Chapter 50

On the eighth day of the sixth month of that year, a lightning bolt struck the Shen farm while the children were cultivating. It was a perfectly clear day, and the lightning had come out of nowhere. The children frowned and looked at each other in confusion, then went to investigate.

They found the adults confronting Renton Shen, who was scratching his head and looking apologetic. He’d landed in the middle of the vegetable garden and scorched several plants, and was now making excuses for his aim.

“Uncle Renton!” Tan called out, and the adults turned to acknowledge them. Tan looked at his parents with a suspicious glare. “He is my uncle, isn’t he?”

“I would have told you if he’d lied to you in Mosanatas,” Tren said. He sighed. “Yes, Tan, this is Renton, my younger brother. I’m sorry we never spoke of him, but things were … complicated and tense for a while. I’m hoping that we can all put that aside in the past and be a real family going forward.”

“I’d like nothing more,” Renton agreed. “Although we will have to keep things separate. Family and business, with a clear demarcation line between the two. I think that when I’m here, I’ll be just Renton Shen and nothing more. I like that idea.”

Wensho nodded. “I think that might be best for everyone involved.”

Safron at this point poked her head out of the house, nervously taking in the scene before her. Wensho saw her daughter and urged her to come out and meet her uncle, who perked up upon seeing his niece.

“That’s right! I brought presents!” he declared. He held out his hand, and suddenly he was holding a sapling. “Imperial fire cherry trees! I have two dozen of them, freshly grown this spring. Just tell me where to plant them, and we’ll put a proper orchard together for the Shen farm! With the four of us working together we can grow them to maturity in a few days, and they’ll make for a great cultivation resource for the children.”

“I’d rather have a doll,” Safron said.

“Ah!” Renton said, covering his heart like she had wounded him. “What sort of uncle would I be if I didn’t bring my favorite niece a doll?” he asked, and he pulled a very expensive and elaborate doll from his storage ring as well. “Here you go, my lady. One doll for the imperial princess!”

Safron giggled and took the doll from him, hugging it tightly. “You’re funny,” she said, then she hid shyly behind her mother’s legs.

“How do you make things appear and disappear?” Tan asked.

“Oh, that? It’s nothing, just a storage ring,” Renton said, holding his hand up to display the magical item. “You don’t have one?”

“No, but I want one,” Tan said eagerly.

“Here, I have a spare,” Renton said, pulling a ring off his left hand. “Just let me empty it out real quick and it’s yours.”

“Renton, please don’t spoil the children,” Tren said, sounding exasperated.

“What sort of uncle would I be if I didn’t dote on my nieces and nephews?” Renton asked, grinning. “Besides, it’s nothing much.”

“A storage ring and a doll are fine gifts,” Wensho said cautiously. “And we thank you for the fire cherries, those will be a welcome addition to our farm. But please, talk with us before you start lavishing us with any more gifts.”

“Of course. My apologies. I didn’t come here to be a disruptive influence. I genuinely came to reconnect, meet my niece, and spend a bit of time with my nephew. And possibly tutor your disciples, if you’ll allow it,” Renton said.

“Of course,” Tren said, sighing. “Whatever else you are, you’re a fine cultivator and the children would benefit from your insights. But let’s discuss your lesson plan in private later.”

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“Right, of course,” Renton agreed. He finished emptying out his spare storage ring and tossed it to Tan, who caught it eagerly.

He put it on his finger and was surprised when it adjusted itself to fit him perfectly. He grinned. “How does it work?”

“I just purged it of my Qi and told it that it was about to gain a new master, so you should be able to feed it your Qi and claim it. It’s a semi-aware tool. It will take you a while for it to accept you, and once it has you can put anything you want inside of it simply by willing it to be so. It’s a rather cheap ring, to be honest, but it can fit ten by ten by ten meters of volume inside it. As I said, it was my backup to my primary ring, so it wasn’t anything special,” Renton explained. “I just kept a few changes of clothes, some toiletries, and a bit of food inside. You can keep whatever you want in there. Even living things, although they won’t age or change while they’re inside.”

“Even a person?” Tan asked

“Tan, do not use it on your sister, ” Wensho scolded.

“I wasn’t going to,” Tan said in a tone of voice that said he had very clearly been planning to do just that. “Would it hurt her if I did?”

“The tool-spirit is a pacifist. It won’t hurt anything with its magic even if it could,” Renton assured him. “You’ll see what I mean when you get to know it.”

“How long are you planning on staying?” Tren asked his brother.

“I can’t stay more than a week,” he said. “After that, I’ll have to get back to my duties.”

“Right. Well, we might as well get to work then,” Tren said. “Let’s place the orchard on the other side of the cultivation hill.”

“Sounds good to me,” Renton agreed, and they circled around the hill. Tren, with his hoe, quickly dug holes for the trees, placing them in a grid that was six by four, with the trees evenly spaced. Once the saplings had been transplanted, the adults gathered around. Tren carved four small circles at the cardinal points.

“Tan, this is your circle,” Tren told his son when he finished carving the western circle. “Would you do us a favor and bring in some wind Qi for us?”

“Huh? Why?” Tan asked as he stepped into the center of the circle.

“We’re going to grow these trees, and they’ll need the air to breathe,” Tren explained. “It’s fine, you don’t have to understand. Just bring in as much wind Qi as you can manage, but instead of absorbing it yourself send it to the orchard.”

Tan frowned, but nodded. He plopped down into the middle of the circle and began cycling the Qi in the air around them, bringing it in in large amounts and cycling it through the orchard as the other adults sat in their own circles and began doing much the same.

Tan’s eyebrows rose as he watched the trees grow in moments before him. From little saplings to trees that were taller than him, the process proceeded at a visible pace. He could kind of sense what the adults were doing. Tren was pulling nutrients from the earth and feeding them into the plants. His mother was doing something similar with the water, but her magic extended into the plants themselves.

Renton’s magic was focused more on the trees themselves, and his was the magic that Tan understood the least. But the results were obvious.

After two hours, the robust trees were fully grown.

Renton shook his head when Tren called a halt to it. He was grinning. “I’ve been doing this by myself for the last thirty years. I forgot how easy it was when you have a proper elemental quartet. Great job, Tan, you made that much easier than it would have been without you.”

Tan grinned, not really certain what exactly he’d done but happy to have contributed. “So when do they grow cherries?” he asked.

“Soonish,” Tren answered. “They should flower this year, I think. When they do, I think that the blossoms will be most beautiful.”

“I don’t care about that, I just want to eat them,” Tan declared.

The adults laughed, and Tan ran off to join the other children when they encouraged him to. They were atop the hill, discussing this turn of events, but they broke off their discussion when Tan appeared.

The four got into their usual positions atop the hill and began cultivating. Tan, mentally and spiritually exhausted, called it quits after only thirty minutes before he went inside to take a nap.

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