Chapter 8: Life in Golden Moon.
When the first rays of sunlight shone through Yao Jun's window, he awoke from his meditation. He had already been in this Yao branch for a few weeks and it had become a habit to end his meditation this early. He and Yao Pianzi would head to the medicine garden in the morning so that they could wander around town during the afternoon, evening and night was strictly for cultivation, Yao Jun had made this very clear.
Quickly freshening up in the washroom before leaving the house, Yao Jun met up with Yao Pianzi and a few other people at the town exit. The group consisted of Yao Pianzi, a tall and elegant youth with light yellow hair called Yao Mu, and a pair of twin sisters with chestnut brown hair and a lovable appearance, they were a bit younger than Yao Jun, but since they were born in this Yao branch, he had to call them Senior Sisters, they were called Yao Zhu and Yao Wei.
“Little Jun! You seem to be getting more and more punctual, even we just arrived!” Yao Pianzi skipped over and patted Yao Jun lightly on the shoulder as she spoke in a praising tone.
“Come on now big sis Zi, I only overslept twice, it wasn't that bad.” All Yao Jun could do in face of her praise was embarrassedly scratch his cheek.
Big sis Zi was something Yao Pianzi had convinced Yao Jun to call her not long after they got to know each other. At first he found it rather embarrassing, but as he got used to it, he found it rather pleasant to be able to call a friend with a nickname.
“Greetings Senior Brother Mu and Senior Sisters Zhu and Wei.” Yao Jun cupped his hands and gave the others a standard greeting. These people had also been rather good to Yao Jun so he was also quite fond of them.
“Good morning Junior Brother Jun, since you are so punctual today, I believe that our luck should be rather good.” Yao Mu returned his greeting with a light chuckle, eliciting a small laugh out of the others.
They left the Yao clan and followed the main road towards the town exit. Before leaving town, Yao Jun made a small detour to greet his parents, who had already settled down in Golden Moon Town, just not in the Yao clan. Yao Jun visited his parents every morning before he left for the medicine garden, partly to check up on them and ensure them that he is fine, and partly to pick up his breakfast and lunch, which his mother prepared for him every day.
After picking up his breakfast and lunch, Yao Jun shared the breakfast with everyone in the group as they left the town and followed the path that would lead them to the medicine garden. He split his breakfast with them every morning, he also did the same with his lunch, mainly because the others only ate in the Yao clan cafeteria and always forgot to make their own food before leaving.
After arriving at the medicine garden, since today was the last day of the week, they started harvesting some of the herbs that had a faster growth speed. Every week they had to harvest herbs on the last day and deliver them to the clan. They had to fill up a certain quota each week and month, if they harvested too little, they would lose some of their salary, but if they harvested too much, they would not get anything extra.
Harvesting the herbs was rather strenuous work as it required them to walk all over the mountain, check all the herbs to see if they were ripe, then bend over and cut them above the roots to harvest them. They would then place them in specialized baskets and write down what they had harvested and how much, taking stock of what they had.
After spending around two hours harvesting, they would gather again and eat lunch together. While everyone else had filled their books, noting down their harvest, Yao Jun's book was still empty. This was not because he hadn't harvested anything, on the contrary, he had harvested more than anyone else.
Since he was new, Yao Pianzi had given him charge of the area with the most herbs. Since there were more herbs there, there were obviously more ripe herbs there as well. Yao Pianzi said that she did this so that Yao Jun wouldn't end up harvesting too few herbs and end up losing his salary.
But Yao Jun noticed that Yao Pianzi and the others never managed to harvest enough, so he told them that they could just start harvesting from his area. The others adamantly rejected this proposal, stating that it was important to have borders and not encroach on other peoples area.
After thinking it over for a little bit, Yao Jun came up with the idea that he could just harvest a bit more and then give that to the others, allowing all of them to reach the quota. The others spent some time thinking over it and couldn't come up with anything against it, so all they could do was accept with reluctant faces. This led to Yao Jun having to harvest almost twice as much as the others to keep up.
“Little Jun, how come the food you bring is always so good? Much better than the food in the cafeteria, you should just come cook for me all day, I'm sure your mom taught you....” Yao Pianzi muttered under her breath while eating a small pastry.
“Come on now big sis Zi, I already told you that I was too preoccupied with training to ever learn any cooking.” Yao Jun gave a wry smile in response to Yao Pianzi's words. She would often end up muttering under her breath while eating the food his mother made, complaining that no one would cook for her.
“Junior Brother Jun, are these the herbs you harvested?” Yao Wei spoke up from the side and leaned her head over to peek into the basket placed next to Yao Jun.
“Ah, yes I managed to harvest enough this time as well.” Yao Jun stretched his body and picked out some herbs from his basket, quickly handing them over to the others.
“Thank you Junior Brother Jun, we really have inconvenienced you.” Yao Mu accepted the herb and gave Yao Jun a slightly apologetic smile.
“It's no problem, no problem at all. It's my fault for hogging the best harvesting spot after all.” Yao Jun quickly waved his hands to stop Yao Mu.
Just as he finished talking, a small flame flashed into existence in front of Yao Pianzi, illuminating her surprised face. This little flame was the mark of a transmission jade, signifying that someone had sent a message to Yao Pianzi. Yao Pianzi's face quickly went from surprised to elated.
“The inner disciple tournament date has been decided! It will start in another week, all disciples are to suspend all chorse to focus on the tournament!” Yao Pianzi spoke with a happy smile as she sprung up.
“Come, come, let's return to the clan, we have to start training!” Yao Pianzi stopped caring about anything, throwing the food aside before grabbing her basket and running back to Golden Moon Town.
Yao Jun was the only one who didn't run back. The inner disciple tournament was only for disciples who had spent a certain amount of time in the Golden Moon branch, giving them a chance to become inner disciples, meaning that the clan would give them more resources and that they could stop doing chores.
Yao Jun had not been in the clan long enough to participate in the tournament, so there was no need for him to rush back. He looked around the area where they just sat, overlooking all the food the others had thrown onto the ground and heaved a small sigh.
“What a waste of food. Sorry mother.”
Yao Jun stood up and cleaned away the food before heading back to his part of the medicine garden, he had picked enough herbs for the others, but he hadn't picked enough herbs for himself yet, so he had to finish that first.