was silenced when the blacksmith laid a hand on his shoulder. The moment his hand touched him, he felt an incredible pressure – a suffocating atmosphere that consumed him until he could not see. As darkness consumed his vision, he felt his being slip, become insubstantial, and felt himself flow. He couldn't discern how much time had passed, but eventually, he once more became aware of the blacksmith's hand, now releasing his shoulder. The oppressive pressure instantly ceased, and Zhuding opened his eyes. He found himself sitting across from Hedao on a pillar of stone surrounded on all sides in a perfect circle by impossibly high waterfalls. Zhuding opened his mouth, too shocked to speak.

The blacksmith looked at him, looked up at the towering waterfall that crashed around them. He spoke: "You are a farmer, Zhuding. You're familiar with the process of cultivation; you've performed it hundreds, thousands of times. Tilling the soil and bringing it into order, of planting the grain and ensuring that it flourishes, of harvesting it and refining it into something one can use." He paused for a minute, closed his eyes, listened to the deafening crash of waterfall below.

"There is another type of cultivation, Zhuding, one which I used to practice: one of the body, spirit, and the mind." He touched his chest. "The body is the soil which you must purify, the foundation upon which everything else grows." He touched his collarbone. "The spirit is the seed which you cultivate in the soil, both the goal and the method through which you attain it." He touched his temple. "The mind is the hand that separates the wheat from the chaff, the channel through which you shape the spirit into forms that are useful." He looked meaningfully at Zhuding. "Cultivation is the purest way known of purifying one's being, of becoming closer in spirit to that of a heavenly being. To those who can persist despite its trials, it represents untold, infinite power; but only to those who can persist – no easy feat." His gaze on Zhuding hardened. "One who starts on this path may walk no other. I must know that you mean to walk it before I set you down it."

Zhuding's mind reeled, attempting to process what Hedao had just told him. Purifying one's spirit, heavenly beings…. Untold power. He pictured the wyvern gliding effortlessly through the air, pictured Hedao holding his life in his hands. He met Hedao's gaze.

"Tell me what I need to know."

Hedao paused a moment, nodded. He rested his hands on his knees. "For every art form, there exist different school of thought when it comes to its practice. It is no different for Cultivation. There are as many methods of cultivation as there are practitioners. However, the method I know, and the one I will teach you now, is the Waterfall form."

"To begin, you must connect to your dantian." Hedao rested his hand near his solar plexus. "This is the area in the body where the spirit tends to rest. In those who have not learned to cultivate their spirit, it tends to be stagnant, and if it flows at all, flows weakly. Can you feel it?"

Zhuding touched the same spot on his own body near his stomach. He closed his eyes, listened to the thunderous water below. He sat there for a time, trying to feel the spirit that supposedly rested there. Longer and longer he waited, growing more and more frustrated each time. Could this old blacksmith be playing a joke on him? Yet, he had brought him to this strange place – an impossibility, or so he thought. No, he must be telling the truth, and Zhuding was just incompetent!

A spike of anger ran through him, and tuned as he was, he felt a jolt he couldn't describe. He realized what he had felt, and cried out, "I felt it! I felt it!"

"Good," said Hedao, "then you are one of the lucky few. Not many people can sense their spirit – a deficiency that makes cultivating nearly impossible. If you could sense it with so little instruction, you may have an aptitude for this." He smiled. He actually smiled. Zhuding shivered a bit internally.

"The next step," continued Hedao, "you might have a bit more trouble with. You must let go – let go of everything. Let go as completely as you did the first time I attacked you."

Zhuding froze. He had nearly forgotten that day, months ago, when he thought Hedao was about to kill him. He tried to remember that feeling of helplessness, of impotence, and flinched. "I can't do that. I can't."

Hedao frowned. "You must. Your spirit will not flow if you cling to life like a scared insect. You must give it up completely, and only then will you be free to shape it, just as the land is only free to shape the river once it gives way."

Zhuding frowned, but tried to do as Hedao asked. He closed his eyes, thought of the knife pointed to his neck, the realization that his life had been insignificant, pointless, joyless. He felt the emptiness of his life reach up, reach around, creep in, consume him –

Zhuding sprang up, panting. "You're insane. I can't do this. This is pointless." He looked around at the waterfalls surrounding him, looked up at the sky reduced to a pinprick. "Where the hell is this, anyway? Take me back. I'll find another way." The stone pillar beneath them was smaller than he had realized. He looked down – quite a drop. He began to feel dizzy.

Hedao bowed his head, shook it slightly. "I asked for your word. You said you were ready to walk this path."

"Well, you're asking something of me that I can't give. That's not my fault. Take me back."

Hedao stood, robes dampened by the mist. "There is one way I can think of to make you let go. I hope you have it in you. I trust that you can." He slowly walked towards Zhuding.

Zhuding took a step back, stumbled as his heels met the edge of the pillar. He looked back at the drop below, and then towards Hedao. "What are you doing? Stop it. Take me out of this place!"

Hedao shoved him over the drop and grabbed his shirt. Zhuding felt a panic like no other come over him. Ice ran through his veins, sweat breaking out over his forehead. "Hedao! What the hell are you doing?!" he screamed. He was dangling over the edge, heels gripping the edge, arms flailing, only held up by his shirt balled up in Hedao's fist.

Hedao leaned in towards him and spoke in a low voice. "You can. I've seen you do it. Just. let. Go."

And he let go.