--Fuck, fuck, fuck… don’t make me do this…--

  Pengfei had been awake for hours. He alternated between panicking and planning but there was not much that could be done. He had rigged up a safety line with the old rope he had used on his ‘descent’ but there was no suitable anchor for it. He tried making one using the weapons rack and several of the heavy urns containing the foodstuffs.

  He evaluated his handywork.

  “… There’s no way this will work.”

  He sat cross-legged at the cave entrance and looked up the cliff. The sky was still a dark grey but lightening every minute as dawn approached. Each day he had spent in the cell made the cliff face less intimidating, in theory at least. It didn’t seem as harshly vertical as when he had first looked over the ledge. Getting back up to the path above could be done with a half climb, half scramble. But the stakes were still far too high for Pengfei’s liking.

  He waited anxiously at the ledge, dreading what he would have to do.

  The stars had all faded as the dim light of morning intruded on the sky. The moon was setting in the west.

  Pengfei turned away from the sky and paced nervously. He sought a distraction.

  The bag that Chen Rulan had delivered yesterday was Pengfei’s, brought straight from the dormitory. It contained not only his clothes and small personal effects, but also the books he had borrowed from the sect’s library. He set aside the martial arts manuals to reach for ‘The Nine Chapter of the Mathematical Arts’.

  He leafed through the pages, not reading deeply. The third chapter sparked a bit of interest. Arithmetic sums. A memory from his tutor back in Sichuan, not from this book, but similar material. He stared at the page, not taking in its contents, as he remembered.

  “The sum of the whole numbers, a string of arbitrary length, the average of first and last terms, multiplied by the length of the string…”

  It was a formula his tutor had taught him. First, Pengfei was forced to find the sum of one to a hundred, by hand. Then, his teacher had taught him the short cut. The lesson had made an impression. Pengfei still puzzled over it from time to time.

  “But what if the sum of the first and last terms is not divisible by two? Oh… but the when the average is odd, the length of the string is even… cool.”

  “Yes, fascinating.”

  “Oh shit!” Pengfei flinched away from the voice over his shoulder, looked up to see Chen Rulan standing above him. “Elder, I’m sorry! I lost track of time.”

  The man grunted, nodded for the disciple to follow. The master’s steps were loud enough to make Pengfei wonder why he hadn’t heard the man approach in the first place. When they reached the cave entrance, Chen Rulan looked at Pengfei expectantly. The boy gazed up the daunting rock face.

  “I’m sorry, Elder Rulan, I can’t do it. Isn’t there a ladder you can lower down to me?” Pengfei repeated the same question he had asked Chen Ji on arrival at the cliffs and unfortunately received the same answer.

  “Of course not. Now get going.”

  Another look up the cliff….and down it. “I’m sorry sir.”

  The elder gave an exasperated sigh. “Ugh… no disciple has ever died falling from the cliffs. Even if you fell, I would catch you. Now take the ridiculous rope off your waist and get moving.”

  Pengfei was unmoved by the elder’s reassurance. He said nothing. Grasping for any argument to avoid the climb. He pawed nervously at his tattered safety line.

  The pause quickly exhausted Chen Rulan’s patience. He left the sword in its sheath on his hip and instead pulled a small knife from the folds of his robe to roughly cut the rope from around Pengfei’s waist. Before the disciple could protest, Rulan had picked him up by the back of his robes like how one might pick up a pup by the scruff of its neck.

  “Whoa, what are you doing!?”

  An instant later there was empty air beneath the boy’s feet. The elder had picked him up with a single strong arm, swung him outside the cave, and held him to the cliff face. Pengfei’s flailing arms and legs instinctively reached out for purchase on the rock and as soon as he seemed to find a grip, Chen Rulan let go of his robes.

  “Pull me back in! Please!”

  Chen Rulan ignored the cries and instead smacked Pengfei’s backside with his scabbard.

  “What would you do if this was an emergency? Now, quit making a fuss and get moving.”

  The two went back and forth for several minutes but the elder remained steadfast, forcing Pengfei to gradually begin to climb upward. The progress was slow and halting at first with the disciple constantly looking below or nervously wiping one sweaty palm at a time.

