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Sky Pride Vol. 4 Chapter 37- Dragged into the Light
🕑 Added 2025-11-04 15:00:12 +0000 UTCTian ceased all talking. All attention and energy was poured into a singular focus- healing. And getting taller. But definitely the healing part came first. Or at least at the same time.
The problem was too much thinking, and not enough not-thinking. It wasn’t that his senior brothers had scammed him. They told him the absolute truth- complicated thoughts get between you and the unfiltered dao, because you are breaking up the world into lots of little things and not seeing the unified big thing that is everything. It’s why animals cultivated faster at the Earthly Realm- no complicating thoughts. Just direct experience of the world.
Despite that, he was still given all manner of complicated arts to learn. Complicated circulation paths, complicated politics, complicated economics, complicated mysteries about merit and fortune and…
And the fact that Brother Fu certainly authorized the attack on his family home that saw him burned nearly to death…
No. No intrusive thoughts. He might not be able to stop them entirely, but he could give his mind something else to focus on. The tree. The grand tree that holds up the sky. The big cosmic tree that you were supposed to visualize as you cultivated Advent of Spring. It was so foolish, in retrospect. So obviously vital, and yet, overlooked. Everyone kept saying that “any true path of cultivation is a cultivation of the mind,” and then turned around and said “stop thinking and just be.” How could the two things be reconciled? Simple. He had to stop thinking and cultivate the Cosmic Tree in his mind.
The Cosmic Tree was the purest expression of elemental wood taken to its extreme. It was a literal tree, yes, made out of literal wood, but taking the term “elemental wood” literally would be a mistake. “Elemental wood” means “growth.” Elemental wood wasn’t a noun. It was a verb. It was, he believed, the element most properly associated with life. Even more than water. Water was, after all, the element of winter, death and extreme yin. And from extreme yin, yang is born. Spring follows winter, and all the seeds waiting in the ground burst upward and grow.
Well, here he was. All condensed into a seed. Plenty of water nearby, and he could see the hot sun shining down through the hole in the ceiling. Ready to reach for the light.
No thoughts other than growth. No thoughts other than healing, growing, and reaching for the light. To help his focus (and after checking that it wouldn’t bother Liren,) Tian started chanting, finding sounds that fueled his growth. Finding the wood within them. Letting them carry him upward.
Ten days after Tian and Hong fell into the cave, they clawed their way out of it. Not fully recovered, but recovered enough that they were ready to fight most things under the Heavenly Realm.
“First thing we do is find the Crane. Then, next thing, get in touch with Brother Fu.” Tian was firm, though it didn’t achieve much. Liren was shaking her head by the time he ended the first sentence.
“First thing we do is go to the Three Falls Convent and talk to the Sisters. They will know where to find the crane. At the very least, they will have a better idea than we do.”
That was completely sensible. Tian still didn’t want to do it. He didn’t really want Liren doing it either. Unfortunately, this forced him to confront why he didn’t want to ask them.
“I… don’t trust the Monastery, any more.” He muttered. “The Sisters are probably more okay than any of the Heavenly People, but that doesn’t change the fact that if a Martial Uncle or Aunt said “Be sure and send a messenger falcon at once if you see Tian or Hong,” they would. Even if we asked them not to.”
Liren’s face dropped, her eyes searching for something in his expression. Not finding it. She shook her head. “It tears me up too. There are a lot of good people in the Monastery. The best people. There are a lot of villains too, and the people at the top think doing nothing is the wisest course. But I’m not willing to walk away.”
“Not asking you to.” Tian shook his head. Wishing she would walk away. “Just saying I can’t take the risk. And you shouldn’t either.”
“We are going to need the information one way or another, Brother.”
Tian nodded. “Then let’s do so like heretics or wandering cultivators. By rumor, by talking to people. By, hah, flowing with the dao.”
“That’s nonsense.”
Tian shrugged. “I don’t trust them, Sis. I just don’t.” He looked up into the sky, casting his mind out. Hoping for some trace of the Snow Grace Crane. Nothing. He hadn’t expected anything, but he still had hoped.
