They descended.
There was nothing further to say as the curtains of the material world parted before them, and they stepped fully into the Dream of Xiangmen. One moment, they stood by the entrance to the trunk district; the next, they were descending, drifting downward on a crinkled, curled leaf the size of a sailboat.
Sixiang rippled into physicality at her side; arm looped through hers. Their glittering black eyes fixed on the lights and shadows below. And there were many of those. The trunk of Xiangmen manifested under her gaze as something like a swarm of fireflies in a swirling column. A column that engulfed them and stretched in every direction, shifting patches of solidity flitted and flowed between clusters of lights, and far far out at the furthest edges of her vision, she could see the shifting color and chaos of the deep dream-shaped into the texture of bark.
Darkness yawned beneath, a pit in the firmament that could swallow a city, kilometers-long limbs composed of blotchy inky flesh. Their hands were spindly and spiderlike, and where they waved, clasped, touched, the whirling lights flickered shuttered, scattered… or died down to a sickly grey.
Shu Yue gestured, and their leaf spun, floating away on a breeze away from the ponderous swipe of one of those hands, accelerating their descent below.
She might have wondered how these things…. Manifestations of nightmare without a doubt could exist under the blazing light that emanated down from far far beyond sight, had she not spoken with Jia Hong.
"They are not lies. The light does not burn them. Raw power could do what concept could not, but you understand why this is undesirable."
Ling Qi gave a small nod. Even if they were illogical, they were not untrue. If she had been cut open, her fears around… relations seared out like severed limbs being burned shut…
Yes, she understood that the traumas of a whole population could not be ripped out like that. And they would only creep back in without changing the conditions that raised them.
Across the 'ground' numerous nightmare limbs lay, broken, rotting flesh and splintered bone, dead and still. The freshest of themwere sickly and withered in a way she understood viscerally.
Starvation.
"...It can only be a long, grinding battle."
"The Hui understood well, in the beginning, how to build things that lasted. That was the mastery of their matriarch and her descendants. That was what brought down the Mighty Xi, even in their weakness."
"The Hui way, the pure way, was always fascinated by manipulation far beyond the interpersonal. Their fascination was with ideas whose correct cultivation could shape entire generations. Inculcate Correct Action in five generations of mortals and the cultivators who rise from them shall be the crop you seek. Cultivate them in a clan, and create a weapon which will wield itself, unaware of any master's hand.
The image of the Hui is the guileful courtier, the spy, the assassin, the honeyed words spoken in the right ear at the right time to spark chaos and kinstrife. All of these that clan was master of. All of these were true. All of these the Hui produced in great numbers, raised to sovereignty in their Ways.
But the innermost arts, the methods of their Matriarch, the Ways which brought them to the peak of cultivation… They required a patience and mindset that so few of those raised among their halls could grasp."
Shu Yue spoke quietly but with great precision. Each word marching after the next clearly despite the low rasp of their voice and the 'wind' passing by their falling leaf.
"And Xiangmen was the center of their power," Ling Qi said. "Where the people were most open to their... shaping."
"And the place where her grace has had the freest hand in uprooting the countless seeds they sewed," Shu Yue said.
"Whiplashing between uncertainty, not knowing what the rules on any given day will be, rudderless, getting jerked back and forth for generations… I really didn't get it before you made me more solid, didn't have the right foundations to understand it, what a miserable lil pile of cages," Sixiang mused.
"It is here that the Hui made their cauldron to test how they might dissolve the foundations of clan unity, first in fear of precarious rule, then out of habit and inertia, and then at last in malicious fascination," Shu Yue agreed. "Prepare yourself; sinking into the next strata will be stressful."
Ling Qi felt her breath hitch at that plain statement. For Shu Yue to say that… She braced her qi, and cycled it, sixiangs arm tightened around hers. She was Ling Qi. Her name was Ling Qi, and she was born to Ling Qingge in crumbling Tonghou. Thief, spy, diplomat, student of Zeqing, of Huisheng, of Shu Yue. Friend to Bai Meizhen, Cai Renxiang, Gu Xiulan, Li…
It was like being caught out in the open when the clouds split open and dumped pounding, freezing rain upon swiftly mud-choked streets.
Cold, in a way beyond the physical, chokingly dark, as if the lack of light were the pressure of a million, million tons of water.It was a void of warmth that reminded her of the very worst days out in those streets, a lonesome starving child surrounded by eyes of flint.
She threaded her fingers through Sixiang's, focused on the warmth there, the warmth she had in memory, and breathed out. The engulfing darkness groaned and retreated like a thousand whispering papery wings, a swarm of moths forced back from the light they sought to smother. The leaf they had been standing on crumbled to dust. They stood now on a narrow, choking street, more like one of the underworld crevices she had squeezed through on that expedition long ago.
