Year 663 of the Stable Era,

  Third day of the eleventh month

  Thirty-seven minutes into the Second Inner Hour

  Quite expectedly, the third floor of the Thousand Grain Pavillion’s pagoda was abuzz with activity. Unlike the fourth the demographic it serviced was ever abundant, its noise level a testament to an expert application of sound arrays. Enough of a hubbub to keep the room lively, so that visitors could feel the palpable energy of their companions, but not so much as to create a din that could cause any confusion.

  It was quite tricky to design such an array, as Yeung Lin knew from personal experience. Too weak, and sound would leak out at odd octaves once its capacity was exceeded. Too strong and a crowded room would feel like a tomb, a sensation that he had been informed was quite disconcerting to many, despite the assurance of privacy it created. The array at work here even seemed to be subdivided, as he noticed that the sound around the cultivators clearly in the middle of intense haggling was far quieter than their neighbors.

  He longed to inspect the array to see if he could determine the method for enabling multiple cultivators to adjust so many aspects separately, but…no, he really did need to make sure that he reconvened with Lan Yun soon. He made a quick note to remember to discuss the array with Du Chengyi when they next met up, taking advantage of his penpal’s absence to once again produce his trusty notebook.

  Passing through to the second floor, the throng only increased in density. While the third floor had had a large crowd, the second was positively packed. Eight rows of the long tables were divided into narrow stalls, each staffed by a member of the Thousand Grain Pavillion. Large boards hanging from the rafters displayed precisely penned prices in even rows. As the lower two floors carried common plants, the prices were fixed to prevent needless negotiations from slowing the lines.

  The value of things such as twenty-year ginseng and fire yarrow had long since settled, and the Thousand Grain Pavillion content to remain inflexible in their pricing. Few other sects could offer quality in the same quantity that they did, so it was unlikely that they would suffer a noticeable loss from such an action.

  The crowd parted before Yeung Lin’s guide, his uniform clearly enough of a symbol of rank to convince the surrounding cultivators that they didn’t need to worry about either of the two attempting to take their place in line. Yeung Lin knew that many of them had been waiting hours, most without the benefit of a book for companionship.

  He’d never understood that.

  It was such a waste of time to dedicate oneself solely to the act of standing in place, without making use of the time to follow other pursuits. He could understand those that had come with companions, as they could spend the time discussing cultivation, but those that had come alone?

  It was just such a profound misuse of time. He was glad that more were beginning to ignore the social expectation to stoically stand in place. Propriety was just such a petty thing to waste time over.

  He counted 14 cultivators reading on the third floor and 6…no, 7 cultivators on the first floor, which was 2 more than there had been last year. Surely a sign of progress. One of whom he was surprised to recognize. Quickly, he raised his notebook to prevent them from recognizing him in turn, hands carefully pinching its sides to prevent the notes he’d slid between its pages from falling out.

  Chao Ren didn’t seem to notice him, and neither did Xia Bao, who was busy enthusiastically conversing with his scholarly companion.

  Which was good. Very good, in fact. Yeung Lin was hoping to avoid his disciples for the next week. Too much of an impact might interfere with the delicate path of self-realization and discovery that he had set them on, not to mention the delicate threads of karma that might inform their decision.

  A light touch was key to ensure that he didn’t influence things too far, and the serendipity of his cover colors had already had him questioning his method. He had redone the covers for his paper manuals a few decades ago on the cheap, which is why their covers were as varied as they were. Chao Ren, with his strangely superstitious outlook, had gravitated towards a book with a red cover because of his association of fortune with the color, which meant that his decision to save a few taels had now had a measurable impact on his lesson.

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Was it fate at work, that one of the books he had anticipated tempting his student would be precisely the right color tip the scales on his decision to pick it? Or was it mere coincidence? It was so hard to tell so soon. Perhaps if he had some skill for divination, he might be able to glean the truth, but such arts were far too imprecise for his liking.

  Perhaps it was better to remove that influence on future disciples going forwards, but that would require him to spend more time and money on covers that still had another thirty years in them, and that didn’t seem like a good use of money. And it would probably be closer to attempting to fight fate than simply leaving it as it was. But…

  Yeung Lin’s imminent loop about the circular nature of fulfilling fate by attempting to fight it came to a premature end as Li Jiahao turned towards him, mild concern on his face.

