《The adventourus healer [HIATUS]》


 Chapter 1

    My given name is Su Ming born by Ta Ming and fathered by Mi Ming. Again boring names, but that is how it is. I was born early in the summer which was a bummer since there was little food at the time causing some less growth in me. If you wonder about my earlier name I will not tell since this is a new life and a new name. Besides, I really love my family. They are hicks, but with good hearts and a will to succeed in life. Our definitions of success might differ, but this does not make their dreams less than my own. I hope I can live up to the ideals in my mind.


    When I was born I had two elder brothers, Lo and La, and two elder sisters Hu and Ha. The Ming family is one of the more prosperous families in the village with enough farmland in rice paddies to feed ourselves and a small surplus for trading. We also have some woodland and hunting rights in the lord''s woods. We are like most families in the village, maybe a little better off than some and worse than others. One plus is that like much of the other farmers in the village we own our land and do not rent it. The village chief¡¯s family is the riches since their land can grow barley and wheat. Just enough for some bread and all the beer we drink. The temple is the second richest power in the village, they have the right to gather herbs in the woods.


    So I am born amongst peasants and seemingly doomed to hard toil and a short life. Child mortality in the village is high, scary high. Before I turned ten this year half the children I grew up with has died. I am not certain, but this seems higher than before real health procedures were invented. Not only the children died, but most of the women carrying them did too. Even with all of this, the men to women ratio stayed mostly the same, about one to one.


    The village is named Rapid because it lies just below where a river runs down a cliff. This creates a large pond where the villagers can fish and use the water for the rice fields. The main crop is rice, but also some vegetables. There is also some harvesting of wood from the forest above the waterfall, but our lord owns most of it. Ever winter woodsmen are brought in to fell trees for him.


    There is a single road leaving the village along the banks of the river down to the next village named Bank. The road ends at our village, but from time to time we have people passing through too the sects further into the mountains. There are valleys up there where it is said myths live. The strangers don¡¯t bother us and we don¡¯t bother them. They never stay or talk with us.


    The first years of my life were nothing special. I walked when everyone else did and spoke when everyone else did. All in all, I acted like everyone else. I think I managed to hide very well among the farmers and villagers. For the first bombshell, I will lay on everyone is that yes, I am not from this world. Now for those who think I am a demon, angel or alien, I will have to disappoint you. I am just a lowly human like most others in this world. By some fluke or mishap on a cosmic level, I remember my previous life. No idea how or why this happened, I find nothing special about me which should make it so, but there it is. There is an alternative explanation I have come up with in later years, maybe I am crazy. If so, please don¡¯t tell me, I love my life.


    ¡°The last one to the temple is a rotten egg¡± My sister Ha screams behind her at me and run in front. How she can run in such formal and heavy clothes I don¡¯t know, but I set off after her. The first really important advent in my life happened on my tenth birthday. There is a tradition for a mans tenth birthday of having a celebration of my life, the whole family have taken me to the temple. ¡°Ha, loser¡± my sister shouts as she arrives at the temple gates first, me just behind her. I smile and laugh at her while our mother scowls. ¡°Ha, you should not be running around like that.¡± Ha looks perturbed at getting talked to, but then pouts at out mother and turn her back. ¡°I won¡± I hear her saying to herself. I put an arm around her and don¡¯t let go. ¡°Now, Ha, remember your favourite story of Eaun Ha,¡± I tell her and reminds her of her favourite fairytale about a woman who stands up to the world and follows her Dao through many tribulations. ¡°Remember her mission at the tea party.¡± She smiles back at me ¡°I will definitely find the scoundrel who disrespected me.¡± She lights up and follows our family since they have passed us by. ¡°Well do that,¡± I tell her while following after and thinking on the sorry end of Eaun Ha in the tale. She finds her mister right, marries and get caught up by all the ¡°trouble¡± she has caused and they both die. It is not a tale of a heroin, rather she is the villain in the tale.


    A child''s tenth birthday is significant, it is considered that after ten years a child survives and grow up. For boys it means going to the temple and having a party afterwards, I do not know what girls do. At the Temple, we pray, offer some food to the priest and eat a hearty meal together. I am the sixth son in the Ming family, but only the third to have lived till I am ten. The villages priest is Tun Ma and he is kind of short with a potbelly and crows feet in the corners of his eyes, probably from smiling since it seems he can¡¯t stop.


    My two brothers joke and rib my father who gives as good as he gets. Even Tun who up till now I have seen as a serious priest is in a festive mood. We, the boys sit in a circle, and from time to time I look over at the girls who sit in their own circle. They look like they have a good time, but are very quiet compared to us. Tun¡¯s wife and two daughters sit with them. Tun is pitied in the village since it seems he is only capable of fathering girls.


    ¡°Let us drink to the future of little Su,¡± Tun says and pours a thimble of spirit for everyone. The others take theirs and wait for me to drink. ¡°Salut,¡± I say with a cheer and shot the thimble with white liquor. I try to hold it down and manage, but not without tears coming to my eyes. I cough and try to find some water to drink, ¡°It burns¡± the others around me laughing at my antics. They knew to drink in sips. ¡°Serves you right you glutton.¡± My second oldest brother tells me while giving me a couple of good-natured slaps on the back. ¡°You will get it later young man,¡± the priest tells me while his belly flops around in silent laughter. The joy of growing up, at this moment I kind of look forward to sharing this with someone later in life. Then my brother tells another joke, and it really is a good one, so all thoughts of the future and kids fly out of my mind.Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    Later, when the jollies have died down somewhat, I get my shot to speak with Tun about something my father seems to have no knowledge of. I follow Tun back behind the temple where there is a place to piss. ¡°Tun you are a knowledgeable man and I have a question,¡± I ask when I stand beside him. ¡°Dear boy, ask away.¡± He says and slurs his word just a little bit. ¡°In all the stories I hear tell of fantastic feats of might performed by monks and samurai. Then they say these legends live among us, but no one says anything about how these men became like they did. Do you know?¡± I ask him, these questions have been nagging me since I found out people were serious when they say they are among us. Some saying the strangers passing through is the same. ¡°Yeah, they have the ability to harness the heavenly energies around and use them when fighting.¡± He tells me and smile. ¡°We actually have some manuals telling one how this is done, but it is just gibberish since no one has been able to perform the same feat.¡± He says and smiles to me ¡°Let me show you, maybe you will be able where everyone else has failed.¡±


    Tun takes me further into the temple and into his personal chambers behind. There from a shelve high, desk, he takes down some old and dusty scrolls. ¡°I keep them because the material they are written on is worth so much.¡± He tells me and smile. Opening one of them he shows me. And I soon see why no one has any use of them, the language is impossible to decipher. ¡°Thank you for showing me these Tun.¡± The old man smiles and the crows feet show up in the corners of his eyes. ¡°My pleasure, now let us get back to the party.¡±


    Back at the party, Tun is back in his element. Drinking, laughing and telling stories together with the others. Some of my dad''s friends have turned up to join us and it looks like he has a good time. He deserves it, I know how hard he works on the farm. I do not need to do as much yet, I am too small and weak. After having seen the manuscripts I am not up for partying, not that I was the life of the party in the start. Instead, I look at the architecture of the temple. I have seen it before, but now with a small piece of new information, I see it in a new light.


