Chapter 7: Into the Greenwood Mountains
“We’re going to the Green Wood Mountains today!”
Whitewing had only just woken when Lofty Feather made the announcement.
“You said yesterday you wanted to learn the Green-Gathering Array. Come look at the Myriad Image Map.”
Lofty Feather separated off a little Red Qi and gently nudged Whitewing in the back, herding him from the bedroom into the living room. Then it unfurled the light screen and brought up the rough map.
Only Waterside Willow Valley was green on it, surrounded by gray. Against all that gray, the little patch of green seemed brighter. Whitewing stared at it. “Why can’t we see what’s around it?”
Lofty Feather didn’t know either. But exploring the surrounding terrain required Green Qi. Perhaps the Myriad Image Map worked the same way? Maybe only places they had actively surveyed would light up?
If that was the case, then this was the perfect excuse to get him out for a look around!
“We haven’t gone out there yet. If we make a trip around, the map might light up and look even better!”
“Really?” Whitewing’s eyes brightened. “Then let’s go right now!”
Whitewing closed his eyes. When he opened them, his viewpoint had shifted to the Empty Shell. He crawled out of the crevice, spread the Wuping, and bounded to the stream in a few jumps. There he sat beneath the willow, hands braced on the ground, and looked up.
At seven, the air was a little chilly. The stream struck the rocks, breaking into spray that sent a few drops flying. Following the valley’s gentle slope upstream, he watched the stream bend out of sight in the distance, hiding its source. Farther still stretched an unbroken sweep of blue-green, reaching into the clouds.
A few long willow branches drooped down to brush his face. They tickled a little. He didn’t push them away, letting the breeze and the branches stroke him.
“The Green Wood Mountains are huge,” Lofty Feather reminded him at just the right moment. “They stretch about fifty kilometers across. At our current top flying speed, it would take an hour and a half to get from one end to the other.”
Unfortunately, Whitewing had little sense of distance. “...So, really, really big, right?”
“Yes.” Lofty Feather gave up on the precise explanation. “Why don’t we look around here for a little longer? We’ll be wandering outside for ages after this.”
Whitewing murmured in agreement. He had been here for more than ten days, and had already seen everything nearby. But if Lofty Feather said they should take another look, then he could look a little longer.
He lowered his eyes to the grass beneath him.
The blades covered the ocher-brown soil. They were long and narrow, but not sharp to the touch. He ran a hand over the ground. When he lifted it, some damp earth had smeared across his palm.
“Ugh!”
He flicked his hand twice in disgust. The dirt wouldn’t come off.
“It won’t come off like that. Go wash it...”
Whitewing nodded. He leaned forward slightly, parted the willow branches in front of him with his left hand, then pushed himself upright with his right and started toward the stream—
“Snap—”
A willow branch broke without warning. It landed squarely on Whitewing’s head, then flopped limply over his shoulder.
Whitewing blinked.
“Is it a present for me?”
The willow’s branches swayed gently, but gave no answer.
Either way, how could he accept a present with dirty hands? He quickly set the branch aside and scrubbed his hands in the stream, washing off that little bit of soil. Only once they were white and clean again did he pick up the branch.
It was blue-green, supple and springy—not like a dead twig.
“Take it with you,” Lofty Feather said. “I scanned it. It has plenty of Green Qi. Might come in handy.”
Whitewing smiled and hugged the willow’s rough trunk.
“Thank you!”
“Come on. We’ll follow the stream downhill. Remember to hold on to that branch. It’s the first thing you’ve ever taken from Waterside Willow Valley!”
Whitewing murmured in agreement and waved goodbye to the willow. Then he spread the Wuping, took a few running steps, and leapt hard from the streambank—
“Yay—!”
He cried out happily as he flew downstream, swinging the willow branch at random and making a satisfying swish through the air.
Lofty Feather admired the passing scenery while quietly calculating the direction and speed of the air currents. They were heading somewhere unfamiliar, after all; it would need to correct their course from time to time so they didn’t hit anything.
