Chapter 9
Kora quickly changed clothes after breakfast into some of the work attire that she’d been given, then followed the directions and the sound of clucking to the chicken coop, where Tan was waiting for her after having gathered the tools she’d need. She’d been looking forward to, at last, getting a chance to spend some time with him alone.
She got less than ten minutes. That’s how long he spent showing her how to shovel the soiled hay that was in the coop into the wagon which would be used to take it to the compost heap, which was something that Kora had never once heard of being a thing that existed. She wanted him to stay, to talk if nothing else, but he insisted that he had other tasks to see to and left her as soon as he’d demonstrated her task.
Leaving her with only chickens for company.
She looked at the rooster, who was perched a few feet away from him. She frowned. Were all chickens this big? The chickens on the Shen farm certainly looked larger than the ones she was used to eating by a considerable margin. Half again as large, she thought. Was it the breed?
Or was it he Qi in the the food that she could sense. She shook her head, thinking of the waste of feeding Qi rich food to …
She paused.
Chickens were food . Feeding them Qi, would that not infuse them with Qi, which would be present in their eggs and meat?
Maybe it wasn’t such a waste after all, she reflected, going about the unpleasant task with a pitchfork.
She finished by noon, and was sitting next to the wagon in the shade of the coop when Safron came to collect her for dinner. The little girl frowned at the older one.
“What are you doing?” she asked bluntly.
“Resting,” Kora answered. “I’m done with my task.”
“No you’re not. You have to unload it too, and then you have to spread out hay to replace the dirty stuff. Didn’t my brother tell you that?” Safron asked.
Kora frowned. She looked at the wagon full of manure and wondered why she’d thought she’d have help unloading it. Tan had told her those things, including where the hay was stored, but she’d still thought that he would have come back to check on her by now.
“Anyway, everybody was expecting you to be a slowpoke about it so you have all day and tomorrow if you need it,” Safron said with her typical bluntness. “But it’s time for lunch, so go wash your hands and face and come eat.”
The girl ran off, and Kora sighed before standing to follow her. She looked at her hands and winced at the beginnings of blisters. And her task wasn’t even half finished, she reflected.
With a sigh, she went to eat with the others, then returned to her task, determined to finish it and demonstrate once and for all that she could fit in with the Shen family.
Even though a small part of her was wondering exactly why she was trying so hard to please a boy who clearly didn’t like her.
She managed to finish before dinnertime, and she staggered into the main hall, where Lady Wensho greeted her with a smile. “Don’t worry about it too much. It’s just a bit of hazing. You’ve earned a bit of their respect by actually carrying through with the dare, so you might think that the time was well spent. I drew a bath for you, and a change of clothes. Tonight is going to be a less formal affair, but I’d prefer not to have you smelling like that at the dinner table.”
“Thank you Lady Wensho,” Kora said, bowing humbly.
“None of that. Just Wensho is fine,” the woman said. “Now go scrub that dust off your skin before we eat. You have thirty minutes before we start serving, and you can probably guess what will happen if you’re late.”
With those words to motivate her, Kora quickly ran to the bathroom and took one of the quickest but most thorough baths of her life.
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She blinked as, while soaking, she realized that even the bathwater was infused with Qi. She shook her head at the casual luxury mixed in with the serious hard work. The water itself seemed to sooth her muscles and blisters, and despite her haste to make it to the dinner table, she emerged from the bathroom in clean clothes and feeling refreshed.
She sat at the table with the others, who were looking at her with suspicious glances. She smiled back at them.
They were hazing her, were they? Well it would take more than this to drive her off.
Dinner was more informal and even more competitive than the day before, although the fare was somewhat more simple, with simple fried rice, chopped vegetables, and several fish fillets. She flushed with annoyance when she realized that Tan had finished his duties early, as had the other children, and had time to not only cultivate for two hours but to fly to the nearby lake and fish.
And of course, even the fish were infused with Qi. This Qi oasis of the Shen family was truly something else, she reflected during the post-meal haze where everyone was processing the Qi from their meals. Even the adults seemed to be doing something, although Kora was certain they were well past the stage where such paltry amounts of spiritual energy was beneficial.
“And what did we reflect upon today?” Tren Shen asked, interrupting the quiet meditation of the table.
“I reflected on the wisdom that Tan distilled yesterday,” Won volunteered quickly. “Be not the bonfire but the lantern. I think there’s more to those words than even he realized when he said them. I’m not certain it’s the best way to distill the concept that Kora was trying to share, but it was a good one.”
“I reflected on the difference between oil and Kora. I mean Tan and water. I mean oil and water,” Ko said, giggling as she fumbled her words deliberately. Kora blushed as she caught the girls meaning immediately.
“I reflected more on the meaning of being steadfast,” Pao said simply. “And I watched Tremble work. I think he’s close to a breakthrough, but I’m not certain. Do you think that he’ll leave us if he manages one?”
“If he does, it’s his decision to make,” Tren said. “Tan? What did you reflect on?”
Tan scratched his head. “Honestly I kept thinking about the dream of Kora I had last night.”
Kora’s eyes went wide. He dreamed of her? Maybe her prospects weren’t so--
“It was Zephyr playing with my dreams again, but I dreamed that I was marrying a pig-faced spider girl who was extremely ugly and nobody was happy in the wedding,” the boy continued. “Anyway I know it doesn’t mean anything but it was stuck in my head.”
Kora’s jaw dropped. He … dreamed what?
“Safron, what did you reflect on today?” Wensho asked the youngest child at the table.
“Candle wax,” the girl said. “Why is it sticky sometimes and not others? Why does it burn, even though it melts? I dunno. I was just thinking about it.”
“That’s good, Safron. You’re asking good questions. Keep it up,” Wensho praised. The woman turned to Kora. “Kora? What did you reflect on today?”
“I didn’t realize I was supposed to reflect on anything specific,” she admitted. “But if I had to answer, then I guess I’ll just say it. I reflected on how much I hate chicken poop.”
The table laughed with her, and she smiled.
After eating, she asked Tan to show her the best place to cultivate fire Qi in the farm, and he led her to the orchard. They were alone for a few minutes, but rather than taking advantage of it, Kora was swept away by the fire Qi given off by the Everburning Cherry Trees that were growing in a perfect grid.
With the light of the setting sun, it was a perfect flavor of Qi for her to cultivate. The Dawn would have been better, except that … she’d have to wake up at dawn, she realized, and she wasn’t certain she could manage that, accustomed as she was to sleeping in. So she plopped down in the center of the orchard and cultivated quietly, drawing the qi in through her hands and skin and cycling it into her dantian.
She suddenly noticed a warm and comforting breeze and looked up to see Tan cultivating nearby her. For whatever reason, the ambient Qi responded to his meditations and became even richer. Kora grinned and closed her eyes, focusing on her own cultivation.
At least they had this one thing in common, she reflected. A drive for power.
No, she reflected. That was not the lure that drove the Shens.
A drive to better herself. That is what she shared with Tan.
She realized abruptly how much she had changed in just one day after the nugget of wisdom that Lady Wensho had bestowed upon her almost by accident.
Power and prestige were byproducts, she reflected. Not the goal. That is what set the Shens apart from the Zangs. Was that also the reason that the emperor looked upon them with his favor, to the point where he would send Renton Shen to tutor her just on the off chance that the marriage went through?
Questions for another time, she decided, closing her eyes and focusing on absorbing the Qi in the orchard.