Tea is always a comfort. Even brewed poorly, as Li Shu always tends to, forgetting to let it steep properly or leaving water to boil a bit too long, there’s a sense of familiarity and warmth that comes from drinking a beverage one has experienced since childhood.
Despite what Qen Hou likes to claim, Hao Nera makes the best tea out of all of them. She thinks that it’s to do with the fact that he values the product a lot more, or maybe that he’s had to work harder to make poor quality tea taste good in the past, but either assumption seems rude when contrasted with how he tends to jump at the opportunity to make it.
Since the spirit beast (or demigod, or abomination, or demonic thing, she’s not sure), there’s been little time for simple things like tea.
Upon hearing of their encounter, their rescuer was more than happy and eager to get them all far, far away from the site of what may have been a god of the woods. Facing something well beyond one’s level can often inspire that sort of fear, and whatever else Li Shu, Qen Hou and Hao Nera may have looked like, they most certainly looked afraid. Between that fear, and the nearby cave with the sheer weight of materials they’d managed to harvest and preserve, it was easy enough to convince the merchant that came across them to offer them transportation away from the site of the battle, fast.
“Doing alright, honored cultivator?” asks their host.
Li Shu smiles, nodding slightly and enjoying what little time she has with her tea, now that this conversation has begun. “As well as can be expected, sir Shen Ji. Are we to begin moving again soon? I thank you again for your generosity in transporting us.”
He waves a hand at her, dismissing the thanks politely. “No need for such thanks, honored one, not when you offer them so freely! We are to move again soon, but we’re making good time, so it will be easy to stop in the next few hours, a bit before nightfall, that we might try and set up a proper encampment.”
She nods, smiling in relief. “That’s good. I must admit, when I began my journey, I did not expect to get pushed so hard to keep up by a merchant.”
Shen Ji smiles and taps the side of his nose, waggling it and the long, splendid white mustache beneath it as he does. “Us merchants need to be able to move quickly! Cultivation for combat, or for the honorable healing arts, are not the only reasons why one pursues enlightenment. As you and your fortuitous friends have proven, it is never certain where one will find a good opportunity!”
She nods and smiles softly, finishing her tea quickly and beginning to pack up her traveling bag once again. Shen Ji waves a hand at her though, pausing her mid-action.
“No need just yet, honored one. We’ll be moving on in another fifteen minutes perhaps, and I have no desire to rush my newest benefactors.”
She smiles and shakes her head. “Hardly benefactors. If not for you running into us, we wouldn’t have had anywhere to sell what we had collected before needing to move on for our safety.”
It’s the best kind of flattery, because it’s true. After encountering the divine beast, none of the three of them had wanted to stick around much longer, and she’s glad she didn’t have to argue with Hao Nera about trying to carry some of the sleds of preserved supplies they’d managed to harvest. Running into Shen Ji was a tremendous stroke of luck, or, as she suspects her traveling partners have also realized, something the creature intended. It seemed deeply alien, and it could perhaps still be luck, the beast having sent them to the nearest person and that person happening to be a merchant and entourage coming to harvest the beast tide just as they had. It could instead be that it knew of Shen Ji, sensed or understood something about him, and chose to send the trio to the merchant. Neither option is particularly benign, but the latter is particularly terrifying, considering how it claimed it could smell the oath that Li Shu took months and months ago.
Still, between getting transportation and additional hands to protect them and getting someone willing to buy what would otherwise have had to be left behind (at a significant cut), Shen Ji was their best option, and now, two weeks later, they’re still on the road, running.
It’s been better since they made it back onto the roads, though. Out of the woods and back into the reach of civilization’s long arm, traveling through the paved and cleared roads that the Empire has planted throughout the rings. With it, they’ve more than doubled their pace, though they’re still far from just about anyplace one might call a major city.
