“This must be a dream. It has to be.”

My eyes drifted open to a scene straight out of a fairy tale. The faintly glowing grass swayed alongside me, tickling my skin, even though I felt no breeze. Despite seeing the stars, the world was fully lit up like it was daytime. I sat up with a weak feeling, slightly swaying as I stood and then walked to the nearest visible destination.

Here’s the thing about dreams: a person tends to accept whatever is happening in them, regardless of their realistic faults.

So, when I saw a peach tree the size of ten big-city skyscrapers, I figured that was the main event. That’s what I’m here for; in a way, I was right.

Standing closer to the base of the gigantic peach tree allowed me to take in its rich scent, like vitality was etched into the air.

“Is that smoke?” I questioned as a strong smell overpowered the peach tree’s scent.

I looked around and was relieved that the tree wasn’t on fire. No, that’d be too unfortunate. Instead, as I rounded the bend over a root the size of street trucks, I came across an old man smoking on a wooden pipe. He sat serenely on a peach tree stump wide enough to be at least a hundred years old. It looked funny comparing the tiny stump to the gigantic one beside us.

The old man’s gaze funnelled through me as we made eye contact. His eyes drew me in and made me feel like I was charmed, which only made sense with his eyes being the pinkish-orange colour of peaches and valentines day cards.

I blame Grandma Sylvie’s xianxia book I read before bed. All that storytelling of Peach Blossom Immortal this, and Peach Blossom Immortal that, must have rattled around the images in my head and broken into my dreams.

Though, I never pictured the Peach Blossom Immortal as an old man.

“So, Karma’s strings are beginning to break down and bring me back to you, huh? Does that mean it’s time?” The old man spoke with muffled excitement.

My head cocked sideways, earning a chuckle from the old man.

“In due time. Come on over, boy. Have a peach with me. Let me see you a bit better up close.” The old man baited me to sit beside him on the peach tree stump, reaching his hand backwards.

Now, I’m no tree expert, though I do know a thing or two, but I’m pretty sure trees aren’t supposed to move very fast. That’s why I knew this had to be a dream because the gigantic peach tree behind us shifted as it lowered a single branch containing two hand-sized peaches.

Remember, dream nonsense is to be accepted without question. That’s how dreams work, and this had to be a dream, or else I would be in a mental hospital soon.

On another note, the peach tasted simply out of this world.

I had swatted away bugs for days on end, set up nets, pruned branches, and so much else to keep Grandma Sylvie’s peach tree in harvestable condition, and it produced some lovely peaches. But this old man’s peach was incredible. The only thing that set it below Grandma Sylvie’s peaches in terms of quality was the bitter taste of overripened seed near the center.

“…And that’s why I’ve been searching all these years.” The old man finished his words, and I hurriedly nodded, utterly unaware of what he said while I was engrossed in my peach daze.

“Compost?” I asked.

The old man looked at me and bellowed a hearty laugh across the plains of swaying grass. It took him several minutes to stop, as if I had just told him the funniest joke in the world.

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“You didn’t hear a single bit of what I said, did you?”

I blushed with shame, but the old man didn’t mind. Instead, he gestured to an area free of the swaying grass and told me to bury the seed there.

“Should be easy enough,” I said aloud as my hand dug into the soil. I could easily clear it with my bare hands, and the soil seemed moist already, so it likely didn’t need much water. I quickly buried the seed and fell over from surprise when I noticed the old man squatting beside me.

“AH!”

The old man chuckled at my shock, then told me to observe.

“This is it, boy. The moment that decides the fates of countless people.” The old man’s face grew solemn as he spoke, and the entire world seemed to focus on the little patch of dirt containing my peach seed.

Waiting here staring at dirt was great and all, but I couldn’t help but think of the practical side.

The peach seed was too close to a tree that likely held roots kilometres in length. Roots like those would suck up all the nutrients from the soil, not to mention the growing conditions of starlight here. How was anything supposed to grow from light like that? And how long was the old man going to squat like that? Seeds can take days to break out of the soi—

“YIPPEE!”

The old man danced as I squatted there, stunned by the delicate little green sprout that emerged from the ground.

“How did…?”

Right, this is a dream. Of course, a plant can grow in seconds. Who has the time to wait in a dream?

“Look closely, boy! Do you see it? Do you see the Qi?”

The old man gripped my shoulder and lurched me forward with surprising strength. I couldn’t help but grow so close to the peach sapling that I nearly touched it with my nose.

My eyes searched every vein and leaf of the peach sapling, but there wasn’t anything astonishing about it. It just looked like any other tree sapling. And wait, did he say Qi? Was that something you were supposed to see?

“Uh, no?”

“EXACTLY! NO QI!” The old man clapped his feet together in the air, then spun on his heels to come face to face with me.

For an old man, this guy was oddly agile.

“No Qi means it’s truly authentic! A 100% genuine peach tree sapling! Oh, how I’ve waited for this day to come!” The old man looked at me for some sort of response, eager to share his greatest joy with the one person who brought it out of him.

“Uh, that’s good. Er, that’s amazing!”

The old man’s face of joy suddenly shifted as his smile straightened, and his eyes gleamed with a devilish glare of evil. Worried that I had said something to offend the old man, I was about to speak up again. But then, the old man plucked his pipe from his mouth and waved it.

The old man’s pipe distorted the space above the growing peach tree sapling to reveal a menacing black cloud that crackled with a hidden thunderous fury. The old man sprung into action as his pipe intercepted a black lightning bolt that nearly tore apart the fragile peach sapling. With a calm sizzling, the pipe released a haze of smoke as the lightning acted like a lighter to whatever was burning inside.

“You think I’d let you do that, old friend? You’ll never harm a peach sapling on my watch.”

The thundercloud grumbled in response to the old man’s words, which honestly seemed quite cute. It was the size of a basketball, and how it shifted against the old man’s pipe reminded me of when a small, cute girl got harmlessly angry at a tall, rugged man.

After getting sufficiently angry, the thundercloud dissipated into nothing, leaving me alone again with the old man, who was beginning to resume his brightened smile. When he looked at me, relief flooded his body, and his pipe returned to his mouth. He clapped his hands on my shoulders and spoke like my father would.

“I can’t thank you enough, boy, for coming here and planting that peach tree. With it, our fates are tied forever. But don’t worry…” The old man added a wink and continued. “…I won’t let your peach tree fall to some angry cloud.”

“Oh...thank you.”

It was weird. I won’t lie; this entire dream was so bizarre. But, you know what, maybe that’s what I needed: a little weirdness, like in Grandma Sylvie’s xianxia books.

Suddenly, I got an idea.

My hands clasped together, one over the other, as they extended from me, and I bent my back straight and downwards as I had always read.

I’m pretty sure I did it wrong, but who cares? This was all a dream, and I would do what I wanted. Right now, that was performing one of the great cultivator tropes.

A bow.

A gesture of respect. At the very least, the old man was protecting my peach tree sapling, and this was a xianxia-based dream. A bow seemed right, even if I messed it up.

When I bent back up, the old man had tears in his eyes, which he promptly wiped away with his robed sleeve. He sniffled as he took out his pipe and gave me some friendly parting words.

“Don’t worry, boy. I’ll make sure your peach tree sapling is taken care of.”

Then, without hesitation, the old man struck me with his pipe.

Thwack!