Yangniu Diwu was furious as he struggled against the strange device which had been used to secure him and his sworn brother Tienye together. He was furious at the situation and at himself. He was furious at the idea that he had walked right into a trap and the fact that he was being held by what he believed to be mortals. So once again, with all of his might, he tried to pull on the rope and snap it. Once again, he found himself thrown like a rag doll into Tienye’s broad back.

“Truly, the merchant we met was a foul warlock.”

“I told you,” Tienye retorted, speaking with friendly tones but clearly sour about being doubted. He was not as dumb as he was perceived to be by so many. “He charged a spell and then his dog was on you and had taken you to the ground! Even blinded you with some strange plant.”

Diwu’s eyes narrowed, then widened in reflex as the sting from the results of the weaponized cooked pepper he had been struck in the eyes with was readily apparent. He couldn’t escape or even brood properly.

“So he did. But that does not mean we should fear him. Even a great tactician eventually runs out of tricks, treasures, and tools.”

Whatever this strange creature known as the “bungee” which the cord that bound them was originated from must surely have the most elastic and impossible to break textile of all the men and creatures under heaven.

“Well, what is your plan? I’m so hungry, Diwu.”

“Heh.” Frustrated or not, he could not help but let the grin of an underappreciated genius spread across his face. “Listen to what your senior brother has to say, my dear Tienye.”

***

Luzhou Gou frowned at the words which he had just listened to and not for the first time. Perhaps he should just let the bandits go and hope they would not inform their master or attack Anhao Luzhou?

He hated cultivators. This was supposed to be a relaxing week after the village had mostly gotten through the winter and the growing season, paying their tribute to Ding Hui and his Immortals. Gou was supposed to be able to enjoy time with his wife, children, and grandchildren. Perhaps eat a sweet red bean and venison stew with his beloved wife after dancing a slow dance while his son played their family’s heirloom pipa.

Instead, Gou found himself with his ear to a storage shed, listening to what was being said by two bandits and trying to steel himself to interrogate the young men.

As they began to speak of a plan, he made his decision. He opened the door. Better to strike at the right time.

“Greetings, young fellows. I am Luzhou Gou, and I have come to ask you what you were doing on the road attacking merchants. We paid our tributes and should be under the protection of Lord Ding Hui. That road is important for us to get goods and trade to Eyu Luzhou and the other villages, and was a part of the tribute that we paid alongside that village.”

The two bandits tried to look at each other, expressions as guilty as if they had just been trying to swipe some sweets their mother was making for a festival. Their speech stopped at those words and Diwu tried his best to poke his cousin to stop him from talking.

Gou, a man who has raised many children with such intentions and who had swiped more than a few sweets destined for festival spreads, gave the bandits a grin.

“Are you hungry? Thirsty? We can talk about your targeting of the road while you eat.”

***

As the duo of Xiang Hou Gen and Alfonso Carter went about their work and scavenged what they could from the cellars of what had once been Eyu Luzhou, Alfie’s rage at what he had seen in the village only continued to grow. Hou Gen’s own anger began to build as well.

The roaming vagabond of a cultivator had long kept himself in control and understood he would never survive to accomplish his goals if he gave into his anger, but he could not help but feel sympathy for the people, righteous anger at the surrounding sights, and empathy for Alfie’s own anger.

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As they moved a toppled bookcase to get at the bags of rice and beans near it, that dam of self control broke. Hou Gen’s eyes landed upon a broken paper doll among a series of scrolls and found himself speaking before he could stop. “So, as I said, I tried to kill Ding Hui once before. It was in a place not unlike this… and not even my greatest technique could defeat him.”

Alfie dropped the potato he had picked up and looked at Hou gen with wide eyes. He took a moment, because while he was friendly and outgoing at times, he wasn’t exactly an experienced people person. The kid who couldn’t stop talking about Chili varieties rarely made easy friends.

“Do- do you wanna talk about it?” The young man from Texas finally forced out.