  “Has one of our customers caused some issue for our honored quest?” he asked, lips barely moving as his Sibilant Whisper Technique guided the sound to Yeung Lin’s ears alone.

  “No,” Yeung Lin said, replying in kind. “I merely spotted two of my disciples. I left them with an assignment to contemplate until next we met, so I would rather not shorten that period if I can help it.”

  Li Jiahao nodded. He was too professional to outwardly react, but internally he couldn’t suppress a slight shiver at the smoothness of his charge’s vocal technique. His words barely vibrated as they faded, none of their clarity lost the way the tips of his s’s still did when he used his technique.

  “I see,” Li Jiahao said, glancing over at the two disciples, who were currently sharing a small satchel of jerky. “I will be sure that they will receive the best service that we can offer.” He waved for the attention of a nearby clerk, who nodded at him after they shared a quick conversation through a series of coded gestures.

  The noise arrays aside, vocal techniques were always tricky things to use at a distance. There was always the risk of being overheard by cultivators that practiced more esoteric techniques or physiques depending on the methods said techniques used to convey sound. With such a large crowd from so many schools of cultivation that risk was compounded, which made it a far riskier endeavor than it would otherwise be.

  It could hurt the Thousand Grain Pavillion’s reputation if they were to show overt favoritism. Most likely Yeung Lin’s disciples would receive a slightly higher grade of herb, carefully selected by their clerk rather than blindly taken from a drawer.

  “Your hospitality knows no limit,” Yeung Lin replied with a slight nod. “I will be sure to bring a worthy gift upon my return.” After another moment, he continued. “As to your application of the Sibilant Whisper Technique, a slight focus on tongue motion would help with some of the roughness on certain syllables. Accentuate it like so on the longer sounds, and it will allow you to draw it back more easily on the transitionals like this.”

  Li Jiahao nodded enthusiastically as he tried out the motions that Yeung Lin demonstrated to him, eyes alight as he realized how they smoothed the roughness he had always attributed to his technique’s tricky nature. He hurriedly thanked his benefactor, who simply nodded as he jotted another note in his book before departing from the pagoda with a perfunctory wave.

  In the street the vendors were as awash with dubious deals and questionable curios as always. The Teal Mountain Sect had rather lax regulations on the merchandise that could be offered, having learnt long ago that attempting to enforce stringent regulations was far more trouble than it was worth. It took far too long to rigorously vet and test every item, especially with the volume that some vendors expected to be moving over the course of the month, and that was manpower that was needed for far more important matters.

  Instead, they had consolidated their restrictions into a series of strict rules regarding harmful items. No dangerous or uncertified pills. Certifications required for cultivation resources. Mandatory checks on any talismans or weapons. And an ironclad prohibition on any sort of demonic technique, punishable only by death, regardless of rank or affiliation.

  Classic scams like passing off mediocre techniques as divine methods or the marking up of low-grade goods as high-quality counterparts were simply allowed. It was better that disciples learnt not to trust a merchant’s smile sooner than later, as shielding them from that particular reality would only lead to hardships when they inevitably left the mountain.

  Better for them to practice their evaluation skills now, when they had the support of the sect to help them in case the odd sensation they felt while practicing their new Heavenly Phoenix Physique manual was actually a subtle form of qi deviation.

  But as much as Yeung Lin wanted to see if any of the vendor’s spread blankets had any genuine curiosities mixed in amongst tea-aged tomes and cracked bamboo scrolls, he had to stick to his promise.

  And so, he walked on. Past carpets full of haphazardly piled books. Past the vendor selling fried beef skewers. Past the cultivator from the Great Dessert selling textiles woven from reinforced silk. Past the…

  Wait, actually, he did need more silk, didn’t he? He’d been planning to make a new formation flag for a while now, and the Great Dessert Walkers’ product was known for precisely the quality he was looking for. It was very qi-malleable, which was ideal for handling the variations that his technique required, and…

  Three and a half sticks later Yeung Lin set off again, thanking the ant guai as he passed an owl selling teacups, an ingot display for the Iron Plate Sect, the short disciple from the Edge’s Blade selling his old sword, the…wait, he had also been in need for a bit more Six Streams Silver, hadn’t he. And some more iron, and…no…he needed to go.

  Lan Yun was waiting.

  But…just a small look, to see if it was worth coming back later couldn’t hurt…

  It would only take a moment.

