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  “No, no, he’s quite all right,” the man said while removing his spiky helmet. His figure looked boyish and immature. His thick square glasses didn’t make things better.

  Yama had always encouraged his mysterious dressing habits, as they made him look less like some dweeb who got stuffed in lockers. Layers of armor soon disappeared, revealing a skeletal frame. A single golden ring covered in runic characters glowed brightly on his middle finger. It was the one wedding ring that he’d forged for himself many aeons ago.

  “I just recently married into a noble family, so I’m a marquis now. I was never satisfied as a lord. Now I can flaunt it like I always dreamed of.”

  “Fair enough,” Yama said, chuckling. “You are the best jewelsmith in the Underworld. And here I was, wondering what you would do with all the money you earned by marketing those fancy limited-edition wedding rings of yours. It turns out you were amassing a dowry. Remind me, there were nine for mankind?”

  “And some of the elves and the dwarves,” he replied. “And for some reason they all ended up killing each other over them. I just don’t get it. Regardless, it made for a very good story. I made a killing off the movie and merchandising. I have no regrets.”

  “I don’t suppose you have a bit of that fortune left?” Yama asked. That was why he was here, after all.

  “Money is a bit tight, I must admit,” the Marquis of the Rings said. “But I can always spare something for an old friend. What do you need it for?”

  “I’m promoting a candidate for mayor,” he said. “I need him and his policies to get more workers to manage the upcoming flood of souls. Can you do it?”

  The Marquis of the Rings hesitated. “I can contribute a little, I suppose… with a sponsorship ad of course. Does ten billion work for you?”

  “Ten billion?” Yama snorted. “More like ten trillion. Elections aren’t cheap nowadays, you know. It’s money that wins elections now, not the platform.”

  “You may as well bleed me dry,” the man said with an aggrieved expression. “That’s my entire life savings. I’d be a pauper!”

  “You know that’s not true, you big whiner,” Yama said. “Besides, I have some good news. This mayor, he really hates many of the pieces of bad art in the city.”

  A gleam appeared in the man’s eyes. “Do continue, my dear friend.”

  “Well,” Yama said, “it just happens that we need to nominate ten million pieces of terrible art for destruction. Now as you know, terrible is a very subjective term. If I were to have your competitor’s advertising statues destroyed…”

  The Marquis of the Rings fell silent, pensive. “Fine. I’ll do it. But I have one more condition.”

  “Oh?” Yama said. “Pray tell.”

  His friend had always been this way, trying to milk the most out of the situation with the least amount of effort. It was no wonder a few halflings he had short-changed had melted down his wedding ring once. That practical joke had stung his friend deeply.

  “I want the statue of the white wizard gone,” he said gravely. “I’ve always hated that jerk, ever since he humiliated me in school.”

  “But it’s a work of art!” Yama protested. “It’s truly a beautiful statue.”

  “I don’t care!” the man yelled back. “This is personal. It’s this or no deal. I want to be able to talk about his destroyed statue at all the balls and parties.”

  “Just because you’re not man enough to fight him yourself, doesn’t mean I need to indulge your petty grudges,” Yama said sternly.

  “It’s not petty and you know it!” he said. “Do you have any idea how many of my shadowfire demons he’s killed? Do you have any idea how many orcs he’s slain, just because he feels like it? And he cloaks it all in a mantle of righteousness. I really can’t stand that prick.”

  “Can’t you think of anything else you want?” Yama said. “How about I arrange a date with the elf queen. You’ve always wanted to—“

  “I’m married now!” the Marquis of the Rings exploded. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to have to put up with that she-devil? All for the sake of this title? She doesn’t even let me go to bed late. Lately, she put me on a stupid diet. Don’t you dare bring up the elf queen again.”

  A moment of silence ensued. “Fine,” Yama admitted. “I stepped over the line there.” He walked toward the man’s beautiful flower bed, the one he personally grew, watered, and weeded. Despite his despotic reputation, the man was truly a kind and caring fellow. “Is there truly nothing else you want?”

