The kid is just about paralyzed, his new robes all askew as he’s thrown himself across the room away from the opening door. Some of the tension in him has dissolved with Li Shu absolutely berating Hao Nera (the phrase “I’ve told you not to slam the door!” is repeated more than once), but he’s still absolutely petrified, his little heartbeat beating so fast in Raika’s ears.
Qen Hou notices the kid before Hao Nera does, clearing his throat a bit. “Li Shu? Raika? Is… there some reason why there’s a child here?”
“Found him in the woods!” Raika yells from the kitchen.
“...alright, beyond how distressing that is, is he like… someone else’s child?”
“I don’t know, ask him!”
She hears Qen Hou sigh from the other room as he makes his way in, making his way past the boy and into the kitchen.
“So you know that usually, when one finds a stray child, the accepted response is to try and find their parents?”
“So you know how usually when one finds a starving kid living in a campsite in the woods during the Cold Sun’s night, one should usually get them somewhere safe first?”
“And have you?”
The question has weight, beyond just irritation, but… there’s an opportunity here.
An opportunity to fuck with him.
“I mean I did take him to the ritual first, but I’m pretty sure he turned out fine. Maybe he even got some enlightenment out of it.”
Qen Hou takes a moment, and then… just sighs, explosively, in one big rush, before shaking his head. “Sure. Li Shu kept an eye on him?”
“Making it sound like I can’t?”
“Apparently you dragged him to some kind of dark magic necromancy within hours of meeting him, so I don’t know. While I’m here-”
He waves a hand over one of the counters, a dozen different food items appearing from one of those headache-inducing spatial rings. A couple packets of spices, some cuts of meat, and more than enough vegetables for the week. She looks over curiously as they simply lay there for a moment, but then sees Qen Hou’s brow furrowed in concentration, his Qi warming and beginning to scent the air as it stirs.
She focuses on plating, getting a few bowls ready and checking in on the rice (perfect timing) as Qen Hou slowly practices his telekinesis. From what she can tell, it’s not an issue of force; Li Shu can wield her Qi with far more precision, and his recent growth into the Nascent Soul realm has his power feeling overwhelmingly purer and more vibrant than it was when she first met him. Even as she watches and as several of the items begin to float into the pantry on the back of his Qi, she notices several of them shiver or judder, the temperature rising or the Qi beneath them shooting forward as Qen Hou sends in too much energy to them.
“You’re still thinking too hard,” Raika tells him. “I can smell it from here.”
“Yes, well, I’ll try to work on that while you try to work on thinking in general,” he grumbles, focusing hard.
“Plates are going out, and I’ll be out tonight, gonna take the kid to the lake. Li Shu’s been pent up for days, so have fun while I’m out.”
Immediately half the floating items drop as he splutters, turning cherry red and grumbling something or other as he painstakingly refocuses to try again. She laughs, but warmly, and she can tell he’s not as annoyed as he pretends to be, as is often the case with Qen Hou.
Focusing in, she breathes in, then out, grounding herself- and then the Mask guides the Flesh, telling it what’s required. Slowly, three more arms form from Raika’s shoulders, each one picking up a different plate (or a few) and utensils to carry out with her. Unlike before, the arms seem human, almost perfectly mimicking normal limbs, and Raika focuses on keeping them that way as she carries everything out.
The kid almost pees again when he sees her, which she admits was a bit forgetful on her part.
“Dinner’s ready, lovebirds,” she calls. “Come on if you’re eating tonight.”
“Ah! If only you weren’t taken, Raika, I’d dance on into your arms and thank you properly for how you pamper us poor fools.” Hao Nera spins on his way over, putting a little showmanship into it and side-stepping another soft kick from Li Shu in the process.
She snorts, but doesn’t refute him, kicking the table into place casually closer to the fire and setting down the plating. One plate for each, five bowls of rice, and the bigger bundle of goods in the middle where everyone can reach.
Then she walks over to the kid, all but her “normal” arms reabsorbed back in, and picks him up by the back of his new robes. He almost has time to process what’s happening and try to wriggle away before she’s let go again, dumping him in front of the table.
“Eat,” she tells him. “You and me are going for a walk later so these three can plow each other, and you’ve had a long night. Get some fuel.”
Half the people in the room (including the kid) go red, but Hao Nera joins Raika in sitting at the table quickly and plucking some of the best cuts of meat from the stir fry onto his plate already. Seeing this, Li Shu’s eyes spark and she launches herself to the table as well, chopsticks flying up and immediately entering a vicious battle for supremacy against Hao Nera.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
“You ate literally all the chicken last time!” he protests. “Let us poor sufferers get some meat once in a while!”
“Said the poor prostitute to the fine lady!” Li Shu counters, sparking a fresh round of insults and culinary counter-plays.
“Qen Hou!” Raika calls, ignoring the pitched combat and clattering of chopsticks across the table. “We’ll eat all the good bits if you don’t hurry the hell up!”
“Coming!” Qen Hou replies, the door to the pantry closing a few seconds after. He emerges not long after, his pace a bit hurried but a lot more dignified than the two primary gremlins of their relationship. Raika sneaks a few portions of vegetables and a big bowl of soup for herself and the kid as Qen Hou at last joins the struggle, though she focuses on her rice portion. Less flavor to overwhelm with, even though she’s improving on that front.
The kid, for his part, is mostly just alternating before staring wide-eyed at the Qi aided cutlery conflict occurring at the other end of the table and looking down at the plate in front of him. He picks up the chopsticks slowly, hesitating like he’s trying to remember how to use them right.
She places a hand in his way, blocking access to the plate.
“A deal, first.”
He looks up at her, the fear back- but also the anger, the naked aggression of someone used to having to fight for things. The kid’s comfortable with his fight or flight reflex.