  --Fucking…high!--

  The thoughts raced nonsensically through his mind as he climbed up, one hand over the other.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  “Keep your weight up against the wall. Put your manhood right on the rock.” Chen Rulan instructed from the side. He had bounded to a position near Pengfei as the disciple finally made his way above the cave entrance. The master stood effortlessly on some small protuberance and clasped his sword behind his back, not even needing to use his hands to climb.

  Despite the snail’s pace, time seemed to race in a frenzied blur for Pengfei and soon the climb was done. He pushed himself up with his feet and scrambled his body up over the ledge, collapsing on the footpath above the caves. He laid on his back panting and shaking with anxiety.

  Chen Rulan hopped up to the ledge and stood over Pengfei.

  “It’ll get easier.”

  That was as far as the elder’s sympathy extended. He promptly pulled the disciple to his feet and pointed down the trail leading away from the sect.

  “If you follow this path you will eventually come to a stream. Run down and back, try to return before lunchtime. I’ll meet you back here then.”

  ******************************************************************************

  Pengfei stumbled to the ground on the bank of the small mountain stream. He cupped his hands in the little river and brought some of the icy cool water to his lips, then looked back up the path.

  --It’ll take me ages to get back up.--

  It had already been more than an hour since he set out and the trip back uphill would undoubtedly take longer. Pengfei cursed under his breath at the pace he would have to strive for.

  --It’s farther than the usual morning runs and three times as steep!--

  Pushing the unhelpful observations to the side, he took a deep breath and set out. The trip down the path had been slow, long, and treacherous. He had constantly needed to catch himself from sliding or running out of control on the steep grades.

  But unreasonable velocities were no longer a problem. The same declines he had sped down so dangerously were now crawling slogs against gravity. Places where he had needed to hang by his fingertips and drop down now required him to climb, just like the cliff face earlier in the morning.

  Even with Pengfei jogging on the flatter sections, the ascent took twice as long as the way down. He was sweating profusely and stumbling with fatigue by the time Chen Rulan came into view over a rise. The disciple slowed to a walk and bent over to brace himself on his knees as he reached the elder.

  When the boy’s breathing returned to a normal cadence, Chen Rulan brought forward some cloth-covered dishes. He revealed a lunch of meat and vegetables.

  “I can’t.” Pengfei protested. “My guts feel like they’re on fire.” He held his hand to his stomach at what was becoming a frequent complaint. Rigorous exercise had been playing havoc with him recently, always felt as a burning in his belly.

  “Eat. You’ll need the energy.”

  Pengfei reluctantly took proffered chopsticks and silently began eating.

  The fresh food was a welcome change from the rations he had been surviving on the last several days. Once he began, Pengfei consumed the meal more enthusiastically, taking long sips from a water skin in between bites. He laid back on the ground after finishing and closed his eyes against the sun.

  “Thank you for the food elder.”

  A few minutes passed where Chen Rulan allowed Pengfei to rest and relax. The disciple laid on the ground in his damp robes and tiredly hummed a tune he had picked up from Pema.

  Chen Rulan stood up from his rock. “All right, that’s enough lazing around.” He motioned for Pengfei to stand as well.

  Pengfei stripped off his shirt and began performing the ‘Heaven Shaking Fist’ at Chen Rulan’s command. The sweat, which had only just stopped, began pouring down his body almost immediately.

  The basic fist art of the Kunlun Sect was contained in three forms, each with several distinct sections. While Pengfei had learned the first, he was still working through the sections of the second and had not even begun to learn the third.

  But Chen Rulan seemed unconcerned with Pengfei’s understanding of the choreographed movements.

  “The forms are just a reminder of the techniques. The techniques must come first.”

  So, after a cursory review of the first form, Chen Rulan focused his instruction on the basic stances and footwork of the Heaven Shaking Fist.

  Pengfei’s tired legs quaked and quivered with each step and every second of stance practice. He was tripping and collapsing after an hour of what would normally be a fairly relaxed training session.

  After Pengfei stumbled to the ground once again, Elder Rulan called a halt to the exercise. He brought out more food and commanded Pengfei to eat again.

