“WAKE UP ALREADY!”
A splash of cold water woke him up from his fitful sleep. He awoke sputtering and coughing. Bleary eyed, he looked for his latest tormentor. As expected it was the two guards and their understudy. Outside dawn had just begun to break.
“Oh…it’s just you.”
Zang muttered before turning around and going right back to sleep.
“What?”
“Huh?”
Both the guards were taken aback by such nonchalant attitude from the prisoner and they instantly lost their temper.
“YOU LOUSY BASTARD, going ‘Oh’, WHAT OH? EH? “
“JUST YOU WAIT ASSHOLE, NO BREAKFAST FOR YOU!”
They kicked the cell door repeatedly hoping to wake the nonchalant prisoner up. Their junior hopelessly tried his best to hold them back.
“Ahh seniors…seniors…”
But of course Zang paid them no heed, eventually the two of them got bored and left him. That is when Zang finally woke up and sat upright on his stone bed. In all aspects he seemed a changed man. Gone was the broken blubbering man who had lost all hope. In his place sat a proud cultivator with sharp eyes. Without a single word he took up a meditative posture and began the slow and steady process of Qi cultivation.
*“Inhale”*
Breath is the basis of all life, hence it is also the basis of all cultivation. You breathe in the energy of earth, refine it through your body and breathe it out into Heaven, if the energy you have refined is pure enough it forms a drop of qi, the quality of qi depends entirely on your body’s capability at refining qi.
*“Refine”*
The murky and ill colored prison qi swirled into him, his body had with due training at the academy become a truly remarkable reservoir and purifier for qi so this impure and putrid prison qi was flooded into his body in a veritable flood. His eyes squeezed shut trying to block out his senses as his body tasted the vile and impure prison qi to it’s fullest extent. His stomach nearly heaved up and his entire body was wracked with spasms. But he managed to persevere.
“Refiinnneee damn you.”
He hissed through gritted teeth. Veins began bulging out on his forehead from the force of the effort required in refining the qi. It felt like passing boulders through a tiny water channel, each drop of energy refined seemed to damage his body and qi channels. Yet he persevered. Finally the pressure eased and his face regained his earlier composure.
He exhaled and breathed out the pure heavenly energy.
*“Exhale”*
His eyes snapped open as power flooded into his body. The qi he had obtained was of the highest and purest quality, such purity of qi surprised even him.
“Could it be? Could the quality of qi depend on the quality of energy?”
A smile grew on his lips and with renewed vigor he set about cultivating more. By evening he was extremely tired from the efforts of the day. His bones ached, his muscles were sore and his stomach rumbled ceaselessly, demanding food to replenish the energy lost in cultivating such toxic qi.
“You can have my porridge Young Lord, I’ve been savin it for ya.”
His eyes were still closed, he was trying desperately to normalize and absorb the qi he had cultivated. But his body’s hunger was getting to be too big a distraction. Finally with a deep sigh Zang Xuan rose up and approached the croaky voice from the cell next door.
“This sage thanks you o prisoner for this gift of food.”
The niceties done he grabbed at the offered bowl of porride and devoured it whole within a span of minutes.
“Ahaha easy there Young Lord, you might choke yerself and we cant have that can we? You still remember our arrangement then? Last night you didn’t give me much of an answer ya know. I gotta know, cause if your answer’s no then I gots to make other arrangements.”
“You speech…it is very…crude.”
“Well pox on me Young Lord, I thought you’d never notice. I ain’t from around these parts good sir but I assure you my promise to you stands, if you can get me out of this bleeding cell then I can get you out of this bleeding Empire.”
“Yes, I remember your offer. It is very intriguing. But I don’t remember you saying how.”
“Yeah well I have to have my secrets don’t I”
“And I don’t remember you saying how you entered my cell either.”
“Ahahaha you noticed that did you? I thought you wouldn't figure it out in the darkness. My my you’re a clever one, I like you. Very unlike the rest of you sinese fellows.”
“Si…nese?”
“That’s what we call you people.”
Not for the first time Zang Xuang wondered about this stranger who had the power to appear in his cell and disappear without a trace. He wondered why if he could exchange cells so easily did the man not simply flee his cell on his own, he wondered what strange land he was from to have such a dark shade of skin and such strange mannerisms of speech, he wondered what other strange lands there might be in the whole wide world….he wondered finally on how vast this world truly was. A smile settled on his lips.
“You will have my answer in three days kind sir. Not before.”
“Didn’t I hear them guards say you were gonna be offed in three days?”
“Offed?”
“Lose your head Young Lord.”
Indeed. In three days time the sentence would be carried out. He held no more hope that his brothers of the academy would aid him, the teachers were powerless as they were sworn to never meddle in royal affairs and this was by all means a royal affair. The only one who had the power to save him was the Emperor, the Dragon himself.
“Three days foreigner. Not before.”
With that he put the matter to rest and closed his eyes. The sun had gone and night had risen. In three days time he would face the Emperor and truly discover if he was doomed, that day he would also discover if the Dragon lived up to his name. That would be the day he decided his fate. Not before.
Until then, all he could do was prepare.
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