    The temple is different from the rest of the village. Stout wood beams hold a tiled roof up with swirls and upturned caps. The beams are coloured a bright red and there are no woodcarvings, only stonework and ceramics. Compared to the rest of the village it looks old and traditional, maybe even a little bit arrogant since it lies a bit over the rest and looks down. The village is mostly built in large stone foundations with timber and thatched roofs. Most houses are low to the ground with a single story and a loft. Both barns and houses are like this and the only two houses different are the smithy and mill. They are just roofs with equipment inside set some distance away from the village proper. The styles clash, but still look like they fit together. I ponder this while I walk back to our house late. I am yawning on the way not looking forward to the day ahead.


    The next day we are out in the fields, again. My mother is carrying my third sister while she and the girls work alongside us. The whole village is out working in the fields. Both below and above our fields other men and women are working as well. It is hard work with the sun shining down on us, but easier done together. From time to time someone begins a work chant as well.


    Planting is done the moment the weather allows and now we are out weeding and fertilizing the field. Others are maintaining the canals bringing fresh water from the fields above, and small lake the river runs out off. Weeding is hard work making for a strong back if done right. Reaching down to the ground over and over again. But then, these months are the easiest, later in the year we will harvest the crop and we have to thrash it and work the rice so we can eat it. Summer is a lean time, food is scarce since we ate most over winter, so instead of crops we rely more on the fish in the paddies and river or hunting in the woods. There is also some milk from the two cows in the village and the herd of goats. A little bit of everything is what makes the world go around.


    When the day is done my father takes me aside. ¡°Sorry for last night my boy, but I drank too much to have this talk. You are a man now and need to know some stuff.¡± My dad begins the conversation while we walk beside each other up to the pond. I blush furiously as my dad awkwardly talk about masturbation. ¡°Don¡¯t it is immoral, dirty and bad for you,¡± he tells me and I want to cry over such simplicity in thought on something so nice. ¡°I will show you how to shave when your beard begins growing in.¡± And he goes on telling me about girls, how flirtatious they are and how I must resist them. Also, if I fall I need to come to him and let him sort it out. ¡°Probably will need to marry the girl.¡± Is what he offers as a solution to the problem. When we arrive up by the pond and meet the other men there for fishing I kind of sneak away from them with my own thoughts.


    Rapid is, as mentioned, a small village. Thirteen families concentrated around a cherry tree and temple in the middle. The surrounding country is dominated by steep hills. There are about two hundred people in the village. Farming is done using terraces and controlling the water is a major part of our work. We work the fields for two reasons, to feed ourselves and to feed the woodsmen that work the forest in winter. Half the houses in the village are for housing the extra men during winter. Rest of the year they either stands empty or serve as storage. The lord of the land takes his tax in hosting his men, which in many ways is a good deal. We keep the houses and food to pay out tax and get some extra income when selling luxuries to the men. The men in the village also work the woods along the other men and the timber and bark are sold down the river. It is hard work and from which the most currency in the village is earned. We have little trade and even less export from the village. I have several ideas to remedy this, but I am ten years old and I need social capital to get people working on my ideas. Especially since most of them require a lot of work and or metal.


    In addition to the Temple in our village, we also have a man working parttime as a smith and mill operated by hand for milling the little wheat and barley grown by the village chief. Brewing is done in each separate household with each family having their own recipes and competing on quantity and quality. Some families even brew rice wine and weak spirit by freezing the wine in the winter. We trade downriver with Banks, but other than that and the strangers passing through we are left alone most of the year. I do believe that it would be hard to find a better place to be born so long as you are born a peasant. The people are hardworking and honest with a stubborn streak a mile wide.


    There is also the fact that since I have a second life, I do not want to spend it in Rapid all my life. There is a fantastical world out there with body cultivators, magic, mystic animals and that inspire awe in their nature, I wish to experience it and see it. Not be stuck here with a wife and kids all my life. ¡°Eighteen,¡± I tell myself. When I am eighteen I will venture out and see the world for myself.

 chapter 2

    ¡°Argh,¡± one of my sisters scream in the house ¡°who have stolen my pins¡± she screams so loud I would believe she was beside me, even as she is currently in the loft. I can hear her rummaging around up there. ¡°No one has stolen your stupid pins you stupid cow¡± my other sister screams back, she is in the kitchen where she is currently looking a dinner working over the flame. ¡°They are in your stupid hair.¡± I hear her screaming not after long.


    I and mother are listening to the sounds upstairs and I try to not listen. We are in the sitting room waiting on everyone else to come for dinner. Mother is feeding my youngest sister mushed up paste to wean her off breastmilk. The older men are out in the forest working, don¡¯t know what they are doing today and I do not care too much. Lu and Li are earning money to put away for their future and dad are supervising while working.


    Outside a thick layer of snow covers the ground and forces everyone not working to stay inside. The cramming, boring food and cold causes tempers to flare and today it is my older sister, Hu, who is having a fit. I see my mother making a face, but she will not intervene, not yet. Having a fight from time to time and then making up is easier than having resentment brew in the walls is her logic. And when they are fighting each other they are not fighting with her. Hu is having a tiff at the moment since she wants to look pretty tomorrow in hope to catch herself a man. She has her sight set on old man Ca, he is fifty years old and a widower. If she marries him she will inherit his farm when he dies, then she can marry someone younger later on. I don¡¯t like it too much, I want her to be happy, not have to marry because it makes sense. I have decided to support her as I can, nothing more or less.


    ¡°Hi mum, would you like a massage?¡± I ask her after some more hollering upstairs. She looks up from her needlepoint and smiles at me. ¡°That would be lovely.¡± She says and I begin putting out the different implements to giving my mother a good foot rub. She has worked all day, with my help, and now we have some downtime. I also know that later my father and brothers will be home and then I need to take care of them. Also, I have some new insights into how the esoteric energy work here and wish to test on my mother before I do so on the others. Not because my mother is easier to convince, but because she has more control than any other in the family.


    I have a small tub with lukewarm water and is rubbing my mother''s feet when the girls come down. The see what I am doing and want in on it. ¡°Have you made up?¡± I ask them and they tell me they have so I let it slide. They will be quiet for another month now so I don¡¯t make a fuss of it. In a bit, I am working on the feet of my older sister and manages to just finish with the other when I hear the ¡°menfolk¡± arriving outside.


    ¡°Ah brother, I see you are on your knees again.¡± My second oldest brother ribs me when he has gotten in the door. ¡°Foul Mouths get no relief,¡± I tell him and see my father giving the shit a slap in the head. What started as good-naturedly teasing before the summer has changed over the year, I think it is jealousy. ¡°Hard day?¡± My mother asks my father when she takes her coat. He nods, gives her a kiss on the cheek and stumbles over to his favourite chair. ¡°The new foreman is a slavedriver,¡± my oldest brother tells us and sit down on the bench by the table. ¡°He drives us¡± my other brother agrees ¡°I see little reason for it, but his own greed.¡± My father agrees with a grunt from his perch by the fireplace.


