Chapter 43

Hoten washed the sheets in the river, quietly reflecting on the mess that had become his life. He had been humiliated by the Shens once more. While nobody had said anything about his attempt to remain at his sect instead of performing his filial duties, he had heard the judgment in their voices after Tan had kidnapped him. As though he were not the injured party, they had dared to judge him for his priorities.

He worked in silence, performing the same tasks that he would be performing for Master Argoth back at the sect for his mother. She had seemed fine when he’d first arrived. She’d gotten out of bed and hugged him, and although he could smell sickness on her he had thought that the news of her condition had been overstated. That she had another year or two in her, and that the rush to bring him home was overstated.

It had only been a day, and he saw now that his impression was wrong. She had used up all of her energy to greet him, and once she’d laid back down, she had … she had let go. She was fading swiftly, and his father didn’t expect her to last a week. His father had clapped him on the shoulder and thanked him for coming, causing Hoten to wince as the man hit a bruise from the beating that Tan had delivered.

Nobody was talking about his humiliation. Did that mean that nobody knew, or that they were attempting to shield his mother from his decision during her final days? He didn’t know, and he was afraid to ask.

Pulling the sheets out of the water, he rung them out then put them on the line and used his magic to dry them out. It took longer than if he were a water cultivator, but running a stiff breeze through the sheets was still a swifter process than waiting for them to air dry.

Once they were dry, he returned to the village, ignoring the looks of the villagers as he walked to his family’s house. Who were they kidding, they didn’t care. They had always ostracized him as the son of the wealthiest family in the village. His father was responsible for many of their own livelihoods, providing them with the odds and ends which couldn’t be produced in the village and buying their surpluses for what little spending copper they deserved. The tension that this fact caused had been a divisive factor in what few friendships he’d had in his youth.

Nobody wanted to be friends with the man who refused to sell their father a plow because their family didn’t have the coin for it. They refused to understand that his family was little better off than theirs, that they couldn’t afford to be charitable with the villagers.

And then the Shen family, which had always been strange, had suddenly revealed themselves to be a family of cultivators. The misunderstanding regarding Hoten’s curse had driven another wedge between him and the suddenly prominent family, and even though he felt his actions were entirely reasonable, his curse had further ostracized him.

He cursed them. They were hypocrites. They wouldn’t have done anything differently if they were him. He had always known that he was destined for greatness. When that little brat had shown up in the village that day with the power of a fledgling cultivator, he had seen his opportunity to become more than a poor peddler. But then Tren Shen had refused to deal with him, and when he had tried to take what should have been his, things had … not gone well.

He sighed, stepping into his house and entering his parents room. His father had been sleeping in Hoten’s old bed, and Hoten had been sleeping on a mat on the floor. His mother had been sleeping alone in the marriage bed. They’d burn it when she passed; it was soiled, and changing the sheets did little to help the stench.

Hoten grimaced as he changed the sheets without waking his mother. She had been sleeping most of the time now. He didn’t think it was going to be much longer.

When he’d finished, he returned to the living area, where he found his father drinking from a bottle that smelled strongly of alcohol. His father passed him the bottle, and Hoten drank from it without saying anything.

“It’s good you came,” his father said. “That she got to see you one last time. She can let go now. She can rest.”

“I’m glad that I did,” Hoten lied. “When I heard, I dropped everything. I’m eternally grateful for the Shen family’s kindness in this matter.”

“Yes. The Shens have always been good for this village. Even before we knew the truth, they were watching out for us,” his father said.

Hoten sighed. So his father had fallen into line with the rest of the villagers. “I can only stay for the funeral, Father. When, afterwards, I need to return as soon as possible. I pray that you understand.”

“I would never wish to impede your cultivation. You are a good son. The coin you brought, your gifts to the village, they’re going to change things,” his father said. “You’ll see when you visit next time. You’ll see.”

Hoten nodded. “Yeah, next time,” he said.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

He didn’t plan on visiting again in his father’s lifetime. This village was where he came from, not where he was going.

~~~~~~

Lord Hara swallowed. The cultivator twins were sitting before him, having presented him with a sack filled with wealth.

“So, what exactly do you want me to do with it?” he asked them.

“That’s the thing, we don’t know what to do with this much money,” the girl twin said. “We’re hoping to take care of our parents with it, and the village as well. But our father is … he’s unlikely to handle the wealth well.”

“He’ll drink himself into a ditch-side grave if we gave it to him directly,” the boy twin said. “So we’re hoping that you’ll have some better ideas of what to do with it.”

Lord Hara nodded. “Well, there’s enough here for a team of oxen. If you purchased such animals for your village as a whole, their productivity would increase substantially. Given that the food coming out of your village is increasing in quality every year, such an investment at this time would likely increase your family’s wealth and the wealth of your neighbors substantially over the next decade or so.”

“Yeah, we have no idea who to talk with to do that,” the boy said. “Can you handle the arrangements for us?”

Lord Hara sighed. If the twins weren’t cultivators, he wouldn’t have let them through the door. They’d been born as peasants in one of his smaller villages, and if it weren’t for a twist of fate elevating them past the station they’d been born to…

“It would be my honor,” he lied. “Leave everything to me. I’ll purchase the finest animals on the market, along with the plows and tack to put them to work. I’ll also speak with the village elders, so that they know where the animals come from and what they’re expected to do with it. The harvest next year will have triple the harvest of this year, I assure you!”

“Thanks. Feel free to keep a tenth of it for the trouble,” Ko said. “That’s customary in such arrangements, isn’t it?”

“This humble lord thanks the cultivators for their generosity,” Lord Hara said.

“Thank you for your time. We know that if we weren’t cultivators you wouldn’t open your door to us or treat us with such respect,” Ko said. “But I don’t think you’re a bad guy.”

“Thank you,” Lord Hara said.

The twins rose to leave, and he showed them out, bowing humbly as he closed the door behind them. Then he went to count the coin that had just fallen into his hands.

There was more than enough for oxen, but he wouldn’t cheat the twins. He’d do as he’d promised, then return whatever was left over to them, minus the processing fee that they had offered him.

He knew better than to cheat a cultivator.

~~~~~

The carriage arrived at the merchant’s estate early in the morning. Swenshion, who had just had one of the happiest nights of his life, got inside with his wife and their two pupils. While Tren and Wensho Shen had returned home ahead of time, the children were taking the slow way home.

They could have simply stowed the slower mortals and Safron in a storage ring, but such things were undignified and to be avoided when there wasn’t need for haste. So they were turning it into an opportunity for the children to get to know their new tutors instead.

As they got underway, Swenshion began quizzing Tan on his existing knowledge of history, politics, mathematics, rhetoric, and literature.

He came to a very swift conclusion. The boy didn’t know his multiplication table, he had little knowledge of the empire outside of Susuka county, and while he was surprisingly astute on philosophical matters, he was completely out of his depth on political discussions.

Swenshion had his work cut out for him.

Sighing, he began to lecture the boy.

“Seven hundred thirty three years ago, a man named Haoatonian Shenlong was born,” he began.

“He wasn’t a man when he was born, was he?” Tan asked, cocking his head with a stupid grin.

Swenshion blinked. “Well, no, of course not. He began life as an infant, just like everyone else. But not much is known of his life before he was sixteen, when he launched the campaign which would go on to conquer the entire continent.”

“Who were his parents? Where did he come from? What—”

As the boy began bombarding Swenshion with questions, Swenshion revised his opinion.

He really had his work cut out for him.

‎