Chapter 71 Conversations

Po Pen smiled. Po Pen found joy in his work. People found it strange, repugnant even.

But Po didn’t care. The joy wasn’t in the work itself, but rather the result. The clean streets, the fresh soil, and even the rot of waste into life were a beautiful thing to see. He had started the job as a way to make a living.

He was quiet, too quiet. He couldn’t work most other jobs, because he hated talking and partly, he hated listening.

People were selfish most of the time, talking only about things that they cared for. And since they rarely understood his nonverbal rejection, they’d talk for as long as they wanted about whatever they wanted.

Po just had that effect on people.

But Xi Lu was different. She was quiet when he was tired and when he wasn’t, she talked to him, not at him. She spoke of things that interested him, teaching him about plants and rot, sometimes she talked about unimportant things like the food they ate or the weather in the region and even that was a fun enough thing to talk about.

He said nothing, often nodding in reply or looking towards something in the distance, but she seemed to yank meaning from his gestures and would reply to him concisely. It was a first for the man, he not only found a person’s company neutral but pleasant as well.

This rainy season had been the hardest one that Po had ever seen. There were easily ten times the number of people here and the same could be said for their beasts of burden, and yet they had almost no trouble accepting them all.

And a major reason for that was the maidens. Seven capable women descended from the hermit’s home and aided the village in all their needs, it was a mythic thing. But Chin hadn’t cared, the old man had put the girls to work before they could even introduce themselves. Rin Wi was always with Medin and Lin Tai was responsible for managing the forest, though Po didn’t think a forest needed much managing, but what did he know?

And Xi Lu had been aiding him in clean-up. But the rest of the girls had been helping with the generic work and that had caused a stir with the young men of the village. The girls were stronger, more capable, and far too beautiful for their own good.

A few men had tried to harm them, but they’d all been firmly rejected, and then later visited by Chin carrying an old stick. Everyone now understood that the women were off limits, but still, their ability to aid in anything made them stand out anywhere they went.

All that made everyone suddenly shift their attention to three locations, where the four women were, where Rin Wi was, and where Xi Lu resided. That meant that Po had been getting stopped much more often than before and asked questions about that mysterious cultivator girl he spent so much time with.

To which Po would shrug and try to turn away.

Even when he enjoyed one person’s presence, the world seemed to find a way to ruin it. Though it wasn’t a bad price to pay for her information.

“Po Pen! Hello!” Xi Lu smiled.

She always did that, even if he had been gone for only an hour she would greet him with enthusiasm.

It was strange at first, but Po had quickly gotten used to it.

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He nodded with a slight smile on his face. Most people wouldn’t have noticed it, it was just a small tensing at the end of his lips. But she noticed somehow, much like Mister Bill.

“Well, how is it?”

He nodded. That was enough for her to understand his meaning.

“Good! I’ve been talking to merchants, mainly those from Hidden Viper’s territory and they carry an assortment of seeds we can use to add to the cleansing routine. What do you think about that then?”

He nodded again and Xi continued talking.

She went on about the nature of these plants and their various abilities and Po listened eagerly. He watched as she showed him various seeds and their effects and she even had books, books she had purchased from the trader with her own wealth.

They had started planning and scheming about a new form of sewers. Caverns filled with streams and fresh flowing water, stuffed with underground plants that fed off of all types of waste and filth.

And she also talked about breeding bacteria. He was aware of their existence, but he normally thought of them as bad things that caused illness. But he was wrong, apparently, these things were vital to most humans' existence. And they were just as vital outside of it.

“Well, I don’t know how they do things in places like these but I can think up of a few ways to create a good environment for them.”

Po gave her a questioning look.

“Oh well, where I’m from we never really had to deal with such… problems. People didn’t poop.”

Po gave her another look.

“Well, they just didn’t. Maybe some did, newborns at least but powerful people are different. You don’t defecate after the fourth rank.”

Po frowned. That didn’t sit right with him. People were people and people pooped. What type of person didn’t need to poop.

“They’re very clean back there, which was ironic when you think about the things they dealt in.”

She said things like this sometimes. Statements about her past followed by what seemed to be fear and guilt. Po had learned to stop asking. She clearly didn’t want to talk about it and Po didn’t want to talk about anything so who was he to pick and prod?

And clearly, there was pain there.

But it would rot, like all bad things did. Time would take the filth and turn it into life, it always did.

He nodded and sat down next to her, listening as she quickly changed the subject back to seeds. There was still guilt and some flashes of horror, but a little less than last time. It would always be a little less than last time.

Mister Bill had come by a while back and spoke vaguely of the maiden’s situation. Po didn’t understand. How could he, he was a village peasant, the shit man. But for the first time in Po’s life, he felt like he wouldn’t mind just listening, even if all she wanted to talk about was herself.

After a good amount of talking, Po went off to unload the feces. There were about twenty thousand people within the valley at any given time now. That meant there were thousands of pounds of feces produced on a daily basis.

Chin had given him a higher budget for the clean-up work. His workforce was double what it used to be and while they wore waterproof gloves and large leather workwear, they still occasionally managed to get something on them.

It was unfortunate, but it was a part of the job. But Xi had made this strange paste from some strong-smelling plants. When they smeared that just underneath their nostrils, they would smell that instead of the wagon of shit they wheeled behind them.

It was nice, humanizing even.

He didn’t hate the job but the smell was always something he could do without.

Then there was the beast dung. That was a whole work of its own, but Chin had already gotten an area cleared out for them to stay at. And since qi beasts tended to be smart on average, they were all trained in using a single area as their dump spot.

It was downwind of the village, but even then Po was coming up with methods to fight back the smell, and so was Xi. She talked all day long about what they could do to quicken the composting process, walking by his side as he went about his daily route.

And eventually, when evening came they said their goodbyes and went to their homes. It was a good day overall.

Was this how other people felt when they talked? Being heard was nice and having someone who wanted to hear you was even better.

Maybe that was why people kept talking to him.

Po Pen smiled as he used the soap to wash over his whole body. It was one of the few luxuries he consistently enjoyed, a daily shower.

He was also finding himself more tired than most days. A part of him he never really knew ached a little. Conversations drained him, even if it was with Xi, but he didn’t mind.

In fact, he looked forward to being tired tomorrow too.