The meager minutes of twilight had passed and the village was now shrouded in darkness. Several homes hung lanterns from their porches that brought forth short bursts of relief as the trio made their way down the wide, gravel path.

  “So, Tan,” began Lucia as she held onto Jayaka for support. “I guess you’re the mayor?”

  “Mayor? No,” the old woman replied. “I am merely the wife of the village elder. Even if we were to choose one amongst us to follow, it would without a doubt be my husband. He would normally be the one to greet visitors such as you two, but he is ill and waiting on a shipment of medicine.”

  “Hold on, so does that mean you don’t have anything to treat my poison?”

  “Worry not. Our village mainly trades mundane herbs used to brew antidotes, but rarely cures for diseases. Quite helpful when one gets incredibly unlucky enough to need them, such as yourself, but they are not important enough to bother about otherwise. At least according to the White Crane sect.”

  Lucia nodded along as vigorously as she could to the old woman’s sentiment. She had to stop after three shakes when her empty stomach somehow began to roil.

  “It appears that it has all worked out in the end,” added Jayaka. “The one who has saved your village is in need of what only you can produce!”

  “This one agrees, fate has smiled upon us all once again. This entire village seems to run on strange coincidences, which is why we named it Fortune Village, though outsiders have taken to calling it Misfortune Village. But worry about it not, for we are here!”

  The three found themselves in front of a sizable, two-storey house. Tan Fu opened the front door and entered, motioning for the others to join her inside. With a polite nod, Jayaka did just that, helping pull Lucia alongside him.

  The two guests were led to a large side room where Tan picked out a small pot from several others sitting on a shelf. She opened the lid and the room was filled with a soft, yet pungent odor emanating from the light brown paste within.

  “Alright, now take off your shirt so I can spread the cure over you,” said the old woman.

  “What, it’s not something you eat?” asked Lucia. She didn’t wait for an answer and was already reaching for the bottom of her shirt.

  “Not this one. It draws the poison out of the wound itself.”

  “Well, alright then.”

  Lucia quickly pulled her shirt off to reveal five puckered wounds to the right of her belly button whose edges were colored a shade of green over the pink flesh underneath. A pair of horizontal slits made of scar tissue rested on either side of each wound.

  Tan didn’t hesitate at the mildly gruesome sight as she slathered a thick layer of the poultice over the holes. Almost immediately, the brown paste began to take on a light shade of green.

  “Woah, check it out, I’m already starting to feel better!” exclaimed Lucia. “Like really, this isn’t like some placebo effect or anything, this stuff’s legit! Take a look, Jayaka!”

  “Yes, yes, I’m sure the treatment is doing a wonderful job,” the archer quickly replied. He was sitting completely stiff in a cross-legged position, facing away from the two.

  “Not even willing to look at your wife’s own injury?” scolded Tan in a soft yet sharp whisper. “However in the world did you manage to kill those demons?”

  “She is not my wife.”

  “He’s not my husband.”

  The two chimed simultaneously.

  “I see…” The old woman held her tongue, but Lucia could see the spark of curiosity shining in her eyes.

  The hispanic woman let out a long sigh while she gathered her thoughts. It wasn’t a comfortable topic, the wound it left being as raw as the one on her stomach, but she felt she at least owed Tan an explanation for the hospitality she was showing. “It’s a long fucking story. But to keep it short, the White Crane sect kidnapped my son and when I failed to get him back, I ended up wandering the forests looking for civilization and ended up finding a demon instead. Jayaka here saved my life, and agreed to help me out. He still had the other rakshasi… demon- to kill, and I demanded that I join him.”

  Tan’s eyes lit up even further. “Those no good, rotten scoundrels! I believed leaving us to die was the worst they could do, but kidnapping a child?! Have they truly no honor?!”

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  “Apparently not,” sighed Lucia. “And that doesn’t include them breaking my nose, cracking my ribs, and dislocating my shoulder when I first talked to them.”

  The old woman stared speechlessly. When her voice finally returned, she asked her guest a question. “After you suffered such an injury, why did you choose to accompany this man to fight the other demon?!”

  “She picked up the use of her prana… chi- very quickly,” said Jayaka, still facing away from the two. “She created a healing elixir within her body and was also the one to deliver the final blow, in fact.”

  “You cultivators truly are something else,” replied Tan, slowly shaking her head.