    ¡°Well,¡± I stand up and smile at them. ¡°I think I have a remedy for your aching bodies if you would like to try,¡± I say and the men perk up. Their subdued enthusiasm is squashed by my mother and sisters. ¡°Food, then fun.¡± She tells us with a bite to her voice and we all agree. There is fish soup for dinner made with smoked fish from the fall. After several days with fish and rice, something different is good, fish soup is not good. Made from the leftovers from the other meals it is healthy and heavy in the stomach. After dinner, the women wash up and I am sent to carry water. When we finally are done I coax my father up on the table.


    ¡°Off with the shirt I need skin contact to make this work,¡± I tell him to the amusement of the family. But after months of good massages, I hear nothing from him in protest. Not like the first time when it was ¡°unseemly and unnatural.¡±If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    I sit down on his ass and begin my own preparations. I need to get in the right mindset, so I mostly meditate and run my hands over his skin to warm it up for the massage. This is hard, not like the first time I meditated to find my own energy and absorb it from around me. Now I need to not only find my centre but also his.


    Breathing in rhythm and with a fixed pattern helps me guide my mind. When I have control over my mind I can control the forces in my body. And when I find my own centre I begin finding his. It is slow work, but since I know myself I have an incline of how he is put together. It is more made up than my massage skill, but really not by too much.


    After an eternity for me, maybe five minutes for him I find it and begin work. I pull energy along the meridians in his skin and help it spread and infuse in the cells of the muscles. I knead and stroke the skin and muscles beneath and hear the grunts of pleasure and pain beneath me. After what seems like hours of work and when all my own energy is gone do I let go of my father and with weak legs lay down on the floor beside the table. The others in the room are deathly quiet.


    ¡°How are you?¡± My mom asks me after some time and I look up at her. ¡°Good, just exhausted. Need some time before I can do that again.¡± I tell her and smile. ¡°How is Father?¡± She looks up and I wait for her to answer. ¡°Sleeping.¡± She tells me and I smile. ¡°That is good, let him sleep and then wake him before putting him to bed.¡±


    After about an hour of meditation, I repeat my performance twice with less use of energy. Meditation helps me replenish the energy since it is not a feeling or a sore muscles. It is energy in the air I absorb and it is work to replenish it. With each new patient/subject I can feel the possibilities with the technique and when I fall asleep that night I dream of moulding my own warriors that can protect me on my own adventures.


    It all started months before when I had some free time I finally got the quiet needed to try cultivating heavenly energies. It took me weeks before I could in any way even think I sensed something different about the air around me. After working hard for a long time, both with my body and mind. I found that there are more in the air than I am used to. There are these particles that I imagine are white and black. The white ones are light and give a good feeling when absorbed by breathing them in. When I don¡¯t work at feeling them they seem to just pass through my body and disappear again. The black particles are different, I think they are bad or toxic for me, they give a full and a bit queasy feeling when I focus on them and breath them in.


    Having established a difference between these two particles I began looking at how they moved through my body. Even here I found new things. Most of the particles I breathe in pass through the tissue and into their own canals following the bloodstream. It follows the blood around with only a few lodging in the small canals out in the tissue. There is a different circulatory system at work it seems. Beginning in the lungs and following it owns channels passing through tissue, muscles, organs and bone with no regard for the different materials it is passing through, only the skin seems to ¡°catch¡± it. After having looked at this for a long time I work out where I have seen it before. It is similar, not like, some of the ¡°meridians¡± or ¡°energy canals¡± Asian or new age philosophy talk about. I begin calling these canals ¡°meridians¡± because of this.


    Having established these ¡°facts¡± I construct the first of many iterations of my cultivation over the years. It is the first and far from the last, but the basic of it I have kept for all time. Since just absorbing heavenly energy while meditating and through my lungs seem so inefficient I instead decide to use my whole body. I begin in my forehead, the point where most Indian cultures place their cast mark. I choose the place since I know very well where it is and can concentrate upon it with little issue. The first step is to absorb energy from this point, it takes me weeks to do. The next step is to stop tainted energy to be absorbed, I do this by imagining a centrifugal force taking in the absorb energy and throwing all the ¡°heavy¡± tainted energy out again only letting the ¡°clean¡± energy through. The process is far from effective and throws away as much pure energy as it absorbs, but I can keep it going all day. The next to last step is to circulate this energy around my body to the point in my stomach where I designated my ¡°dantian¡± where I compress the energy until it is a liquid, not loose particles. The last step is to let this liquid be absorbed into the flesh in my body from the inside out.


    Finding a use for the energy was no problem after all this work. Helping others has always been a goal of mine and doing so in the most pleasurable way I know is a plus. This is massages, hard body to body contact where I can use my energy to both works into the other person and influence their own energy. The first experiments were giving foot massages and then last night I moved on to the whole body.

 Chapter 3

    When I wake up the next day, I come down the stairs to my father sitting at the table. When he sees me he almost springs up and envelops me in a hug. Both of my brothers come over and give me their thanks in almost as an exuberant manner. ¡°I feel like a new man.¡± My father says and smiles to all. When he leaves he gives my mother a big kiss and swings her around in joy. I get coy looks from all the other women in the house when they leave.


    ¡°What exactly did you do last night?¡± My mother asks me when we are alone in the house. ¡°Nothing much, massage and infused my own energies with theirs to fasten the dissemination in their muscles,¡± I tell her and she nods. ¡°Well, sounds easy enough, but that was a mighty effective treatment.¡± She tells me and I nod. ¡°Want me to do you as well?¡± I ask. After some humming and having she agrees and after a bit of preparation I do the same for her. But before I can begin she asks a crucial question ¡°What do you mean by energy?¡± I smile and point to the table ¡°let us do your treatment first and then we can talk again.¡±


    My sister comes back in the middle with water from the well. And they too insist on having a treatment. After my mom sleeps of the exhaustion she is back with a vengeance. ¡°Young man, what did you mean when you talked about energy?¡± She asks me standing over me while I rest on the floor. ¡°Well, you know all those stories we hear during winter of the doings of these lords of ours?¡± I ask her and go back to decreasing my meditation, being woken by shaking is a pain. ¡°Yes of course I know, what about it?¡± I finish and get up from the floor dragging my tired body over to the comfy chair my father usually have reserved for himself. ¡°Well, Tun knows more about it and at my Ten-year celebration, he showed me some scrolls he keeps at the Temple about it,¡± I say and look at the three women studying me intently. ¡°Well, it was all gibberish so I started experimenting and being the nice guy I am I found a way to help those around me with it,¡± I tell them and smirk when calling myself nice, I am, but not without my own considerations.


