Alfonso Carter was a young man from a large family, with six siblings and many more cousins than that. A young man who was been often starved for attention and affection from his parents, he latched on to the attention that his paternal grandfather Charles and his great-grandmother Alma gave him. His grandfather died nearly six years ago now. Mama Alma was heading to a hospital and he was not fast enough or good enough to help her or head there with her.

Because of that as he sped down this worn out road like so many others he drove across on his dirt bike, he was thinking of them.

As tears welled in his eyes he thought of the times he was taught to cut onions with Grandpa Chacha. Of the wiry old man leaning over him and teaching him how to hold the onion, how to position his hand while cutting food, and why he shouldn’t cut the root until he was ready. Grandpa Chacha let him learn that after Alfie had already cut the root and was fighting stinging, tear filled eyes.

He thought of how Mama Alma always circumvented his parent’s wishes just to let him have fun. When he and his siblings wanted to climb trees, unfailingly she’d suddenly need some apples, oranges, lemons, limes or mangos for the dish she wanted to make. She even said it was obvious the kids needed to climb the trees to get them, it wasn’t to have fun.

The thought made him slow his pace and take in the scenery. He had not seen the ambulance’s light flashes for a while now, and his phone’s GPS was claiming its signal was lost. With his thoughts heavy on his mind, he didn’t put stock into them.

However, he had never seen pepper plants grow so big. Were those really peppers on the trees around him? Or some sort of fruit. They looked really good, and even if he couldn’t see Mama Alma, Auntie Edith would be hungry when the hospital sent visitors away.

‘I should get some,’ he decided.

***

Xiang Huo Gen was a man perpetually in misery, but it was normally just spiritual misery. Normally. At the moment Huo Gen was the full package, depressed, with the throbbing pain of a hangover, with the guilt he carried with him everywhere, and now – stinging lips and throat thanks to eating some strange spearhead shaped fruits from a tree.

Cooking them over an open fire did nothing to tamper down the sheer power of the plants. Their punch was strong enough that in hoping to cool his tongue and lips, the man consumed all the rice beer which he carried in his canteen. After knocking himself out with the brew, he woke to a hangover, slight sting, and hunger. So he partook in the remaining roasted peppers, cooled in ash and the night’s air as they were. It still burned him. It shouldn’t have.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Cultivators did not get drunk on weak rice beer without spiritual essence. They did not sting themselves with spicy foods. Perhaps it was a punishment from the heavens? Perhaps his spiritual core simply died in this wasteland of a chi desert and the odd things it occurred in?

If it was dead, he would not blame the heavens. As much as the pain caused him to sigh and fight back an undignified yelp, he deserved every single ounce of it.

Xiang Huo Gen trudged from his camp site after gathering his things. To move on would help him, and no matter his sins before he would not forget to continue to walk his path.

***

Above it all, on two peaks which would take days for mortals to traverse the distance between, two giants of the cultivation world conversed.

“Are you sure you would not like to continue to trade pointers, Wan Qi?”

“No, I think I enjoyed our spar quite well enough already, my esteemed Gong Tung-Mei. I dread to think what will happen if we continue our combat. While the region of Juren Wuting is after all, our playground and destruction in it does not matter - I felt some tremors in the world itself as we came to blows.”

“I felt them as well. Shall we take our leave? Perhaps visit one of the villages and find out what delicacies the realm below offers?”

“Yes, I would very much enjoy sharing a meal with you before we return to our sects and that’s only possible in neutral territory like this.”

“Just no roasted swamp rat skewers, Wan Qi. Trying them once was enough, I don’t care how much you swear by them.”

“Well, I have a craving for them. So we can begin our culinary course with a visit to Eyu Luzhou. You at least enjoyed their tea.”

***

Before him, the village of Eyu Luzhou burned and Dong Hui felt a smile form upon his lips. The foolish elder of the village offered him and his boys the town’s speciality when they came to collect the tribute owed to them, and the old bastard showed the nerve to serve his esteemed self, Dong Hui, the self-proclaimed Lord of all Juren Wuting – swamp rat skewers? Unacceptable.

Now the village burned, its treasure’s collected and its people taken as tribute. The dried husks of the elders who offended him now roasted over the flames of their former homes.

Dong Hui would brook no offense. He would accept no slight. He would be the ruler of this blighted land and he would gain great power from it, in time bringing his armies to destroy the sects which denied him and his disciples.

He turned from the scene, covering his mouth with his sleeve. The smell was beginning to become sour.

“Immortals! It is time that we move from this place.” he commanded his boys, and they followed the bandit king of Juren Wuting obediently.

***

Alfonso found that years of climbing Mama Alma’s fruit trees were not a waste. Despite the fact these peppers were in plants that qualified as trees just from their size, he soon found himself with a bag full of them. With their delightful orange, purple, green, yellow, and red colorings and the way it almost seemed like scales, he was excited to show them to Mama Alma, and to discover the mysteries of such peppers.

Though he didn’t know of any pepper growers in the county with produce like that, or any in all of Texas. What was going on?

He threw the sack of peppers into the bag, and then threw the bag into the motorbike trailer attached to the back of his dirt bike. With a moment to put Odiseo back safely in his pile of pillows and give him a few pets, he turned back and started up the vehicle. It roared to life.

He was speeding down the road when he heard a shout about haunting peppers and strange beasts. A shout close enough to be behind him.

He looked over his shoulder for a second, trying to find anything which could have caused the sound.