The stream wound below them, and the greenery along its banks grew increasingly unfamiliar. A few minutes later, the great willow had shrunk to a tiny dot in the distance.
“We’re almost at the boundary,” Lofty Feather warned him. “The map says it’s best to cross the boundary on foot.”
“Why?”
“It doesn’t say. Better to be careful, just in case.”
Whitewing landed as instructed. Only then did he realize that even after flying this far, he wasn’t tired at all. He had barely used any Qi, either.
The Wuping really was wonderful!
He folded the Wuping out of its flying posture and strolled ahead. Just as he was about to cross the boundary, he suddenly stopped.
The willow branch in his hand stopped moving, too.
“Lofty Feather! I think I brushed against something. Like a very faint Qi cloud?”
Lofty Feather reacted at once. It scanned the surrounding terrain and vegetation, then worked out the likely distribution of Green Qi. When it compared the two, the distribution was almost exactly as expected.
Which meant... everything was normal. It had no choice but to tell Whitewing that.
Whitewing immediately swished the branch in several directions. “That’s strange. It seems like the Qi cloud disappeared?”
“All right.”
Lofty Feather could only record the readings for later analysis that evening. Then it turned its attention back to the Myriad Image Map.
And there it was: the places it had just surveyed with Green Qi had appeared on the map! So—it had been right!
“Whitewing! Come look! The Myriad Image Map changed!”
At the promise of something new to see, Whitewing quickly called back, “Coming!”
There were plenty of shrubs nearby, with lots of places to hide. He plunged into one and closed his eyes to switch his viewpoint.
When he opened them again, he was back in his chair, and Lofty Feather had already unfolded the Myriad Image Map. The green of Waterside Willow Valley now spread across the boundary and along the area they had just surveyed, pushing the gray back little by little.
“Look!” Lofty Feather’s voice was bright with delight. “I told you it would look better!”
“Yay!”
Whitewing leaned closer with a grin. Only then did he notice that the color filling in the map wasn’t just green. All three primary colors were there, in different shades and clearly layered.
“What does that mean?”
As soon as he asked, a line of small text appeared on the map:
“Prerequisite ‘Green Qi’ complete. The concentration of the three primary colors in the environment can now be displayed.”
Lofty Feather studied the new map. “I get it. Basically, the three primary colors correspond to three kinds of Qi. The deeper the color, the more Qi there is! See this huge patch of deep green? That’s where the forest is dense. And this thin streak of blue is probably the course of the stream.”
“Oh, I see!” Whitewing nodded. “So where are we going?”
“Let’s fly around this mountain first. Then we’ll go to the best place to learn the Green-Gathering Array!”
...
Whitewing burst out of the shrubs and leapt into the air.
“The Empty Shell isn’t very capable yet, so don’t fly too high. Otherwise I can’t draw on the Green Qi. If I can’t scan the surrounding area, it won’t light up on the map!”
“Can I use the Eye of Truth?”
“No.”
“All right...”
Whitewing murmured in acknowledgment and lowered his altitude, letting the Wuping carry him in a glide. A light breeze swept by, bringing the scent of the forest as layer upon layer of green streamed away beneath his feet.
“The map is updating,” Lofty Feather called. “Keep this distance from the ground.”
Whitewing focused on flying and let Lofty Feather direct him.
First, he circled the foot of the mountain, skimming just above the treetops. At nearly ten meters per second, the wind in his ears became a steady rush. The Wuping clung tight to his back, and the shadows of the trees raced beneath him. Now and then, when he passed over a clearing, the stream flashed by like a line of reflected silver. It took a full ten-plus minutes to circle the foot of the mountain once.
“Scan complete! Higher!”
He climbed along the slope and kept circling. As he gained altitude, the dampness in the air faded noticeably, and the vegetation on the mountainside grew sparser. The sunlight fell straight down, warming the Wuping against his back.
Another ten minutes passed. “Higher! Almost done!”
