The sun was setting, and along with it came a mighty breeze from the north. The last vestiges of autumn held back the impending winter. Jin stared deeply at the waning forest, a canvas of orange and yellow that spoke one last tale of the current cycle. Next spring, new flowers and trees would undoubtedly sprout, heralding another chapter of life.
Jin had lost track of the time as he waited for the others to arrive at the cave entrance. Tonight would be their second run, but Jin’s thoughts were afar and not in the present. In the distance, he sensed Yuri and Mei approaching, apparently having cleaned up after finishing their sparring session. It was Jin’s idea that the two girls exchange some pointers with each other.
Only four years apart in age - Mei being eighteen - the girls had quickly and effortlessly developed a budding friendship. It wasn’t all that strange - they, like many others, endured much loneliness, having lost or left the comfort of their homes when they were teenagers. In the Lower Realms, children were legally adults by the time they turned thirteen. Many would get married or travel afar to undertake apprenticeships. Mei was one such example, who had left her village at the age of twelve to study under a wandering cultivator for five years.
“Jin!” Yuri hollered aloud from the bottom of the hill, greeting him with a flamboyant wave. Mei followed suit, and the two began giggling for reasons that Jin couldn’t understand, their breaths condensing into visible air due to the chill. He wondered if he should’ve been there to monitor their sparring. Did they even practice, or did they just fool around?
“You two should straighten up yourselves. The work we’re doing here is dangerous. This isn’t time to be frolicking,” Jin scolded them like a father to two misbehaving daughters. As with many inexperienced cultivators, the girls had been lured into a false sense of security because of their initial success on the first night. Jin couldn’t fault them, but he also couldn’t let them do as they pleased. Mistakes cost lives, a lesson they had to learn sooner rather than later.
On a completely different note, Jin secretly approved of Yuri interacting and socializing with other people beyond his supervision. He could see she was quickly learning to blend in and adapt to the real world, a crucial skill she had to learn especially if something were to happen to him one day.
‘Damn. I’ve gotten sloppy. I really need to take care of a few things after this mission. If they ever got a wind of her karmic thread…,’ Jin mulled over the potentially unpleasant consequences from his lack of foresight. His companionship with Yuri had made him complacent, a similar situation that had once cost Tian Long and him dearly. For a high-priority individual like Jin, the consequences of letting his guard down could be catastrophic; he had learned this lesson very painfully.
Jin knew better now. Those people were always reading the star charts and interpreting the astral flow.
‘I wish I had paid attention to Scholar Lao’s lecture on fate concealing talismans.’ Only now did Jin regret his bad-student behavior. A fate concealing talisman could help obscure Yuri’s karmic thread from prying eyes until she at least became a celestial monarch. Fortunately for them, he still had some time to look for one - hopefully. Since Yuri’s cultivation rank was still low for the time being, she wasn’t likely to catch anyone’s attention.
“Understood. We’ll endeavor to act more mature,” Yuri responded, her giddy tone didn’t seem to match the weight of her words. She smiled impishly at the other girl, and they giggled some more.
“Your cousin sounds just like my former master - always worrying,” Mei told Yuri, swinging an arm around her shoulder. “It’s kind of uncanny, especially since he’s so young.” Mei pointed then a finger at Jin. “You’re going to get wrinkles before you know it, brat.”
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“That’ll be the least of my worries,” Jin muttered under his breath.
Soon the others showed up, everyone’s extraction gear all packed and ready. The plan was to enter the tunnels and follow team one’s ground signs from last night. They had a brief window of time to retrace and repaint the markers before the temporary glow-in-the-dark ink from yesterday evaporated. As a result, the eight of them - minus one person left to guard the camp - entered the tunnels before the sky had completely darkened.
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Once inside the caves, Yuri’s earlier cheerfulness abated. Something about the cramped space and moldy air was enough to bring down anyone’s mood. The others probably felt the same, as she could tell their conversations had become short and sparse. Yuri began practicing the echolocation technique that Jin taught her, using her core to generate a small, albeit unstable, pseudo qi field. She sighed a breath of relief when her first scan detected nothing. She planned to keep scanning at regular intervals, feeling comforted by the fact that Jin was no doubt doing the same thing.
By the time they reached the tunnels with the blue candle weeds, the sun had set, and they were once again greeted with a dazzling spectacle of neon blue. The others from team two gasped in awe while Grandpa Kang and the members from team one went straight to work. The novelty of the lights had already faded for Jin, Yuri, and Taobao.
“We haven’t got all day!” Taobao motivated the other men. “Come on, put your backs to it, Gaebuk and Minho. What else is all that drinking good for?”
“Bro, you’re the one who drank most of the rice wine. Gaebuk and I hardly got a sip,” the middle-aged man, Minho, roared back in a half-joking manner. The sight of easy money got him rowdy.
“Keep your voices down,” Jin warned them. “The dark places of the world are often tales of horror for a good reason.”
“He’s right. Silence you fools,” uttered the quiet Gaebuk, whose unexpected and curt remark shocked the other men into submission.
For the next three hours, they vigorously extracted as many blue candle weeds as they could. Already, they had completed five stacks of filled boxes, each taller than Yuri. Anymore and there was a real worry that they wouldn’t be able to bring it all back. They could do multiple trips, of course, but even the greediest among them knew that going back-and-forth probably wasn’t the best idea. Every trip to the caves was a risk, and every trip thereafter could alert their presence to unwelcome creatures. It just wasn’t worth the risk.
Grandpa Kang, in his aged wisdom, finally convinced the others to stop. They had enough, and the resulting profits would be plenty to go around. “Knowing when to quit is half the battle, kids,” the elder man spoke with finality.
“So what do you plan to do with all your hard earned coins?” Taobao asked Minho as he sat down beside the man to catch his breath.
“Gonna get the kids and the wife some new clothes. Food for the winter, of course,” Minho listed, his gaunted face shining with merry delight as he thought of his children. “Can’t wait to see the boys’ faces when they find out we’ll have meat.”
“F**king kids, man. I’m not sure if I could ever live with little squirts running around and getting in my hair all day,” reflected Taobao. “That, and, uh, not many women gonna want to settle down with this, you dig.” The ex-monk slapped his belly, letting his fat ripple in all directions for extra effect.
“I think you’re selling yourself short, Mister Taobao. You just need some reforming. Swearing less would be a good start,” encouraged Yuri, passing Taobao and Minho gourds filled with cold spring water from her spatial ring. She moved on to the other side of the tunnel clearing where the others rested and passed out more gourds.
“Shit. If only all kids are as well-mannered as you, Yuri, then maybe I can see myself getting some children,” admitted Taobao.
“Haha. You’re gonna need some hair too,” Minho laughed, “Or I’m not sure how they can get in your hair otherwise.”
Minho’s wisecrack elicited a chuckle from everyone around, even Taobao.
“Dammit man, you go-” Before Taobao could finish his sentence, the ground beneath him and Minho caved in. The others could only stare in horror as the two men disappeared into a pitch black sinkhole.