    ¡°You young man will do two things.¡± She tells men when I lay on the floor recuperating from the last bout of work. ¡°You will teach us and nothing else than massages.¡± She tells me in a stern voice. When my father comes back that evening both he and my brothers agree. I smile since that was the plan all along. Leisure since working on massages is far less work than anything else, also I think it will be a really valuable skill. Also in the future, I hope I will get to see naked ladies, and more importantly touch then. Who knows, maybe it will lead to more. In the meantime, I will work with my family and friends since I can.


    So I have a new routine. In the mornings I work on my sisters and mother both to help them by giving massages, but also by teaching them. Which it turns out is so much harder to do than just improving them. After three nights with my brothers teaching them, we all gave up. The for me quite simple brain gymnastic of imaging the whole body, pathways for the meridians and all the other that is necessary it just seems like they can¡¯t fathom. The girls and my mother are a bit better, but they cannot hang on and it seems I cannot adequately explain it to them. I am therefore doomed to only work with them to improve by giving massages and talk them through the process.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.


    That is except my youngest older sister whom hangs on my every word and is adamant she will manage this. She confesses to me it is a fear and loathing of having to marry.


    ¡°Are we certain this a good idea?¡± I ask my father when I take him aside. My father has brought one of his friends by to get help. The man has some serious back pain and my father hope I can help. ¡°Well, I think it won¡¯t hurt.¡± My father says and I nod but go on. ¡°What if the foreman finds out? We are treading close to the law here.¡± I tell him, I need a license if I wish to practise medicine. ¡°You are right to worry son, but he needs it and we can say you are untrained.¡± He says and I nod, it will probably be okay. Testing and training are after all uncertain and a license is not too hard to get later. The village head and the priest will have to agree and it will cost in both fees and taxes.


    My dads'' friend is named Ta Sung and is like my father just a farmer and work part of his time as a woodsman. I prod and work his back for more than an hour and several times I have to speak harshly to the man to keep him down. ¡°Lay still and this will soon be over,¡± I tell him the last time. Then I begin what I now have begun to call my routine. Cycling my own powers and beginning to cycle his too. He is a bit older than my dad and has somewhat more power in his veins than him. I have concluded that heavenly power builds up over time. I match his power with my own and instead of working his muscles like my family I work on his spine and ligaments. ¡°Hell you doing kid,¡± He says and then screams when I pop one of his discs back in place. I twist his whole upper body and uses my knee to get leverage on the spine. In the eyes of the public, I see fear when I violently punch in the right spots. I have sweat dripping from my brows and am panting from the hard work.


    ¡°Okay dad, just put him in a hug, lift him up and jump slightly.¡± Ta is hanging limply in the arms of my father. When he jumps we can hear the cracks from Tas back. ¡°Good, how are you feeling Ta?¡± I ask him and am looking him in the eyes. ¡°Better, but wow that was painful.¡± He says and sits down in my dad''s chair. ¡°Good, needed to pop that disc into place and then ensure it stays. I want you to go home, sleep, eat and tomorrow work as usual. Next week I need you back here for the next round. There is a lot to work on.¡± I instruct him and after nodding my dad helps him up and out the door.


    ¡°Wow, brother that was violent.¡± My oldest sister tells me and looks over at me. ¡°Yeah, and it was touch and go there for a moment,¡± I tell her and smiles. ¡°His disc almost popped wrong and then he would have lost the function of his legs,¡± I tell them and then sag into the chair by the fire. ¡°I need to meditate and then sleep,¡± I tell them and the nod. My younger sister, my assistant, helps me up the stairs to the loft and into bed.


    The next afternoon Ta comes back and gives me a big hug. ¡°Ah, my boy you are a miracle worker.¡± He tells me and shouts praise at my amazing powers. ¡°Please don¡¯t tell the foreman,¡± I ask him and he laughs. ¡°Don¡¯t worry my boy, I won¡¯t tell the foreman. Although there are many ways to meet an accident in the woods if that becomes a problem.¡±


    His last words are said in all seriousness and remind me again that this is a hard world. The worst part is that our Lord and the foreman''s boss won¡¯t even care as long as the trees are delivered on time.

 Chapter 4

    ¡°Su, Su¡± I hear calling after me and turn to see the wife of Yi. She is a young thing, barely sixteen years old and undisputed the prettiest girl in the village. Yi is the village heads son, the future head of the village. ¡°Good morning,¡± I say and smile to her when she comes up to me. ¡°Good morning,¡± She says and smiles, she has a nice smile. ¡°Come, I am late for my appointment with the priest. So walk with me and tell me why you have come running.¡± I say and offer her my arm. I am eleven years old and walking like an old man through the village.


    ¡°It is my husband, he woke up this morning with pains in his back.¡± She tells me and I nod, her husband has become one of my most regular clients. ¡°That is too bad,¡± I tell her and smile. ¡°Did you talk with my mother about an appointment?¡± She nods and smiles with a coy glint in her eyes. It is on the verge of what would be considered unbecoming. Especially as we are in the middle of the village. ¡°Then she told you I don¡¯t have any free time until the end of the week,¡± I state and she nods again. ¡°Well, it seems like Yi will have to live with his back for some time,¡± I tell her. ¡°But can¡¯t I entice you to come by in the evening and have a look at it? He will be exhausted and hurting after a days work.¡± She tells me and smiles. Her problem to me is that she is pretty and she knows it. Her and Yi is a good match though, she is pretty and he is handsome. ¡°I will have a think on it and see.¡±.


    The exchange leaves me with some bad thoughts and a bit depressed. I started this to get close to the girls and to stop having to work. In that order. I don¡¯t care that most of the time I am helping men, I like helping. I also get to be intimate with women and have learned a great deal about their erogenous zones and how to pleasure them. But I forgot one element in it all, I have not gone through puberty and all my interactions are so far non-sexual on my part. Intellectual I know it is good and pleasurable, but I have begun being distanced from it. Oh how I yearn for the sweet puberty coming, I will have so much fun.


    ¡°Ah, Su my boy it is good to see you.¡± The old priest tells me when I arrive. I smile and greets him before greeting his lovely grandchild who also is there. ¡°Sit down, I wish to talk before we begin.¡± He asks me and orders his granddaughter to serve us and leave. She is a year older than me and sweet. ¡°She has a good eye for you?¡± The old man says and winks at me. ¡°She is a sweet girl,¡± I answer back and laugh before turning red like a tomato. For all my boasting I am a shy guy.


    ¡°I have been looking forward to this the whole week you know,¡± Va tells me and stretches out on the futons. ¡°Your talent is truly amazing both for this old body and the village as a whole.¡± I smile at his praise and thanks him. ¡°But I need to speak with you before we begin, I am worried.¡± He tells me and I wait for him to continue. ¡°Part of it is the change, but this is usually when talent springs up.¡± He tells me and I nod to this. My talent has made an already large change in the village. Both physically with older men viral again, but also that the balance with three main powers has been diluted with me and my family. Add to this my young age and it could be a precarious situation. ¡°This change is no big problem, but we need to legalise your activity. It is imperative for the whole village.¡± He tells me and looks at me. I am trying hard to look at him since when he moved to sit up the loose robes he is wearing slipped and now his pecker is showing. Old man pecker is not a nice sight. ¡°I agree, and I and my father has talked it over,¡± I tell him and he nods. ¡°Your father has spoken with me and the village head To.¡± He answers ¡°We have not decided anything and I think your father looks to sound you out on what you want. But I wish to tell you that I support it, you are good for this village.¡± He tells me and again I thank him. We drink the last of the tea before talking of his own treatment. Where we are and how he wishes to proceed.A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.


