Four young people left the village practice field by the back gate, two youths who were nearly young men and two girls who were almost young women. All four were good-looking, with a rosy glow of perspiration from their mandatory dawn training in the martial arts led by the local militia commander. In the bloom of youth, wearing their training clothes of tunic and trousers of undyed linen, they presented a charming appearance. The sun had just risen, its first light washing the village houses golden, and birds sang out joyously from the spring fields and green mountains.

Despite the harmonious scene, all four were somber. The smaller youth, Lin Bingzhao, was the least somber of the group, though he kept his expression calm out of consideration for the others.

The four walked silently along the lane that marked the village’s southern border, running between the back walls of houses and the fields. It was their habit to stop at the south well after training, to drink and wash their faces, before splitting up for home—for the Lin siblings lived beside the well, while the Song siblings were two houses down.

On this day, Lin Bingzhao insisted on drawing the water and refreshing himself last. This was proper in the case of his friend, Song Hui, who was a year older and so his senior, but not for their younger sisters, Lin Bingli and Song Su.

Su hesitated a moment and lightly blushed, but Bingli hmph’d and raised her nose in the air.

“If that’s the case, don’t blame me for being impolite, ” she said as she reached for the bucket. At her friend’s shocked look, Bingli smiled impishly, showing that she was merely teasing.

“Ah! How can you do that?” Su said, swatting her friend on the shoulder without any inner strength. The two girls had been born two weeks and two houses apart, and were naturally best friends.

“Easy, ” Bingli replied calmly, “I just treat my brother as a friend.”

Su sighed in her heart, but shook her head and accepted the bucket from Bingli.

Hui looked at Bingzhao and said seriously, “Older brothers should guide their younger siblings—why do you let her get away with this?”

Bingzhao shrugged unconcerned. “She knows her place when it matters. She won’t let the family lose face.” For indeed, Bingli teased him this way only when they were alone or with the Song siblings.

In the face of his junior’s placid stubbornness, Hui could only shake his head, just like his sister.

“But soon big brother—” Bingli began, then broke off as she realized her mistake. The faces of both Hui and Su fell at the reminder: Bingzhao was leaving them, likely soon.

A few days ago, after years of diligently cultivating the martial arts in every spare moment, Bingzhao had at the age of 16 broken through from the Qi Sensing realm to the Condensation realm, the first of the quartet to do so. Qi Sensing cultivators can, as the name suggests, perceive that mysterious energy called qi [pronounced /chee/], both within themselves and in the outside world, and use it to amplify their strength. Bingzhao had opened the hidden organ of his dantian [located halfway between one’s navel and crotch], so it could gather qi and store it for later use. Being no longer reliant on the qi naturally present in the world around him, his strength and speed had grown explosively, even with having condensed just a few drops of qi. This was merely the first step on the long path of cultivation, but he had taken that step and become a true cultivator—one who required training that their humble village, lacking a cultivation master, could not provide.

Most village youths who entered the Condensation realm before they turned 20 were sent into the army for cultivation training, while young women who did the same usually joined one of the nearby sects instead. The army or a sect were among the few acceptable ways young people could leave the confines of the village for the greater world.

While Bingzhao was competent with sword and spear, his true heart lay in fighting empty-handed—the way of tai chi. If family honor required it, Bingzhao would submit and join the army, but it would suit his talents better to cultivate under the tutelage of an independent Daoist, such as those living in seclusion in the mountains nearby. It was his good fortune that his father, the village scribe and assistant headman, recognized this and begged a favor from Old Man Liu, the village martial arts trainer, requesting his assistance in this matter.

This morning, before training, Old Man Liu had granted this favor, agreeing to send a message to two or three nearby Daoists of his acquaintance, asking whether any would take Bingzhao on as a disciple.

“One or two of them owe me a favor, ” Old Man Liu had declared before the assembled young villagers. “I’m sure they will be open to testing a promising youth such as yourself.”

This had been the best possible news, as far as Bingzhao was concerned, and he’d expressed his gratitude by bowing low to Old Man Liu three times.

To the others, however, this announcement merely confirmed that soon he would depart, leaving them behind. Until they broke through into the Condensation realm themselves, they had no ability to follow him.

Hui sighed. A strapping youth, he cultivated just as diligently as his smaller and younger friend, but between laboring in his father’s carpentry shop and what he saw as his own lack of ability, he had been stuck at the top of the Qi Sensing realm for over a year. Moreover, in just a few months, when he turned 18, his mandatory martial-arts training would be complete, after which his father would require him to give up cultivation to work for the family business—unless he entered the Condensation realm first.

Bingzhao patted his larger friend on the shoulder. “You can do it—I’m certain of it, ” he reassured Hui.

“Yes!” Su immediately agreed. She adored her older brother and would do anything to see him succeed at cultivation—and not just because of her own ambitions along that path. “You just need a fortuitous encounter and you will break through, I just know it.”

Hui nodded slowly, looking at her, then seemed to come to a decision. He turned to Bingzhao and said seriously, “You are my junior in age but my senior in cultivation. Please guide this junior and show me again how to circulate qi within my body and so open my dantian.” Hui held his hands in front of his body, right fist cupped in his other hand, and bowed to Bingzhao—saluting him in the manner of martial artists.

After a startled moment, Bingzhao returned the salute. “Of course, my friend—any time.”

“How about now?”

Su made a soft noise of surprise. Both Songs were supposed to begin working in the shop right after training. “What about Father?”

Hui smiled at her. “Don’t worry—I’ll take full responsibility for being late.” Such was the understanding between siblings that she heard what he left unsaid, that this was too important to him.