He looked ahead. They were nearly at the summit. The vegetation had grown shorter, turning into low shrubs. The strong wind hit his face without anything to slow it, and suddenly his view opened up. He could even see the blue-green ridges of distant mountains stretching on and on.
The Red-Gathering Array was doing its job. The Red Qi it had absorbed had already made up for the morning’s loss. After three circuits, he landed steadily on a flat rock at the summit.
“That’s enough,” Lofty Feather said. “Thirty minutes to circle a mountain two kilometers across, with nearly five hundred meters of elevation change—not bad.”
“What now? The place with the most Green Qi?”
“No. When the Green-Gathering Array runs, it competes with plants for light. So we need somewhere with a decent concentration of Green Qi and especially good sunlight. This area near the summit is perfect.”
Whitewing felt that something was a little off, but he couldn’t put his finger on it yet. For now, he could only ask, “Where’s the best spot?”
“Ugh, it’s a pain not being able to use the Eye of Truth... Gather a ball of Red Qi in your hand. I’ll shape it into an arrow. Just follow it.”
Whitewing did as he was told. Under Lofty Feather’s control, a small red arrow appeared in his hand. Along the way, all sorts of unfamiliar plants spread their broad leaves, one layer on top of another, neatly arranged.
After a few hundred meters, the arrow stopped.
They were surrounded by grass. Several clumps of pampas grass, about half a person tall, stood at the edge, their sharp blades swaying gently in the wind. A few low trees grew on either side, with vines twining around them.
“This is the place,” Lofty Feather said. “Plenty of sunlight, plenty of plants, and a good concentration of Green Qi. Take off the Wuping.”
Whitewing undid the Wuping as instructed and spread it on the grass.
“The Green-Gathering Array and the Red-Gathering Array are built almost the same way. You just draw it with Green Qi,” Lofty Feather briefly explained. “You can draw it in the gaps the Red-Gathering Array left open. Make good use of that precious space!”
Whitewing suddenly frowned. He had figured out what felt off—
“Wait.”
“What is it?”
“This Array is about the same as the Red-Gathering Array?”
“Uh, yes. Light Gathering Arrays all work on the same principle. It’s just—”
“Then why did we have to come all the way to the Green Wood Mountains to learn it?” Whitewing interrupted. “Couldn’t we have done the same in Waterside Willow Valley? The sunlight there is just as good!”
Lofty Feather’s red glow flickered.
Whitewing pressed on. “If the Green-Gathering Array also turns light into Qi, then all it needs is sunlight! The surrounding environment has nothing to do with it, does it?”
Lofty Feather didn’t answer.
“Lofty Feather?”
“Hehe...” A laugh it couldn’t hold back came from it.
Whitewing rubbed the corner of the Wuping. “What are you laughing at?”
“Ha ha ha... You finally noticed!” Lofty Feather couldn’t hold it in anymore. “It has nothing to do with it! I just wanted to get you out for a walk! All you do is sunbathe and sleep every day. You were about to grow mold—”
“So you’ve been stringing me along since yesterday?”
“No, no!” Lofty Feather defended itself with a perfectly straight face. “I never said coming to the Green Wood Mountains had anything to do with learning the Green-Gathering Array!”
Whitewing stared into the distance for several seconds without saying anything. Lofty Feather seemed to lose some of its nerve.
“...And look, the map unlocked, didn’t it? Isn’t the scenery nice? What’s wrong with going out for a walk? You—you can’t just stand there without saying anything...”
Then Whitewing smiled. Lofty Feather secretly breathed a sigh of relief.
“All right,” he said, spreading the Wuping out. “You’re right, you didn’t say that... But coming out here really is nice.”
“Good! What were we doing... Oh, right, the actual work! Let’s get to it—time to draw the Array!”
“Okay.”
“You can’t control Green Qi yet, but you can use the willow branch. There should be enough Green Qi in it.”
