For We Are Human Under Heaven
Within the Wudang Sect, the weight of ritual was immense.
The Central Plains of the martial world teemed with Daoist temples. Those temples gathered into schools, and more than a few of those schools had risen to stand as great sects of the jianghu. Among them, none disputed that the Wudang Sect was a righteous house acknowledged by every figure of note in the martial world.
Whether it could truly call itself the foremost Daoist school, however, was an entirely different question.
Countless schools proclaimed themselves the orthodox current of the jianghu. The Kongtong Sect, the Qingcheng Sect, the Kunlun Sect, the Mount Hua Sect, the Jongnam Sect—so many renowned houses styled themselves the heart of Central Plains Daoist learning. And so Wudang, too, could never abandon the Dao. However they might live by the sword and speak of chivalry in the martial world, they understood the principle well: lose the root, and the branches wither, the flowers fade, and no fruit will ever come.
Within Wudang, the Six Harmonies Palace—charged solely with overseeing Daoist learning and ritual—was, in name at least, the sect's foremost institution. Daoist Hyeonjeong, Geumgak—the Sect Leader's personal disciple and a scholar of the Dao—had taken the office of Palace Lord in the Sect Leader's stead, carrying on the lineage of Wudang's Daoist tradition.
The Six Harmonies Palace was a dwelling for true Daoists alone, men who sat in quiet meditation, studied the scriptures, and honed their understanding. A place of stillness, where nothing could be heard but the clear recitation of Daoist texts—until, all at once, it grew noisy.
"What's going on?"
"They're preparing a ritual, apparently."
"What kind of ritual? The celestial timing hasn't shifted. There's no particular reason to hold one, is there?"
"The Sect Leader has suffered a grave blow, and Wudang stands in dire crisis. Surely it's a rite to report this to Heaven."
"The preparations seem a bit much for that kind of rite..."
The Daoists murmured among themselves.
"I hear it's a ritual offered to Taesangnogun?"
"What? That can't be. The celestial cycles aren't aligned."
"You know. That man they say is the master of the Namgung Clan's young lord."
"What about him?"
"They're saying he's the one who requested the ritual."
The Daoists frowned.
It was not unheard of for an outsider to enter the Wudang Sect and request a ritual. In a world where people would wear their hands raw pressing coins into the local fortune-teller's palm over a simple illness, of course there were wealthy houses and great sects that, when something arose, wished to hold a grand rite—to pray for blessing and keep misfortune at bay.
But it was never a simple process.
"They should have at least given us advance notice so we could examine the celestial cycles and the stars!"
"And it's at the request of a single man, no less!"
"This so-called Great Sage, Equal to Heaven is just another martial artist in the end. What kind of absurdity is this!"
The Daoists rose in a restless clamor. An elderly Daoist calmed them with a measured voice.
"He's hardly an ordinary outsider. That this Great Sage inherited a lineage of Patriarch Jang Sambong is something the Wudang elders have tacitly acknowledged."
"Ahem. That may be so, but..."
"Still, he hardly looked well-versed in the Daoist arts."
"The Butterfly Immortal has given his assent, and Daoist Hyeonjeong made the decision himself. Let us all take part in the ritual quietly."
"Hmph."
The Daoists slowly closed their mouths. Daoist Hyeonjeong—Geumgak—was still quite young, but where brightness in the Dao was concerned, age hardly mattered.
"If one who has attained enlightenment has decided, well... we have no choice but to follow."
He was already recognized as one who had attained enlightenment in the Dao. The Daoists of the Six Harmonies Palace were men who had withdrawn from the martial world and gathered solely for the sake of cultivation. True Daoists, in the genuine sense of the word. And so the height or lowness of age held no weight in their decisions. The sole measure by which the gravity of an opinion was judged was brightness in the Dao—and that alone. Everyone acknowledged Geumgak's brilliance in Daoist learning, and so they followed his will.
Not everyone, of course, was nodding along.
"That's exactly why I can't understand it!"
One Daoist, unusually fierce in his opposition, kept throwing up obstacles.
That man...
The Daoists frowned. Until Geumgak had been suddenly chosen as the Sect Leader's personal disciple and come to Wudang, this man had been the Deputy Palace Lord, managing every practical affair of the Six Harmonies Palace. Before Geumgak's appearance, he had been the one who presided over rituals in the Sect Leader's stead.
"What is it you find so hard to understand?"
