Chapter 9
Work, Honor; Obedience, Strength
Cao Long had been working from sunrise, barely stopping to eat in between. Everyone in the city did it, even the ones who did not channel. Some did it out of belief in the communist ideal of the hard-working man; others just worked because everyone else did. Some wanted the power that magic brought, most just did it because of the glorious feeling you had when the power filled your entire existence. You were more alive; everything became as clear as if it was only two hands away. Every single brick, leaf, thread of clothing, even the single grains of sand. Cao could not deny the feeling of the power, but his main motivation was shame. He felt guilty for the death of the assembly-line foreman, for escaping from his just punishment. He wanted to work his guilt away, use the power for good, and maybe even enough to pay for his crime.
Of course that was not to be. He was one of the strongest channelers in the city. He felt he had so much to learn, but everyone had, and instead of being allowed to work on removing his guilt, he was forced to train less powerful or skilled ones. And while he did make discoveries, wonderful discoveries, it was as if everything he made could best be applied to destroy things. That seemed to be something the women did, which brought him even more shame.
Ming Li had come to see him during dinner today. He could not remeber what she had talked about, or what he had said. Had he said anything, he wondered. He couldn't remeber. All he could think about was what he thought his pupils; death, destruction, fire. He had talked about this with another one of the "masters" once. The reply had been laughter, and an answer that at worst he would sooner or later become so used to it that it would simply grow on him.
The current pupil was a pleasing one at least. While the man prepared to channel, he gave Cao a lot of time to think. The man was not a particularly strong channeler, nor did he learn fast. But his joy, his relaxed attitude of life was what made teaching him such a joy, even though the others would have said that he wasted his precious knowledge and time teaching the man such simple things.
Currently the man was trying to warm his rice-meal using the power. He was not particularly successful, warming only the outermost layer of rice to any degree. But the man seemed to break into a burst of joy for every single new centimeter of warmth that he managed to make warm, where others would have broken down and cried for him to forgive him for their weakness.
"No no, you are only focusing on warming the uppermost layer. Remember, that the cup and rice are no more a hindrance than the air around them to the power. Why don't you try and warm it from the inside and out," Cao corrected the man, speaking gently, but without the hidden arrogance of many of the other masters who had seen too many movies holding an arrogant, know-it-all old master who seemed to always know what was best, and never accepting the though of another or new way to do things.
"Yes, I had forgotten that. Besides, if I get the middle warm the heat rise up towards the uppermost rice anyway, giving me good warm rice anyway." the man replied, then continued to warm up the food from the inside, being quite allot more successful. Soon thereafter he rose up and left, happily eating his meal as he walked down the road towards the newly built barracks somewhere to the south.
Cao was not allowed to stay long in his thoughts, as the next man in line for training was already coming to see him. Walking self-assuredly and proudly, with a sense of humor that based itself on an expression of superiority so exaggerated that no one could help but to laugh at it; or at least so according to himself. Cao Long hated the man with a passion.
"Yo, what's up with you today?" the man came to Cao long with his seemingly permanent smile on his face.
"Yo...?" Cao said, turning his head up and trying to put on his best appearance of a disinterested face. He hoped the man would one day come to his senses and stop with his childish plays and jokes.
"Yoyo. Anyway, do you have any new cool ways for me to kill things today. Personally, I was thinking about a razor-thin blade of air. Since the blade would be so thin and narrow, one could cut trough hundreds of men with a single stroke." the man spoke, apparently slightly giggling at the prospect of cutting a few hundred men into two pieces. Cao could bet his left hand on that the man had never even killed an animal, much less a human, like he had. The man was nonetheless fascinated with physical violence, and Cao decided to only answer with the word cool, spoken as if it was a question. The man did not notice the question mark behind the word.
"Yes, that's what I think too, cool. But then I started thinking, that this is the age of the assault-rifle. Men don't walk in a single line anymore, and even if all the enemies were of the same height, allowing me to bypass any splinter-armor, the ground is most likely less than flat. But couldn't it be used on single enemies?" the man spoke, more or less as if he had thought out this entire conversation beforehand and the only role Cao had in it was to reply according to his wishes, making him look like a great inventor who took all things into consideration.
Sighing deeply and correcting his sitting position, Cao began: First of all, why do you bother me by recounting this conversation that you had with yourself? Secondly, we do have libraries, where all the basic weaves or rather the ideas behind them are written. Ask twenty men what their first idea for a weave was, and at least of them will describe the weave you just spoke off. Oh, and please stop with all those European words, they make my ears ache. Cao was just about ready to shout. Only minutes before he had been deep in his thoughts, and sharing the enjoyment of succeeding in something for the first time. Then the other man had come to do his best to ruin the day.
For almost half a hour the man continued his monologue with Cao. Even though he had to admit that the man had a quite wild imagination and was very able to come up with something new to say, the subjects that he brought up were nearly always idiotic and pointless. Finally a quard noticed Caos troublesome face and came to escort the man away. Cao continued to give lessons on matters that he found of no real importance or joy for the rest of the day, until finally the sun went down and he proceeded to move towards the barracks.
Of course it was that time of year when the leaves were all but gone and some places had reported snow already. While Cao found no better to do than going to sleep, that was not the case for the majority of the population of the city. Many drinking locations were open, all holding lively conversation. Even though he did not want to, Cao noticed the man from before, Mao Ho seemed to be his name, in one of the rooms holding a loud conversation. While Cao expected that the man would do that after the training hours were over, he did not expect himself to be interested in hearing what would pop out of the fools mouth next.
"Yes indeed, we have worked for another full day yet again. We will soon be able to make anything perfect. The perfect fireball, push of air, flood. And we will continue making them more perfect, and then again even more perfect. Compared to us, the westerns are nothing but incompetent savages. Indeed, we are superior to them all, but we will lose. Like our ancestors were able to after 5000 years of training from master to pupil to make the most perfect sword of them all, we will make the most perfect spells of them all. But tell me all, what will we do with our perfect swords when the Europeans land with rifles and heavy artillery. Where will our cavalry run from airplanes, our ships hide from missiles?" the man shouted out to the now rather numerous crowd. While the man shouted, "What will we do," again and again to the crowd in order to rouse them up, Cao took a comfortable seating position, wondering what he should do. How could he stop the man from killing himself without having the man consider him a conversation friend.
"Yes, what will we do, you wonder. I tell you, we will die. And whose fault is this. Yours? Mine? The goverment? None, I say, but it is our culture. Wishing to respect the past, never allowing the new. What made the corrupt emperors stay in power as long as they did? The people fearing the new! We must work together with the party, but instead of slowly building on the old, we must march rashly and bravely to the future. We will fail much, for when one tries something new, failure is unavailable. But even if we succeed in something new and brilliant one time out of ten, that one success will be worth fifty small improvements." the man continued to shout. Cao watched from afar, as he had seen that the man was obviously not going to commit suicide. The man was not as smart as he though himself to be though, being pushed away from the room by a wave of angry people. He had appeared too conservative to those that wanted a change, and too free-minded to those who preferred the safety of the old.
Once he got back to his barracks, he received a message that Ming Li had been very angry at his absence, both spiritual and physical, during the last weeks. "I want to tell her how I feel. But I can't. I must work, I have no choice. It is my duty. How can I make her understand," he spoke to himself after he had gotten his letter.
"Excuse me, did you say something? I am so sorry that I did not hear you," the clerk at the desk said. He did not get a reply, as Cao was already halfway to his own private room in the barrack.