Bingzhao finally answered his question, “Sure—where?”

Without speaking a word, Hui led the others toward his house, to the building at the back of the compound where woods were seasoned and stored. With the door closed it was dim inside, but the gap between the walls and roof that let air circulate also let in enough light to see. Lumber from various trees lay piled on racks that covered the two long walls from floor to ceiling, scenting the air faintly of cedar and sandalwood.

Bingzhao stood in a horse stance [feet apart, knees slightly bent] in the open center, facing Hui. “This is what I was doing when I made my breakthrough. Circulate qi through your heart aperture, so you can sense the paths of my circulation.”

Hui did as instructed, and sensed qi moving through the six meridians and seven apertures of his friend’s body, passing through the dantian as it did so. However true understanding eluded him. It was just as obscure as the words of the basic cultivation method Old Man Liu had taught them—as bad as the paradoxes of a Daoist priest or parables of a Buddhist monk.

To the side, Su and Bingli watched as well, obtaining their own hazy insights.

After Bingzhao circulated for seven or eight cycles, Hui threw up his hands. “I just don’t get it!”

“Without patience, of course you won’t!” Bingli said with her own impatience. Su drew in her breath at her friend’s impertinence, but their older brothers ignored it.

Bingzhao shook his head. “Okay, let’s try something else. Look, stand in front of me, facing the same way. Good—now circulate your qi as usual, and I’ll do the same.”

The two stood, back to front, less than a foot apart, cultivating together. Their positions appeared faintly scandalous to Su, but Bingli watched avidly. Su realized her friend was circulating qi in the same way as their brothers, and quickly did the same.

After a short while, Bingzhao said softly, in almost a whisper, “Now we are circulating in synchrony. Do you feel it?”

“Yes, ” Hui whispered back.

“Now—do as I do.” And with that, Bingzhao slightly altered the path of circulation so qi passed through his dantian before returning to the rest of his body. It was a subtle change, as the six meridians all passed near the dantian, but a profound one.

Hui felt the path in his friend’s body, and following this guidance, he altered his own circulation, and then—

Bang!

The others felt it as a wave of power rippling out from his lower belly. Hui’s dantian opened and qi now circulated through it. He had broken through to the Condensation realm.

No one moved, however. They knew it was vital after a breakthrough to stabilize one’s condition. Only with a strong foundation can a cultivator advance without suffering from qi deviation. Hui and Bingzhao continued to circulate qi through their dantians, and their sisters circulated as well, each in her own way obtaining insights into her own cultivation.

After about the time needed to burn half an incense stick, Hui finally stood up straight and let out a deep breath as a stream of pure air.

Hu!

Only then did Su clap her hands. “Congratulations, big brother!”

Almost as warmly, Bingli added, “Congratulations, senior!”

Hui nodded at the two girls, but his smile was uneasy and revealed complicated feelings. His joy at finally breaking through and becoming a true cultivator was real, of course, overlapping with gladness that he would be able to leave the village with his friend. The profound sensations that came with the new pathways opened within his body were also there. But above all, to his mind, were the awkward feelings that wanted privacy so he could settle his composure.

Feelings his friend Bingzhao directly sensed, having been linked, and their little sisters could see for themselves—for his loose linen trousers did nothing to hide his arousal.

To put it plainly, his member stood up proudly, tenting the undyed fabric.

The method that Bingzhao had stumbled upon for showing Hui how to circulate was similar to those used by couples when performing dual cultivation. Not close enough for it to be scandalous for two men or two women to perform it—though if a cultivator from a righteous sect that put an emphasis on purity had witnessed it, he or she would have condemned the youths. Of course, such cultivators also condemn dual cultivation as a deviant practice inconsistent with Confucian principles, even though most other martial artists recognize it as an orthodox if unusual practice. The main point, though, is that being close to dual cultivation, the method gave the friends the same arousal that dual-cultivating couples create in each other.

In other words, both Bingzhao and Hui had proud members, but with Hui in front and the center of attention, the girls noticed only his.

Because Su held her older brother in proper esteem, she gave her brother’s condition no notice, not wanting to embarrass him. Bingli, however, had no such restraint. Furthermore, she had desires of her own.

The two girls had confided in each other many times, as best friends do, telling each other their hopes and dreams. For both of them, these included thoughts and feelings about the other’s older brother. Both had speculated on the possibility of Bingli being kissed by Hui or of Su being kissed by Bingzhao—kissed, and possibly more. Raised in a farming village, they understood matters of men and women, as far as the basics, but being still a couple months away from their 15th birthdays, when they would come of age and have their hair pinned up the way a young woman wears it, they were officially too young to have any practical experience. Thus they’d kept their desires hidden from others.

But their desires were there—and when the forthright Bingli saw Hui’s condition, she stepped forward. With a provocative smile, she said, “Senior, let me help you with that.”

And with those words, she placed her hand on the bulge of Hui’s member.

Hui froze, torn between impulses—and when she squeezed lightly, he groaned.

For just as the two girls had confided in each other, their older brothers had also discussed each other’s younger sister, each admitting their admiration for Bingli’s beauty and Su’s charm. They had speculated about the chances, once the girls officially became young women of marriageable age, that their fathers would send the village matchmaker to the other’s family. It was pure speculation, as while the gulf between a minor scholar and a carpenter is not huge, it is real, and moreover with both nearing breakthroughs in their cultivation, their futures were uncertain.

But their desires were there—and when Bingli stepped forward, the horny Hui didn’t stop her. And when he felt a hand where no hand but his own had been before, he wanted more.