I sat back down on my chair, my once sore ribs aching just a bit less, progress I suppose. I picked up my notes, opened the Sutra back up and began translating yet again. It was tedious work, the type that tended to grind hours into dust.
I worked and worked, translating away, barely stopping for a sip of water or a slight pause to rest my weary fingers. I worked hard until the shadows of evening crept over the scattered papers on my desk, my fingers aching, eyes burning from the constant strain of…wait, shadows?
I jumped up from my desk and looked out to my window only to realise that night was about to fall. I had been working since morning, endlessly, tirelessly almost and had been none the wiser.
"Huh."
This was strange. I admit I often got caught up in my work but this, this unwavering concentration was…new.
My gaze snapped to the tome, lying on my desk unassuming. The blood absorbing incident comes to the front of my mind. What if…no no surely not. I refuse to believe such a boring technique could have caused this. It was probably just the stress of my current situation.
I pushed the thought away and waddled over to my bed, legs hurting after sitting for so long, lying down and drawing the blankets over myself to fend off the light Mid-Autumn breeze.
"It must just be stress," I assure myself as I try to drift off to sleep.
The next day goes more of the same, I wake up again to the same light, the same stale musty air, the thumps of the guards boots on the flattened dirt of the training ground, work on the Sutra and keep working and keep working, promising myself that I'd take it slower until I blinked and all of a sudden the candle I had next to me started to sputter and die out. Wait, candle? Should the sunlight not be enough for me… IT HAPPENED AGAIN. I snap back to reality, and shove myself away from my desk, trying to distance myself from the tome.
It just lies there, unassuming yet, there's something about it, it feels different. It gives off no aura and I can't feel anything from it like one would a heavenly treasure but. It feels weird.
"Surely this can't be." I mutter
Once is a coincidence but twice? There's something wrong.
I gingerly approach the desk and go over my work so far. I was halfway done? It had taken me only three days to make around what should have been 5 days worth of progress
I try to push the thoughts away yet again, nothing good could come of this, my life wasn't great but it was stable and I was safe, I didn't need this, this uncertainty. I force myself to sleep, trying to empty my mind, cocooning under the covers almost desperately as if I could separate myself from the Sword of Damocles on my desk.
Morning brings about a new day and a new opportunity for humiliation. The ritual continues almost unchanged with the eunuch bringing me my breakfast, taking advantage of the opportunity to deliver a few more snarky remarks after which I continued the translation almost robotically.
Night fell and I once again fell asleep, the next day following the exact same routine and the day after that being more of the aforementioned until instead of evening I snapped out of my haze by mid afternoon. I was done.
"Huh?" I said yet again. I was done?
I went silent, the pages were full. When had I written all this?
I go over the now completed manuscript, cross reference it with the tome, reading words penned by my hand that I had no recollection of and confirm that I indeed was done. 2 days ahead of schedule.
"Impossible."
This can't be. I had been translating texts since I was fourteen, years of experience had dictated that this should have taken me at least eight days yet…I was done in five.
What the hell was I going to do for the next few days? The question rose in me unbidden as I realised that I had a rare moment of respite. Two whole days to myself, truly a rare opportunity.
"I could continue my memoirs." I mutter to myself rubbing my chin. Although that line of thought was soon abandoned after a quick glance to the left at the undisturbed stack of failures in my corner reminded me of my inability to write an original thought.
I think and think and then think a little more but…nothing really comes to mind. What could I even do? "I can't exactly leave the cell." I said with a wry, self depreciating smile. I let my mind and eyes wander around, fluttering from here to there as my gaze finally settled on something objectively interesting. The Sutra.
I pause for a second, the possibilities, the futilities all running through my brain. Why was the Sutra the only thing that came to mind, I was Crippled, probably the only reason why I was even allowed to read the texts because…what the hell would I even do with them? I couldn't cultivate. But the book felt…magnetic, it was pulling me towards it, like it wanted to be read.
Could I? Or better yet, should I even dare to really read it? If caught, the consequences would be dire but unless my uncle came by…would anyone even catch me?
I doubt it.
I struggled with myself a bit more, debating, pulling then pushing against my own common sense. I move my hands towards the cover slowly, hovering over it. The book stayed in place, like books often do, yet I could have sworn that it felt like tendrils were radiating off of it, wrapping around my hand pulling me towards it.
I shoot up from my chair yet again, pacing around my room, almost wearing a ring into the ground with my constant footsteps. I look towards the tome and then look away, almost like the very sight of it could burn me.
I cant, I cant. Or can I?
NO NO
There has to be something wrong with it, it doesn't feel normal, imagine what I could find inside.
I struggled and rationalized and debated and argued with myself just a bit more until finally my curiosity took over and I gingerly opened up the Sutra, the translation unneeded considering that I was the one who translated it in the first place.
I sat down in front of my desk, trying to ignore the clanging of spears from outside my window, probably the guards training again, as I took a deep breath, the cloyingly sweet smell of ink coating my throat, and pulled the tome in front of me.
I open up the cover and try to read the first page. I had translated it previously, but in all honesty, I don't remember anything the Sutra talked about so this attempt technically could be considered a fresh start.
I traced a finger down the page, bringing it to the first line..and the first line was powerful. "Cultivation is a fight against the Heavens."
