Winter had come around again; my age was now close to five years old.

For the most part I had revealed I could talk, walk, and so on but even so, I kept my interactions to others fairly limited in case of any other surprise setbacks.

That was a lesson I had learned after father decided against letting me become a Shenrin, whatever information I let out could end up biting me in the back.

Inversely, I also realized I needed more information myself before taking any action, so when I eventually got the opportunity to "play" outside, I made the most of it.

Obviously, joining with the other kids in their activities wasn't something that interested me, so instead I shifted my focus to exploring the village, keeping my eyes and ears open for any useful bits of info.

After a few days of keen observation and minor eavesdropping, I got a general idea of who the villagers were and what they did.

Unsurprisingly, most people were "farmers" who tended to vine berries, trees, and gardens for food.

Some of the farmers who didn't have as much to work on also took up other professions such as woodworking, cloth weaving, and more to produce goods for the exchange of food.

A rare few were what I assumed to be doctors but they reminded me more of mystic figures like alchemists and witches rather than modern doctors.

I didn't know how reliable their medicine was and I didn't want to find out either, so I kept my distance from them.

What surprised me the most though was that there was only two people I could confirm as hunters, my father and the leader.

Based on this I theorized two possible circumstances, one being that the animals in the forest were much more dangerous than I originally thought, or alternatively that there wasn't much to hunt.

I found the latter to be more likely considering that the animals father brought home were always very small and unimposing, however I left the other possibility open.

After all there was the possibility that perhaps one day father or the leader would bring in some other worldly beast.

On the topic of the leader, I'd been seeing a lot of his son who seemed to be quite popular with the villagers.

Every time I saw him, he would be followed by a troop of kids all trying to be the one by his sides as he walked.

The adults weren't much different, always trying to hand him food or make conversation with him as he passed by them.

The only people who didn't seem to like him were the older kids, at the same time though they weren't exactly people that got along with others easily, as evidenced by their division into a multitude of cliques.

The youngest of these groups includes Armot's, consisting mostly of ten-year-olds with a temper for fighting, whether it be amongst themselves or with others.

I noticed the adults didn't intervene in any fighting, I assumed mainly because the village needed fighters and with no teacher for most of them, those experiences would prove invaluable for them.

It was either that, or they were just lazy and didn't care enough to do something, which on second thought seemed more likely.

Valuable as this new abundance of information was, it sadly wasn't what I had been looking for as most of the recon work was for any info related to Shensi, which I had no luck in finding.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

I thought about directly talking to people about it, but going off the occasional glaring, I didn't think anyone was too fond of me.

My father's unpopularity outweighed the goodwill that would come from my mother's reputation, and unlike Armot I hadn't done much to counteract it yet.

That's also not even mentioning how suspicious it would be for me to go around asking about Shensi when I had never interacted with any of them before.

However now that it was Winter, I felt it was a good time to try out the first plan as my father wouldn't be able to use any excuses about being busy.

I needed a straight answer from him, not some procession lasting several days wasting my time.

*****

It was a few days after the festival, and everybody was pretty much locked in the house with nothing to do.

Needless to say, it was cold, so everyone had gathered around the fireplace where stories begun to be told to pass the time.

It was one about a Shenrin who fought off waves of enemies by himself for some lover, Armot disapproved.

Once it was finished, I decided to finally drop the question.

"Father, can you teach me how to use Shensi?"

That brought the room to a deafening silence with all eyes on me.

"Oh... uh this is a- a bit sudden." He stuttered, "I'll have to think about it-"

Not wanting to give him any more time to think of excuses I continued.

"Why?"

"..."

Mother decided to come to the rescue and nudged Armot to say something.

"Hmm? Oh- I wouldn't try it little brother, you see I tried for a few years without any progress because it was so hard to do. Plus it's really boring, trust me you wouldn't like it." He said dissuasively.

"I'd still like to give it a try, after all, what's the harm in trying? It's not like we have much to do."

More silence.

"This is the most I think I've heard you talk Vaikus, what uh- what brought on the sudden interest if you don't mind me asking?" Mother questioned.

As I already mentioned, my interactions with them were very limited, I would only use simple words or phrases when communicating with them, so their surprise wasn't very unexpected.

On one occasion I even overheard that they thought I was "special-minded".

Nevertheless, instead of staying silent I decided to give a vague answer to her question that wasn't exactly false.

"I wanna be strong."

That seemed to trigger something in mother and father, causing them to share a knowing glance between each other before focusing back to me.

"Vaikus, have the other kids been bullying you? If so you can tell me and I'll sort this out with their parents-" Father said before being cut off my Armot.

"No, no, no, no, that's the worst way to go about this. People are gonna think he's some weak loser who had to snitch to his parents if that happens. I tell you what, once Winter is over me and you are gonna go over to this kid, teach him to never mess with you ever again."

An argument quickly broke out as mother and father tried to shut that idea down even with Armot heavily insisting it was the best solution.

It was kind of funny hearing what Armot had to say, very clearly trying to come off as a hardened street rat while only being ten years old.

I gave some thought to using some false bully as a reason to why I should Shensi, but concluded it was best if I didn't considering the effort it would take to keep up and the fact that it wouldn't warrant needing Shensi.

"There's no one bullying me, I just want to become stronger," I stated over the chatter.

Once again the room went silent with eyes this time waiting on father.

He spent a long time thinking of what to say, his expression contorting in discomfort as he thought, before finally returning to normal as he spoke with his answer.

"I'm sorry Vaikus but this power isn't something to be played around with, I'll have to refuse..."

I couldn't say I didn't see it coming, but it still had me feeling disappointed when I heard it.

"I understand," I responded, causing more silence to ensue as they looked over to each other, confirming they heard the same thing.

I could see that my response was very much confusing to them.

They were probably awaiting a worse reaction like a tantrum, but I assessed that it would've been futile and more importantly uncharacteristic of me.

"That's very mature of you Vaikus, if only Armot could be more like you." Mother eventually commented.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Armot asked.

They all laughed and before long the atmosphere was back to normal with stories and conversations.

I stayed quiet for the rest of the time, silently listening.

Soon the day was over and everyone went to bed.

Since I had outgrown my crib they eventually moved me in with Armot, so we headed to bed together.

Sensing that I wasn't in the best of moods he offered to personally teach me how to fight, but even though I appreciated his gesture I declined him and headed off to sleep.

Plan A had failed, and I needed to prepare for tomorrow, because tomorrow was time for plan B.