It was a dark and stormy night, and frigid besides, the outstretched fingers of the winds grasping at everything in their path as they romped through every open crack and cranny in the village of Xiǎo Chéngshì.

“Oy,” said the barmaid (newly hired) of Xufu O’Paddyhaddy’s, “you may be an insubstantial force of nature, but that does not mean you can touch a woman there.”

I stand corrected.

It was a dark and stormy night, and frigid besides, the outstretched fingers of the winds grasping at everything in their path, barring certain private extremities of the human form, as they romped through every open crack and cranny in the village of Xiǎo Chéngshì.

“And you,” the barmaid continued, “what do you think you’re doing, leaving the door open like that? Either come in and eat, or leave: but you’re letting the winds bluster through here, and trust me, we’ve had more than enough blustering in here.”

The cloaked man at the door blanched, possibly. He may have also been flustered (as the winds blustered), possibly. Or he may have been disturbed, perturbed, unnerved… at any rate, he was reserved as he closed the door and glided across the room, his velvet black cloak and mask drawing more than casual notice.

It was obvious from his bearing and the numinous character of the cloth that he was no ordinary man, and nobody was particularly surprised when he sat at a table containing two other similarly robed men. The three of them were all but certainly cultivators.

Of the other two one was rather stocky, his robe crimson and lined with hair of an indeterminate origin. The other was taller, his robe the blue of the night, and sprinkled with stars.

The man who wore the stars raised a tankard in a toast as the black-robed man sat down.

“Congratulations, my friend. Your disciple did a wonderful job when he restored this store - this one wouldn’t even know it had been destroyed, if it wasn’t for the fact that I can see the whorls in the floorboards, smell a subtle shift in the resin, and hear a difference in the way the wood creaks. But those are only apparent to cultivators, this one supposes.”

The barmaid placed a tankard and bowl of noodles in front of the newcomer, and then hurried away. Once cultivators started talking about those minutiae only they could notice with their superior senses, the conversation always turned to the weird and creepy… and she did not want to hear about how the shape of So-and-so’s pores was erratic, nor was she particularly interested in learning what the total volume of earwax in the room was.

(To be fair to the cultivators, her objection was partially rooted in the fact that her husband - an outer disciple of the Bee’s Knees Sect - had once demonstrated the principles of feng shui to her through a private analysis of curvature. This was, admittedly, a discussion unlikely to come up here, and certainly not in the same fashion, but one never knew.)

The newcomer, and evident master of Hong Yu, snorted. “As if he’d have the time to match those specifications. Please, old friend, you’re scaring the waitress. Now I won’t be able to query her on this restaurant’s approach to the subtle aspects of Transcendental Gastronomy.”

The portly man in red chuckled. “No fear, no fear. The night is young, and she may yet forgive us. And if not, well, I’m happy to scratch your fancy.”

Hereupon he stood up, struck a grandiose pose, and raised a dumpling into the air. He waved the chopsticks about.

“Behold, the mighty dumpling: within it lies the secrets of all cultivation. A perfect mix of the Meat of the Soul and the Grain of the Body, it has been boiled in the Primordial Waters of Ancient Chaos, and fried in the Fires of Heaven. Within its small but excruciatingly delicious form we may find manifest a perfect illustration of the ideal cultivator, who neither eschews the body, nor neglects the soul, and who unifies within himself the Fiery Heavens and the Watery Earth - and, thereby, makes of himself a Dish both glorious to gaze upon, and a source of peace and joy to all who sup upon it.”

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The man who wore the Heavens burst into laughter. Hong Yu’s master slowly slurped his noodles, noisily. “I want you to know I’m cocking an eyebrow behind my mask. Didn’t you get that speech from me, through my disciple?”

“Ah, but he got it from Morris, my own countryman, and-” and then the dumpling fell off the chopstick, hitting the table with a splat.

“And I’m raising my second eyebrow right now. This is a very ocular night, you know - as ocular as it is jocular - and I can assure you, superciliary too, for cultivation has beautified my eyebrows as much as it has my body, thereby letting me express my scorn all the more gorgeously.”