“Ah, but it is precisely that I found you, and thus gained access to such lovely materials at such an opportune moment, that I may call you my benefactor,” Shen Ji smiles. He strokes his long white beard and mustache, tossing it to one side as he does in a flourish. “And while I am overjoyed that I can assist my benefactors with transportation, if it has not already been made clear, then I insist on reminding you that should you ever have need of a favor in return for the time and money you have saved me, the Silver Song family of merchants will always be at your disposal.”
Li Shu laughs softly, but gives a polite bow in response. “Your generosity is grand, honored merchant Shen Ji. A cultivator’s life is long and storied, or at least I hope. Should the opportunity ever arise that I can call upon the Silver Song family for something I truly need, I will be honored to have your name to refer to.”
Shen Ji smiles broadly and bows. “The honor will be mine, honored healer. But! I am burning the candle to the wick as we speak, and must prepare the others to move once more. We are still quite some ways away from the glorious metropolis of Cragend, even if we are making excellent time. Ten more minutes, and then we’re off!”
With another round of polite bows and pleasantries, he steps away, turning from the tent she’s been spending time in to move to the others. No matter how she insists that she’s fine to sit out in the sun during their rest stops, he insists on setting up proper seating for her. Not for Qen Hou and Hao Nera, though, which they’re both more than comfortable complaining about.
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She steps out, bag packed and ready to move, and catches sight of the two of them. Hao Nera stretches, long and languid. Despite the stress of the weeks of travel, he’s eminently comfortable, entirely at home with the rushed pace, and with how well Shen Ji has been feeding them, he’s actually gained some weight, putting all of it towards muscle. He’s gotten outright buff, and he’s outright enjoying the looks he’s started to get from some of the assistants and employees Shen Ji travels with. Qen Hou, on the other hand, has managed to maintain himself, but is definitely a bit worn from the travel, occasionally being caught with stubble he hasn’t burnt off or shaved, which Hao Nera takes any opportunity to mock him for (and compare his own more impressive facial hair to).
“Ah, our beloved healer!” Hao Nera says with a smile, holding his arms wide. “A privilege and joy to have you amongst our number once more! This poor junior brother thought you’d abandoned us for a life of privilege befitting a jade beauty!”
She rolls her eyes and ignores Qen Hou lightly punching him in the shoulder, though his face remains courteous and neutral the whole time.
“Our honored friend Shen Ji told you we’d be heading out soon?” he asks.
She nods. “Ten more minutes, and then we’re back on the move. If not for trying to get away from that divine beast, I’d appreciate more breaks like this one, but he said we should be stopping sometime before nightfall today.”
Qen Hou sighs in relief. “Good. I don’t mind a bit of bodily improvement as a cultivation aid, but between the hours of walking and being used as a torch during night-marches, I’m nearing a bit of my limit.”
“Now now, so dramatic senior brother!” Hao Nera laughs. “Surely an expert progressing through the realm of Core Formation like yourself must have no true trouble, seeing how quickly you’ve stabilized your foundation!”
“I’m still not going to train you,” Qen Hou sighs. “I am not qualified as a teacher, and I am not one that would misrepresent my sect’s teachings to an outsider so frivolously.”
Hao Nera gasps, hand to his heart. “Frivolously!? I’ll have you know I only ask due to my enduring respect for my senior brother! Why, surely you must have some insight that would-”
“Alright, alright,” Li Shu interrupts. “You can have this debate again when we set up camp, I don’t want to listen to the two of you dancing around each other the rest of our trek today.”
Hao Nera laughs, but acquiesces, holding up his hands in surrender. “I wouldn’t dream of annoying our blessed honored healer, lady Li Shu. I’m just saying, considering all we’ve been through, I’m sure there’s much more to be learned from each other, no?”
Qen Hou does nod at that. “At the very least, the tip you brought us in on has paid off, even if complications have come from it. Considering what we’ve gained, I can see an argument for further cooperation.”
“Ah, so formal, brother! The truth of it is simple! We’re friends now, are we not? Tied together in the glorious labor of harvesting guts and surviving a divine beast encounter as a group!”
