Chapter 8: The Corrupted Disciple
Dawnflare: The Shadows of WuDang (A prequel to Astral Codex)
The candle Mei Ling lit beneath the Hall of Origins had long since burned to ash, but its flame lingered in her chest.
Morning returned under a sky heavy with grey, and though the wind moved softly across the Wudang peaks, something about it no longer felt clean. It dragged faint whispers in its flow, like the mountain had begun to murmur to itself.
In the Hall of Balance, a vase meant to contain flowing Chi water cracked with no visible cause. The water inside turned murky overnight.
By midday, word reached Master Xuanjing.
Mei Ling was summoned not to the inner chamber, but the Hall of Earth, one of the five elemental sanctuaries built around Wudang’s resonance axis. She found the master kneeling silently before the obelisk there, his hand resting on its cracked base.
Without turning, he spoke.
“You can feel it too, can’t you?”
Mei Ling lowered herself beside him. She placed her palm against the stone. There was no warmth, no pulse, only a faint friction, as though the Chi resisted her touch.
“It’s like metal scratching across silk,” she whispered.
Xuanjing nodded. “The flow is being pulled apart. This was no accident.”
Mei Ling looked to him, searching his eyes. “How?”
“I believe someone is deliberately poisoning the elemental harmonics,” he said. “The corruption you saw in the Chi pillar... was only the beginning.”
He handed her a small strip of parchment, a charcoal rubbing taken from the rear face of the obelisk. Unseen by most, faint seals had been inscribed in secret: a series of reversal glyphs drawn in faded blood ink.
“These were placed in recent weeks. Someone inside the mountain sabotaged the resonance point... from within.”
And not just anywhere. These elemental sanctuaries were sensitive nodes, aligned with the Five Element cycle. If even one was reversed or damaged.
Her breath caught. “They’re collapsing the cycle.”
Master Xuanjing finally stood. “And the damage is spreading outward. Disciples’ Chi flows are unraveling not because they lack focus, but because the mountain itself is losing coherence.”
Mei Ling clenched her fists. “Then we must confront the source. Find the one who laid these seals.”
Xuanjing’s gaze turned distant, weary. “There are few in Wudang who could access this hall unsupervised. Even fewer who would understand how to mask their traces.”
He didn’t say the name. He didn’t need to.
Zhao Kun.
Mei Ling’s heart sank.
The prime disciple. The one trusted to lead drills. The one who’d quietly resisted her presence since her arrival. She remembered his sharp glances. The stillness in his steps that sometimes felt... too still.
***
The sun pierced the clouds briefly as Mei Ling walked toward the West Courtyard, where senior disciples usually practiced their advanced forms. Shadows lengthened across the flagstones, but none felt as long as the one she now approached.
Zhao Kun stood alone beneath the twisted pine, hands behind his back, gazing toward the southern ridges. He sensed her before she spoke.
“You walk with the wind at your back,” he said, not turning. “Too confident for someone so new.”
Mei Ling stopped several paces behind him. “Why?”
Zhao glanced over his shoulder, half-smiling. “Why what?”
“Why poison the obelisks? Why fracture the elemental nodes? We trusted you.”
He finally turned. His expression bore none of the confusion or denial she’d braced for. Only amusement. Cold, amused clarity.
"I am impressed." Zhao responded in despise. "A junior, barely past her first trials, can see through my design. I was trusted. But not heard. Not respected. I trained under Master Xuanjing for a decade, gave everything. And what did he do? He bowed to tradition, even when Wudang held power vast enough to dominate the martial world. He chose stillness over strength, balance over ascension. We could have risen to reshape the world, but he feared ambition. That fear made us weak." ”
Mei Ling’s eyes widened. “Humility is not weakness, you should know better than all others.”
Zhao scoffed. “My allegiance lies with the one who understands the Chi.” He stepped forward. The ground seemed to tighten under his footfalls. “Bai Xun taught me that Chi is not meant to be balanced. True strength comes from breaking the cycle. From wielding fire where water should flow. From commanding instead of yielding.”
The energy around Zhao shifted. The air bent subtly as if the mountain itself recoiled. His Chi pulse was no longer smooth , it surged with jagged, unnatural patterns. Mei Ling realized he had rewritten his elemental alignment. Fire flared where wood should support. Metal clashed through earth like hammer through stone.
Without a word more, the duel began.
Their first exchange crackled with elemental tension.