A shiver ran down my spine as I read that. A fight against the heavens? How is one supposed to even fight against the heavens, this goes against everything I knew, everything I had been taught. I took another deep breath and tried to calm down my racing mind.
"Maybe I'm taking its words out of context, I should read further before judging."
"Cultivation is a fight against the Heavens. To take Heaven's energy into one's own body and turn it into your own truly is an affront to our Malevolent overlord."
I slam the book shut, heart hammering, and jump away, desperate to be distanced from the book.
"This is blasphemous, no, no, no." I muttered to myself as I kept pacing around the room. If anyone found out that I had this, no, even further dared to translate the text I'd be killed. The Heavens created all, nourished all, gave life to all and for such omnipotence and benevolence to be maligned?
I stared at the offending text, slowly lifting a corner up, rereading the first few lines. Sure it was slightly controversial but the ink lines curved ever so elegantly, so smoothly, so perfectly, almost begging to be read once more…..
NO NO ABSOLUTELY NOT NOT HAPPENING.
I slam the book close yet again and keep pacing around my cell.
How on earth did Uncle even manage to get his hands on this? Did he even know? Wasn't this just supposed to be a Martial Arts Technique? To call the Heavens a Malevolent Overlord was blasphemy of the highest order. A chill running through me as beads of sweat inundated my forehead, the implications of what could happen reeling through my mind.
First they would hang me, beat me, chop off the hands I used to write the offending text…enough enough. I slapped myself a few times lightly to banish the thought from my head as I stared once again at the tome.
I no longer saw it as just a book.
This Sutra was a potential death sentence.
I took a deep breath to calm myself down, the stale musty cell air assaulting my lungs. "The Sutra is in another language," I assured myself, "surely no one else can understand it right? And even if they can, I can just claim I didn't know what it was. Yeah that's a good plan."
I couldn't dare to read it, I had to get rid of it immediately, but how. As I thought about all the different ways I could get rid of the book, a sudden realization washed over my mind like a basin of icy water on a cold winter's day.
I slowly stopped pacing and stared at my desk, or rather the translated manuscript in horror. The translated manuscript.
The second someone read the first page, nay the first line, I'd be a dead man walking. I chewed on my fingernails, biting deep enough for a slightly coppery taste to fill my mouth, not that I could notice, the tension occupying my mind, trying to figure a way out of this mess. Even if I could let the tome itself be, the same could NOT be said about the manuscript.
"What do I do?"
I couldn't burn the manuscript, the smoke would alert someone and I couldn't risk throwing the pages away on the off chance Uncle in his paranoia had someone checking my trash before disposing of it. Worst of all, I still had to deliver some sort of finished product in just 2 days or the consequences would be dire, the memory of my last failure causing the long, thin scars on my back to burn with phantom pain.
I couldn't think of a solution.
That was until…
GRRRRRRRRRMPHH
A loud rumble emerged from my belly, informing me of its suboptimally nourished state, giving me a terrible idea at the same time. I could… eat the papers.
I balked at the thought of it. Having made paper and ink in the past from scratch, less than hygienic would be a mild way of putting their manufacturing process and the thought of having to put either in my mouth was enough to make me feel sick.
Nevertheless I'd probably have to bite the bullet and do it anyway, not like the alternative was any better. Before that, however, I probably needed to read the rest of the text to know what I needed to censor or change.
I gathered my courage and opened the tome, reading it slowly and carefully.
"Cultivation is a fight against the Heavens. To take Heaven's energy into one's own body and turn it into your own truly is an affront to our Malevolent overlord.
One must have the strength to endure, the ones above all are indeed patient and everlasting and thus we must too be everlasting and patient.
Thus in the pursuit of power one must plod forward a single step at a time, constant and consistent despite the winds that may blow and waves that may crash onto us. To achieve this, first we must craft a body that can contain the power needed to achieve our goals because indeed a river cannot be contained in a flask."
As I read on further I realised that this wasn't really a Martial technique but more of a Cultivation Art.
Wow
To call Cultivation arts rare would be like calling a Dragon a large lizard. A massive understatement even if slightly accurate. The reason why the Wu Dynasty had managed to keep power for so long, despite being surrounded by power hungry monsters both inside and outside the Empire was solely because they controlled the entire county's supply of quality Cultivation arts. To find one like this was unthinkable, albeit, considering my condition, extremely pointless. It had the greatest treasure in the world right in front of me and yet, frustratingly, was unable to take advantage of it.
I try to ignore the self-deprecating thoughts and finish reading the tome, committing it to memory, making edits on separate sheets of paper, changing anything that could potentially incriminate or offend which really left only one thing to do.
Dispose the tainted pages.
I gather the thin sheaf of the offending material and look at it, my stomach already protesting my activities despite me yet having done anything. I take a deep breath, crumple up one of the sheets and slowly bring it towards my mouth, my hands trembling as I put it inside.
The bitter metallic taste of ink spreads all over my tongue as I try to chew through the tough layers of paper, the fibers absorbing the saliva around them, drying my mouth up, making this already herculean task even more impossible. My molars grind the paper into a thick pulp and I swallow, desperately trying to force the clump down my gullet into my stomach.
I gag, I wheeze and I choke but eventually I manage to finish the 'morsel' off, the process leaving me on all fours, sweat slicking my skin.I look at the rest of the papers in front of me, face turning green in memory of what I just had to endure.
One page gone. A dozen to go.