    That evening in the time I have designated as my free time instead I find myself in Yi¡¯s house working on his back. ¡°I have told you, and I will tell you now one last time,¡± I tell him while having him bent over in the most humiliating and strenuous position needed. ¡°You need to use your knees while lifting, and lift lighter loads. If you don¡¯t I will have to hold a course on lifting with you and all the other men who seem incapable of doing so.¡± I bend him over backwards over and hear the crackle. Then I lay him down again on the table and work the muscles in his ass and lower back. ¡°I will, I promise,¡± Yi says between grunting and yelping from my work. ¡°I hope so, otherwise I will have to hike up the prices to get people to listen.¡±


    An hour later I sit in his divan by the fireplace, there is no fire since the weather has improved. While I drink the tea and snack on sweets from their larder. Yi¡¯s wife has just served me after helping her husband to bed. She enters from their bedroom again in a robe and walks over to me with a sway in her hips I just love to look at. ¡°Thank you for that, he really was hurting.¡± She tells me smiles. ¡°Yes, I imagine he was,¡± I tell her while looking her over. I am wondering on what to do now, tell her to lose the robe or drag this out longer. It is helpful when she just disrobes in front of me and I get to see her flawless skin and pert breasts. ¡°Mind helping me as well?¡± She asks with a smile and I smile back. ¡°Just jump up on the table,¡± I tell her. I can¡¯t act yet on the urges in my mind, but I can enjoy touching. An hour or so later I am back in the house and sneaks into bed in the loft. I see my youngest older brother smirk at me, but he says nothing and goes to sleep with me. Our relationship has improved but is still not really well.

 Chapter 5

    It is the middle of the cherry blossoms bloom and the village has just finished planting rice for the year. This heralds an event much looked forward to in the village, the spring celebration. I turned eleven not too long ago and am really popular in the village so I look forward to it more than most. Spring is one of two quiet periods in the village with the planting done and weeding yet to start. Last year it was a bit different since the two events happened so close together. This year it will be a full festival and everyone is excited.


    In the middle of the village in front of the temple there is a large cherry tree and around this tree, the whole village will party. We have used most of the day setting up tables and gathering the food made. For me the highlight will be the taste testing of beer, we get to try small samples of everyone''s beer and see who we like the most.


    My sister is going to pronounce their engagement and marriage, I and my brothers will do the traditional ceremony of telling the groom to be nice and scare him. Started since everyone tries to do the best for their family, and since her groom is local not much scaring is needed. I intend to make my treat very real though just so no future shenanigans may happen.


    The taste testing is after the engagement and then there will be a party like no other for the whole year. Some of the villages play instruments, some flutes and string instruments so there is dancing and merry for the rest of the night. Around midnight there is a bonfire and offerings to the gods, but by then everyone is drunk and years before it has been in good humour.


    ¡°I Hu promise to be a faithful wife and mother,¡± Hu says and the two of the clasps hands. It is a simple ceremony, but strong in its own way. My father congratulates her husband and goes on to talk with his kids. Probably tolerating their dislike of the marriage, they will now probably not inherited since Hu is so much younger than her husband and will probably outlive him, especially if I have anything to do with the matter. ¡°You know what will happen if you mistreat her?¡± My oldest brother La asks the husband and he nods and smiles. It is not an idle threat, we like our sister. Instead of letting go my brother smile to him to explain their thinking. ¡°First I will beat you, then my brother will,¡± La says and Lu smiles to the husband. ¡°Then when you lay there gasping for air our little brother Su will come and do his thing.¡± He says and I smile to the poor man with my best predatory smirk, he flushes and becomes somewhat weak in the knees it seems. I have a very positive reputation, but a man with knowledge of your body is no man to mess with.


    La is a serious man with clear goals in life. He likes to farm and he has a girlfriend, with a little help he will be married to her and our families joined. Lu, on the other hand, is undecided, we have an okay relationship, but he teases me and prods me to reach. I think he is ashamed I shine brighter than him. Lu is not reckless however and if he had a goal he would be like La. Lu detests hard work however and there is little in the village to do other than hard work, even cultivation is hard work.


    ¡°He is a good man, but it never hurts to be sure.¡± My dad says when he gets back from talking with the children. ¡°They are part of the family now, we will look after them,¡± Lu says with sincerity in his voice. ¡°Yeah, they are good kids. Not entirely sure of their dad though.¡± La says and looks over at the happy couple. He is at least enamoured with our sister, she looks less sure. ¡°Well, she wanted it, now she will lay in it,¡± I tell myself since everyone made sure to tell our sister that now with my position, other ways might have been found.If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.


    ¡°Try mine first!¡± one of the wife''s say and drag me after her over to where her table is. I have no problem with this since I will be trying all the beer here. Last year I only got a small taste test, now I have risen and will reap the reward in beer. Being dragged around by mothers wanting me to meet their daughters is also a novel experience. Seeing as they are more than willing to at least have a shot at getting to know me better both the younger and older girls are easy to talk to. I have no idea why I talk with these girls almost every day and now it is different. ¡°What do you think?¡± the lady says and smiles at me. ¡°Good, very good,¡± I say and continue sipping at the brew, it is no lie. The beer is light and easy to swallow, not like the dregs we have been drinking at home the last month. The aftertaste rolls down the tongue and it has a fine consistency. ¡°Little Yuan here can tell you all about how we brew.¡± Her mother says and pushes the poor girl towards me. Yuan is really pretty and I do not need to be asked twice to spend some time with her.


    Yuan is willing to talk and flirt, even though she is not too good at it, with me. But it is soon clear her family wants her to more than she does. Like it should be with any teenager, however willing she is to please her family. ¡°Thank you, and tell your parents you have an appointment with me later so you are covered,¡± I tell her and after some hawing, she runs off to be with the other girls. I so dearly wish I could have been as suave in my first life, and also finally got to use such a fine line. With confidence, I go on to talk, flirt and bond with the rest of the families while drinking copious amounts of beer.


    As many such nights go, mine too ends up being a sausage fest in the end. I, my brothers, new brother in laws sons and some other guys older than me end up sitting by the lake drinking beer, stolen from the dregs of the barrels. Well, their beer is stolen, my keg is given from mam. Behind us, the bonfire is sparkling and the older villagers are having their party. Most of the girls are at home, but some of the older ones and younger married once is sitting some way from us on the shoreline. We know them, but still, most of us seem to shy to go over there. I am too drunk.