Mei Ling opened with the Water Form, sweeping low and circular to absorb the impact. Zhao answered with a sharp Metal strike, cutting through her flow. Sparks flared where their palms met , Chi against Chi , and Mei Ling was pushed back two steps.
"He’s faster than I expected."
She flowed into the Fire Form, twisting upward with a spiraling kick. Zhao countered with Earth , rooting himself like a mountain and catching her leg mid-air, hurling her across the courtyard. She landed hard, but rolled to her feet, breathing sharply.
“Your technique’s elegant,” he said, “but elegance shatters under pressure.”
Mei Ling narrowed her eyes and grounded herself. She began the Five Element Rotation, cycling her Chi deliberately: Water into Wood, Wood into Fire,
But Zhao interrupted the cycle with a sudden disruption pulse , a forbidden technique Bai Xun must’ve taught him. Mei Ling’s internal flow collapsed, her limbs went momentarily numb.
His strike came from overhead , Flame over Metal, both twisted , but Mei Ling shifted just in time. Using a faint residue of Wind Chi, she broke his line with a sidestep and countered with Palm of Returning Flow, a move Xuanjing had shown her only days ago.
Zhao stumbled, but only briefly. His next move was far worse.
He struck the ground with his palm, sending a reverse Chi tremor directly into the earth. The stone beneath her feet cracked , the West Courtyard's resonance node. A surge of unstable energy rose through her body like venom through a vine.
Mei Ling screamed, her vision blurred. Her Chi turned against her, burning and freezing at once.
When she collapsed, Zhao stood over her, face unreadable.
“You’re strong,” he admitted. “But you still think in harmony. That won’t save Wudang.”
He turned and walked away, vanishing down the side path leading to the forest. The pain lingered long after Zhao Kun disappeared into the mist.
Mei Ling lay alone, shivering with pain not just in body, but in spirit. Her breath came ragged. The sky above blurred behind her tears, and she could barely feel the rhythm of her own pulse.
"He was right… I wasn’t ready."
Then she remembered Master Xuanjing’s words:
"When the Du Meridian is clear, and Ren flows true, the self no longer breaks, it bends, and returns."
Mei Ling closed her eyes. She focused on the lower Dan Tian, and began the slow, painful process of drawing Chi upward again. Mei Ling’s limbs trembled as she sat cross-legged at the edge of the shattered courtyard, her breath shallow, Chi flow fractured and chaotic. She could still feel the internal backlash , like shards of broken glass flowing through her meridians.
***
“You survived.”
Master Xuanjing's voice was quiet, yet somehow immediate. She hadn't heard him approach. He stood behind her, holding a flask of warm medicinal broth. He knelt and placed it beside her, then extended two fingers toward her Ren meridian, just below her nose. A soft pulse flowed through his touch , steady, grounding.
“You allowed his cycle to infect your own,” Xuanjing said gently. “But that doesn’t mean yours is broken. Sit. Breathe. Let the Chi return to its origin.”
Mei Ling nodded faintly, closing her eyes.
Following his guidance, she drew her breath deep into her lower Dan Tian, centering her awareness in the pit of her abdomen. She gathered what Chi she could, let it settle like water in a still bowl. Then she traced the Du meridian, rising gently up her spine, vertebra by vertebra, as though lighting a lantern at each step.
The moment the Chi reached her upper Dan Tian , the space between her brows , a sharp headache flared.
“Endure,” Xuanjing murmured. “It is not pain. It is your gates reopening.”
She guided the Chi down again, flowing from the upper Dan Tian through the Ren meridian, down her front, back to the lower center. The cycle closed.
The heat in her chest eased. Her vision cleared. Her pulse , both physical and spiritual , found rhythm again. She exhaled shakily.
“What he did… it wasn’t just strength. He corrupted the resonance point.” Xuanjing’s gaze darkened. “Yes. That node has been weakened for weeks now. We thought it was natural deterioration. But it wasn’t. Zhao Kun knew what he was doing. He sabotaged the entire Chi infrastructure beneath the monastery.”
“Why?”
Xuanjing rose and walked toward the cracked stone of the west obelisk. “Chi is energy, and energy manifests as our emotion. Disrupt the Chi of WuDang, our harmony will weaken. Our forms falter. Minds cloud. Discipline wavers. That’s why disciples have vanished. That’s why the youngest ones tremble in silence.”
That evening, with her Chi flow still faint but stable, Mei Ling descended into the Archive Hall, a cavernous underground space where Wudang's records , both mundane and mystical , were kept. Candlelight flickered along stone shelves stacked with scrolls.