Whitewing picked up the willow branch and tried to use it like a paintbrush, tracing the Green-Gathering Array’s lines onto the Wuping.
The process went smoothly. Whitewing already knew the Red-Gathering Array’s structure, so now he only had to switch from Red Qi to Green Qi and get used to the feel of the willow branch. Naturally, he would work a little more slowly. Lofty Feather watched his movements closely and offered a pointer now and then.
About half an hour later, a complete Green-Gathering Array covered the Wuping.
“Will both Arrays run at once?”
“They will. Try it.”
He draped the Wuping over his shoulders again and immediately felt the difference—the world around him had grown a little clearer. He looked at the low tree beside him. Beyond the details of its leaves and bark, there was also...
No, it wasn’t just clearer!
“Green Qi represents information. That means you can use your own Green Qi to scan everything around you, including the information you’re seeing now—things like age and health. Here in the forest, you can draw on the Green Qi around you and use it as your eyes. But somewhere without many plants, you’ll have to rely on your own reserves.” Lofty Feather explained briefly.
“The eyes of the forest... Can plants talk?”
“Plants can pass information through Green Qi. That much is true.”
“Then can I go back and talk to the willow tree?”
“...I’m afraid not. Most plants aren’t sentient.”
“Oh.”
Whitewing was a little disappointed, but he soon remembered what had happened the day before.
“Oh, right, Lofty Feather! Can I use the Eye of Truth now?”
Lofty Feather only then remembered. It quickly put the Green Qi it had just absorbed to use. “You can!”
Whitewing couldn’t see himself, but the familiar coolness told him his beautiful golden eyes had returned. The green text before him confirmed it: Lofty Feather had brought up the information for that clump of pampas grass.
“Pretty amazing, right? The Eye of Truth can do way more than this!” Lofty Feather boasted. “Anything in the Knowledge Base can be displayed!”
“Sure, sure, you’re amazing,” Whitewing said absently, his gaze wandering toward a distant mountain. “Since we’re already out here, why don’t we play around a bit more instead of heading back to Waterside Willow Valley?”
“Yay!”
Whitewing ignored Lofty Feather’s poorly concealed delight. He lay down on the grass, sunning himself and idly playing with a blade of grass. Dusk came on quickly. Lofty Feather directed him to find somewhere to sleep, chattering all the while:
“Too bad there’s no moon tonight. The Knowledge Base says it’s beautiful!”
“Will we get to see it another time?”
“Of course! We count time by the phases of the moon. It waxes, then wanes, over and over. Today is the thirtieth, which is exactly when the moon can’t be seen.”
“Mm...” Whitewing turned this over carefully. “So I can start watching tomorrow? And see every phase of the moon in a month?”
“You might not see it tomorrow... but the day after, you definitely will.”
“Then what’s there to feel bad about? We’ll get to see it anyway!”
Lofty Feather listened in silence and said nothing.
The summit was too flat. Lofty Feather searched the Myriad Image Map for a long time, but still couldn’t find a good place to hide. At last, seeing that it was nearly dark, it had to give up. It used the Eye of Truth to point Whitewing in a direction.
Whitewing followed the route, walking slowly toward the foot of the mountain. It was his first time being out at night, but to his surprise, he could still see everything around him clearly.
“Lofty Feather, is this because of the Eye of Truth?”
“No,” Lofty Feather said firmly. “The Eye of Truth isn’t there to help you see where you’re going. Your eyes are just naturally suited to the night.”
Even so, Lofty Feather immediately saved an image: a pair of golden eyes glowing faintly, their black pupils fully dilated to catch every bit of light around them.
It admired them in secret. Beautiful.
Before long, Whitewing arrived. There was a crevice hidden behind a tangle of vines. It looked fairly dry—good enough to sleep in. He slipped inside, drew the vines across the entrance, leaned comfortably against the earthen wall behind him, then lay down at ease.
“On your first day out playing, did anything feel special?”
“It was fun! And now I can keep the Eye of Truth on all the time!”
“Anything else?”