With a long sigh, he dusted off his coarse linen clothes. The pants were a faded blue-green, the belted tunic a disreputable, battered dark green. He reached up and pulled the wooden dragon pin from the bun holding up his hair, and stowed it in his ring. He then removed the sect issued ring and put it on the string with the other storage rings he had collected, replacing it with a smaller, less capable one.
“Brother Zihao?!”
The West Town Outer Court had killed his birth family. He… didn’t really care about what happened to his parents. It was comforting to know that he wasn’t hated by them, but it was only a comfort. He had no memory of them. He vividly remembered living covered with burns. Vividly remembered the starvation and the piercing loneliness. His brothers had thought everyone had died. They didn’t intentionally inflict that suffering on him. They might have even thought death a mercy for the sickly boy. They still led the assault on the Xia, knowing that a family would be massacred, and Brother Fu, the kindest, most moral person he knew, approved it.
Brother Fu, who had insisted he study ethics. Who had taught him propriety, and that every conversation had its own etiquette. He said that if Tian could master appropriate courtesy, he would find doors open for him everywhere. Brother Fu had been right about that- ever since joining the Temple, Tian had found many more outstretched hands than thrown rocks. And Brother Fu had given his approval to have a family massacred. Something he had done more than once. There were families just like his that no longer existed, because Brother Fu nodded his head.
Did it also need Elder Rui’s permission? It was an Outer Court matter, though arguably also a purely mortal matter. Equally arguably, it was the final phase of an Inner Court struggle, so perhaps not.
All the reformers were complicit. If Brother Fu was involved, then so was Senior Sister Bai. In fact, in a horrible sort of way he was complicit. He had known about how the Outer Court handled Hong’s situation since… his second year in the Temple? Surely it was before they left for the Wasteland.
Tian started to laugh. It was genuine, and painful and self mocking. “Oh God, I must be the biggest hypocrite this side of the Heavenly Person Realm! Isn’t it funny? Down in the dark, it wasn’t real. It was just you and me talking, and I could focus on you and not care about the rest of it so much. But now it’s real. Now it’s out under the blue sky, and it’s too plain to see.”
“Brother, I’m not understanding you. Please, tell me what’s going on?”
“I thought I was okay with your story. But I’m not. I’m really, really not. And you want to know something that is true, but that you will never believe?” Tian looked his tall sister directly in her eyes, a warm smile, heartfelt, welling up from inside of him. The lantern of compassion blazing in his crimson palace, burning with all the fire qi he could muster.
“I think you are the only innocent in this whole story. Maybe me too, or maybe there are no innocents, and we shared the guilt as soon as we took our oaths. But in my heart, out of this whole sick chain of victims making more victims, I really do think you are the only innocent person. Because when I heard about it, I did nothing. When you heard about it, you did something about it! Not much that you can do, now. Training, preparing, building your networks. But you are working on it. Me? I went ‘Oh that’s terrible,’ and kept right on going. Which makes me a fraud, and a hypocrite, for all my fucking moralizing!”
She staggered back, looking like she had been hit. Tian kept on speaking. “So for a little while, I’m taking off my uniform, undoing my bun, hiding my ring. Taking off the names and affiliations I’m wearing. I think it’s time for West Town Outer Court’s Tian Zihao to go rest in the mountains for a while. Maybe I’ll be a tea monk. It wasn’t a bad thing, being a monk. Or maybe I’ll just be a wild daoist, come down to see the mortal world.”
Liren stared at him, her eyes huge. He flicked his fingers at her. “I’m not running off and leaving you, Sis. I just need to be less, for a little while. See who I am when it’s just me and none of the things I’m carrying. I didn’t lie to you before. I’ll not leave you before you leave me. Just tell ‘em I did. Tell ‘em I’m furious, or sick with rage, or just plain crazy and I’ve run off on my own. I’ll walk up stream to the next town past Three Streams Town. You can find me in the inn there.”
“Do you even have mortal money?” She asked. Her fists were tight, Tian noticed. Her knuckles were very white under her tan skin.
“Some. Enough. Or not. It really doesn’t matter. Go on and talk to the sisters, Sis. Your big brother isn’t good company right now. He could use a walk to cool his head.”