She began reading logs of training schedule shifts, meditation reports, and Chi resonance charts over the past two months. A pattern emerged.
Every time Zhao led a meditation session, the following day saw one or more absentees.
Every time he taught a form, the Chi pillar readings showed disharmony.
Then, tucked into an unfiled scroll behind the shelf, she found a map of the inner resonance nodes. Three had already cracked. Two more showed fluctuations.
But the sixth, located just beneath the Hall of Origins, where the Wudang flame still burned , showed something more ominous: an inversion. Chi there wasn’t just unstable. It was reversing.
That’s where they’ll strike next.
***
Morning mist clung low over the training grounds, the kind that blurred lines , between stone and sky, ally and enemy, calm and dread. Mei Ling stood at the edge of the eastern pavilion, eyes narrowed as she watched two disciples spar in the courtyard below.
Li Shenyuan appeared beside her. “Words have spread about Zhao. The students are haunted,” he said quietly.
Mei Ling nodded. “It’s like their Chi is mimicking motion without essence. The internal flow is scrambled , as if someone’s turned the elemental cycles against themselves.” She looked down at her own palms , still marked with faint bruises from the duel. The memory of his voice, cold and hollow, returned.
“Li,” she said, voice sharpening. “Scout patrols… are any missing last night?”
He blinked. “Three. Last reported near the Forgotten Pass two days ago.”
“Then it’s started,” she said. “He’s testing our outer perimeter.”
Elsewhere, far beyond the monastery walls, Zhao Kun knelt before Bai Xun in a ring of firelight.
He removed his outer robes, folded them with precision, and placed them at Bai Xun’s feet.
“Wudang will soon crumble from within,” Zhao said. “Their elders quarrel. The disciples no longer trust their senses.”
Bai Xun placed a hand on his shoulder. “Then you have done well, brother.”
He rose, eyes blazing with a quiet fury. “Let them grasp at discipline and traditions. Let them seek clarity in mist. When they realize their Chi no longer answers, they will come to understand…”
“The age of balance is over.”
Behind them, rows of shadowed figures began to march, slow, synchronized, each step pulsing with a manufactured Chi rhythm, forged not through flow, but force. The mountain trembled beneath the weight of what was coming.
***
The courtyard of the Hall of Origins was still. Lanterns flickered in their iron cradles. A lone cicada cried out, then stopped.
Mei Ling walked its length in silence, her steps unhurried, though each movement masked the weight behind her breath. Her limbs still ached from the duel. Her core Chi, once flowing like a stream, now felt fractured , shards of flame caught beneath her skin.
Inside the hall, Master Xuanjing sat alone, surrounded by unlit candles. He didn’t look up as she entered,
He rose and turned to the altar behind him. A long, wrapped blade lay atop it.
“Do you know this sword?”
She recognized it from ceremony, untouched, almost forgotten. But its name echoed faintly: Qingxiao. Azure Sky.
“It was gifted to me by our master before he passed,” Xuanjing said. “Qingxiao has been passed down for generations, entrusted only to those whose hearts mirror the highest ideals of Wudang. Our master said this sword will not obey command nor strength, only purity. It should never be drawn in anger, for its edge reflects the soul. And he warned me: this sword should not be wielded in battle... until the heart of the wielder is still.”
He looked at her, and for the first time, Mei Ling saw more than wisdom in his face, she saw age. Grief. Hope balanced on the edge of ruin.
“This sword has been passed down through generations,” he said. “a true inheritance of Wudang, resonating only with one whose heart is pure and unburdened by ambition. It is fate that brought you here, Mei Ling. When Tenzin arrived with you, I sensed a rare alignment in your Chi. Your potential in Chi manipulation is undeniable.”
He stepped closer to the altar. “But you are not ready. Not yet. There is still ego in you, turbulence that clouds the blade’s spirit. Still, you will train with it. Sleep beside it. Listen to its silence. If your heart grows still enough, the sword will not need to be drawn, it will respond. Only then will you begin the path to oneness with the sword.”
Master Xuanjing stared long into the fading candlelight before speaking. "The battle ahead will not be won by force alone," he said. "It will be brutal, relentless, testing not only the strength of our forms, but the purity of our will." He turned toward Mei Ling.
"In time your mind will be tested, to choose between harmony and pride. My heart tells me you will have an important part to play in Wudang's future, and with that, I will count on you."
She bowed low, forehead to stone.