  Reader Q&A Time:

  Now back after a certain forgetful koi, well, forgot to include it last week.

  That's on me! I did a bad there.

  Anyways, on to the question!

  A reader asked: What is the main inspiration for writing this story?

  And, well, that question has quite a bit of an answer to it, as it's a short question with a very long answer.

  As a young koi, I had a lot of expectations on me. Succeed at school, get good grades, be a star athlete, climb that waterfall and become a dragon! The full Chinese mom pressure cooker situation. And at the time, it really sucked. Like a lot. I didn't have that many friends, and so I, like many lonely kids, turned to books.

  A common story there, but a true one. And what was partially escapism eventually turned towards inspiration, as I realized that maybe I might actually want to write something on my own. That I could form a world of imagination and characters that might draw someone else in the same way that the books I had grown up on had, to be that sort of easy companion or mental solace.

  And so when I went to university, I did a double major. I got a practical computer degree, but I also studied English. Which was hell on my sleep schedule, but satisfying as hell to do. I met a lot of interesting people writing (and some dipshits too, because if there's one certainty of this world its that you will inevitably encounter a LOT of people in creative writing classes that aren't quite as observant as they think they are), and it redoubled my drive to write, while also polishing my technical skills.

  I graduated with youthful hope and optimism. Not that I could survive off writing though. No, even I'd seen enough films to know how absurd of a goal that was, so I had a different hope. To get a decent paying tech job, and to write on the side. Submit to some magazines, develop some longer form ideas, and develop a novel once I got a bit more financially stable.

  The problem is, even when you play things smart, shit doesn't work out. Employment's rough, even with the right degrees, and I spend years bouncing around between a lot of really shitty jobs. Some paid decent, some didn't. And while I got a few stories out there in a magazine or two, it was hardly enough to really put a foot in the door. And as the years went on, I just slowly started to submit less and less often. Free time became more of a solace than a time to create, and inevitably, life just sorta squeezed that energy out of me.

  Not the most creative twist by whoever's writing my story, but my note on that's hardly going to change anything!

  But as the years went by, and the period since I'd last picked up a pen grew, the interval between reading never grew. I kept reading, and went through a similar journey I'd gone on in my youth. Part escapism, part routine. Stories and stories and stories. Some dull, some inane, but some interesting, with that spark to them. Which is always the idea that I've found with stories, by the way.

  That no matter how inane, or corporate, or blindly chasey of trends, there's always one or two really strong ideas that stick out of any story. The things that the authors really thought were cool, that they just wanted to share with the world. They're not always good, mind you, but they're things that are of interest. And the pursuit of these sorts of core ideas, or singular sparks lead to a bit of an isekai binge era, where I just kept reading the first 30 chapters of short lived small isekai manga to see what the sparks of those mass-produced genre-chasers were. And sometimes they were interesting, sometimes not. And that binge, after a windy trail of circumstance, led me towards reading a lot of wuxia and xanxia.

  Which, by and large, are sorta not that great. I've always loved Asian fantasy, partially due to my heritage and partially due to the oversaturation of European fantasy within the genre space, and so it was a bit disappointing to read some entries to it. The genre has the roots of greatness, but it's bound by imitation at a lot of turns. So much possibility for cosmic stakes and grand fantastical tales that always seem to strip out the core ideas like the Daoist concept of abandonment of self along the pursuit of enlightenment, or the escalation of numbers and powers that always seem to come back to just sword intent or big golden dragons. But, while it would be easy to say that that was what inspired me to write again, it also actually wasn't.

  Rather, it was an American novel that I read towards the start of my wuxia bend that actually made me do that. I won't say the name, it was not a particularly great story, but it was apparently a bestseller on a big name list. Bright star of Asian Fantasy, the cover said. A visionary inspiration of culture.

  In actuality it was sorta just a myth retelling as a vehicle for a very flat love triangle (that was more of a very flat romance where a second guy just sorta showed up later on and nobody seemed to mind the shift in focus). Alright action sometimes, very vague threat, girl gets the guy in the end. Standard stuff. But the part that really started to bother me, that caused the deviation in my cultivation, was the elements. Because while the author could have used the traditional Wuxing cycle, they instead decided to use their own.

