Chin was a stubborn man. Back when he was a child, I had far fewer dealings with the mortal town, but I still came around now and again, if only to check out how they were getting along. And his father, while a nice enough man, had never been casual with me.

But then he had Chin.

Chin was six years old when he’d first seen me. He had asked me who I was and what I did. And when I’d explained myself he said, “So you’re the lazy man who lives in the woods.”

His father almost had a heart attack when he’d seen me talking to the boy. The old man had sprinted over with panic and started to profusely apologize before he’d even heard the conversation.

And when he tried to get Chin to bow to me, the little boy refused to do so and remained upright like an old tree.

Years later, when his father tried to force down the mantle of Light Master, a job that generally went along with the title of Village Chief, Chin had refused, opting to be a farmer instead.

The rainy season was when all types of lower cultivator clans and merchants would come in with all their magical beasts and creatures and while the cultivators could use them to cross through the Great Dessert in a timely enough speed, the beasts themselves required water and nourishment.

And Chin, at the age of twenty, against his father’s wishes, had made the supply of food for these merchants to be the number one priority of the village. And the village grew in commerce for it. Suddenly they could request to be paid in medicines and spices, bringing the village a whole new hord of goods that they couldn’t access from anywhere else.

Chin had recognized that this village was landlocked and while communication was possible, travel was exceptionally hard for anyone within the valley. The village was surrounded by fifteen hundred miles of desert on both sides, and trade was an impossibility aside from one time a year.

And Chin had made the best use of that time. Consistently overfarming and guiding his village to produce over twenty times their required food to strengthen and grow their other resources.

And the village was better for it. New herbs were planted, and new livestock were received. One time a group of merchants had given the village a wind ostrich hatchling, which was a spirit beast that could cover over a thousand miles a day, and Chin had happily taken the bird, giving the village some lifeline to the outside territories.

But most important of all, Chin had brought in books. Books filled with methods for farming, blacksmithing, cooking, building, and all other sorts of skills. Under him, everyone had benefitted, from the snobby Light Master to the local farmer with only two cows and a chicken.

There were no beggars or unhoused. Everyone had a place to belong to and if you needed a job, you could always farm.

That was all to say, Chin was a smart and stubborn man. He knew what was good for everybody else and did it.

But the man rarely ever looked after himself, and that was where the wife came in.

It took an unbreakable will of god to make Chin do something he didn’t care for, and Medin had that by the boat. Chin was skinnier than a branch before he knew her, and he spent so much time out on the fields that it was common for him to fall asleep in a stable or on the fields.

One time Medin had come across him sleeping next to a donkey and had dragged him inside by force, making Chin bath and clean himself before stuffing him full of stew and making him sleep till midday.

Chin told me about the encounter like it was a horror story the next day, and even though the man shivered a little at Medin’s name, he was already smitten. As stubborn as Chin may be, he was only human after all, and a woman that kind and generous yet stern and forceful seemed to have flipped the love switch on in his brain.

“Chin!” Medin yelled as we approached his home.

“When was the last time you ate?”

“Medin, I was just a little busy with-”

“Nonsense! You forgot breakfast and lunch, and you barely slept at all yesterday!” The lady berated.

“And what about you Mister Bill?” the woman asked me.

“Uuuuhh, I don’t really need to eat-”

“Children, the both of you!” Medin interrupted before turning around and walking back into the house. Chin sighed and followed her in, leaving the door open and unattended.

And just as I was about to turn around and leave, Medin yelled.

“You too Mister Bill!”

Oh well.

I smiled and entered the wooden home, resigning to my fate.

The Chin family home was old and large. It was common practice for the village chief to have a large residence and Chin was no exception to the rule. The home had belonged to his father and his grandfather before that, being passed down from one village chief to this one.

I remember watching them build this one about three hundred years ago. The old homes used to be made out of mud and stone, but after the village had gotten a hold of some Ivin Wood from the Hidden Viper territory, they had slowly rebuilt everything over the years, replacing every mud hut with living wooden structures.

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You’d see that a lot. Qi-infested things that cultivators had little use for would often end up revolutionizing the mortal population’s life. In this case, it was just a hard-to-kill piece of wood. Ivin Wood had the ability to pull ambient qi out of the air, no matter its condition, and set roots at almost any place.

For the Hidden Viper clan, I’m sure it was nothing more than a tree-like weed that occasionally annoyed their medical gardens. But for the mortals and low-rank cultivators, it was a miraculous bit of building material, something that would grow and heal over time.

And now, it even had professions that revolved around it. Pruners, as they were called, were half gardeners and half builders, knowing how to bend and grow the wood just right enough to give it life and strength. The roof would need to be pruned every now and then and the walls would occasionally need to be watered during the dry spells, but aside from that, maintenance was an easy task.

We walked into the large house and went straight into the dining room and two generations of Chin sat there waiting for us. Chin’s five children sat around the table talking to themselves as they waited for the food. And Renk the Light Master, who also happened to be Chin’s brother-in-law sat in a chair at the corner, hunched over and reading by the light of a crystal in his hand.

