First impressions are often deceitful. A beautiful plot of land may flood in the spring. A kind neighbor may be an axe murderer. A mean cock may be useless in protecting its flock. Remember, if you can’t show who you are to people, at least try to show them the person you want to be.

- Kuya Tio on Community, Kuya Tio’s Guide to a Healthy and Happy Homestead.

"Lo Bao Han?” Shinichi asked rather loudly and with an exaggerated expression. I had only been walking with the guy for the last few Li. He came off as excitable to say the least, big smiles, over exaggerated expressions, and very loud.

“Yes, that’s my uncle.”

“No, no, no, no. You don’t understand. I know the land you’re talking about. It's a plot of trees in between my father-in-law and the twins. Oh you’ve going to love it. Saito’s the kind of guy who would give you the shirt off his back if he thought you needed it and Kiyoko, mmm, that’s a nice piece of ass.”

We continued walking as I listened to Shinichi ramble on about my apparently attractive neighbor who I was starting to think might be a whore and my other new neighbor who was apparently the greatest guy in the world. Also Shinichi’s wife was named Yoko and she made the best dumplings in Sharinzhen. He had two children and his neighbor had a bad snoring habit. Shinichi apparently didn’t shut up, but his enthusiasm was so infectious I couldn’t find him annoying.

This was the last leg of my journey to a large town called Sharinzhen, literally Wheel City. Some city planner had the bright idea to make a large town with eight villages surrounding it. Roads ran from Sharinzhen, the town center, to the eight villages labeled Sharinzhen 1-8 clockwise starting from Sharinzhen 1 where the main road to the center goes through. Each consecutive village was connected by a road which over time created the confusing idea of half villages such as Sharinzhen 1 and a half. It might have looked good on the initial plans, but the actual landscape didn’t allow for a perfectly circular Wheel. I personally thought the whole thing was stupid, but I figured I should live there for a year or two before passing final judgment on the design.

I was walking down a well used road just after Sharinzhen 1 where I met Shinichi. Trees on either side were just pushing out their spring buds. The air was cool, the sun was warm, and Shinichi was still talking. Sharinzhen was considerably farther out on the edge of the kingdom than I wanted, but when you inherit land from your rich uncle, you take it with a smile and a bow. The journey had been long, but with the Mad King dead the roads were free of marauding armies. The trees gave way to open fields of unworked rice paddies divided into standard sized Rai. Beyond lay the actual town of Sharinzhen.

***

"Lo Bao Han? How is that rascal?" I grit my teeth and tried to keep a smile on my face. The administrator looked down at the paper I had given him and his smile vanished. "Oh. I'm sorry."

"I didn't really know him that well."

"He was a good man as far as I can remember. One moment." He turned and started searching the shelves of documents. "Glad to have his nephew with us though. No one has been on the property for years. You've got your work cut out for you, but I think I might be able to swing you a free night in a tenement if you'd like. Hmm, there's some due taxes on the land."

That was expected. My uncle hadn't been able to pay the taxes on account of being dead and a year's worth of unpaid tax was cheap compared to buying a plot. I pulled out my coin purse and started counting.

"So how does the nephew get a chunk of land? I would have figured he would have more immediate family that would have taken his possessions first."

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"Yeah I was seventh in line. One of the options was a manor on the second tier of Lianzhen not far from the Temple of the Six Tailed Fox."

The administrator nodded. "Ah, yes I guess I could see our humble town being at the bottom of the barrel so to speak. I'll draw up some directions for you."

***

By some stroke of fate the tenement I was being offered free for the night was directly next to Shinichi. His wife was a rather attractive Oni-Kai woman and his toddler also had the cute little nubs of horns protruding from his temple. The guy hadn't noticed me and as this was his first time home in a month, I silently dropped off my pack and headed out to find my land.

My land. Now that was a thing. The land had been granted to me, but until just a bit ago where the taxes were paid and the papers updated it hadn't been fully realized. It was now my land. My land was in Sharinzhen 4. About an hour's walk northeast. A couple bridges, rice paddies, woods, then more rice paddies, and then I was in the village with all the looks from people not expecting to see a stranger. I wonder what made this area so good for rice farming when so much other land was better for wheat or millet. Access to water? Or more likely, access to water that was at a higher level than the fields. The central part of the town didn't seem very terraced, but the village out here had some.

The village itself wasn't my destination though. I walked along the road heading toward Sharinzhen 3 counting off the properties as I went. This area was considerably more forested with each gateway leading to what was probably a cleared out courtyard and small farm. I almost missed my entryway. The path from the road to the courtyard, assuming it had a courtyard, was so overgrown that it was indistinguishable from the surrounding forest. A small stone pillar set next to one side of the gateway was covered with moss and stained with time. With two simple letters it stated that the gateway and the land that lay beyond belonged to Han. Well I guess I wouldn't need to buy a new marker. Clean it up, yes. The gateway itself was in particularly poor shape. One of the two pillars stood straight and tall, the other leaned dangerously into the forest, likely held in place by the rotting and sagging beam that made up the top spar. The lower spar was broken. Half of it hanging limply from the straight pillar. The other half likely lost among the detritus of the forest floor. The whole thing looked ready to fall over.

"Thing will probably fall on me someday."

I found the house. Or what I assumed was the house. Honestly if I hadn't known ahead of time that there was supposed to be a house, I don't think I would have recognized the lopsided mound of debris that looked mostly like a moss and brush covered hill. The root cellar was mostly intact. The door was rotted, but still somewhat functional. The roots of bushes and trees that shouldn't have been on the roof poked through the ceiling and wound down the walls. Worse case scenario I guess I could sleep in here, but the roof was probably going to need replacing. The rice paddies were… well i'm not sure where they were. Returned to the forest I suppose. I didn't really know the ins and outs of rice cultivation, but trees in the paddies and on the brems probably didn't do good things for water retention. Another mound hinted at a shed or chicken coop or something, but the pile didn't tell me much.

I stood in the center of what might have been the courtyard and rubbed my neck. This kind of sucked. Realistically I had expected to start with nothing albeit a bit closer to civilization. This place was not only on the edge of Mizuyamachi, it was on the edge of the empire as a whole. Sitting on the line that made up the end of the world, if I had been looking at a map, the mountains in the distance would have "here be dragons" written along their peaks. For all its negatives though, it was practically free. Yes I needed to build a house and clear the land with less starting money than I was hoping, but this opportunity was setting me at least five years ahead of schedule. Disappointing that the land was this overgrown and the house was basically gone, but if I could clear and rebuild this year, I could seriously consider finding a wife and starting a family. This was good. This would work. That or I'll starve. I need an axe. And a saw. I needed a lot of things.

***

I needed to not stay in this tenement. I had been offered a great rate for it while I worked on building something on my land. I had wisely told the guy I needed to see how bad my plot was first. The land was bad, what was worse, was the tenement neighbors. Specifically Shinichi. He and his wife were very loudly going at it. In all honesty I might have secretly enjoyed the sound of a young couple making love from the otherside of too thin walls, but what I was hearing wasn't love. Apparently Yoko had sent her children to her father's house after her husband came home and apparently Shinichi liked to get drunk. He seemed like such a nice guy when he was sober. He was not a nice person when intoxicated. I curled myself in my blanket as far away from the couple as possible and tried to block out the sound. If I hadn't known the two were married, I would have been inclined to report a rape. From the looks of passersby, this was a common occurrence. Finally finished, Shinichi stormed out of his tenement. I fell asleep to the soft sounds of a woman sobbing. Fuck, I already wanted to go home.