I started to sift through the mind of my target, I would have to find out what made him tick so that I could make a believable memory of him being tasked with the assassination.

I am a young boy, my father is a poppy farmer. Momma is so proud of him. I am walking through the farm. The seed pods need draining so I take my knife I’ve been given to by my Father and start to slice them open so they would bleed out their opium ‘gum’ that's what my dad called it. It is hard and tedious work as I go plant to plant doing my best to prepare them for harvest. I watch my siblings working just as hard. Most of them are older than me and say that I’ve been slow ever since I was born.

It is eternally repetitive, slice, bleed, next, slice, bleed, next. Each small step down the great line between the plants takes me to the next one I need to tend to. I look on as a man comes to the farm and starts talking to my father and mother. He motions towards my eldest sister who had just become a woman. They trade a bag of money and my sister is taken away. My heart hurts in my chest. I loved my sister more than my own mother. She held me at night. I ask my father what has happened and he beats me and tells me to get back to work. Tears run down my face.

Time flies in his mind in this repetitive task. His family shows him no love through it all. He weeps for his sister nearly every night. I sort through for the next memory.

My father has sold me too. My hands are callous and rough and my stomach rumbles in its emptiness. I clutch my stomach and stare at the stale and hard bread and broth I’ve been given for the seventh day. The one meal my family gives me as they wait for my purchaser to collect me. I take the time to savor every bite I can as I wait.

The man that comes for me smells strongly of an herb that makes my head swim. Mother smells of it a lot, father always smells of the opium that he harvested. I knew that he shouldn’t be taking it but who would believe the words of a child. My more productive siblings have kept working but I wasn’t quick enough. My family still ridiculed me for being slow in the head. I miss my sister but the tears have stopped. I hoped this man was the same person who bought my sister. Maybe I will see her again.

The man that comes for me is indeed the same one that bought my sister. I could finally recognize his face as it had grown round and soft jawed. I was maybe to his chest in height. He strokes my cheek possessively and I shiver at the touch. “You’ll do just fine. Slinging shit isn’t so hard. My fields need tending and my children are leaving. You’ll have new sisters and brothers. You’ll cherish them or you will fail. Do you understand?”

I nod into his hand. Hope that I will see my sister making me look towards the future.

The man travels through the lands of endless poppies and arrives at the great home of this new man. It is several times larger than his own father’s house and a whole wing of it is dedicated to his workers.

I arrive at lunch time. Everyone is eating merrily and conversation flows between all the children my age. My heart aches as I look around for anyone that looks like my sister. The food soothes the emptiness that rolls in my stomach and I sigh contentedly for the first time in weeks. I step down from the stool and a young girl with a homely but round face comes up to me. Her eyes are almond shaped and slanted. She grabs my hand, “I’m Xian Xu, let’s play.”

As I stumble behind her as we head into the yard I call out my name. “I’m Yu Li. What’s playing?”

The girl looks dumbfounded at my question and her eyes trail upwards at something behind me. I feel a warm and soft hand on my shoulder. I turn to look at who has touched me and my eyes trail up.

Right in front of my eyes is a swollen belly with a child slung to the woman’s bosom in a sling with an older child maybe another year older hanging over her shoulder. Her face is familiar and I feel tears well up in my eyes. “Sister Yu Xing.”

“Hello Li. Welcome to the Hash farm. Master listened to me beg for you to come and be with me. Her hands cup my dirty face and I look away. I was filthy, mother and father hadn’t let me bathe in days. “Xian Xu. Instead of playing go make sure my brother bathes. He needs to look proper to meet his nephew and niece. They'll be awake in a couple hours so cut his hair too.”

The girl behind me bows deeply. It is almost as if she was about to kneel and scrape her forehead on the dirt, “Yes Mistress Yu.” Her hands interlock in mine as I weep and am dragged off. My eyes look at the sleeping children and the swollen belly. Had it really been three years. That's what time it looks like it takes to have three children.

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The water was cold but the happiness in my heart soared.

The man was so happy to be reunited with his sister and learn of his growing family. Shortly after meeting his nephew and niece being introduced as ‘Uncle Li’ he swore to do anything for the family and the children. They only need to ask.

I stand with the master and press my forehead against the floor beneath us. “I thank you a thousand times, honorable master. Please, how may I serve you?”

“My lead farmer is growing old and cannot mix the fertilizer into the fields. It is your duty to learn all of his jobs and work. You will help him with everything in his life. In return you will be fed and see your sister twice a week. You will make sure you are bathed and clean when you interact with my mistresses' children. Remember though your sister serves my wife and has taken the duty of childbirth from her. Everyone here is better than you. Remember that.”

I kowtow deeper to him and call out, “Yes Honorable Master!”