He started walking then paused and looked back. Liren stood frozen, as shocked as he had ever seen her. “See if you can get the boat. It’s been badly damaged, but I like it. It’d be a shame to quit on it, when we had so much fun repairing it last time.”
With three light steps, he was gone. Rushing down the riverbank.
He didn’t think. He just ran. He could feel the thoughts battering at him, trying to get in. He focused on his breath, and where he was putting his feet. Being open and sensitive to the attention the world was putting on him and slipping through the gaps in their awareness. There was a lot of traffic on, and along, the Green River. For every mile he went forward, he must have moved ten moving from side to side, up canyon walls and trees or down in the rushes. It was fine. So long as he was moving and breathing. So long as he was reacting, not planning.
If he kept the balance just right, he wasn’t a burnt child curled up under warm rot, hugging himself to feel some kind of human contact. He wasn’t the future hope of his sect, or Liren’s life and death brother. He didn’t have to think about how he would face his father or when Grandpa Jun would be able to speak again. He didn’t have to think about all the salt he ate and the lives that were destroyed making it. He didn’t have to think about the endlessly repeating web of suffering humanity wove around itself.
He could be a tree. Growing. Reaching up for the sky. One day he would be big enough to carry all that weight. But for today, for right now, he needed to just be. Alone, with everyone else.
Comments
JKlarinet
Sometimes life is confusing and hard to follow. Sometimes we only have imperfect metaphors and half-dreamed realizations about the truth of things. I think that’s what it’s like to be Tian, and that feeling is what Warby wants to convey. It supposed to be confusing, although … I’m not confused. Maybe that comes with being old.
Rabbit -
I like this story so far. But it's written in a confusingly hard to follow way sometimes.
EvilLittleThing
Hong knows. Tian told her three times already. Twice in the cave, and again after the climbed out.
Doggo
i love the pacing like red stone wastes I remember reading and thinking well this is gonna go on for a while which kinds disappointed me then 10 chapters later arc change and then again like it feels perfect just when u start getting used to a setting or cast it changes keeping the story exciting
LordMars
I really hope Hong realizes sooner rather than later. Though I am more curious if she keeps it to herself or not.
LordMars
Oh I love this connection.
atmosphericturtle
I’d love an Evil Tian arc
Matt DiMeo
I read books to my wife while she makes dinner. She almost didn’t let me finish chapter one because Tian’s mom was so awful.
Art Dragon
He really needs to talk with someone. Maybe Liren can send the crane to him once she finds her? If he can’t be with people right now maybe he can be with an animal.
Notcreepycreeper
A lot of people here stuck on how "bad" Tina's birth family was. But there is no independent info on that, except from the people who did the killings. Also, while the Brothers 'only' killed the men, they stood by as the Hongs massacred all the women/children.
Harimeow
Same, but I'm coping by re-reading Slumrat
Harimeow
I understand Tian. Sometimes not thinking is the only way to escape from the guilt of being alive, of knowingly causing suffering just by existing. It is just an escape. You shouldn't kid yourself that it's a solution, but it helps give you space to find a new direction to move your thoughts. It's wise to take time to just be reactionary. Living is very, very complicated. Ethics are impossibly complex. In a scenario where you have to get your head straight, even if there was no danger from the monastery, it's best to avoid being immediately surrounded by people, twisting your thoughts in new ways before you've undone the existing knots.
Vengence
I dont think he believes his family was good or bad, but that for once in his life he found out that he was wanted and cared for, not tossed into the dump by his family.
FuriousDee
Tian considering his brothers and father guilty or complicit is hypocritical at best. It is still morally good to kill bandit lords even if they are related to the MC. If they weren’t bandit lords then choosing to massacre the village they are meant to defend and blighting the land so others are born sick, makes them equally evil to the group Tian literally just slaughtered for doing that and he wasn’t concerned that they might have families who would suffer because of that. I don’t know why he is assuming his parents were good. Or that he thinks it was bad that they were attacked. He has killed people like this without hesitation nor regret.
Slapjack
Brother Fu appearance when
Robert Mullins
The anvil that broke the camels back.