  “None,” the Marquis of the Rings said with his arms crossed. He wasn’t budging.

  “Fine,” Yama said. “It’s a deal.”

  * * *

  1 Dao companions in Xianxia novels are martial cultivators who have chosen to embark on a lifelong journey of seeking the Dao together. It’s effectively marriage but for cultivators.

  Chapter 1: Crumbling and Hardening

  Cha Ming carefully adjusted his position while he sat cross-legged in his temporary accommodation. He held three things in front of him: the Clear Sky Brush, a stack of talisman papers, and a tall gray candle. The gray candle was inscribed with incomprehensible runes and was mounted on a bronze platter. Its wick was whiter than alabaster and gave off a relaxing fragrance. It was the same comprehension candle he had received in Fuxi’s Library. He would soon light it for the first time.

  His cultivation was advancing far too slowly for his liking. The difference in cultivation time between half-step foundation establishment and initial foundation establishment was vast. It was unlikely that he would progress soon.

  He had one last way of strengthening himself before trouble came knocking: creating magic talismans. However, he had no formulas; the knowledge gleaned from Fuxi’s Library could only take him so far.

  What he needed now was inspiration. Inspiration in the form of a gray, runed candle. He lit its white wick, watching it burn with a black flame. The candle vaporized as the heat of the flame ate away at it. The resulting gray smoke invaded his nose, eyes, ears, and mouth, but he felt no urge to cough or wheeze. His surroundings faded as he entered a deep trance.

  Cha Ming was dreaming. His surroundings were lifelike and vivid, to the point where he could see and feel everything around him. At the same time, he maintained his lucidity. He was experiencing the best of both worlds: the boundless imagination of the sleeping world and the mindfulness of the waking world.

  It took him some time to realize that he was now standing in an open field. A circle of large giants held up a massive sphere. It was as large as a planet, and it was held up with the communal efforts of the entire group.

  The large men all sat cross-legged, their dreams projecting a massive hand above them. Some hands were filled with visions of conquest while others were filled with hopes of a peaceful life. Others dreamed of their children growing strong, living a fulfilling life, and supporting their parents. All of these were fantasies, as unreal as the lifelike vision he was currently witnessing.

  Time passed, little by little. After what seemed like a lifetime, he noticed a single crack appearing on one of the hands. It was miniscule and seemed inconsequential, but it was there. Another lifetime passed before the strain of the world it supported took its toll, forcing the crack to widen.

  Another lifetime passed. One crack became two, and two became three. Before long, the hand was covered in countless cracks. The fragile hand was only held together by the giant’s iron will.

  However, this was far from enough. In his effort to maintain the hand, cracks appeared on his body in the same way. The thought of his dreams disappearing brought tears of magma to the stone giant’s eyes. He gritted his mountainous teeth as he mustered every fiber of his being to contain the damage. But the weight of the world was merciless. The cracks continued to multiply, and as the cracks propagated, the stone giant let out a mournful howl. Finally, both his body and his dreams crumbled away into nothing more than the finest dust. The giant and his dreams w
ere no more.

  With the disappearance of this one stone giant, each of the other giants’ burdens increased by a small and almost unnoticeable amount. Yet just like the one before them, two giants began to weaken. They struggled heroically, but soon enough, they too crumbled under the weight of the world. What seemed like years passed by. Every few months, the number of falling giants doubled.

  Finally, the last giant shattered, and the world fell into the void. Their task seemed impossible to begin with. Cha Ming, in his lucidity, observed that all the giants that had cracked and broken had one thing in common: Their foundations were too weak to support their dreams. Each foundation had a fatal flaw, and once enough pressure was applied, the giant would inevitably crumble.

  Do you understand? a voice asked.

  Cha Ming woke from his deep meditation with a start. Suddenly, he remembered the heavy burdens that had weighed him down over the years.