  “Elder, thank you, but I’m still full from lunch.”

  “If you train more you need to eat more.”

  The elder would not be dissuaded and so Pengfei ate slowly. His body felt loose and weak. All his limbs were wet noodles, still fatigued from the exercise earlier in the day.

  “Can’t you teach me some qinggong? Something to make going up and down the mountain a little bit easier?”

  “I am.”

  “You are?”

  “A strong body is a good basis for all martial arts. So, making you run the mountain is the first step to teach you everything. Including qinggong.”

  “Sir, I think I’m ready for the next step.”

  “You are?”

  “I am.”

  “Excellent. Then I’ll teach you the appropriate channels to circulate your qi.”

  “Shit.” Pengfei still could not even feel the qi inside his body, let alone cultivate or circulate it. He was beginning to notice the limitation more and more as he slowly advanced in his martial arts. First, the advanced techniques of the Heaven Shaking Fist, and now the sect’s qinggong techniques were behind a barrier that couldn’t be overcome without qi.

  Chen Rulan seemed to know the disciple’s difficulties. He chuckled to himself at the boy’s sudden reticence. The training concluded, another meal eaten, the elder nodded toward the cliff’s edge. Time to return to the punishment cells were just below.

  Pengfei delayed, “When I learn qinggong, will I be able to hop up and down a cliff like you do?”

  “You don’t need to learn how to clomp around like a billy goat. One of the other elders will teach you ‘Three Twists of the Dragon in the Clouds’ and you’ll be leaping through the air waving a sword around with the rest of the disciples. Now, down you go.”

  The pair walked to the precipice. Pengfei looked over the edge and shuddered.

  “Can I at least have a rope for the climb down?”

  “No.”

  Pengfei knew he needed to return to his cell but thought it would be a little later in the day. It was still just mid-afternoon. But the elder seemed impatient to get back to the main compound.

  “Get climbing. I’ll keep an eye on you from below.” Chen Rulan bounded down the cliff, hopping between two or three little nooks before landing in the large cave opening. Pengfei looked at the rock between them and tried to plan his route.

  Climbing down was immeasurably more difficult than climbing up. He was able to get started on his own, slowly sliding over the edge and onto a first foothold, but after that it was extremely slow going. The view was blocked by Pengfei’s own body. He had to search nervously with his feet for each new perch on the descent with increasingly frustrated advice shouted from Elder Rulan below.

  Pengfei reached out when he was finally even with the cave and Chen Rulan dragged him in by the arm.

  “Make sure you eat again. You’ll need the energy for tomorrow.”

  “Please, let me pretend tomorrow doesn’t exist for a little while.” Pengfei complained, but the elder was already gone, back up the mountain. He took a few steps and laid down on the cold stone floor, not even bothering to go as far as his bedroll, then fell instantly asleep.

  ******************************************************************************

  The sun had set when Pengfei woke up again. He did not bother to light a lamp; he found the urn full of grain balls by what little light there was and promptly washed the taste from his mouth with a ladle of water.

  He sat for several minutes on the ledge, even letting his legs hang over the side. He still dreaded the next climb he would have to make but his recent experiences scaling the mountain face had at least relieved this much fear.

  The moon was rising in the east. He observed its slow arc through the sky and remembered the section of the Zhoubi Suanjing he had read that morning. While man toiled on the earth below there were still mysteries in the heavens above.

  Pengfei considered the strange movements of the moon; how the length of its circuits varied, how it rose and set at constantly staggering times, sometimes disappearing altogether. The sun was no less confusing with its variable noon-time shadows.

  He shrugged off the oddities of nature for now, stood, and moved slowly through the ‘Heaven Shaking Fist’.

  In the solitude of the cell, in the darkness, there were no killers or bullies. He punched the air, not opponents. The practice was divorced from need. He didn’t need to fight for his life, or his pride. Not even for the expectations of the sect’s elders. He punched nothingness. The only metric for failure or success was the martial art itself, how it flowed from his hands in its purity.

  His arms and legs flicked through the air as the stars shone.