The man walks towards the servants quarters at the end of his first day. In the cots lay an old man. The lead gardener sleeps with everyone else so I approach him.

“I am Yu Li,” I say to the venerable man. “I am to serve alongside you and do whatever you so desire of me. I will see you in the morning and do whatever you need.”

The old man looks at me with rheumy eyes and smirks, “Rub my tired feet boy.”

I stand at the foot of his bed. I had never rubbed feet before so I slip off his moist socks and star kneading the flesh of his foot with my thumbs. The old man groans as he relaxes. My coarse callus hands make deep circles in his dead cold feet. I spend most of my focus on listening to see if I am doing a good job. Soon the old man is snoring so I stop and head to bed. My hands smell of his feet and I frown down at them.

I whisper to myself as everyone is sleeping, “I am the lowest here. For my sister I will be happy doing any of it.”

Most of his next years are shoveling and mixing shit into the dirt. The old man bestows wisdom to him though on the special mushrooms they grow underground on piles of desiccated meat that wasn’t used in food. Vision Caps, he has brought some to this place. He is growing them. The smoke hash that I smelled the Master Portage using is already planted in the fertilized fields. He is taught two things to grow in the ground like the ones he has been given. Mushrooms, and cannabis. He is a man now.

The old man is sitting me down after dinner and he has brought me to the room where he prepares the different things for the Master of the house to sell. The drug dens find most of his supplies here on things less potent than poppy opium. In the air hangs dozens of bags of plant buds drying in the hotter air near the ceiling. Bottles of mushrooms are drying in trays being prepared to be eaten.

“You learn why these things are so desired today boy. You will be having a vision. Then you will smoke the bud of the plants we grow. These will help you know what quality is.

Time to alter his memory. I will make this moment instead of being a trip built by his mind and spirit. I would make it like he was seeing the future.

The world is on fire. Embroiled in a war that will spill out towards the east after the kingdom we were in wins the war. The east is taken by force and the fields are burned. The men and women are enslaved and brought to heel like dogs to their masters. The smell of poppy floods his nose and changes his mind to one that is addled and weak. He stands in the center of it all though. A linchpin in this future that would happen if he does not act. ‘Listen’ the word echoes in the vision a thousand times as I alter his memory of his vision.

Horror has filled my heart. I have heard my sister’s sixth labor is not going well. She has been given a strong poppy to kill the pain but the baby is not coming. I sit near helplessly as I watch in horror. I am dragged from the room as the doctor holds up a blade to my sister's belly. They were giving her life up for the baby. They would pay.

I hide my pain and dig out my one belonging I stole from my parents. My curved poppy cutting knife. I test its edge and find it sharp enough to slice. I sneak into the house with a handful of dried vision caps. I diced and powdered them. I place them into the soup that is boiling for the entire house of the masters.

When darkness in the house falls I walk into the Master’s home. Everyone is laying their eyes wide in trancelike visions. I find the Master, his son is old enough to inherit the farm now. I sit the fat bastard up on his cushion and hold him by the hair. I tear open his throat with my poppy knife. He doesn’t fight. He is too far drugged and in his vision.

I kill his wife, I kill the doctor, I leave my nieces and nephews without their father to pay for my sister’s life. I take her body with me. I cut down and build a pyre for her. With a kiss on her forehead I burn her far from the fields as I leave the house of my former Master.

I had another chance to modify his memory.

I am in a den that caters the same drugs I had spent a lifetime making. I now run it with a new master. My preparations of the drugs makes me invaluable. A thin man of repute comes to see me. He tells me where he is from.

The vision returns to him at the name of the kingdom fueling his desire to go with the man. Not out of boredom but out of purpose to save the eastern lands from invasion.

I travel across the lands and we stop several times. I have stolen the spores of the vision caps and have them growing in my jars. I have seeds for thousands of cannabis plants.

A man comes to me from a southern country in secret one night deep in the darkness. They know where I am heading and have an offer for me. I would have to find some way for me to see the royal family and strike a blow against them. Kill someone of their family to send them into mourning and in exchange I would get massive tracts of land given to me. I would be made into a master of my own destiny. I would be put in charge of establishing trade with the east. Wealth, women, drugs, whatever I wanted would be mine.

I find myself in new lands. I have done as my new master has tasked me. I need to make myself invited to the dinner he plans. Then with my poppy knife I will do the same to them as I did to my own master so long ago.

I pulled my hands from his temples and knew my work was done. I wove a tale through his memories and gave him the drive to do what I needed.

I returned to the home of the Portages and returned to my room. Exhausted from the night of sneaking and work. I wouldn’t be able to rest tonight for the moon was almost set. My trap was in place, I needed it to pay off.