“Basic trade. You eat at my table, and you’re not mute. Tell me your name, and you get your plate.”
He narrows his eyes at her. “You just told me to eat.”
“And to eat, you need to tell me your name. Funny how that works.”
“...Jin.”
“Alright, Jin,” she says, pulling her hand away and sniping a cut of chicken out from beneath Li Shu and Hao Nera. “Enjoy.”
He looks like he wants to say something else, but in the end he makes the smarter move to dig in. After the first bite, smelling how intense he starts to salivate and the way his pupils dilate, she’s pretty sure he’s just enjoying himself too much to talk. The kid even risks death by trying for one of the chicken pieces Hao Nera and Li Shu haven’t yet claimed on the edge of the plate.
He survives, though it’s as likely by exploiting the distraction between the two protein-starved animals as it is by any mercy on their part.
Raika just… breathes.
The Mask is quieter here. It doesn’t need to be as proactive, most of its work now translating emotions more directly rather than processing or providing a… well, a mask. It’s more comfortable, the system working more in sync to move things together, bringing the pieces of Raika into alignment.
But it’s still distinct, which is as the whole of Raika prefers. That’s another project in the work.
Either way, it’s a moment where the Mask’s work is simply to let everyone else see her calm. Even amidst Qen Hou almost blasting the table with flames to ward away Hao Nera’s sudden change in tactics to go for the soup, even with the kid half-feral stuffing his face, even as Li Shu finally breaks character and starts yelling properly… or, more likely, because of them. It’s not much, but… as she chews mostly rice, eating primarily for the companionship, she knows no part of her would trade it for the feasts at one of the Imperial Palaces.
Well. Maybe the Flesh would. They had some really good meat there.
Despite the chaos, cleaning ends fairly quickly. A quick wash and a heat-treat by Qen Hou, leftover ingredients stored, and plates reorganized. The table is moved a bit away from the fire, its warmth no longer as essential, and the group begins to split, with Hao Nera beginning to give some unsubtle looks (and Li Shu countering with a pleasantly brazen smack to his rear). The kid, Raika notices, is basically asleep again already, the food warming him and adding likely needed supplies to his notably malnourished frame.
Raika sneaks past the trio towards Li Shu’s workshop.
Inside, blocked by a series of sigils that Yun Ka sent and assured them would be at least a relative wall against intrusion, are the Plans.
The capitalization is a bit overmuch in Raika’s mind, she knows, but each of them is large enough that together, it feels right their name should have some degree of weight. Li Shu, using the books they took from the Witch’s cave and some notes from Yun Ka, has been studying. Between the new resources, Raika’s willingness to be experimented on on occasion, and her knowledge of spirit beast anatomy, she’s been helping create plans for Raika’s development, workshopping with Raika what’s needed, what’s missing in her knowledge-base, and what directions she can go in. There’s some plans there for the others as well, but barring a sudden windfall of money and resources, their cultivation paths are both fairly set and well-suited to each of them, shaped more by their individual behaviors than a cultivation technique. Qen Hou’s Dao of Flame, while incomplete, continues to grow, and his flames have taken on a paler, bluer hue as time goes on, and Li Shu, between looking into the Craft and exploring the detail work her Qi control allows, is progressing quickly in her own way. Between her and Hao Nera, he’s perhaps a step closer to the Core Formation realm (though she’s still not really sure precisely what his cultivation is, besides maybe following a Dao or Truth of “stealth”), but she’s well ahead of him in terms of knowledge, technique, and potential new abilities as she explores things a bit perpendicular to orthodox cultivation.
But of all of them, the overall strongest and most changed is Raika by far. And, for the first time, she has someone she trusts implicitly to theorize with and a place entirely free of surveillance to experiment in.
She feels her Truth. I Am Me, I Am Mine. It’s… smaller than she’d like, maybe. Like she’s grown beyond the size of it, like there’s room for it to fill out- but it’s no longer broken. Where before there were cracks, now there is unblemished concept, a swirling thing that touches on every part of her body, and through the multi-faceted nature of her changed mind, more parts of her beyond.
Like with so much of her, it feels, there is room for growth.
She hits the right runes, shifts one of the small vines Li Shu used, and enters the room. There, on the main desk, are three small notebooks, each holding an idea to be pursued, a part of her Self to be refined.
Supreme Body Art, named, a bit arrogantly to Raika, a bit worriedly to Li Shu, by their resident healer and mad scientist.
Truth Comprehension, a rather dramatic title for its contents but not for its intent.
Core Construction.
That last one… has her the most worried.
She picks up all three, and heads back out into the living room.
“Are you sure you want to take him?” Li Shu asks. “The kid’s already asleep, and-”
“He won’t be by the time you’re through,” Raika says with a shrug. “My senses may be above the norm, but I can still tell when someone is loud. And you three? You’re loud.”
Li Shu blushes a bit, but smiles, less embarrassed than she is a bit flustered. “Fair enough. Just… be nice, alright? And keep an eye on him?”
“I’ll set a fire, and bring the mats and some blankets,” Raika assures her, heading to grab just that. “You all have fun.”
“I shall endeavor to meet your lofty demands,” Hao Nera says with a grin, hand around Qen Hou’s waist. Qen Hou, to his credit, doesn’t look too mortified to speak at this development, but he does still color bright red as he waves off Raika.
“Go. I’m sure you’ll both be fine. We’ll… well. Thanks.”
She just smiles, nice and wide and toothy. “Yeah, yeah, loverboy.”
True to her word, she bundles the kid up warm, swaddles him, and brings a mat and some logs on her way out. She can hear things picking up even from a good hundred feet from the cabin, so she eventually picks up the pace, jogging into the night. Manuals in hand, she heads towards the pond.