"I know full well that Daoist Hyeonjeong's enlightenment in the Dao is brighter than light itself. But even the Wudang disciples of today—who have no heart for the Dao and live drunk on martial study alone—know how vital the celestial cycles and the alignment of the stars are to a ritual! Look at the sky as it stands. A ritual is communion with Heaven!"
The Deputy Palace Lord launched into a full oration. The Daoists who had gathered nodded, one after another.
"Heaven does not welcome this rite, and yet they would hold one all of a sudden!"
"Did the Butterfly Immortal not convey the Great Sage's wishes himself? There must be sufficient reason."
"Hah. I know well how illustrious the Butterfly Immortal is. But he left Mount Wudang to wander the world. He is an outsider, strictly speaking—and yet you open your ears and listen to his words, while you will not hear me, the Deputy Palace Lord? When a ritual is being decided, I am to have no say?"
The Deputy Palace Lord held forth with eyes that burned. The Daoists smiled bitterly.
He's just sore they didn't go through him.
In truth, the celestial cycles and the alignment of the stars were all important matters. A ritual's meaning shone all the brighter when the heavenly timing fell into place.
But there is no absolute need to match the celestial timing.
Depending on the gravity of the affair, the Six Harmonies Palace could, by its own judgment, offer up a rite.
If they'd discussed it with the Deputy Palace Lord first, he would have found some way to oppose it anyway.
Was he not a man who looked down on Geumgak's youth even as he envied a brightness in the Dao far greater than his own?
The problem was that the Deputy Palace Lord's words did, in fact, have a point. Around him, more and more Daoists began to nod as if in agreement. The elderly Daoist who followed Geumgak grew increasingly uncomfortable.
This is the first ritual Daoist Hyeonjeong will preside over himself...
If this ceremony proceeded without incident, no one would any longer be able to deny that Daoist Hyeonjeong, Geumgak, was the Lord of the Six Harmonies Palace. The Deputy Palace Lord surely knew that, and that was why he opposed it so thoroughly.
How wretched. Even this Six Harmonies Palace, which ought to set its heart on the Dao alone, cannot escape the greed and power of the mundane world.
The Daoist sighed.
As silence settled, the Deputy Palace Lord seemed to take heart, and he raised his voice again and again.
"Fine. Let us say this Great Sage truly inherited a lineage of Patriarch Jang Sambong. And so? What of it? By what right does he mobilize Wudang's illustrious Daoists whenever he pleases, and hold a ritual on Wudang's fortune?"
The Deputy Palace Lord was cunning. He drew a careful line between his side and theirs. He made Sun Wukong an outsider, thoroughly and completely.
Unless a person lived in total isolation, they always formed social bonds. Inevitably they belonged somewhere, and they felt that belonging keenly—all the more so in a place like Wudang, with its vast prestige, its fame, its history. To those who carried that sense of belonging, a "strange outsider" who had suddenly appeared claiming a lineage of Jang Sambong was an unwelcome element. The Deputy Palace Lord drove into that point with ferocious precision.
"And so Daoist Hyeonjeong's decision to hold a ritual with Wudang's fortune and Wudang's authority, at the request of a single man—it is awkward to say, but I wish to declare, with all severity, that it is wrong!"
The Deputy Palace Lord had a genuine gift for leading people. One might almost wonder whether it was his talent for oratory and agitation that had raised him to the deputy's seat. Here and there, cries of "He's right!" and "Well said!" burst out in answer to his words.
In the instant the once-still Six Harmonies Palace burned hot—
A low voice poured cold water over it all.
A quiet, unhurried murmur. He had not even raised his voice. He had merely spoken, as if in a whisper. And yet everyone heard it. Dozens of Daoists turned their heads as one, as though they had rehearsed it.
There stood Geumgak, slight of frame, his face pale as snow. And behind him, a dark-browed man who seemed wrapped in a halo of gold, so vivid the eye could almost believe it.
A brief silence drifted through the air. It was Sun Wukong's voice that broke it.
"What's everyone standing around for when there's a ritual to hold? Is the food even ready? The dancing? The music?"
Sun Wukong frowned. Every Daoist his displeased gaze touched flinched and trembled.
"You are the Great Sage, Equal to Heaven?"
"Teacher Sun, the Great Sage, Equal to Heaven, at your service."
"I am the Deputy Palace Lord of the Six Harmonies Palace. I see no grounds on which this ritual must be held."
"Grounds?"
"There are many reasons. First—Sun Wukong, Great Sage, Equal to Heaven. You are an outsider. When an outsider requests a ritual, it cannot be done in this slapdash fashion."