“What else?”
Lofty Feather fell silent. A long while passed before it finally asked, slowly, “This is the first time you’ve left the place where you took root. You really don’t feel anything at all?”
“No. Why would I?” Whitewing yawned and asked lazily in return. “I said goodbye to the willow tree, didn’t I? Besides, it’s not as if I can’t go back.”
Whitewing closed his eyes. In the living room of the Three-Primal-Hut, he got up from his chair, walked straight to the bedroom, threw himself onto the bed, and fell asleep.
Meanwhile, Lofty Feather was hurriedly writing its log. It had finished the draft that afternoon; only the last sentence remained. But it didn’t start writing right away. It hovered over the table, its red glow flickering uncertainly, as if it were thinking something over.
A lot had happened today. Leaving Waterside Willow Valley, learning the Green-Gathering Array, keeping the Eye of Truth on all the time... By rights, these were all exciting milestones.
But Whitewing’s reactions... had been so mild from beginning to end.
—It was fun.
—No. Why would I?
Lofty Feather thought back to Whitewing’s tone. It felt as though, to him, leaving the place where he had lived for half a month was no different from finding another rock to sunbathe on...
Something else suddenly came back to it. When Whitewing first shattered its Qi shield, his guilt had soon faded. When he learned to fly, he fell countless times without ever getting discouraged. Even when Lofty Feather ambushed him in all sorts of ways, he had never truly gotten angry.
Was that normal?
Lofty Feather opened the Knowledge Base and typed a few characters into the search box. The light screen flickered, and an article appeared.
Base Color and the Three Primary Colors
Author: Number One (??)
“Every living being forms one unique, fixed base color upon entering the world. Its Value ranges from 0 to 255, represented in hexadecimal. Three factors determine a being’s base color: the distribution of Qi in its birth environment, the Empty Shell’s innate aptitude, and the strength of the soul itself.
Base color is not directly related to the outward color of a soul. For instance, Wandering Souls are usually white, but that does not mean every Wandering Soul has a white base color.
At equal values, the three primary colors are equal in strength, but each has its own core property:
Red: Life. Determines physical constitution and Qi capacity. Living beings with a low Value are physically frail.
Green: Information. Determines perception and communication. Living beings with a low Value have dulled perception.
Blue: Emotion. Determines the range of emotional fluctuation. Living beings with a low Value have muted emotions.
Thus, a Value that is too low in any one component may affect a being’s normal life. Under ordinary circumstances, unless subject to force majeure or deliberately severing a color, no base-color Value will be lower than 20.”
After Lofty Feather finished reading, its eyes lingered on the final sentence. Thinking back over Whitewing’s behavior, it suddenly wanted to know what his base color was. It looked through the Myriad Image Map’s sidebar and found a small eyedropper-shaped icon tucked into a corner. When it clicked the icon, a line of text appeared:
“Color Picker: reads the target’s base color.”
It opened the tool and gently drew from Whitewing, asleep in the bedroom—
“Base color: #FF7705”
Lofty Feather froze. Red was 255, the maximum. Green was 119, not bad. Blue was... 5?!
It thought back to when Whitewing had taken root. Boundless darkness; the faint white light a Wandering Soul carried with it; then the flood of Red Qi. Had there been any blue in that environment? There really hadn’t.
“No wonder, no wonder! Whitewing’s emotions disappear so quickly... Was he born with so little emotional fluctuation?”
But the article clearly said that under normal circumstances, a Value wouldn’t fall below 20. Then what was going on? How could there have been an unknown force majeure? What was severing a color?
Lofty Feather couldn’t work it out. It could only note down its questions in silence and bring the log to a hasty close:
“First day of exploration. Whitewing in fair spirits; no negative emotions. Good learning progress. Blue Value in base color anomalous. Cause unknown; continued observation required.”
After reviewing everything that had happened that day, Lofty Feather dimmed its glow and curled up in a corner of the bed to rest for now.
— End of Chapter —