v8c14: Its A Grand Ravine (Patreon)

The Grand Ravine was proving to be a wonderful part of our tour, and I was growing to really love the Grand Ravine.

The walls of the Ravine had a moderating effect on the temperature, making each day pleasantly warm, while each night was cool, the perfect temperature for sleeping. The mornings dawned with mist and dew, and the flowers and trees perfumed the air with the scent of growth and life.

It was just… a really nice place to be. It seemed to agree with Zhuye pretty well, too. Our little man was getting more and more confident with his toddling, his eyes constantly trying to find the next interesting thing to grab… and occasionally attempt to chew on.

The “don’t put that thing in your mouth” game was part of the perils of parenthood, but luckily, after the sand thing back in Pale Moon Lake, Zhuye largely listened when we told him no.

Each and every day was something just slightly different. A different passage to explore, another village to see, some more food to try. Baatar, Ganzorig, Tarkhan and Sarnai were wonderful hosts; they caught on quickly that we wanted to see the real Ravine, and they obliged us without hesitation.

And as they got used to us… they genuinely seemed to enjoy having us around. Their eyes lit up whenever we asked questions, and they would eagerly talk about the part of the Ravine coming up.

They truly loved their home—something Tianlan and I could definitely agree on.

We could both feel it. The little drops of Qi entering the earth. Most of them didn’t reach far enough down for Tianlan to really feel them. Some of them were tinged with greed and desire, but a surprising amount of them were earnest in their desire to help, and the last repairs we had to do came together like a dream.

We all worked together on fixing up the Dragon Veins. Things were still a massive mess, but the main connections were mostly finished. Apparently, I might actually be able to start sensing Qi properly soon.

===

Tarkhan meditated, his hands touching the earth. Sarnai was beside him doing the same at  twilight. They had found a good location to watch the sunset together, their duties done for the day.

He focused on himself, and on his Qi. He stripped out any impure desire he could feel, carefully refining the gift so as to not bother the great Ancestor with his petty concerns.

Carefully, he pressed his Qi into the earth, as Master Rou had.

“Oh? Not bad. You understand well the basics of giving to the Earth.” 

Tarkhan and his sister nearly jumped out of their skins as a voice spoke from behind  them, both of them whipping around to see the rooster watching them. He had a small smile on his face as he observed them—and he was not alone. Miss Ri Zu was on his shoulder, in her Spirit Beast form.

“But you are too cautious. Here,” Bi De said. His silvery Qi formed, so utterly pure Tarkhan could only stare in awe. The rooster closed his eyes, and pressed his Qi deep, the energy diffusing outwards like a liquid, filling the earth beneath them.

There was a slight resonance they could feel in their souls, and then the feeling faded.

The rooster opened his eyes, and looked to Tarkhan and Sarnai. The invitation was clear.

They closed their eyes, and allowed Master Rou’s disciple to guide them.

Their Qi went deep. Deeper than they had been pushing it, until—

They touched a golden web, vast and stretching to the horizon.

“Oh,” Sarnai said in a small voice, “So that's what Xiulan meant when she said everything was connected.”

===

You could spend a lifetime in the passages, without ever leaving. There was the main trunk, the yawning chasm kilometers across. There was a full-on plains ecosystem within the chasm, and ancient old growth forests that sprawled across the Ravine floor.

Tianlan was right. The Ravine was ancient. Towering. It felt like something that could endure without limit. That no matter what cataclysm came, the Ravine would swallow it up, and remain unchanged.

Carved by mundane water, and yet a cataclysm of Qi that had shattered mountains had left it nearly untouched. Maybe it was luck… or maybe the Ravine really did protect the things within it.

And yet for all the grandeur of the main trunk… it was also the most sparsely populated part of the Ravine. If the rivers were the highways, then most people lived in the side passages. Where the trees and walls of the Ravine closed in, they formed what looked like dead ends.

Some of them were, but more often than not, there was a hidden passage; where the Ravine would open up again, revealing houses and farms, little hidden villages, filled with people who had lived there since time immemorial.

====

The Ravine was a treasure trove, Gou Ren reflected. They didn’t just use yurts; they had permanent settlements as well. Gou Ren delighted in seeing all the little ways they differed from Imperial designs. They had clearly descended from yurts, as most of them were circular; like they had just decided to make the tents a permanent installation, using wood and stone rather than fabric, but enough of them were the more traditional square shapes. He loved getting to poke around inside, looking at the way the joinery fitted, how the decorations were worn. to the paneling, and how the floors were constructed.

Climate, he had come to learn, really influenced how things were built. The Ravine’s weather was pretty gentle for the most part, especially in the sheltered side passages, so they didn’t need a lot of the reinforcement and insulation that the houses up north required.

