Adventures of an Old Dreamer

Book 1: The Jade Empire

The pleasant noon sun radiated warmly while the west wind whooshed through the humble hill-side hamlet, cooling the air comfortably. Children darted about in childish delight as the adults spent their time on the only tavern in the village, conversing animatedly.

A young boy headed towards the village exit, an oversized walking stick on one hand and a book tucked between his arm and his side, shepherding a dozen sheep behind him. He just passed the tavern when an old man spotted him.

“Hey, Chen’er!”

The boy, Lao Chen looked up. “Yes, uncle Xia?”

“Headin’ out to the pastures already?”

Lao Chen smiled. “It just rained yesterday, so I reckon there’s a lot of grass.”

Uncle Xia grinned, nodding. “You reckoned right. Go on ahead, Chen’er. You be a dutiful boy.”

Lao Chen nodded decisively, his step adopting a spring. The children playing around him pointed at him.

“Big brother Chen, wanna play?”

Lao Chen shook his head, smiling. “I’ve got shepherd duty, so I can’t.”

“Next time?”

Lao Chen nodded. “Maybe.”

The boy named Lao Chen headed out of the village, and further down a path between two valleys that led up to the peak of one of the grassier hills he used for pasture.

The hill was just big enough to overlook the entire village and the surrounding mountain range that cradled his home. The mountains covered all sides and only allowed a single narrow passageway out of the circular mountain range which was difficult to detect.

Lao Chen herded his sheep and placed his items down before crossing his arms.

“You be good now, sheep. Don’t wander too far off, alright? And you,” Lao Chen pointed at the biggest sheep. “Your name shall henceforth be King Ram. Watch over my flock and bleat if anyone is in trouble. Now, off you go.”

The sheep promptly began their grazing while Lao Chen found himself a rock where he could lean his back on. With the book in his lap, he disappeared into another world of intrigue, mystery, romance and fantastic abilities as the sun slowly sunk into the far beyond.

All too soon, the sun had dipped too far beneath the horizon to provide any viable reading light. With a deep breath, Lao Chen laid on his back and gazed at the starscape, mulling over the other world he had so briefly become a part of.

A dragon was threatening to eat the hero along with his love interest when night fell and Lao Chen would have to resign himself to wait like he always did when he could no longer read.

Tracing patterns on the night sky with his finger, Lao Chen thought aloud. “How does a dragon look like?”

With wavy finger motions, Lao Chen pondered on. “Serpentine, so like a snake. Four legs, so like a sheep… but the head… I have no idea how a lion’s mane or fangs are supposed to look like.”

Lao Chen grumbled. “Maybe the head also looks like a sheep… a serpentine sheep?”

As the stars gained prominence, Lao Chen fell solemn, banishing his vivid images of cryptids and mythical beasts.

Perhaps he could one day find out? Adventure out to the open world, cross treacherous seas and avoid assassinations? A life of adventure. It called to him so very much, but what means did he have?

Shaking his head, he banished those thoughts, too. “I’d be dead before I could see anything interesting.”

Alas, life continued, and his trade would always be that of a shepherd, he decided.

Trading one book for another, Lao Chen continued his daily life shepherding, reading and wishing his life was more than it was, but he couldn’t complain. His life was idyllic. Far from the destitute poverty described in his books or the errandmen who returned with stories from the outside world and certain commodities.

He wasn’t horribly off. Insects didn’t infest every corner of his family’s home. His family had a home. He never went hungry because the village could sustain itself, anyhow. It was a small patch of paradise in a land of blight.

And so he lived.

And so he grew.

The boy grew inches taller, grew stubbles on his chin and a youthful fervour. Ladies would giggle at his passing, but he only had eyes for the pasture and books. Although it made him seem educated to some, only he knew how hopeless a dreamer he was.

Looking at the biggest sheep behind him, he couldn’t help but sigh. “You’ve made a lot of babies in your life, King Ram. Perhaps it is time to name a successor?”

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Its children flocked around King Ram, almost protectively. A Royal Guard in a way. Lao Chen toyed with the idea as he walked.

A group of boys his age with bows strung around their torsos participated in good-natured banter as they headed out the same exit as himself, on the way to the forest.

“Make way, make way,” Lao Chen grinned, gaining their attention. Grinning, they stepped out of the way and allowed him and his flock passage.

“Chen!” one of the young hunters called out, waving his hand. He was dark-haired and was built leanly, a body cultivated for the agility and endurance required for the hunt. “Mother said to thank you for the free wool! My baby sister feels much warmer at night, now.”

Lao Chen waved his hand dismissively. “That was nothing at all! Since the monsoon just passed, there’s almost too much grass for the sheep. They were bound to make surplus, and I couldn’t just throw it all away!”

“Nevertheless,” the young hunter conceded. “You did us a great service. Thank you!” He clasped his hands, bowing his head, much to Lao Chen’s self-consciousness.

“Well, be seeing ya!”

The teenaged boy continued to read and dream on, and before he knew it, his first wrinkle manifested around his eyes, but he was never as superficial to notice before the wrinkles began to multiply.