  He was burdened with Huxian’s fate—if he died, the baby fox would as well. He had been burdened with disability, which had caused him to lose all hope for a short time. Finally, he had been burdened with slavery, and with the fate of the people in Crystal Falls. All these burdens were very real, and their weight exceeded the strength of his foundation. Given enough time, his will would have shattered just like these stone giants.

  Hands shaking from this sudden feeling of fragility, Cha Ming took up his brush and began writing. Dark brown ink flowed across the sheet of paper as he poured his feelings of vulnerability and near-collapse.

  The weight of the world crumbles countless dreams;

  Man’s foundation is ever brittle.

  To Cha Ming, these verses seemed like a universal truth. He decided to call it a Crumbling Talisman. It was a poetic talisman, just like Elder Ling’s Ode to Mr. Mao Mao. As such, he had no idea what power it might hold, but he was sure that it far exceeded that of an ordinary mortal-grade talisman.

  Having finished his new creation, he collapsed in the tent, shivering. He wasn’t sick, nor was he physically injured in any way. However, he couldn’t shake that feeling of helplessness, that feeling of almost failing. He could feel his own cracks widening.

  “Your hands are shaking,” Li Yin said to Cha Ming as the younger man tried to steady his needle.

  Cha Ming was currently stitching a cut on one of the many carpenters who was new to the village.

  “It’s nothing,” Cha Ming said, preparing to insert the shaky needle into the man’s arm. Just as he was about to proceed, he felt an old worn hand grasping his arm. There was no power behind Li Yin’s grip, only undeniable firmness.

  “Let me take care of this one,” the doctor said authoritatively. He proceeded to stitch the wound in only a few minutes and sent the carpenter on his way. Then he closed the door to their shack, one of the few wooden buildings in town.

  “What happened?” Li Yin asked.

  Cha Ming sighed and sat down on one of the three chairs in the room. “It just seems like I was so close to failing, so close to crumbling in the mines. Dr. Li, it was my mistake that caused so many people to suffer. And if a lucky chance hadn’t come about, I wouldn’t have been able to escape and kill the bandits. Everyone here would have eventually suffered a miserable fate.” He looked up at Li Yin with red eyes. “How can people still trust me?”

  The doctor looked at him compassionately. “I’ll admit that many don’t,” the doctor said. “But many also realize that people make mistakes. You could have run away after escaping, but you didn’t. You owned up to your mistakes. And tell me, will you make that mistake again?”

  Cha Ming shook his head.

  “Then quit worrying about it.”

  Li Yin placed a hand on Cha Ming’s shoulder. “You’re strong, Cha Ming. You’ve withstood what many people can’t. Yet you overcame all that. Are you really going to forget this and crumble now that the pressure is gone? How laughable would that be?”

  Cha Ming couldn’t bear to look at the doctor.

  “Today is not your day, it seems,” Li Yin said. “You’re useless to me here when your hands are shaking. Go outside and get some sunshine. Don’t come back here until you’ve straightened yourself out. You’re better than this. I know you are.”

  Cha Ming spent the rest of his day performing manual labor. Nothing skilled, just brainless hauling of wood and stone. Many people gave him odd looks as he trudged on like an ox, but he took pleasure in being able to perform these simple tasks.

  If I have the strength of an ox, he thought, I may as well use it. Meanwhile, he agonized over his failure in raising Huxian. He hadn’t even tried looking for him, and the poor little fox was all alone in the wilderness. Was he all right?

  Cha Ming wiped the sweat off his brow as he pulled a load of stone to the newly built frame of the future inn. It was a priority building, as it would accommodate the many workers they had brought in from neighboring villages. After a bit of looking, he spotted the chief mason.

  “Where do you want this load?” he asked as he pulled the wagon up to the middle-aged man.

  “Just over there,” the man said, pointing. “Are you free right now? We could use a hand setting up some large beams. They are heavy as all hell, and without you, we’ll have to set up a pulley and waste a few days.”