    ¡°Wow, little guy,¡± La says when he sees me stumbling and not being able to stand properly. ¡°You really drunk too much.¡± He smiles and takes me under my shoulders. ¡°Yargh, too much *hick* beer,¡± I tell him and smile. ¡°Love you brother, just love you.¡± La laughs and calls for Lu to help me in bed. ¡°Come on big guy, someone seems to have forgotten you are only eleven.¡± They begin to sing on a horrible folk song while dragging me home. I puke in the bushes outside our hose and instead of putting me to bed my brothers leave me in the garden with a blanket. Kind of a good idea since I get up three times to pee and would have broken my neck on the stairs.


    ¡°No more, no more. I swear no more.¡± I tell my mother while my headache is splitting my head. ¡°Well maybe later.¡± I repent when I recall how good beer is. ¡°No repenting sinner here then?¡± My mother asks me and laughs in my face. Ha does the same thing, but I notice her pulling a face when she too gets a tinge of hurt. ¡°Well, you drank like a hero of old.¡± My father looks at me, chipper and ready for the day ahead. ¡°Someone seems to have forgotten how young you are.¡± He says and looks at my mother. ¡°Hey, do not blame me mister ¡°just one more glass¡±¡± My mother reminds him. I eat my porridge and leave the room to sleep a headache off.

 Chapter 6

    Work, work and more work is my lot in life it seems. Lately, I have helped in the smithy since I find the heat to be nice on the skin and because I need some off time. It is also to build some muscles in my arms, not only my back.


    All during planting season, I have been busy. I need to both help with the lighter work, but also run myself ragged with all the different new hurts popping up. When I fix one fault in someone it seems like two new pop up. I fix their back and their knees start hurting. I fix their knees and the upper back becomes a problem. The biggest problem is that people have begun having problems paying me.


    Early in the spring when the foresters went home for summer and the wood was floated downstream. My father, village chief and the Priest went off to the lord''s seat to get a license for my practice. The license was not too hard to get, the administrator in Mao issued it without even checking. He just asked for his customary bribe and all was good. I got a license to practice in the region as a ¡°Hedge medic¡± the lowest order of licensed medic with no sect or school backing their skill. A license for the ¡°charlatans and tricksters¡± as one bureaucrat put it. But as a licensed professional I needed to pay taxes, this meant actually charging my clients and collecting payments.


    The combination of ¡°need healing¡± and ¡°can¡¯t pay¡± was for some time causing constraint in the village only somewhat lessened by the wealthier from Bank village coming to me for help. After some time with increased tension, I found a solution. Charging enough in actual money to pay the set taxes and then giving the rest on credit. This would have just moved the problem, but for the next part of the plan. I set a quite high wage, about double anyone else at work and took paid in man hours. And not just projects for my family or myself, but also for the village.


    Jumping and working in the smithy might not be explained by this, but I needed time off. The smithy is hot, smells and is loud so I don¡¯t get disturbed. The repetitive work on the billows is also good for my brain. I can really relax when doing it, unlike meditation which is hard work. Especially since when I now meditate I both have an audience and students wishing to learn my secrets. The last part is that I always have been fascinated by the work smiths do and I get to learn quite a lot in the smithy.


    Jump up, fall slowly down, up, down, up, down and repeat until I see I need to stop since the smith is working on the next part. I get to observe the men work and by this learn and after they are done I sometimes do a little work on my own projects. I have managed to make some nails, but not much more yet. One day a week after lunch I work the bellows at the smithy. The rest of the week I either work with patients, teach meditation or teach massage and therapy. There are mostly girls in the groups, but some boys also join when they have time.


    ¡°Done for the day?¡± I ask the smith when he finally put down his tools and quench the joint he has been working on the last days. It is a small project I have him working on to see if we can¡¯t do something more with the rapids. I have been designing a new water-powered mill instead of the one we use now. ¡°Done.¡± He says and smiles. ¡°Fun to work on something this large as well.¡± He says and smiles. The thing is that I don¡¯t know exactly how to build such a mill, but I do know it is possible and would be fun if we managed. The joint he has been working on is the first of two for the axel in the waterwheel. Then when that is built we need to build the internal mechanism out of wood. The project is full of small tinkering and local know how, but it is fun.A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.


    ¡°Want to play with the forge for some time?¡± I smile at him and thank him for thinking of me, but turn him down. He nods and I help him clean up for the day. I am not yet ready to try again. I am working on a theory that metal in many ways is like our bodies with pathways for the heavenly energy to flow through. There are several tales of magical weapons and here there are people with actual magic I see no reason why I can¡¯t find a way to produce magical metal products. It might just be hubris, but I have at least figured out one way to work the body with magic. The problem is that metal for all that it has the same building blocks as humans just aren¡¯t the same. And I am stumped.


    My cultivation work by tracing the pathways energy naturally takes through the body. What ostensibly could be called meridians in my old world. These meridians are really much more complex and mysterious than I thought when I began my cultivation. I began by breathing in the heavenly energy, but this is not the only way, just the easiest to grasp. Now I circle energy from all over my body through my whole body before I let it into my dantian where it is purified for the last time, compressed and distributed either as gas in the blood, liquid into the tissue or solid into my bones. It is a slow and labour intensive process, but I believe building a very solid foundation is the most important part of any building process.


    This is the gathering and distribution of the energy, but the reason it is so labour intensive is not just this. It is that I refuse to absorb any of the impurities in the energy. Heavenly is made up of two elements. There is pure nature energy and then there are impurities in the form of tainted heavenly energy. I believe the impurities is just others heavenly energy since when I work with others to meditate I can sense these impurities leaking out of them when they try to use their powers. The purifying stage is me doing the same with the pure energy I absorb. Impurities in the energy from outside takes more energy to purify and even then they are just not possible to make entirely pure. The impurities thus dilute the power of the heavenly energy and since there is a theoretical limit to the energy a body can store they lower to potential. The upside to taking in and purifying everything is much more rapid growth. This is how I cultivate and try to make those around me do the same, not entirely with luck.


    When it comes to metal this method seems to not work at all and I just can¡¯t seem to find the reason. In the bar of iron I am working on there are particles of different density and characteristics. These do make paths, but nothing continuous. There is also much more tainted energy in the metal making it kind of saturated with energy already this makes moving my own energy through it difficult and hard work. When the energy I move through it just will not stick as well I am stumped at what to do. On the other hand, it seems to be good practice and helps me open more and more channels to absorb energy in my own body as well. Working with it even gave me a new idea for my own cultivation.


    By concentrating the energy more in my dantian makes it even denser and becomes something like crystals. Much smaller and denser than any of the gas or liquid energy I move it and let it integrate it with my bones. In this manner, I build up even bigger reservoirs of energy. I also believe it makes my bone stronger, but only exactly where I place the crystals. So I slowly work my way up the spine and intend to strengthen my head next.


    Working the metal does not work, meditating with the metal does not work and probing the metal does not work. So instead I play with it for fun and to get away from all the pressure in my daily life.