"That is not so, Deputy Palace Lord."
It was Geumgak who cut in. His voice was quiet, but it carried a resonance. The mysterious light that lived in his eyes was something even the elders of the Wudang Sect found difficult to meet.
"Teacher Sun has inherited a lineage of Patriarch Jang Sambong. This is a truth acknowledged by the Wudang elders, and by True Immortal Hocheong, one of the Three Pure Ones!"
"...!"
"Good heavens!"
Geumgak himself had confirmed Sun Wukong's standing. The inheritor of another, forgotten lineage of the Wudang Sect. Within Wudang, Sun Wukong's prestige and authority now stood in a place that could not be treated lightly.
The Deputy Palace Lord frowned.
"Even so, he has not taken a place on Wudang's rolls. He is a man of the Namgung Clan now, is he not? That makes him an outsider, strictly speaking."
"Hold on."
Sun Wukong flicked his hand. In that instant the Deputy Palace Lord's words caught in his throat. A gesture that severed the pulse of his breath. The Deputy Palace Lord, a Daoist who had not accumulated so much as a speck of inner energy, could only suffer it helplessly. With a single simple motion, the speech was cut short, and silence settled over the gathering.
Sun Wukong narrowed his eyes.
"Is there a rule that an outsider cannot request a ritual?"
"That is..."
"There isn't, is there? And besides, I don't even know what your standard for an 'outsider' is supposed to be."
"...?"
"Every human being lives as a companion to the ten thousand things of nature. For a mere man to divide outsider from his own side—what kind of worldly statute is that?"
"...!"
In that moment, several Daoists' eyes flew wide.
Sun Wukong did not unfurl a grand oration the way the Deputy Palace Lord had. He merely spoke, low and even. And yet the words drove into the ear with a clarity the Deputy Palace Lord's rhetoric could not begin to match. They sank so deep it was as if letters were being carved into the mind itself.
"And yet you lot think the Dao is yours alone, and you try to keep it for yourselves."
It was a rebuke. He had not raised his voice, had not laced it with feeling, had not so much as glared—and still it was a rebuke, thorough and cutting. Several Daoists, shame flickering across their faces, slowly stepped aside.
Not everyone, however.
The Deputy Palace Lord had always been, unfittingly for the Six Harmonies Palace, a worldly man. A man who knew how to build a faction and wield political rhetoric. Quite a few Daoists stood on his side.
"W-well, yes. Fine. An outsider can hold a ritual. I concede that."
"Well? Then move."
Sun Wukong answered as if the whole thing irritated him. His hand drifted, almost idly, along the steel staff slung across his back—a motion that, regrettably, never registered in the eyes of a Deputy Palace Lord who had not learned so much as a scrap of martial arts.
"There is one more decisive reason!"
Sun Wukong let out a short sigh.
Ah, for crying out loud. Should I just cave his skull in with the staff?
He jerked his chin. Go on, then. At that insolent manner the Deputy Palace Lord's eyebrows shot upward.
"Look at the sky! The celestial timing is warped, the stars are out of alignment, and Heaven's course itself is different. This means Heaven has not finished its preparations. Even if you hold the ritual, the meaning will not get through!"
That much, at least, was a clear argument. Even the Daoists who had shuffled aside under Sun Wukong's cutting rebuke a moment before now glanced around, cautious. With a reason that plain, what words could possibly deny it?
Sun Wukong was silent for a moment. He closed both eyes. His lips moved, so faintly it seemed he might be saying something without sound.
He's not wrong. There's no real argument against that.
Forcing a ritual when the celestial timing is off is certainly...
Watching Sun Wukong stand there speechless, the Deputy Palace Lord inwardly crowed. His face was triumphant as he addressed him.
"And so I shall examine the celestial timing myself and tell you when the hour has come. Let us hold the ritual then. I will preside over it personally."
That, in the end, had been his aim all along.
Sun Wukong spoke up, abrupt as a stone dropped in still water.
"Just had a little chat with Heaven. Laid everything out."
"...What did you say?"
The tone was so offhand that the Daoists fell silent. How long that stillness lasted, no one could have said. The Deputy Palace Lord decided he was being mocked, and his face flushed red. He opened his mouth to roar—
And then a cry like a scream tore through the gathering.
"The sky—look at the sky! Everyone, look at the sky!"
Someone pointed a finger upward. The Deputy Palace Lord tipped his head back before he knew what he was doing. In that instant, his face went white as paper.
The heavens...