Before Qen Hou can get huffy and say anything he doesn’t mean, Li Shu cuts in. “Yes, Hao Nera, I’d say we’re… friends. Mostly.”
He beams at her. “And I couldn’t be happier to hear it! You’ve both paid off wonderfully, after all, and it’s not all the time that even a hunk like me seduces his way into the good graces of some sect beauties and their resources.”
He flutters his eyelashes at Qen Hou, who flushes a bit and splutters. “I am not- you haven’t seduced shit, just because you’re no longer an enemy doesn’t make you attractive.”
“I hear enemies to lovers is all the rage in literary circles these days…” Hao Nera sing-songs.
Li Shu laughs at their antics, shaking her head. “Compromise, then. I’m looking to cultivate more too. How about you teach me, and if Hao Nera listens in, there’s no harm in that? We’re both sect members after all, kind of. Former sect member for me, but I don’t think it was ever made truly official.”
Qen Hou rolls his eyes, but calms down a bit. “Are you sure? I know your studies into the beast-flesh aren’t completed, and that must still be taking up most of your nights. I see you with candle lit long after my watch has ended sometimes.”
She shrugs. “Honored merchant Shen Ji’s notes on preservation and evaluation of worth for organs has been invaluable, but there’s only so much he’s willing to share with an outsider. I’m most of the way through the notes he’s willing to give, and I spent the last few weeks before our “fortuitous encounter” harvesting and studying firsthand. I’m no expert, but until I find a master, a library, or a fresh batch of unrotted beast corpses, I doubt I’m going to make much more progress. Better to find time for cultivation so I don’t fall behind and become a burden.”
Hao Nera nods at that, pointing at her like she’s preached some divine wisdom. “Exactly, senior sister! If I’m to maintain my value to our lovely trio, surely I can’t provide all of it through sheer sex appeal, and considering how easily that beast saw through my stealth techniques, it’s more than time that I start improving again. After all, the whole point of seducing you two with my charms and massive intellect was to hop aboard a rising tide. What a waste it would be, that you so distractedly enjoyed my body and wit without ever repaying me with the cultivation aids you bathe in daily!”
Li Shu rolls her eyes. “Hao Nera, I haven’t had a bath in a week, and the week before that was for washing off dirt and blood. The only cultivation aid I’m bathing in is soap.”
“I’ll believe it when I see it!”
She blushes a bit, and picks up a small stick to fling at him for the comment, which Hao Nera dodges with a cackle. He fails to duck Qen Hou’s slap upside the back of his head, though, and shoots him a look for it.
“Come on, senior brother! I’m a red-blooded human in the prime of my cultivation! It’s only proper I pursue true beauty when I find it!”
“Pursue it somewhere else, then,” Qen Hou growls. “There’s plenty of folk among the caravan that wouldn’t mind spending a night with a survivor of a divine beast.”
“Oh?” Hao Nera almost immediately switches tact, stepping up close into Qen Hou’s personal space and cocking his head to one side as he grins. “Are you perhaps volunteering? Have I finally broken through that rough, tough shell into the soft, delightful core you hide?”
Qen Hou blushes, hard, and Li Shu can’t help but burst into laughter at how quickly his coloration changes to bright red.
“Both of you shut it, or I won’t be teaching anyone anything!” Qen Hou growls, stomping off towards where the caravan has mostly finished reassembling itself as Li Shu and Hao Nera both run after him, cajoling the poor cultivator to change his mind.
They haven’t succeeded by the time the caravan heads out that afternoon, but by evening Li Shu is sitting in rapt attention as Qen Hou struggles to describe mysteries older than either of them could ever know (and ignores Hao Nera’s smug grin as he listens in). Shen Ji puts up a grueling pace, hoping to get to the city in time to sell his wares at a premium, for he’s heard rumors of a tournament, but the trip overall can’t be said to be all that bad. After all, time passes quickly among those who annoy each other mercilessly.