 Chapter 7

    Meditation and self-discovery is a cornerstone of my cultivation. This has led me to a self-realization I kind of regret not seeing before. I have ants in my pants, not literally but figuratively. I love tinkering and working on different projects. Like what I am looking at this moment.


    I am overlooking the new mill which in my mind is the technological wonder of the village. And it is mine after I bought out the contract from the village on their mill. The new mill does not need six men to work, it is powered by the water and the miller operate it. Put the bags of wheat and barley in one end and out the other comes to flour and other bits. The problem is that there is little need for such a large mill to mill the little flour the village has. I was blinded by the fun to build the thing to actually work on an application. Something no one told me since it was fun and good to build. I got the last laugh though since while talking with the man charged with collecting our taxes, mainly mine. The bark from the trees we harvest is ground up and used in tanning. Well, my new mill is good for grinding and so I now grind the towns bark that they used to sell and sell for even higher profit. All ends well, after some redesign.


    However, even though my idiotic start ended well I am now almost hounded out of the village. To my own disgrace, I have garnered a somewhat bad reputation as a skirt chaser, which is all well and good had I been doing the chasing. But so lucky I am not, my own chasing has improved my confidence with women and theirs. I was a rising star in the community with my powers. They, however, are poorly understood and mystical, nothing mothers and fathers can truly understand other than the pleasure it gives.


    Now, however, I am the owner of a productive mill earning more money for the village and taking my own cut. I, or rather my father, has been approached by the merchant handling the lord''s timber about using our mill for the bark. That could be a big contract if it goes through. Most of the bark is already extracted in the village since it almost falls off the trees when they are felled and delimbed. After the last winter when we grind our bark and they collected theirs it became obvious.


    Big contract, jobs, money and influence are centring on me and somewhat backed by popular demand I am sought for marriage. And what might be even worse some see the possibility of hitching their daughters to me even without marriage. A stray child is not looked down upon if the kid can reckon on my financial support. And in their eyes, I would have to support the baby in the name of honour. So I am outside and have been forced to bring chaperones when I see ladies. Fun I am not against, but the difference between fun and business has been blurred. My mother is even more paranoid than me in this regard, the proper match is important to her, even if it is only a mistress or concubine. The worst part of it all is that puberty has not come and I couldn¡¯t have a kid if I wanted to. This, however, has not stopped anyone in trying to be the one married or otherwise engaged to me.


    ¡°Sitting out here sulking again?¡± My older brother asks me as he comes over. ¡°Yes,¡± I tell him with what must be a pout. ¡°Too bad, it has gotten so tough for you.¡± He says and as usual, he has no pity for my plight.


    He is now my older brother since the other one actually found a girl his age and married her. Kind of unusual, but since he asked me for a loan and bought rights further afield of the rice fields it was possible. He is now the owner of the second largest area and is building his own rice farm. A lot of the work is paid for by me, but he is happy and that makes me happy.You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.


    ¡°Father asked me to come and get you.¡± He says and I follow him wondering what it is now. I am also wondering on how I can get the rock that is the mill off my back. Maybe I can give it to my other brother and have him drag it with him.


    ¡°Ah, my son Su meet Ta Ma and his wife Ti.¡± My father introduces us when we get to our new courtyard. It is bigger than any other in the village and has some nice flower beds and places to sit. It also has the first private grill in the village and we often have people over for bbq. ¡°It is a pleasure to meet you,¡± I tell them and smile all around. ¡°Ta Ma is the Lord''s representative for trading the timber and bark.¡± My father fills in after the pleasantries have finished. ¡°Yes, the astute businessman who saw the potential in the mill,¡± I say to flatter the fat man. He has quite the belly without the frame to properly hang it on which causes him to look quite the dunce. His wife is not much better and looks haughty with her powdered face. They are not here for business I hope or rather not the lords business. ¡°Yes, it was obvious once I saw the practicality of its construction.¡± He says and no word of how he first tried to tell us it was not a mill. It was the old priest''s quiet work in having already filed papers on his last visit that saved us from such a blatant power grab. Also the fact that it is mine and not an adult. There is one thing stealing from adults, quite another to steal from up and coming children. Well, we will gloss over it and pretend it never happened.


    ¡°I am here to sign the contract for our use of the mill.¡± He tells me and gives me the papers intent on me signing right away. I, however, put them aside and call for tea instead. Both the village head and the priest has been teaching me how to act. I have been learning together with Yi and the priest''s son Ma. After some time I excuse myself and read through the contract, a travesty in trying to fool someone. Toddlers with a speck of sense would not sign it. But I will since there is a huge flaw in it. It is with me personally and not the mill as an entity with a large sum up front. I will sign it let it run for a year and then gift the mill to someone.


    ¡°It has been a pleasure to do business with you.¡± The man says when we say our goodbyes and I smile. ¡°You could not have signed. The wife was here to have a look at you for their daughter to marry.¡± My mother tells me after a bit. ¡°Yes, I know and I then would have to reject the little monster,¡± I tell her straight. ¡°The man is poison, the foreman last year was his nephew.¡± Our dad says from his perch in his new chair. A comfy reclining chair I drew for him. My brother sits in a similar one. ¡°Ah, yes the contract,¡± I say and look for the box with the papers. ¡°It is horrible with a large upfront payment in silver and small rent for a time after,¡± I say and go in detail how horrible the contract is, we have to pay for operating it and will go in the red after the second year, even with the large upfront payment. My family groan when the true tragedy sets in and my brother whines about ¡°why I signed¡±.


    ¡°But my dear brother of mine do you not see the great flaw in his position?¡± I ask him and smile. ¡°The contract is with me and shall be arbitrated by the closest temple if disagreement ensues,¡± I say and smile. ¡°I will only have to legally transfer the deed to the mill as part of a holy ceremony, like a wedding, and the contract is void,¡± I tell him and look him in the eye. The solution dawns on the whole family. Now it is my brother who is the bachelor with a property and not me. I cackle about my small victory for days after and when the news goes around the village I get some relief from the hussies and their mothers.

 Chapter 8

    My great plan of getting women off my back did work for some time until that stupid brother of mine decided to go over to Banks and work. I actually think it was a smart move for him. Working the ferry there will let him get a feel for the trade downriver and prepare him for running the mill. We had to redesign the mill, again, this time to put in a small grindstone for the harvest. Turns out no one like ground bark in their flour, understandably. Therefore we put in a reverse over the top water system since we did not want to redesign all the equipment. Bringing in the new grindstones was a hassle, but with the help of many strong backs and some ingenuity from the foresters we managed. The new grindstone is for the bark and we cleaned the old one.