  Which was fire, water, earth, air, and healing. Fucking healing! Healing! And then, not even half a book in, just add lightning as another element that existed, but apparently not a part of the five, which were supposed to be the fundamental forces of the world, mind you! And god, that just fucking pissed me off at the time. And while my temper cooled, it sorta just kept coming up in conversations. A heart demon of my own to combat.

  It was just so beyond lazy. To just slap an extra element onto a set, and not even the Chinese set but the European one! Because the fundamental idea of qi itself is that it embodies what air is supposed to represent. The lifeforce of the world, that flows between all things. It is not an element because it embodies all the elements, and that is one of the key Big Ideas in Asian myth!

  And man, did that bother me. And eventually, after reading a truly flat xanxia, with a flashback to that in my mind, I realized something: GOD!! I could so, SO much better than that stupid fucking book! I should fucking write again!

  And that, of course, after a week of stewing on the idea, eventually turned to the question: Well, what do I write about.

  I'd always been a mixed bag author back in college, as I'd made a conscious effort to change genre with each story I wrote. I wanted to experiment, but that did make me something of a jack of all trades, master of none. And afterwards, well...I sorta just kept doing that. Sometimes sci-fi, sometimes fantasy, sometimes just a mild tinge of the supernatural or spiritual in a close to nonfiction world.

  My first instinct was to just go with urban fantasy, if I'm being honest. A focus on Asian myth dripping between the cracks of the modern day, and how that sort of supernatural world would tinge society with its influence was a fun idea, but I decided not to because

  A) I sorta thought that the genre was a bit oversaturated at the time, and

  B) I sorta just wasn't feeling the vibe on it.

  So I noodled around on it a bit. And then a different inspiration hit me.

  "Hey, web serials are pretty neat. You can tell a winding style of story there, following narrative structures that books don't quite allow for with their hard starts and stops. So you could try that idea you had for that story of a sword being passed around between users over the centuries, told from the sword's perspective."

  And then I noodled on that for a bit, before I realized that that was just me trying to bring out one of my old trunk stories, rather than actually experimenting with a fresh idea (and also that that idea was better suited for a screenplay and a visual medium). And I really wanted to do something new. To not get tied down by the past, and to feel fresh ideas. So I decided to take an inspiration from the xanxias I was reading, and just do that instead.

  It had the bones of Asian fantasy, and I'd always wanted to take a stab at genre play. Taking notes from the source, but not allowing that to control the flow of the narrative, or to let myself fall too deeply into its tropes and trends. Use the broad ideas to inform the world, and then really dive into the ways that that would actually shape the damn thing. See how it touched the sects, the people, the land, and the lives that they live. Explore the concept, rather than just make one-off notes on it before going back to cultivation as usual.

  Which, as it has turned out, is a real fucking tall order! There's a lot of ground to cover, and I feel that in almost 50 chapters I've barely scratched the surface. It hasn't helped that I've realized that I also like the different characters so much. The humanity of the cast has always been a part of a lot of the xanxia genre that has gone underutilized, mostly because the cast tends to serve as somewhat flat foils for the Heaven's Blessed MC-kun to go through like power pills on his quest to punch progressively bigger planets. And it's a damn shame, because those characters are the ones that tend to have the most compelling, human motivations to them (at least 60% of the time, when the writing isn't like super obsessed with just powercreeping its own fights by adding extra 0's to the end of each punch's force).

  To that goal, Tales of the Teal Mountain Sect is a pretty ensemble story, with different characters having their moments to shine. Rather than forgetting the world to focus on a single chosen one, as a lot of cultivation stories tend to do, we're skipping out on a chosen one in favor of letting the rest of the world take the spotlight for once. The story is meant to shine on the cast during the moments that matter in those long lives that cultivators live, and due to part of the rather formative point this has been set for the young generation of the cast, that's rather meant that we've had a lot of stuff together because there are a lot of formative moments at the early stage of their respective journeys. Which has been nice, for parts of the worldbuilding and narrative, but also a bit not-so-nice, for also parts of the worldbuilding and narrative at times lol.

  A bit ambitious, and dangerously prone to drowning itself in its own bloated juices if the characters stop being interesting or the world falls flat to the reader, but nothing great was ever achieved by people not biting off more than they could swallow, amirite?

  And that's really it.

  Part spite, part annoyance, part renewed passion, and part experimentation. That's what got me to pick up the pen again, after all these years.