His parents’ deaths came with much preamble. They were old and ailing, and Lao Chen did what he could to provide them with comfortable clothing and mattresses to spend their remaining mortal lives in relative peace, and thankfully, the sting of losing his parents were only ameliorated by the memory of his extended family spending their time with each other. The Lao family was relatively well-known, and Lao Zia and Lao Yun were both people of import, right beneath the current chieftain, a middle-aged man of Lao Chen’s age.

Even then, Lao Chen knew what he wanted to do, and it was continue reading, escaping and tending to his flock. That was all that really mattered to him.

***

“...And as fate would have it, the boy had finally managed to wrest away the shackles of his captors after an eternity of suffering, and it was all because of one woman whom he loved dearly. The end.”

Lao Chen sat on a mound on the same grassy plateau as always, concluding his tale to the children listening. The sun was threatening to dip below the horizon very much timed with the conclusion of the story. The dozen or so children listening smiled.

“Will you tell us another story tomorrow?” They asked. Lao Chen nodded.

“This old man still has quite the amount of stories! Don’t let my looks deceive you, I’m not going anywhere!”

Lao Chen had just reached the age of seventy five, but none of those years were spent in regret, and that was Lao Chen’s happiest thought.

As the children retreated back to the nameless village proper, Lao Chen elected to stay with his sheep, watching the infinite starscape. It was a July day, the warmest month of the year. The wind was low and the grass was soft.

He was dissatisfied that he could never make the day last longer, but he knew that night-time was for dreaming.

Pointing his shepherd's stick to the sky, he mock-sneered. "You refuse to give face time and time again, night sky. You truly underestimate my prowess."

With a wave of his staff, he sent an imaginary force of lightning towards the sky, but instead of nothing happening, a crack appeared.

Lao Chen sat up and furrowed his eyebrows as the crack grew larger. From the crack, there was a space inside devoid of any color that Lao Chen could even recognize.

A hand shot out of it. Two hands. The hands pressed towards opposite sides, prying the crack open. With a flash of light that illuminated the night sky for a fraction of a second, a heavily armored man ambled out, floating mid-air.

"Where is it?" He spoke, his words making themselves heard inside Lao Chen's mind. "The Ring?!"

From the sky, a ring fell right next to him, looping through a particularly long blade of grass. He plucked it out and examined it with the little light available to him.

He was going to shout up to the unknown man that he had the ring when another, much more refined portal appeared, a robed man walking out of it.

"Where is it?" The armored man said.

"You're not supposed to have it," the robed man replied. "No one is. It's too powerful."

"We can do great things, brother!" The armored man insisted.

"A family heirloom, my ass. It was a test of loyalty to the throne. And you obviously failed. We shall now both die."

Lao Chen couldn't follow it as the man's hands moved unnaturally quickly, but just as the armored man turned tail to flee, a blinding light flashed for what may have been a hundredth of a second, just enough to inform Lao Chen that it might have happened, and both corpses fell from the sky like feathers, landing softly.

Lao Chen shoved them, pushed them, shouted into their ears, but they refused to wake up. With a grim realization, Lao Chen surmised that they were both very much dead.

Besides them were two pouches that would do them no good where they were going. It was a tradition in the village to not be buried with anything of Earthly value because doing so was a blatant waste, and no one in the village really took religion that seriously.

As he opened the medium-sized pouch that he held with both hands, he inserted one hand inside. His mind was invaded by an intuitive knowledge of the insides of the sack abruptly, causing him to jerk his hand out in instinctive fear.

The knowledge disappeared and he was left with a memory.

A memory of an ocean of gold, silver, diamonds, pieces of jewelry, legendary weapons, artifacts, masterpieces and books.

Rows and rows of books.

The books were configured in concentric circles, and in the center was a book that even he, a mortal, could feel emanated a potent aura.

He commanded the book to turn inside what he knew was a bag of holding, but he was unable to make out the writing, and because it was night-time, he wouldn't be able to do any reading anytime soon.

The second bag of holding was much the same. Treasures, but only one weapon. A staff made of gnarled wood. Instead of a multitude of books, there was only one scroll, and even that one emanated an aura of strength.

Coupled with that fact, he felt a strange sensation. A wish of some sorts. He had always wanted to leave for somewhere else, but now, it seemed, he had means and a direction. He wanted to go out, and he wanted it desperately.

"At last," Lao Chen said solemnly. "Adventure has deemed me worthy."

He cast a pitiful glance at the corpses of these two 'brothers' and interred them in the bag of holding, burying them in the gold, lest they attract scavengers.

Lao Chen could almost not put in any sleep that night. When a prisoner is told that their death sentence is tomorrow, there is something inherently time-wasting about sleeping that makes itself apparent especially when your days are numbered.

Lao Chen knew his life was never going to be the same, so with some mental adjustments, he prepared to enjoy his last night of normalcy.

Wearing a facade of bravado, he looked to the sky and smirked. "Just wait."