Duck_Giblets
It must be so painful for grandpa to watch and be unable to do anything, not even talk. And talk to someone tian needs to do. I hope honestly that liren puts it together. And follows him. Broody teenagers are not something I like to read about regardless of how brilliantly and realistically it's written. Too close to home and I love fantasy as it's not 😅
Anthony P.
This is why you don’t tell people they’re short.
ioajfidsnmfomds77
I thought she got the same “I grew up in the forest” cover story as everyone else?
ioajfidsnmfomds77
Bad parents/heretics don’t keep useless sickly children around in this setting. Or keep them alive. He knows he was considered so sickly that killing him was considered a mercy. So he knows his parents loved him enough to keep him alive and try to help him get better
Alexis Lionel
Tian has mentioned he lived in a dump to Liren before, i swear i remember that happening. She blew it off though.
Fuzzycakes
fantastic chapter
FuriousDee
Joshua Flowers
Unfortunately this isn’t something Liren can fix. Fu must take some time go into secluded meditation with his son.
Lurker
Anyone else kinda still see a darth tian moment?
Robert Mullins
Tian really channeling his inner verso this chapter: "We're all hypocrites doing the same thing to each other."
FuriousDee
I hope not them interacting is the best bit of the novel so I would hate for it to end for any amount of time
Robert Mullins
I think traditionally this is when Tian would get kidnapped and brought back to the desert. Or Liren picked up by her grandmother. Hopefully not. I hate those forced separation arcs.
Tarbo
I think without Grandpa Jun he could very easily develop another heart demon from this
Baconwargod
And so our heros separate Naruto and sasuke style. Hopefully for just a few chapters but we maybe entering a punished Tian arc
Ao
"I live on Earth at present, and I don't know what I am. I know that I am not a category," he wrote. "I am not a thing—a noun. I seem to be a verb, an evolutionary process—an integral function of the universe."
Raymond Mouton
Thanks for the chapter. Rough subject, treated well.
dkpfrog
Thanks for this wonderful chapter!
Diarmuid McGinnity
Absence makes the heart grow fonder
Kain
Yeah hate to be a downer, actually I don’t it’s just something people say, but there’s like no shot they are reuniting soon is there? Like these kinds of “trust me we’ll just be apart for a couple days” separations never just last a couple days.
EvilLittleThing
After reading the last 90 minutes of comments, I think it's important to remember that there is a very real possibility that an inner court member politically at odds with Fu and Bai put the hit out on Tian and Hong. The kids were being hunted by heretical assassins, but they left the war behind in the desert. The assassins were hired by someone in the Broadsky Kingdom. So while the outer court sisters in the local convent are likely trustworthy, they could easily and innocently send a message to Tian and Hong's hidden enemy, informing them that the kids are still alive, injured, and where to find them. Because the Ancient Crane monastery swept up Little Treasure and left Tian and Hong to die. They showed up, fought the puppeteer, and fucked off. Fu, Bai, or anyone in their camp would have looked for Tian and Hong. So when the kids climb out of the cave alone after waiting 10 days to be rescued, it's basically confirmation that they were being hunted by a martial aunt/uncle - supposedly one of the good guys - because their existence is politically disadvantageous to an inner faction. Which means they also have to acknowledge that the adults who raised them ALSO allow children to be brutally murdered for political reasons. Hong wants to force reform by gaining power and changing the monastery from within, and Tian wants nothing to do with any of it.
EvilLittleThing
He's not abandoning her though. He told her very specifically to go to the convent and he would be waiting for her at the inn the next town over. That he wouldn't leave her until she wants to leave him. The monastery left them to die in that cave, just like they both feared. Just collected Little Treasure, then didn't bother to come back looking for Tian and Hong. Who, until they found Little Treasure, were considered the precious future of the sect. After Hong first woke up in the cave, they discussed how they wanted to be saved, but worried the monastery would bother, and Tian said that if nobody came looking for them, his trust in the monastery would be broken, and he would leave it. Besides, Hong knows Tian was the son of the Xia. He told her twice already in the cave, even going to far as to describe his revenge on her family (pissing in their wine cellar and beating up grandma Hong). But now they had to dig themselves out of the cave because nobody came looking for them, and they can't continue to avoid confronting the sins of the adults who raised them.
