"I told you before. Strength is not everything," the old man said as he straightened out the straw clothes that were now splattered with water.

The boat dangled. The boy before him clenched his fingers tighter around the fishing rod. Sweat ran down his forehead, his arms stiffer and sorer from the force he wielded.

"Breathe in. You must know when to pull. Just meaningless force will get you nowhere," the man added, his tiny eyes following the boy's body to the edge of the boat.

"I know, Bardolph. I know, but this one's a big one."

"Jin, you always say that," the man said, laughing briefly. "Do you need help?" he asked, his invigorating voice traveling across the lake.

"No, no way. I'm going to achieve this on my own. I've been training to get stronger. I'll be the strongest one in town. One day I'll be like those legendary cultivators that you always tell me about," Jin replied, his spiky brown hair fluttering in the wind.

"Just focus on it. Don't talk nonsense," Bardolph replied, raising his voice.

The breeze was steady. The sun glistened and reflected its long silver arms across the river. Fish wandered in groups, sometimes leaping in front of Jin, as if they were making fun of the boy who tempted his luck there for four afternoons a week. There were only a few days when he managed to catch something, and yet he never gave up.

"Yes, yes. Almost there. I can feel it," Jin said. His voice was now muffled, slipping through his gnashing teeth, the few muscles he had nearly bursting the seams of his old clothes. They used to belong to Bardolph, his adoptive father, and had then passed to him about a year ago.

As usual, Jin felt an odd sensation scattering throughout his body. He had never told anyone that, for fear what his friends or parents would think. He dismissed it, convincing himself that it was just his bones aching. His already swollen fingers slipped down the wooden reed, the loose splinters scraping his skin. The fish pulled on the hook, bending his reed farther down into the water. With a quick thrust, Jin pulled it up as strongly as he could, shouting into nothing, one of his legs already on top of the wooden rail. Bardolph remained seated, using a rusty blade to chop slices of an apple.

Jin finally managed to catch the fish. It flew over the boy's body before finally landing on the boat floor. It shivered, trying to get back into the water, its life being taken away. Jin watched it for a few seconds before he picked it up and threw it back up into the water. He couldn’t stand still while the fish shivered, closer to dying each passing second.

Bardolph raised his right eyebrow.

"I feel like I shouldn't have done this, right?" Jin asked him, looking at the water.

"Don't say... It was our dinner," the old man replied, "Luckily, I had already caught a few," he said, and glanced at a bucket whose bottom was impossible to see, covered with the greyscales of a dozen or so fish.

"So, it didn't make any difference either, did it?" Jin asked him, his sweaty face glistening like the ripples in the water.

"Well, I guess not, but it doesn't matter either. It's better if you want to protect the living... I mean, forget about it," Bardolph said, shutting up suddenly.

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"What were you going to say?" Jin asked him, sitting down.

"Nothing. It doesn't matter now. We should go back. I still have some business to attend to. Tomorrow, you will be working in the fields first thing in the morning and then, in the afternoon, you come here. You have to get better at this. I won’t always be here," he said.

"The usual then, and you know how I hate when you say those things," Jin said, looking up at the sky. The boy yawned and put his palms on the back of his head, "Someday I'm gonna get out of here."

"You should dream of those bigger things and successes but keep your feet on the ground. You might even become a rich, important man, but you’ll have time for that."

"And I will be. And then I will build an even bigger house here for you. You deserve it after all."

"Don't be silly, Jin. We didn't do anything we weren't happy to do," Bardolph replied.

They wielded oars in both hands. Water sprinkled their shirt sleeves. They were drawing closer to the small port beside the river, which was just a narrow wooden bridge that led them to one of the green fields in between the unpaved road.

"You could have chosen not to stay with me after my parents dropped me at your house as soon as I was born. But you did and you always took care of me. Why shouldn't I reward you? Aren’t you always saying that good actions should be rewarded accordingly?" Jin asked him.

"I hope that being such a good person won't cause you any trouble in the future," Bardolph replied as they were docking.

"Sometimes, it seems like you speak through codes, you know?"

"Or you're still not mature enough to understand," the man answered him and shoved him forward. "She's already waiting for us, as always," he said, his gaze stuck on a slender figure that waved at them from the top of the hill.

"She's waiting for me to get me to clean the laundry, I bet," Jin said, his brown eyes turned amber in the sunlight. "If I finish early, I can still meet my friends, let's go," he said.

"I don't know how you still have so much energy, boy," Bardolph told him, tweaking his clothes and rubbing his bushy right eyebrow. It was a little more arched than the left and concealed a brownish sign that the man had near his eyelid.

"I'm young. You, on the other hand..." Jin said and laughed, unveiling a perfect smile.

Bardolph kept his lips shut and tried to act serious but ended up laughing too. Happiness cradled them. Birds crossed the village, chirping, and landing on wooden roofs. Jin stroked the sunflowers and camellias that made up the gardens that bordered the way to the bridge. Apart from a few small stairs, everything else was as green and yellow until the eye was no longer able to follow it. The boy inhaled the crystalline air.

The woman who awaited them, Jin's adoptive mother, waved even though they weren't halfway the hill yet. When the boy arrived next to her, the man was still meters away.

"Hello, darling. You look tired," she said, her frail voice nearly a whisper.

"Not really. It's just this sun always beating on my face. I'm fine. I have to go wash our clothes, don't I?"

"Yes, but you don't have to go now. You can do it in the evening. You know the nights are longer now," she said.

"The sooner I’m done with it, the better, right? Besides, I will always give you a hand. You're past the age of walking around, doing all the work."

"Jin, I still have a few years left in me. I'm not that weak. Someone has to clean the house and take care of the plants while you're both working in the fields," she said, her light greenish eyes fading away. As she raised her arm to wave at Bardolph, who was getting closer and almost breathless, the parched skin swung to both sides as the faint wind blew in.

"Finally," Bardolph said. "I'm getting too old to be climbing this every day. It might be nice for young people like you who don’t seem to get tired but not for me. Not anymore." Bardolph said to Jin.

"So, you're admitting you're a little old," Jin said, winking at him.

"Maybe just a little bit, yeah. Now, go do what you have to do," he said and smiled at the boy.

Jin nodded. The boy turned around and, having only taken a little more than ten steps, stopped when he heard a stiff, painful scream that seemed to knock the whole moment around him. All his thoughts were flushed away and he couldn’t even begin to look at what was happening. A voice within him telling him to stay still. But he couldn’t. That was not who he was. As soon as he looked back, his heart stopped for a few seconds.

No, it couldn't be. It had to be a nightmare. The woman who had cared for him for seventeen years with her chest dyed red, the metallic tip of an arrow stuck in it.