Chapter 22

Hoten bonded with his spirit two weeks later, surprising everyone involved. Tren knew of the transaction between Pao and Hoten and had decided to leave things alone this time, rather than severing the bonds between stone and spirit as he had with the others. Whether it was because he’d decided the loom was a large enough sacrifice, or that he’d simply decided not to undermine his disciples dealings, Tren himself hadn’t decided for certain.

Hoten was thoroughly proud of his accomplishment. He showed up to the Shen household the day after his breakthrough, washed and dressed in fancy clothes, ready to begin his apprenticeship.

Only for the adults to exchange a glance.

“We never agreed to anything of the sort,” Wensho said simply. “Congratulations on becoming a cultivator, Hoten, but if you want to advance, you’ll have to seek guidance elsewhere.”

“Honestly I’m surprised that you had it in you,” Tren muttered. “But yes, I suppose I should congratulate you as well. But as my wife said, we never agreed to train everyone in the village who bonded a spirit, and we certainly never promised to do so for you. Don’t forget that you tried to steal from us not too long ago. Are we supposed to just overlook that fact?”

Hoten, genuinely surprised at this setback, sputtered for a moment before recovering. “Fine then!” he said. “I’ll become a great cultivator without your help, and you’ll come to regret not taking in a genius like me!”

He left, and the adults exchanged another set of looks.

“Do you think he’ll be a problem for the kids?” Wensho asked her husband.

“It might not be a bad thing if he is,” Tren answered. “Either way it’s a problem of Pao’s making, so it’s only right that they be the ones to deal with it. I’m not going to get my hands dirty with it. Although I wouldn’t stop you from stunting his growth, or --”

“He hasn’t really done anything wrong, aside from attempted theft, for which he’s already dealing with the consequences in the form of the curse we inflicted on him,” Wensho pointed out. “Unless he actually hurts someone, I’m content to leave things lie.”

And that became the official policy of the adults of the Shen farm.

The children, upon hearing of Hoten’s success, had their own conference atop the cultivation hill. They sat in their spots and stared at Pao, who was looking sheepish.

“I didn’t think he’d actually manage to do it,” Pao said defensively under the withering glares. “I mean, my parents really needed the loom more than I needed the stone, so I still think I did the right thing.”

The other kids thought of what they would have done for their own parents, and they reluctantly relaxed their expressions.

“Still, Hoten is a toad,” Ko said. “If it wasn’t for the fact that everyone thinks his curse is contagious, he’d probably have three kids with three different girls in town now.”

“Is it contagious?” her brother asked.

“I don’t think anyone has taken the risk,” her sister said. “At least none of the girls I’ve asked have done anything more than confirmed the rumors about it. I do think Mistress Shen was a little overly cruel, really. I kind of feel sorry for him. Everyone calls him the Red Rooster.”

“He tried to steal from us,” Tan said. “I don’t feel sorry for him at all. I guess I can’t be mad at you, Pao, but I do wish that he wasn’t one of us now.”

They discussed the matter further for a while, then spent a while cultivating. They, too, decided on the unofficial position of ignoring Hoten until he made a nuisance of himself.

Which, of course, he did.

Despite being only in the first stage of the initiate’s realm, Hoten quickly began to lord his status as a cultivator over the other young men and women in the village. The children received a fair share of bullying as well, and even the adults were not safe. Before long, the village elders came to the Shen house, seeking a solution.

“The fact remains that I’m simply unwilling to teach him,” Tren told the gathered elders. “I’m sorry, but the way that he’s been abusing his meager amount of power is already proof that I’m correct in my decision. Giving into his demands will only give him more power to abuse. I will not be a party to that.”

“But think of the inconvenience it causes us,” one of the female elders said. “The Red Rooster is growing ever more persistent with the unmarried girls of the village, and even with some of the married ones his own age. If he fathers a child, it could cause a scandal!”

Tren sighed. “It would be easiest on everyone, I think if Hoten were to leave now that he is a cultivator. If I give him a recommendation to a nearby sect, do you think that he would accept it? Would that solve everyone’s problems?”

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

The village elders convened for a moment and agreed that it would. The only person who wouldn’t be satisfied by the arrangement would be Hoten’s own father, who would lose his son’s labor in his merchant trade. But it was somewhat inevitable that would happen anyway.

“The Whispering Guides are an honorable sect who will not allow him to stray too far into either debauchery or the pursuit of violence for the sake of his personal perceived glory,” Tren said after considering the options for a moment. “I respect their philosophy. If Hoten agrees to go to that sect for guidance, I will give him a token that will ensure they will not turn him away. Talk to him for me and secure his cooperation with this plan, and I will prepare the token.”