Along with him was a small girl, one of Chin’s granddaughters who had taken a nack to books and became the Light Master’s apprentice about a year ago, sitting on a blanket on the floor and reading a book that rivaled her master’s with the same interest and ferocity.

There were several small children in the house, most of them had already eaten and gone up to bed, but a few stragglers were around, annoying the adults and burning off whatever energy they had before sleeping. On the inside, the big house seemed almost incredibly small for the amount of people it contained.

“Mr. Bill!” A group of three boys exclaimed.

At their words, all the people in the room glanced in my direction and nodded to me in respect. Chin’s nonchalance towards me had rubbed on his children over the years and onto their children, though I could still see a bit of cautiousness in the adults’ eyes.

Renk frowned at me but made a show of hiding it and buried himself back into his book. He still didn’t like me. He had a horrible bias against cultivators, one that I couldn’t blame him for, but his hatred had calmed down to distrust over the years, and displeasure after that.

His apprentice looked up at her distracted master, then smiled and waved at me briskly. I waved back at the small girl returning the gesture before her master could see.

“Mr. Bill! Mr. Bill!” The three stooges said as they bounced around me.

The children Makel, Rudin, and Tanem, all bounced around aggressively. They were all Chin’s grandchildren, and though none of them shared their parents, most people considered them a brotherly trio.

“Did you see the cultivators Mr. Bill? Rudin said Rin Wi went and beat one of them up for not giving her face! He said she threw him like an orange!” Makel interrogated.

“She did do it! Smacked him like a fly Mak! A fat, angry fly!” Rudin answered.

The boy was the biggest of the trio, both in size and ego, but Makel generally acted as their designated leader. Tanem stood by them quietly with a slightly interested look. The boy, much like his Light Master sister, was a fan of books. But unlike Taura, he didn’t have a single social bone in his body.

The shy child just stared at me, hiding behind his larger and younger cousins.

“And what exactly were you doing near the merchants’ camp?” One of the adults asked him.

“Nothin” Rudin replied. “I was just bringing them their food, that’s all. And I wasn’t near the cultivators, it’s just that Rin Wi smacked him so hard he almost flew right into me!”

“My apologies Rudin,” Rin Wi said. The maiden had just strolled in behind me, but the young man must have not seen her.

The portly jumped and turned like a large tabby cat.

“It- it- it's no problem ma’am,” Rudin responded. His flushed red and his hands dug into his pockets as he turned and tried to hide behind his younger cousins.

I smiled and sat down at one corner of the table, suppressing my presence and hiding myself away from most of the people there. Rin Wi followed my lead and did the same.

“So you smacked some guy around, huh?”

“Yes honored master,” She nodded. “He was demanding and arrogant, asking us for things we did not offer.”

I nodded. I was vaguely aware of the confrontation, sensing it from a distance.

“Us?”

“Yes, honored master. I was in charge of soups and stew during the process and the man asked us for something we did not offer.”

“Mhm.”

“And he threatened the villagers,” She continued.

“Did he now?”

Rin Wi nodded with a frown.

“I had to make an example of him,” She said matter of factly. “He was interrupting my duty.”

I chuckled. Out of all the maidens, Rin Wi seemed to be the one who had adapted the best to this place. The girl was smart and capable, but also simple and accepting. Over the weeks, she had been the one who would talk to me the most. And nowadays she’d grown to chattering with the villagers and working well in the kitchen.

That was a weird little quirk of hers. Out of all her siblings, she was the strongest, and yet she chose to cook instead of fight.

“What are your plans after the rainy season?”

“Well after the rainy season, Xi Lu says that she and Po Pen will have to work out a way to fertilize all the manure those giant insect steeds leave behind. And then after that, we have to sort all the merchant goods and such.”

I smiled. Rin Wi had taken a liking to the village and her attitude towards it reminded me of Chin in many ways.

Medin walked into the room followed by a few of her children, each of them carrying pots and dishes filled to the brim. One of them came by and started to pass out plates bowls and utensils, making sure everybody had one of each.

The children got up and helped, carrying empty bowls and jugs of water. Rudin walked over to us, his face reddening up as he approached, with his trio traveling under him.

“Would- would you like to wash mi- miss?” The boy stammered. I could tell he meant to say Miss Rin Wi, but choked abruptly at the end of the sentence.

“Yes I would,” Rin Wi replied with a smile.

She stuck her hands out and Rudin put a bucket underneath them. Then Tanem approached with a small bowl filled with a white mushy substance. Rin Wi dipped her finger in the bowl, and gently rubbed the substance all over her hands. Makel then came up with a pitcher of water and proceeded to pour a small amount onto her hands.

Rin Wi rubbed her hands together again and the soap frothed over as she scrubbed and cleaned. In truth, this process was unnecessary for the both of us, but then again so was eating. Makel poured more water over Rin Wi’s hands and she finished rinsing her hand off and gave a light bow to the boys.

Then came my turn. I repeated the process, stopping halfway through to blow a torso-sized soap bubble to impress to trio. The little musketeers cheered at the display, even the smitten Rudin, and they walked away to finish their chores while mumbling about how they wanted to try that after dinner.

After that, Rin Wi and I went and filled our plates, before heading over to our corner and munching away in peace.