There was no immediate answer from the cultivator. Instead, the man in well-worn robes crouched to pick up the paper doll. After he had, he took a deep breath. “I really should give him all the tools necessary to survive and succeed, if we are to be partners in this,” Hou Gen reassured himself, before standing and turning to look at Alfonso.

“Yes. I should make sure you know what we are dealing with.” Hou Gen glanced around the room. “Ding Hui has done this more than once before.” he stopped, steeling himself before continuing. “I cannot give you every detail of the scene and events, but know that he has tried to kill me twice, and on the second time I crippled him shortly after he attacked the village I was living in.”

Hou Gen paused, then gave a nod. “So I need you to understand. He is called the Immortal for a reason. His path of cultivation allows him to survive and heal damage taken simply by consuming the vital chi of others.”

“Like a jiangshi, or chi vampire?”

“Exactly. Though I do not believe people who practice his path are actually Jiangshi - as Jiangshi can take any living persons chi, but he must maintain a balance.”

When Alfonso simply looked at his companion with confusion, Hou Gen added. “Oh… I suppose I never mentioned that the sect I was schooled in was monster hunters. That’s how I actually understand this.”

Alfonso nodded. “Okay. That makes more sense.” before beginning to dig through the contents of the storage cellar again. “But other than basic concepts, I don’t know what that means. Tell me what you would do if you were told I had no schooling in chi and cultivation.”

And so time passed, with the trio gathering supplies to feed the village with and began working out a plan.

“So, in my world, the idea of Wuxing and culinary medicine are things… So I can grasp some of it, and what I think it means is that my plan will work. I just need to make sure the meal is so unbalanced when I deliver it to him, in one form of chi or another, that it ruins his cultivation - that and for you to be ready to fight him.” Alfonso remarked after listening to Hou Gen’s lecture on the nature of cultivation paths and what the people of Juren Wuting and the wider world called ‘Building a realm.’

It was from this that they had further developed a plan. Xiang Hou Gen would not return with Alfonso, but would allow the young man access to one of his treasures. The two would work together building Alfonso’s secret weapon, and then Hou Gen would do his own preparations.

***

“I don’t know if I can do this.” Alfonso spoke the words as a mantra, as much to himself as to Hou Gen or the napping Odiseo nearby. Part of their plan required Alfonso to return to the town with the food already prepared, and to do that they had scavenged materials and a Hou Gen had used one of his treasures to provide a huge but cauldron like pill furnace.

“What do you mean? While it is defective as a pill furnace, it should work as a cauldron to make your planned dish in, Al Fi.”

“Not that… I mean feeding chi into this storage ring you are letting me borrow. I don’t know the first thing about chi.”

“Control your breathing and empty your mind of anything but your breathing. Think of a river flowing and feel for the static energy in your body. Begin to make it a river. As you push it through your body, focus mentally into the shape you want the metaphorical river to flow. If you were forming your first core or expanding upon it, you would then begin to push and spin the energy towards your stomach. To activate the ring, you push it towards your core and then from it to your finger with a thought of what you want from it or to put into it.”

Alfonso was not raised to be a whiner, but looked at Hou Gen skeptically before taking a breath and emptying his mind. He felt for the electric tingle of his limbs, for the chilled dew of the mist against his skin, the warmth of the fire they had built to cook their concoction on. He felt an ethereal thread in his mind, and from that, he suddenly pulled and pulled.

It was not a river in his mind, instead he envisioned it like the pulling of dough to make noodles or filling sausage casings. He was first and foremost a cook, and as such, when he took the instructions, his mind innately went to cooking. As he pushed the energy tendrils from outside of his body towards his core, he envisioned putting sausage into a chili pot, and soon he was stirring it on instinct and memory alone.

It began to build upon itself, speeding up as he pushed the energy out, and his breath and heartbeat picked up, but not before he envisioned pushing a spoonful of the energy from the stew pot of metaphorical chili to his fingertip and he caused the ring to light up from dull gray into vividly jade green. Then the wooden spoon he was carrying disappeared, swallowed up into the ring.

Alfonso lost his footing as his whole body trembled, but he could not help but display a wildly excited grin.

“Awesome. Cultivation magic, aw yeah!”