And his mask wiggled up and down as he waggled his eyebrows, not that anyone could appreciate what was doubtlessly a stunning visage.

The man in the navy cloak finally got ahold of himself, and uttered a melodramatic sigh. “Barbarians, the pair of you. Incapable of culture - and incapable of using chopsticks.”

“Well, I may not have culture, but I do have cultivation.” Returned the portly gentleman good-naturedly. The fallen dumpling glowed briefly as it was purified from within, and then obligingly tossed itself into the man’s mouth.

The pleasantries done, the three spent a few minutes eating their food in companionable silence, then called for more beer. The barmaid sauntered over, by now unworried as to what the three would do or say, and replaced their drinks.

“I say, old friend,” said the black-robed man, once they were once more alone, “are you experimenting with some new trend in fashion? Unless I am greatly mistaken, it looks as if you are wearing not one, not two, not three, but four scarves.”

The man in blue sighed, this time seriously. “And I have another several dozen in the storage ring on my finger. I wouldn’t say this is a fashion decision - fashionable, maybe, but not a decision.”

There was no sympathy in his friends’ eyes. “Everybody wants the harem, until all of sudden they wake up and find they have one hundred twenty-three wives, and have to keep all of them happy, hale, and wholesome.”

“Want-? This wasn’t a choice. Did you forget I’m- bah, forget it. I can’t talk about it here,” he retorted, looking around the room to make sure nobody was listening. (Not that anybody would dare, for even with cultivators who were lenient and easygoing, eavesdropping was a notoriously dangerous proposition.)

“And besides, wearing the occasional batch of hand sewn silk scarves - made with care and love - is hardly onerous.”

“Hardly,” the man in red agreed, his eyes twinkling behind his mask, “the Weekly Schedule makes it even less onerous, I’d imagine.”

“Brother! Don’t mock him - he simply has an expansive heart-mind.”

“Exhausted, more like. He’ll be attaining immortality soon with that much dual cultivation.”

“Look, insult me all you like, but leave my wives out of it. They’re lovely ladies.”

“Mmm. All one hundred twenty-three of them.”

“Hey now, he’s right, you know. They clearly do love him - after all, they made him one hundred twenty-three hand-sewn silk scarves-”

“And the last time we met, one hundred twenty-three pairs of hand-knit cotton socks-”

“And the time before that, just after his birthday, one hundred twenty-three lovely shenyis-”

“The embroidery on those were really quite lovely-”

“And, of course, at Christmas time, when he had seven hundred fifty four pairs of the cutest mittens (his numerous daughters also giving him a token of their affection)-”

“Yes. They must be lovely ladies - all one hundred twenty-three of them - for after all, there’s love laced into every length of fabric, and love cannot come save from what is lovely.”

“If only their love didn’t keep him missing Noodle Night.”

“It’s okay. When he ascends to Heaven I’m sure he’ll look down on us fondly. Admittedly, he’ll also be looking down at his one hundred twenty-three wives… and all the kids he had with them… and his children’s children… but you know, once every hundred years or so he’ll think to himself, ‘gee, I wonder what happened to the friends I ate noodles with,’ and he’ll look down and there we’ll be, eating noodles.”

The man in blue groaned. Trying to explain matters of state to these boors was a waste of time. It was better just to change the conversation.

“Immortality? Not before our Brother of the Noodle Shop does, I dare say. Looking at the skill of his disciples alone,” and here he gestured to the restored Xufu O’Paddyhaddy’s (once more Home of the Finest Beer and Bucatini in the Great Xuan), “he must be nearing his Heavenly ascent.”

“Pfft, I wish,” said the master of the aforementioned disciple.

“But he does it for the Sake of the Noodle Shops themselves; I, as you well know, have other, more nefarious motives.”

And here he chuckled darkly, eliciting absolutely no reply from either of his colleagues, save a look which may have expressed doubt - if anything could be expressed behind the inexpressive masks.

“At least somebody here is doing something for the right reasons,” the man in red opined, his tone clearly facetious, as he finished up his beer.

“His name was Hong Yu, right? Remind me to keep an eye on him…”