Chapter Text
Strangely, it doesn’t happen when they break her flute. No. It occurs once she’s finally cried herself to sleep that night in her bedroom; tired and hurting and blissfully unaware of her father’s whereabouts.
At some point in the night, she finds herself bolting upright as a surge of memories rush through her mind. It doesn’t hurt, despite the memories being wholly unfamiliar. Rather, it’s merely as though she’s pulled back the cover of an old book and is reading again after several years.
Tang San.
That was the name of the person living through the memories.
He had been a baby given to the Tang sect at birth and raised as an outer disciple. Throughout his life he had diligently served the Tang sect. From childhood to young adult, Tang San had studied and learned and worked under the heavy weight of the Tang. Many of the outer disciples had shown kindness and compassion to Tang San, even when he hadn’t believed he merited it. Unlike his fellows, Tang San improved slowly with his cultivation. He had no backers to provide expensive soul forming pills, yes, but he also wasn’t well suited for the Tang Sect’s method of cultivation of his golden core. What took others days, took Tang San weeks or even months.
Techniques and ancient wisdoms had come easily to the boy, but sitting still long enough to cultivate had been a trial. The Tang Sect cultivated through the Still Body, Still Mind technique. By stilling both body and mind, practitioners could draw natural qi from their surroundings and into their body. The stiller a practitioner became, the more intune with the natural world they became. However, being still was not simply a matter of stilling one’s body. Rather, the user was required to still everything they could, from important muscles like the heart to even thoughts or emotions. Users capable of such entered a near death state where their body achieved stasis while their mind fled the physical realm for more heavenly pursuits. Done well or often enough would lead to the accumulation of enough energy to form a foundation and then a golden core.
Tang San had not been prodigious with the Still Body, Still Mind technique. His mind had always wanted to focus on doing something and typically his body was not far behind.
Unfortunately, his lack of focus had had detrimental effects on Tang San.
Trash.
Weak.
Useless.
Wasteful.
Being a grown man and still struggling to cultivate had drawn scorn from the others. Not inside his close circle of friends; they all knew him. They knew his diligence and they knew his determination to do well by the sect that had taken him in. No, it was the inner disciples that passed through or the ever changing rotation of outer disciples visiting that salted his ears with such malice and ridicule.
Yet, Tang San had loved the Tang sect. How could he not? They had taken him in as a squalling infant when they could have left him to die. In that ancient world, taking in parentless children was the abnormality- not the norm. Many other children grew up, suffered through, and died on their own. Yet, the Tang Sect had chosen to take in the unwanted, useless, dead weight, Xiao San and turn him into the educated, useful, loved Tang San. Certainly, his cultivation had been an exercise in futility, but Tang San had been smart. He’d been able to make himself quite handy to the Tang Sect by building and repairing secret weapons, the Sect’s old siege equipment, even some broken drawbridges. Tang San had been useful and appreciated for it by his fellow outer Disciples on the Northern Ridge Outpost. It had only been strangers that hadn’t seen Tang San’s worth and if they had stuck around long enough, even they had warmed up.
Yet- Tang San had eventually flown too close to the sun and been burned for it. On the eve of war with another Sect, Tang San had realized that the sect no longer had the strength it once had with the old masters. The secret weapons, created through their special forging and Qi techniques, had not been made in many a year. Most of them had been destroyed over the centuries since the last Master of Creation had ascended. The Tang Sect was formidable, with many powerful cultivators with high level golden cores- but it had been built on the strength of those secret weapons. Without them, the Sect was just another midrank cultivator clan- not nearly strong enough to hold the vast lands and resources it had come to hold.
Clearly, something had needed to be done. And Tang San hadn’t wanted to see his martial siblings die. Not his kind Shixiongs and Shijies who had watched over him and encouraged him all of his life. Not his cute Shidis and Shimeis who constantly begged him to teach them, play with them, or give them a treat from the kitchen after dinner. No. Tang San would not allow the Tang San to enter a war it could not win.
So, he had snuck into the inner most reaches of the Tang Sect. Past the grandmaster’s palace and straight to the Sect’s Treasure Tower. Ordinarily, one wouldn’t be able to get past the barriers and guards so easily, but Tang San had been studying the Tang Sect’s arrays and secret techniques since he could sit on Yan-Shimei’s lap. One didn’t require strength to get past a Tang Array. Rather, the arrays were designed to feed on the invader’s Qi before turning it against them. No, the arrays required active spirit veins and grandmaster level skill.
No more, no less .