He would need another notebook soon, because his current one was getting pretty full, with most of the pages dedicated to the design similarities between the buildings of the Ravine and the older buildings, especially the Dueling Peaks and Grass Sea City.

Patriarch Baatar had been surprisingly interested in his findings; hells, most of the Elders of the Ravine had, and didn’t mind his rambling and conjecture about how their current aesthetics differed from the past but that there was a clear throughline that could be observed through comparing the past and the present.

He was quite glad they did, because Baatar had told Tarkhan to show Gou Ren the really old stuff.

They didn’t just have Pre-Cataclysm architecture. They had stuff so old Gou Ren was pretty certain that it had been built before the Age of Darkness.

“Hey, I think this one is older!” he declared, his eyes focused on the pile of stones before him. He considered the width and location, and came to the conclusion that it was likely a storehouse. The stones had been stacked with care, but if this had been a storehouse the ventilation would have been bad and any grain inside would have been prone to rot—grain storage was a lot more complex than most cultivators thought, Gou Ren had come to learn… and that was before Jin had brought his way of doing things. 

Hey, less spoilage meant more people ate, so it was definitely a good thing to learn.

“I found some more markings!” Xianghua said from further away, and Gou Ren moved quickly to see what she had found.

“Great find!” Gou Ren said, kissing her. Xianghua’s eyes sparkled, and they both turned to look at the wall.  Xianghua smiled. Not the big bombastic smile, but the little quiet one she only showed a select few people.

Gou Ren was the first there, but the rest of them soon gathered around Jin. The man had Zhuye on his shoulders so he could see, but Gou Ren doubted that Zhuye really cared about any of this stuff. He was just happy to be here.

“I would place them here on the timeline. Early,  but not the earliest we’ve seen,” Xianghua continued, nodding seriously as Yun Ren and Biyu took recordings. Gou Ren smiled and pulled out his little project, holding it out so she could mark it down where she thought it should go. It was a timeline of how the Ravine’s designs had changed over the years; How the simple squares, circles and triangles got more and more complex, more stylized, and would eventually become the basis for the tattoos and clan markings the Ravine used.

Xianghua had it pegged about a third of the way in. Not the most basic forms, but still way less complex than the things that came later.

“Damn, this is so cool,” Jin said, hanging over Gou Ren’s shoulder.

It was really nice having other people who appreciated your hobby. Yun Ren had it easy, with his recording crystals!

“Hey, these ones look pretty familiar, don’t they?” Yun Ren said, squinting at the patterns.

Biyu held up her scarf, and sure enough, there was a slight resemblance.

“It's actually why I wanted to show you this place,” Tarkhan said, waving them over. “I asked around, and, well…”

He led them to a small cave in the side of the Ravine, the walls filled with art; the people looked like they were made of sticks, and the entire thing was faded with age, but there was clearly a record of something, and on the back wall, what it had recorded seemed to be clear.

One group of stick people were bowing to another group of stick people. The ones on the left had a couple of squares as their design… and the people they were with had a square and a swirly loop reminiscent of the Nezin Tribe’s designs.

In the next scene, the square and swirly-looking people were shown leaving, under a sign Gou Ren recognised, because Grandpa drew the North Star the same way as these ancient people did. Some of the swirly people stayed in the village, while some of the square people were travelling with the swirly people.

“There is a reason why we call you ‘cousin,’” Tarkhan said with a little smile.

“History is truly most fascinating,” Bi De said, stroking his wattles.

Gou Ren had to agree.

===

The side passages themselves had side passages: and in those parts, you truly got to know why it was called the Grand Ravine.

Mostly because they went deep. Deeper than I had even been at Crystal Hill. A thousand gouges in the earth, forming an even more twisted labyrinth than the stuff above, and that wasn’t even counting the caves that connected to them.

Even the Ravine Folk rarely ventured into the deepest places.

We got seeds for plants and herbs; we played in waterfall pools. We made swings out of the horizontal trees. Big D and Babe made a little comic, showing the man who had found the golden spire—and Baatar had loved it. It was passed around at the dinner table at night, the Elders each sporting big grins as they read it.

Even in my dreams, I still explored. I flew with Gaolan like a condor, banking around spires of rock. I hung like a sloth in the trees, and clambered through the marmot warrens, entire colonies chattering away at each other.

I was so glad that I could come here as a friend.

Yet as always, eventually our time came to an end. Even if I wanted to stay just a bit longer, the rest of the province called to me—as did my home.

And so, that night when I went to sleep, I once more found myself in Tianlan’s domain.

The small version was standing beside me. The tall version was across from us.

I wondered what her choice would be.

====

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The Indiana Rens, doing Archaeology. Gou Ren and Yun Ren have a hobby in common again.

Edited by: Brandon “Philosophysics” Zhang-Leong, BargleNawdleZouss,