  “My hands are a little shaky today,” Cha Ming said hesitantly.

  “It doesn’t matter,” the mason said dismissively. “All we need is someone who can hold the weight up. We’ll take care of the shaking. If you can pull a cart, you can hold up a beam.”

  Cha Ming helplessly followed the chief mason, who continued to give orders as they walked. The workers moved quickly as he barked out directions. Soon they arrived at a large pile of thick tree trunks. They were spirit trees, judging by their size. Each trunk had been shaved of bark and branches.

  “Each trunk weighs three thousand jin,” the man explained. “I want you to pick one up and walk up the stairs we built, then down the central beam. You can lay it down at the other end. Once you get there, do your best to hold it in place, and my men will fasten it down. Piece of cake.”

  “It’s no problem as long as you keep people out of the building in case I fall,” Cha Ming said. “No need to worry about me. I’m sturdy.”

  “Done,” the man said. He took a minute to shout a few dozen offensive words at the workers. They hustled out of the building like their life depended on it. He then looked to Cha Ming. “It’s all clear.”

  Cha Ming nodded, grasping the first beam, using a sling. It creaked and strained as he lifted the beam off the ground, and the soil sank as he walked with it. After carefully checking his balance, he walked up the makeshift steps that led to the top of the building.

  The massive central beam creaked only slightly as he traversed it, carefully standing firm despite the blowing wind. It was a strong beam, worthy of being this large building’s foundation. It would last at least a hundred years if properly maintained.

  Sweating, he walked steadily until he arrived at the predetermined location. To his surprise, the large beam wasn’t shaking. It was likely due to its massive weight.

  For some people, he thought, a larger load is best. A king can easily bring ruin to a small household. However, he works best under the pressure of a nation.

  At his signal, a pair of men scrambled onto the roof and fastened the large log. He helped them with the next nine, successfully aiding them in installing the roof’s foundation. He ended the day tired but satisfied. However, once he got to his tent and saw the gray candle, he couldn’t help but shiver and recall the emotions he had poured into the talisman.

  Surely there is a balancing concept, Cha Ming thought. He hesitated slightly before shutting the flap of his tent and taking out talisman writing materials. Then, wincing, he lit the wick on the gray candle once more. The black flame roared to life.

  This time, Cha Ming saw an entirely different scene. He saw a young boy whose family’s finances were crumbling. His father and mother cou
ld no longer take the pressure, and it was evident that they would lose their home and be forced to live on the streets.

  The boy had many younger siblings. He couldn’t bear to see his parents in such a state, and he could only imagine what would happen to his siblings should he hesitate. Therefore, he decided to leave school to support his family. He became a carpenter, and he toiled away day after day, barely making enough to feed them.

  Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough. His third brother was rather intelligent, and only with proper schooling and private tutoring would he be able to bring out his full potential and become a government official. So the carpenter badgered his boss repeatedly, and eventually he was appointed as assistant manager. After one year of stellar performance, he was promoted to manager. Then, using his influence and his newly improved finances, he managed to put his brothers and sisters through school.

  Unfortunately, his success was short-lived. The kingdom was thrust into a war that he knew nothing about. They conscripted him into the military, and he was forced to kill men on the battlefield to survive. Many of his brothers in arms fell before he eventually became a captain. Even as a captain, there was little he could do to alleviate the suffering.

  Decades passed. After much hard work and determination, he became a general. He defeated the kingdom’s enemies, earning much praise and riches from the king upon his retirement. But unlike many of his contemporaries, he didn’t move to the capital or take many wives to start a large family. Instead he returned to the small town where he grew up.

  The town had been stricken with poverty and drought ever since his departure. His parents had long since passed away, but many of his brothers and sisters remained. After seeing their plight, he used everything he had earned in the military to purchase food and building supplies. He poured his sweat, blood, and tears into improving the village, and soon, it was prosperous again.