In the distance someone, something screamed. A faint oily dripping emanated, and the bark under her feet squished, coated in unidentifiable muck. It stank. It was a familiar and unwelcome stink. Unwashed bodies, fear sweat and worse. The scent of humans living huddled close together in privation and fear.
But really, that was the least awful thing.
Sixiang let out a rattling breath squeezing their eyes shut, the black and white strands in their hair swallowed up the color surrounding them, briefly painting their shimmering hair in monochrome. "So much scratching away, wanting in."
Whispers, hundred, thousands of whispering voices, the miserable echoes of thought and broken nightmares, clawing at the integrity of her mind. It-they- wanted in wanted to pour themselves into her skin, hollow her out, walk out, escape, wearing her face.
The whispering demons and nightmares who had taught a woman how to parasitize her victims flesh were gathered here like swarming scavenger flies.
"...But they're not even that. They don't even rise to being your kin. Its nothing so coherent as that."
Sixiang smiled, cracked open an eye, the facetting black of it glittered, their smile was more of a grimace. "...I won't say this place doesn't birth plenty of cousins, in its time, but yeah. You've got the eyes to see. They're just shreds and echoes, unformed malice."
"There are no individuals here, those flee from me. I am a greater predator than they could hope to be," Shu Yue said, quietly.
They were still mostly human, they towered, their back bent at an odd angle. Their hair fluttered in an unseen wind, wet and liquid, like dark blood.
"Down in the dark, where the least and most uncared for of their subjects dwelled, the Hui sought their perfection. This was the 'mud' from which the lotus would bloom. Here they sought to dissect the hearts of men, and find how they could be made both less and more."
Ling Qi was silent as their teacher began to walk, following the trailing hem of their gown. "I can… almost understand the chain of thought. The Dreaming Way, the Pure Way of the Hui… To understand and categorize, that was… probably the point, wasn't it. To find how people could be made to detach from the 'dream' of life."
"I am no practitioner of these things, but it seems possible, even likely. That was at least the professed purpose the clan," Shu Yue said clinically. Finally, from the winding crevice like street, they emerged into something like a plaza, cramped and tight in still, twisted buildings loomed up, twisted and jagged in the dark.
Those awful gray hands pressed and slithered on limbs like snakes, pawing, pawing at every shutter and door.
There were lights inside, warm lights, bright even, visible through tainted and frosted glass. "Is the imagery I see something drawn from you or I?" Ling Qi wondered."I understand that when I'm… carrying someone what they see is what I see. Is it the same when you walk together?"
"It will always be more similar than not, what you perceive together with another walker. There are differences… I could enforce my vision upon yours in total. But perceptions are fluid. Something to keep in mind should you ever battle a peer dreamwalker in this realm."
Ling Qi nodded slowly. "Where do we begin then? What… methods do you intend for me to study?"
Shu Yue turned their head, with the faint sound of grinding bone. "You have looked a little into the Dreaming Way, spoken of its details in passing. What are the three things which poison mens souls, which bind them to suffering?"
Ling Qi shared a look with Sixiang. "The first state that poisons the soul is greed, best understood as desire and want… I don't know that I agree with the things I have heard looking into this. I think many of the things placed under the banner of want are the things which give life meaning at all."
"Well that's the catch isn't it," Sixiang chuckled. "There's not supposed to be, under a certain kind of thinking. The second is hatred, coming up from the anger and resentment that arises from perceived hurts. That'd be the one you showed us in that vase I guess."
Ling Qi nodded quietly. Yes, that one she had not understood as well as could… and she was not too happy for the lesson, even if it was needed.
"The last of the three is ignorance, this I understand better. In not fully knowing the world around you, you must by definition make errors in judgement that you would not if you knew everything," Ling Qi said. "Thou that might just be my interpretation. As you say, I have only spoken in passing and studied these things as an outsider reading into idle speech from my letters and companions."
"Very good," Shu Yue said simply. "These three things are three 'disciplines' of the lower Hui arts, those wielded in the roots and by the outer clan. So I will ask you simply, which is the blade you wish to wield?"
Ling Qi looked around at the shadowy homes, the pawing nightmare hands, let the scratching whispers of malice slide over her.
[ ] Ignorance and Delusion [Align offensive technique to Communication and Isolation]
[ ] Hatred and Aversion [Align Offensive technique to Communication and Community]
[ ] Greed and Desire [Align offensive technique to Communication and Want]