Tang San had been raised on barriers, arrays, and secret traps. Breaking into the Treasure Tower was... not easy, but less of a challenge than he had hoped. Recreating the Bhudda’s Fury Tang Lotus- Now THAT has been a challenge. But it was one he took on gladly. Yet, just as he finished forging it, he had been discovered. As a gift to the Sect that had given and taken so much from him, he returned the clothes on his back and gave the elders and inner disciples that had followed him the Lotus. He wouldn’t be using it anymore.
...
Taylor opens her eyes to tears and the blurred shadows of her room. Oh. That was a lot. Tang San had felt and loved and hurt and done so much.
It makes her feel contradictingly hollow and full to the brim. His memories bubble over hers, but the misery and pain of her last year of hell leech the heat of his life away. Taylor Hebert. Tang San. The same soul, but such different people. Or perhaps only different experiences to shape them.
Taylor squeezes her eyes shut and shakes her head. It does nothing to banish her existential thoughts, but it does make her feel a little more grounded to reality.
Okay. She has the memories of a man from another world in her head. Yes. She can deal with this. This is fine . She’s not in pain; she doesn’t feel like she’s about to run around screaming about the cultivation world or go on a disciple gathering spree to build her own sect. This is fine. Taylor stretches and curls her fingers over and over again as her thoughts race. Similar to the stretching of a cat, she bunches and kneads at the fabric of her comforter.
Pulling at a loose thread, she ponders her predicament. On the outside, nothing has really changed. The Taylor of yesterday and the Taylor of today face the same problems. Emma, Sophia, and Madison will still be there when she arrives at school. On the inside however... Taylor feels different. The memories of Tang San mix unpleasantly with their bullying campaign.
On one hand, Tang San had the support of all of his martial siblings, at least the ones that got to know him for his kind nature and hardworking spirit. He never had any doubts on his own self worth. His ability and whether or not he was paying back the Tang Sect well enough, but never his worth as a person.
On the other hand... Tang San wasn’t always able to contribute in what he felt was a meaningful way and the degradation he suffered from inner disciples or people who didn’t take the time to know him left a scar. His martial siblings gave him a strong sense of self worth, but even that could be eroded by the self-hatred gifted by others. Taylors experiences with the Trio mirror Tang San’s experiences with inner disciples eerily.
Taylor can’t continue in the way she’s been living. Not only will a compilation of her painful experiences build until she snaps, Tang San’s own sense of self worth won’t let her. She may not be beautiful, smart, or athletic, but she is her own person and she has worth in that alone. People she knows love and value her. Her father loves and values her. Her mother had loved and valued her. Her neighbors and friends at the Dockworkers Union love and value her.
Under the Trio’s haze of shame, Taylor hadn’t been able to grasp all of the love and value she still held to others. The constant bombardment at school had blinded her to the concerned gazes of her neighbors and the shy questions of her father’s associates. But now- Tang San’s memories paint over her surroundings with sharp context and clarity. Her father had been acting concerned for a while now- asking if she’s alright, how school was going. His awkwardness prevented him from doing much- but he was concerned for her. And he showed it in the best way he knew how.
Meanwhile, the neighbors had begun to leave casserole dishes on her porch months ago. At the time, she had assumed it was out of pity, but Tang San’s thoughts say it was out of love. And the dockworkers? They’d been passing birthday notes, Christmas cards, and even Valentine chocolate to her through her father even though she hadn’t visited the docks in years .
All of this compiles within Taylor’s head as a sturdy foundation. She’s not alone and she’s not unwanted. The Trio could never take away her worth to her family and the community that raised her.
Taylor Hebert is loved and she is worthy.
And there is nothing anyone or thing could ever do to change that.
It takes a while for the tears to stop, but when they do, Taylor feels better than she has in a long time. Curling up in her blankets, she closes her eyes and drifts back to sleep. She’ll sort out tomorrow when tomorrow comes. This is enough for tonight.
She has a good feeling about it and she’s sure those cultivation techniques are going to come in handy real soon.
Author note:
Hey, I'm going to be putting some recommendations for light novels down here. I'm going to try for novels that you've probably never heard of before, so feel free to look them up find a new favorite read. As an author myself, I can definitely say the struggle to get noticed is very intimidating, so I want to help some indie authors out a bit. Feel free to put your own recs in the comments.
First up is Reborn: As a Defective Drake
This series is an isekai where the main character incarnates into the runt of a nest of dragons. Being the runt, his siblings try to eat him as soon as he hatches. He (of course) escapes out into the medieval world and has to fend for himself while being about the size of a mouse. It's definitely a different take for the isekai genre and the main character has to actually use his brain to survive instead of his brawn. If you like smart MCs, this could be a good series for you as it follows the dragon from hatching to finding his own place in the world.