Wu Ling inhaled the golden smoke of the Impelling Force deeply, drawing as much of it into his lungs as he could hold and then straining further. Staggering to his feet while holding his breath he returned to the painted eighteen-petaled lotus. Slowly, achingly, he traced each petal, allowing it to pull the swirling golden energy through the meridians of his chest, his arms, and hands, all the way to the tips of his elegant fingers. With each wisp of golden smoke that poured from his fingers into the painting, he felt the pain of dormant pathways being forced open, like a crusty, neglected paintbrush flexing to shake off the stiff remnants of paint that stopped it from doing what it was meant to do. In this case, however, the flexing wasn't cracking off dried paint but pieces of his mortality that prevented spiritual energy from flowing through his body!
By the end of the final petal, the lotus had taken on a vibrant sheen, glowing with an inner radiance that bathed the whole of his inner world in soft multicolored light. The process, however, had left him gasping for air and no matter how many times he tried to fill his lungs, he felt no relief from the burning in his chest. "More," he gasped. "I need more!"
Returning to the tea set in the middle of the room he once again opened the container containing golden smoke, the burning feeling of his lungs finally fading as he drew in an even greater portion of the rich, golden energy. Returning next to his calligraphy it felt wrong to simply retrace the words the way he'd done with the painting. Instead, he drew the energy along the meridians of his chest and core before sending it upwards through his parched throat as he spoke each word. Golden smoke followed his musical voice from Artist to Musician, Lover to Dreamer and finally landed on Hero with a force that seemed to pull energy all the way from the heels of his feet through the whole of his body before the last word gained the faint glow that surrounded the other characters on the wall.
Feeling every muscle of his slender body trembling at the effort required for each step, Wu Ling returned again to the center before taking another deep breath of golden smoke and immediately approaching the giant game of chess. Seeing the intricate game, he couldn't help but want to curse himself for having been so ambitious when he set it. Why had he felt compelled to place so many pieces? It would be impossible to hold on to the rich golden energy long enough to retrace every step of the game one move at a time but he couldn't simply move from one stone to the next adjacent one either. The order in which things had been placed mattered!
"You have two selves," a musical feminine voice said from behind him as he faced the chess board. "Stop locking your other self away and let her help you."
For a moment, Wu Ling froze. This was his Inner World! There should be no one here other than him. How could anyone speak to him here? The voice, however, wasn't wrong. He had still been locking away a part of himself and what his chess game needed to proceed quickly was the other player. Closing his eyes it took every bit of his willpower to resist the urge to look behind him for the source of that voice as he instead envisioned the version of himself that had first met with Su Xiang yesterday. Opening his eyes, he found his elegantly dressed feminine self standing next to him, black stones in hand, ready to join him in setting the game he'd originally placed with her in mind. "Together," they said, each reaching out to place their stones, one following the next without interruption.
The game unfolded smoothly and with it, Wu Ling felt his mind growing sharper, brighter, and more nimble as the rich golden energy flowed back and forth between his masculine and feminine selves. The game had become a dance between different methods of thinking and approaching problems, sometimes aggressive and sometimes patient but always true to the person Wu Ling was. Finally, with the game complete, each stone glowing faintly golden, Wu Ling returned to the tea table.
As he approached the tea table, the second version of Wu Ling overlapped with the first, taking the lead as he gathered the last remnants of golden smoke to empower his zither playing. 'Upward to Moon' belonged to the version of him that others called Sister Wu Ling and he wore that feminine guise as he sat before the zither letting the energy flow through him in a rhythm dictated by the music. Finally, as he approached his improvised bridge, he prepared to reassume his masculine appearance to begin 'Sun on the Water' only to find that the last of the golden energy had been spent on the first half of the piece leaving nothing to complete the song with!
Wu Ling clenched his fists until his long painted nails pierced into his palms spilling blood across the zither and shrouding his vision in a red haze. He wasn't done yet! Uncleanching his fists he reached out with a steady hand, forcing the fatigue and exhaustion in his body away from his arms and drawing deeply on the energy of the rest of his body to remain steady enough to pluck out the notes of 'Sun on the Water' as he'd written them on the wall. Paint faded from his nails as he played and the elegant dress shifted into loose robes that displayed a hint of his masculine chest. Long hair spilled over his delicate shoulders as jade combs and hairpins faded from view leaving him unadorned before the music he poured his heart into.
Finally, fingers bloody from his playing, heart beating as though he'd been running for his life, body spasming from the harsh demands he'd placed on it, Wu Ling completed his final piece of music. Still, even as the final note faded from the air, his inner world felt… incomplete. As though he'd come very close to realizing his grand vision but at the last moment, some final piece was missing.
Tea! Arrogantly he'd added an element to his inner world not called for in the cultivation manual and unconnected to the Four Arts because he felt it represented an important part of his world and the manual had spoken in later passages about filling the space of his inner world with all the expressions of his art that he accumulated. Had he gone too far, too soon by including the tea set from the very beginning?
"Wu Ling," the musical feminine voice called again, drawing him out of his downward spiral and pulling his gaze to the painting of the lotus that he'd started his Awakening with. There, painted on the wall alongside the lotus, stood the most stunningly beautiful woman he'd ever seen. Her rainbow-colored robes billowed in an unseen breeze while a multicolored flight of butterflies danced around her like heralds announcing her arrival with their rapid fluttering wings. "Will you accept me as your Master and follow my teachings to forge your path?"
"Im-Immortal Empress Hua Jue?" Wu Ling asked, too stunned by her presence to dismiss the only possibility that made any sense.