João Vene
Oh no it's breaking my heart. The boat line at least gives me a lot of hope. Tian probably means it literally, but it gives me hope that what was damaged can still be fixed
Abhi
I mean technically he's not 'leaving' leaving. He's gonna be in the next town over while she talks to the Convent because he literally doesn't want to even be in the same town as the Monastery right now.
Vainirion
Sooo, Liren gave her life for him, then Tian somehow saved her and now he’s leaving after learning of the Xia and having a breathless meltdown. I think she’ll connect the dots - the previous arc made it pretty clear that Liren, despite being brain damaged, is really smart. That said, she’s also an impulsive fire-aligned teenager who almost lost her life and her brother runs away after having yet another meltdown, so she may be quite fucking furious before it dawns on her.
Kain
Well that’s gotta be absolutely devastating for her.
Roxanne Moore
Great chapter. Now that I'm caught up this series is making me resent how long 24 hours is.
Abhi
Honestly he's showing a lot of personal maturity and almost saintly understanding on it already. He is still 16 and it's his most deeply seated trauma. So really expecting more that quickly would be pushing belief.
Codered999
Thankfully this isn't the Friday chapter so we just have to wait one day to see if next chapter is Liren's perspective.
Robert Mullins
I really do think the next 2 chapters being from Liren's perspective would be great.
Codered999
Very much so yes.
Gardor
To me, this kinda reinforces how dickish it was to not to tell Liren he was that nameless sick child. She's the only person he trusts without reservation, but not enough to be honest with her. Whatever she THINKS Tian is feeling right now, she isnt even close.
Cameron Bacon
I can't get over how good this series is. The potential for introspection and deep character arcs/personal growth in xianxia is so insanely untapped, apparently. Thanks for opening my eyes
Veridescent
Its more a internal incrementalist road. Hong is mainly going for being the teeth to the reforms, Tian is in some ways both more clear eyed to patterns and a bit more selfish and so doesnt quite align with that as easily. He is in all honestly closer to someone who would prefer it all to be remade but he is too burned by his experiences of negativity to have much of a positive reconstruction model compared to hong. It is his plus and his minus. He doesnt have the blinders of the societal model Hong has but he also doesnt have a path out in mind yet.
Veridescent
Yeah this'll hurt Hong. Of course Tian doesnt quite have the space or experience to proccess and so this modality may be good in part given he is still keeping to his own patterns. But abandoning her after that point when she doesnt quite have the context to know he is the child will hurt her for sure. Hurt without context can be some of the worse
zombie
This is even more soul crushing than last chapter. Poor Tian...
Guilherme
agreed. unfortunately we dont get many POV chapters. but I feel that right now it’s a must
Book Worm
What I would give to read this chapter from Liren’s POV…..
Robert Mullins
I hope this isn't turning into an arc where they're separated. My favorite part of the story is them traveling and working together.
Andrew Goebel
Feng is going to owe so many oranges to the caretaker of the lake.
Noah
I hope so. He really needs someone else to know. Either his father or Liren.
James Faulkner
Goddamn, that’s brutal. I really hope Tian abandons the monastery tbh, the high road feels so unsatisfying here.
Steve Wright
Elder Feng on her flying barge, updating the Five Troubled Youth betting pool. “Kid finally ran into the woods!”
Andrew Goebel
This exactly what I thought would happen. So why am I so sad?
David Bailey
Hell of a closing line.
Alexandr Solomonenco
Oh, that's such a wonderful way to look at it, both very pragmatic in the way that he acknowledged he didn't know his birth family or parents, and so doesn't care as much about them in as much as about the harm that caused his suffering, all the meanwhile going on the idealistic path and trying to figure out if he's complicit, because even though he joined after the events, he did give the oath, he gave sometimes a tacit and sometimes a vocal agreement to the way things were and are, either by action or inaction. Overall, I like the parallels, and am very much looking forward to more of everything, including big reveals and reactions and face slapping Xianxias are known for 😊
EvilLittleThing
The Monastery really left them there to die
William Johnson
I think Hong figured it out there.
JTP
Good God warby. Heartbreak.
TeDureShi
Sad chapter
Doggo
yip yip