The elders were pleased with this arrangement. Hoten, upon learning that he would be getting certain admittance into one of the more powerful sects in the region, was eager to agree to the deal as well, not really realizing that the elders were just trying to get rid of him.

He returned to the Shen farm the very next day and bowed to the Shen family humbly. “Thank you so much for your generosity in providing me an introduction to the Whispering Guides. I vow that I will repay your --”

Tren tossed him a jade slip, interrupting his speech. “Go be someone else’s problem, Red Rooster.”

Hoten blushed. He did not like that nickname, not one bit. Most people hadn’t been willing to use it to his face since he’d become a cultivator, but he knew better than to think that he could demand any satisfaction from the powerful earth cultivator before him.

“Thank you again,” he said humbly, and he was on his way, taking one of his family’s horses and riding off into the distance.

“Do you really think that your message will get him into the sect?” Wensho asked her husband. “You weren’t exactly flattering in your description of him.”

Tren shrugged. “If it doesn’t work, he’ll either try another sect on his own or come back to the village to complain to us and I’ll send him somewhere else. Either way I’ve bought the village a few months of peace where they won’t have the Red Rooster strutting around.”

Wensho giggled.

“I can’t believe you never told me that you modified those wards,” Tren complained ot his wife.

“Would you have stopped me?”

“No. I would have just looked to see how you did it,” He admitted.

She giggled. “It was a family secret. If you weren’t my husband, I would have to kill you for peaking at it.”

“Oh, is that so?” he asked.

They kissed, and then went about the rest of their day now that the distraction of Hoten was gone.

Hoten rode hard for three weeks to reach the sect. He inquired at the nearby villages who to speak with in order to join, and was directed towards one of the elders who lived at the base of the mountain, the peak of which contained a cavernous compound that was reserved for the elders and inner sect disciples.

He proudly appeared before Elder Yotu’s grand house, which was nearly as elaborate as the Shen manshion that his family was so envious of, and waited patiently for the elder to appear, as he’d been instructed.

For two days, he waited patiently, retiring to the nearby village to eat and sleep when his body demanded it of him.

Finally, the elder emerged from his building and glared at him. Hoten felt a surprisingly gentle touch of wind Qi embrace his own, and he realized that he’d just been measured.

“So, a weakling seeks to join the Whispering Guides?” the elder muttered. Hoten blushed.

“Forgive me, but I’ve only just set upon the path of cultivation. It’s only been a few weeks since I bound my wind spirit, and I have been without guidance during that time or surely I would have advanced. The hidden master I sought guidance from was unable to spare his valuable time in taking one more disciple under his wing, but he pointed me to your noble organisation instead,” Hoten said.

“And who is this hidden master who sent you here?” Elder Yotu asked, knowing of none in the area.

“His name is Tren Shen. He is a powerful earth cultivator, but he prefers a low profile.”

“And yet you so casually produce his name when asked?” the elder scolded.

Hoten’s ears burned as he realized he might have messed up. “I mean, he’s known to everyone in my village as a powerful cultivator, but he does not actively spread his legend. That’s all,” he clarified.

“Uh-huh. Did he perhaps give you a letter of introduction?” Elder Yotu asked.

“He gave me this token,” Hoten explained, handing over the jade slip.

Yotu examined it for a moment, then promptly snapped it in two to receive its message.

It was customary when sending a message via such a slip to include a portion of personal Qi to establish the identity of the sender. It was also customary, when sending a message to a person who didn’t know you, to concentrate that Qi to show your level of advancement, so that the recipient would know whether they were dealing with a peer, a junior, or a senior.

The Qi that came pouring out of the slip knocked Elder Yotu to his knees, utterly eclipsing his own and even that of the sect master. It knocked the poor child who had born the message unconscious, the boy landing in the dirt with a bloody nose.

Then all at once the pressure was gone, and a vision appeared before elder Yotu.

“We call this man the Red Rooster. He’s been making himself a nuisance in our village since he bound his spirit, and I’m not willing to take him as a disciple. He hasn’t done anything particularly objectionable, however, so I can’t simply kill him. Or I could, rather, but it would set a poor example for the lessons I’m trying to instill in my son. I’ve heard good things about the Whispering Guides sect, and I was hoping that you could put him onto an honorable path for me.”

Yotu blinked as the vision vanished. He wiped his nose and his fingers came away bloody. He looked at the young man, practically a boy, and he sighed. He shook Hoten awake, brought him inside his humble dwelling, gave him a sip of wine, and wrote his name in the book of the sect’s outer disciples. He gave the boy a robe to change into and a jade slip to bring to the library master to receive the introductory lessons, as well as directed him to the work board so that he could begin to earn contribution points.

And that is how Hoten became someone else’s problem for a while.