  “Cultivator? You mentioned that earlier, what is it?”

  “Warriors who are skilled in the use of prana, as they are known up here,” interjected Jayaka. “We do not have an equivalent name for them in the South, as not all practitioners from my homeland are combat-focused.”

  “Huh, but I’m guessing you’re still technically one of them, seeing how much ass you can kick.”

  The archer nodded from his far away spot.

  “Cultivator or not, you will not be fully rid of that poison until next morning,” interjected Tan. “You two will be staying here until then.”

  Jayaka craned his neck to face the old woman, and clasped his hands together as if in prayer and bent his head. “I must thank you for your hospitality.”

  “Why are you thanking me?” asked Tan with a huff. “It is the least I can do after you saved our village for no reward! Wait here, I shall get dinner for you two.”

  The old woman got up and left the room while Lucia put her shirt back on. As soon as the hole-ridden fabric brought back her modesty, Jayaka turned around to regard his friend. He had an uneasy frown on his face.

  “So what gives? This is the second time you gave that look whenever someone mentioned food.”

  “Well, it is because I-”

  Before Jayaka could complete his sentence, he was interrupted by the door opening to Tan carrying a large tray. The aroma of food ran ahead of her and swam into the two guests’ nostrils before they could even see the delectibles. Lucia’s heart fluttered at the sight of her next meal, while Jayaka only winced.

  Tan lightly dropped the tray before the two. “I hope you two like fish cakes and rice! Caught from our lake just this morning!”

  “Looks delicious!”

  “Er, I must thank you, miss,” began Jayaka. “And it pains me to respond to your warm hospitality this way, but… I am actually a vegetarian.”

  Lucia did a double take as she regarded her friend. “You are?! You never told me that!”

  “What is a vegetarian?” asked Tan. “Does that mean you cannot eat this?”

  “I apologize again,” said Jayaka with another bow of his head. “I do not eat meat, fish, or anything cooked with parts of their bodies. It is for religious and spiritual reasons.”

  “Religious?” asked the old woman. “I cannot think of a single god that demands such penance from their followers. Perhaps you worship a more obscure nature god?”

  “That could be one way to describe it…”

  “Very well. What kind of host would I be if I could not accommodate a guest?” Tan let out a chuckle. “But unless you are fine with only eating rice, your only other option for food are peanuts, though I would not dare subject our savior to such a low-class food. I have some crumbled and fried. Rice and peanuts are the only other food we harvest in this town besides fish. Traders usually bring the rest, but…”

  “Peanuts would be perfect!” cheered Jayaka.

  “And you,” said the old woman, turning to Lucia. “Would you like some peanuts too?”

  “Nah, I’m good.”

  Tan nodded and once again left the room to fetch the food.

  Lucia got several bites into her meal before a terrible realization struck her. “Hey, are you the only vegetarian where you’re from?”

  “No, everyone from my ashram is one as well.”

  “Does that mean I’ll have to be one too?”

  “If you wish to grow powerful through our ways, you will have to follow our tenets, and that includes no meat. Though you would not have much of a choice as we have no meat there anyway.”

  “Well, your wife’s cooking was pretty good, so I think I might stand a chance.” Lucia let out a nervous chuckle. “But until then, I’m taking your fish cakes.”

  “They will not be missed.”

  “Oh, yes it will.”

  Soon enough, Tan returned with the peanuts and her two guests finished their dinners with gusto. Jayaka out of gratitude for his host’s accommodations, and Lucia because it might’ve been the last time she would be able to eat meat.

  After dinner, the two were led into separate rooms to sleep in, each fitted with a straw mat and blanket. Lucia didn’t feel much comfort from the straw, and chose to instead roll it up into a pillow while she laid on the equally firm ground.

  Despite her rough arrangements, Lucia quickly began to succumb to her exhaustion. But despite how quickly sleep came, she was still able to focus on the truth.

  Things were different now. Not just where she found herself, but the kind of person she had started to become. She killed someone today. Self-defense or not, there was blood on her hands. And truth be told? She didn’t feel so bad about it anymore.

  It could’ve been the fact she’d finally eaten a warm meal after so long or that the poison was now out of her system, but she was still unusually calm about what had happened. Her attitude scared her more than her misdeed. Lucia just hoped that she wouldn’t become the kind of monster her son would hate just to be able to rescue him.