Chapter 24

“I don’t see why I have to be the one to hatch it,” Tan said, holding the egg in his hand. “And are we sure this isn’t a chicken egg? I mean, that’s what it looks like. A chicken egg painted with blue and red swirls.”

“It’s a Qi guardian egg alright,” Zephyr whispered. “It’s a very good deal. Once it’s bonded to you you’ll have a loyal protector for life.”

Tan frowned. It had been her idea to buy the thing in the first place, so of course she’d double down on it being the right thing to spend their remaining three-hundred and seventy-six points on.

“We all agree you should have it, Tan,” Pao said. “Even Won agrees.”

Won wasn’t with them right at that moment, as he was in the process of taking a bath. The other children were lounging in Elder Yotu’s library, casually reading through some of the books and scrolls that were strewn about.

“Why?” Tan asked. “I mean, you all gave your points for me to get this, but I don’t get it. Why didn’t you get something for yourselves?”

“There wasn’t anything else in the store worth having,” Ko said. “If there were we might have, but you said that the only thing that was worth a damn in the entire place was that egg. So we got the egg, and your parents are the reasons we’re cultivators, so we agree that you should be the one to hatch it.”

Tan looked at the egg in his hands. It was warm to the touch, and he sensed a desperate hunger to it. Or perhaps a thirst. It had been just sitting in a glass display case when he’d found it. Or Zephyr had, he would have looked right past it if his spirit hadn’t pointed it out to him.

“There’s no going back if I feed it my Qi, You all know that, right?” Tan asked.

“We want it to bond to you, Tan,” Ko said. “Stop arguing with us and just do it.”

Tan sighed, then pulled out a prayer mat from his storage ring, sat in the middle of it with his legs crossed, then put the egg in his lap. He began pulling in as much Qi as he could and feeding it to the little egg, which drank it all in greedily.

Qi guardians were not spirit animals. They were demons, technically. Not the undead kind that had attached itself to Won briefly, but demon beasts which, in the wild, could grow to be nuisances. But an infant Qi guardian could be imprinted to protect its master if it was hatched from an egg. A task that was easy to do; it just required a significant amount of Qi.

In the wild, it was said to take decades for an egg to hatch.

It took Tan twenty minutes of cultivation.

Won came back from his bath and Pao left to take his turn. The twins were studying a scroll on the duality of yin and yang together when the egg suddenly cracked, a small beak poking through. Tan cried out in surprise, then held the egg out before him for the others to see as the Qi guardian made its way into the world.

Qi guardians were said to take shape based on the Qi that they devoured. To everyone’s surprise, the shape that came out of the egg was draconic. The little beast, small enough to fit in Tan’s palm, had a snout with a beak, hind legs perfect for gripping, and wings that also had hand-like gripper claws. It was the color of the sky, and it made little peeping noises, looking at Tan with adoration in its eyes.

He eyed the thing for a moment, then fed it a grape. He put it on his shoulder while it ate the fruit. The others stared at it. Ko thought it was adorable. Won wondered what it would look like when it had grown. They were both a little envious, but the contribution shop had only had one egg.

“You guys are sure you don’t mind me having this little guy?” Tan asked the others.

“It’s fine, Tan,” Won said. “There wasn’t anything else worth getting, and none of us deserve something like this.”

“What do you mean?” Tan asked.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“I mean we’re just village kids who—”

Won shut up when his sister slammed an elbow into his side.

“He means that we’ll ask your parents to reward us for the contribution points that we gave you so that you could have the egg, and they’ll give us something better for it than anything else in the shop. Except the egg, of course. That thing is so cute!” Ko said.

“Yeah. Right, what she said,” Won said, rubbing his side where she’d hit him.

Tan shrugged, but a few minutes later Pao returned from the bath and it was Tan’s turn.

He sank into the water, and the little Qi guardian leaped into the tub with him. Tan splashed and tried to catch the little thing, worried that it would drown, but it quickly proved that it knew how to swim instinctively. He settled back for a brief soak as he considered the draconic infant.

“What do I name you,” he asked it. He thought for a minute, then grinned. “I’m going to call you Key.”

“KEEE!” the Qi guardian squeaked.

Tan lay back for a moment, enjoying the hot water. Then he went to work scrubbing himself down, getting the dirt of the road off of his skin.

~~~~~~

Hoten hadn’t been planning to take another one of the experimental pills for a few days yet. Certainly not until he’d slept and eaten. However, he could think of only one reason why the brats from the Shen farm could be here, at the Whispering Guides Sect.

They were here for him. He didn’t know how he knew, but he knew that they were about to mess things up for him thoroughly. Whatever they were about to do or say to the sect, he had only one chance to take another one of the experimental pills before they did it, so as soon as they left the contribution store with that worthless egg that was supposedly worth years of points, he rushed back to Master Argoth’s home.

He was in such a rush that he barely noticed when he bumped into the girl. She noticed him, however, especially when he didn’t immediately apologize.

She blurred and reappeared in front of him wreathed in flames.

“Didn’t learn your lesson the first time, did you Red Rooster?” she said. “Kowtow and beg for forgiveness and maybe I won’t—”

“I don’t have time for this,” Hoten said. “I’m sorry, okay? But I don’t have time to play games with a little freaking girl even if she’s freakishly strong. The Shen family is here, and if they’re here then they’re here for me, and they just bought the Qi guardian’s egg and next they’re going to drag me back to the cesspool I grew up in and I will not go .”

“What did you say?” the girl asked, her tone changing abruptly.

“Either burn me to death or get out of my way, Fiora,” Hoten said.

Looking dazed, the girl stepped aside, then raced into the contribution store. Hoten blinked. He hadn’t been expecting to get away so easily.

He shook himself and ran the rest of the way home to take the next, and possibly final, experimental pill.

In the contribution store, Master Poh was examining the scroll that he kept hidden behind the counter when the fiery young prodigy cam bursting into the building. He sputtered and dropped the scroll with its lascivious drawings, then quickly rolled it up, while Fiora rushed towards the glass case where the most valuable items were stored.

“No,” she said. “No, no no no no no no no! It’s gone!”

She turned to Master Poh, her face filled with anger and anguish. “You sold the egg? Who? Who had the contribution points to buy it? Have they bonded it yet? Do you know?”

Master Poh blinked at the girl as several things clicked into place for him. “Ah. I’m very sorry, Fiora. Outsiders came, and they impressed master Yotu, and so he gave them four hundred contribution points. I didn’t exactly point the egg out to them, but they quickly identified it as the best value for their currency and purchased. I’m sorry. They’re staying at his manor, if you hurry, maybe you can try to negotiate with them before they bond it.”

The girl vanished from the building, burning her Inner Fire body technique to move at the limits of what the human eye could observe.

Master Poh sighed, then picked up his scroll and went back to studying the beauty contained within.

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