    ¡°This thing is a fiddle piece of unwilling shit¡± my brother growls at the last part after another day working with the shaker he is frustrated and tired. He likes the idea, but not so much all the work. ¡°Yeah, well I think it will work this time,¡± I say and look at it, it should work. My brother snorts and laughs ¡°So you have said four times.¡± I have nothing to say to this other than it is true. ¡°It is the first try building something this complex.¡± I try to defend myself, the mill is not as complex even though it has more gears and levers. ¡°I know, I know, and I agree that it should work now. But like all the other times I just don¡¯t know.¡±


    This work was backbreaking and since it was my idea I had to work on it. My pampered lifestyle did not come as expected since I kept finding new stupid ways to squander my earnings. The grindstone was one thing, another was the shaker to sort the different grades of ground bark. Not because it was all that heavy or large, which it turned out. It was all the revisions we had to do to the design. I worked on it all winter and it did not work before the start of summer. My brother came back from Bank village with the foresters, and the new foreman, to help me with the work. The foreman turned out to be another nephew of the Lord''s merchant.


    We sit down and have a breather while looking at our latest fix for the system. ¡°I like the idea and I think it will pay for itself since the merchant spoke of different grades with different prices.¡± My brother says while munching on a sausage he had with him back from Banks. It is a good sausage and he will not share. ¡°Yeah, started since I just could not sit still,¡± I tell him and smile at the thoughts of him and his sausage. These thoughts have been more frequent as of late. ¡°Whatever.¡±


    ¡°So brother when are you going to introduce your new girl to the family?¡± My sister asks and to my great delight, my brother jumps out of his skin. ¡°Sis, don¡¯t scare me like that.¡± He exclaims when he sees who it is. ¡°Little old me scare a big strong guy like you?¡± She asks and smiles at him entirely insincere. I look back and see the lack of tracks in the snow behind us. I felt her coming, but she has gone her own way with her cultivation.


    ¡°Don¡¯t know, maybe spring.¡± My brother finally says and looks down. ¡°Her father would not let her come alone and the snow is just too deep at this time of the year. That was the other thing happening over the summer, my brother finding a girl. He met her down in Banks, the daughter of the butcher. It is where he got the sausage, I think he spent all his time there chatting up her father. ¡°Too bad, I am really looking forward to meeting her.¡± My sister says the butcher''s daughter has a reputation of being a hard knuckle badass by all regards. ¡°Me too, but winter happens.¡± Is all my brother has to say to this. ¡°Come, Su, everyone else has gathered,¡± Sister tells me and so we pack up and go back home.The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.


    I look over the nine students I have at the moment. A feeling of pride and accomplishment sits in my stomach when I look at them working diligently by themselves or together. After much work with my sister and seeing her develop I have relaxed my teaching in certain regards. My vision of a body free of impurities and perfect control is not for everyone. Rather I have worked with each pupil here to find their own path. Some grow fast because they have a strong idea of themselves and others slower. The fast growers also lack work purifying and take in a lot more impurities than the more careful cultivators. My theory is that this will hinder them later, but I have decided it is not my place to stop them. Even a small amount of growth now is better than the slow buildup over their whole life.


    I have confirmed that all living creatures buildup heavenly energy in their bodies unconsciously their whole life. The energy goes to their most used muscles and help them both not deteriorate and maybe remember so they can get back in shape faster. There is also a slight healing factor, but this is a slim part of it. For those that do not cultivate it is not much help. Monsters are also just animals that have either cultivated in some way or are born of people who have cultivated. This might be the main difference between the nobility and the common man, it is my theory that cultivation is to some degree hereditary.


    ¡°Okay everyone, good work,¡± I tell the gathered people, well my fellow children. Eight of them are between twelve and fifteen and only the old priest manages to follow. We have begun gathering in the temple to work and after some sessions, the priest joined us. Both because he is an old perv, but also because he has tremendous ability in concentration. He is not by any stick I would measure him against holy, but he can meditate and when I have worked with him he has made progress. He is one of the fast growers though focusing on gathering as much energy as fast as possible. His method of work is also interesting since he does manifest a more ¡°holy¡± aura these days. He prays while working and even if I don¡¯t see him as holy, he does, and that makes all the difference.


    The reason I call him a perv though is that the first thing he fixed with his new vitality was his erectile dysfunction. On the other hand, that might just be prejudice on my part, what man would not do so?


    ¡°Thank you for your teaching.¡± All of them, even the priest, say at the same time and I just have to smile. There is a good feeling you get as a teacher from grateful students. ¡°My pleasure,¡± I tell them. I teach them cultivation and massages. Both is great fun and good learning for myself. It is also fun to be able to spend time with many of the prettiest girls in the village my age. Don¡¯t judge, I am twelve.


    Walking back together with my sister shows me how much the village has changed in the last two years. The increased vitality and strength of almost everyone has meant more work and with it some prosperity. Houses that earlier was sagging and old have been either rebuilt or renovated. There has been created what I would call the main street where the ground is covered with planks on poles. When the snow melts and during rain, there is no longer a mud bath, but we can walk on the side. It is a nice feeling having helped my family and fellow villagers to do this.


    The biggest change is in our own house. Formerly it was just as big as any of the other houses with just the main hall, my parent''s room and the loft for the children. We kept the goats inside in a manger in the corner of my parent''s room and hall. Everything was put as close to the fireplace as possible. Now our house has three fireplaces and no goats. The main house is in the middle with a kitchen and hall. The loft has been taken out to create room. The family sleeps in a cosy addition on one side and in the other end, with my own entrance is my own office and place to sleep if it is needed. In the winter I, of course, sleep with my family to stay warm. But I have my own place to see clients and bed. It is the house with the most fireplaces in the village. Inside there are wood carvings and decoration, but my father was very careful not making the outside nicer than the village chiefs house.

 Chapter 9

    The winter passes with no great changes for the village. I and my brother finish the shaker and it works perfectly doing a job which otherwise would take a lot of hard work and many man-hours. And after having educated more women able to do massages I now only handle the really difficult cases. My pupils manage the villages general well being and soreness as well as recuperation and follow up on my patients. This means that since almost every single family in town has someone capable of doing massages constraints to pay me have lessened. I only handle cases when something is really bad, or more often when someone comes because they want to and I am inclined to help.


    Since my sister Ha is the second best masseuse in the village this means little for the family at large. We have soared maybe even above the village chief in renown and respect, even he respects me and my family now. And before the village chief, Tatum was both the most learned and richest in the village. He studied at school in Mao when he was younger. Personally, there is a really big change, I got my first boner. I would like to report that I put it too good use at once, but sadly that is not the case. I am a cheap charlie, a penny pinching sad sack and just would not pay the price for hounding around the village even if I could. Kids and wives do not fit in my plan of travelling the world at the moment.


    All the while during the winter the mill had work grinding bark for the Lord. The contract sucked until the foreman saw the shaker and knew it was not part of the contract. The negotiations nearly made me think of not transferring the mill to my brother, but then I thought of having to run the enterprise and fled it. The deals and arrangements are good fun, but running the mill from day to day is boring. I am not cut out for the long haul, not when I have a family more than willing to do it for me and I get a cut. The money the mill takes in is more than I bring into the village, but it is also distributed wider. New workers and families have come to town and my brother lord over them. He might be a bit power hungry, but nothing like my sister Ha who is preening at being my number one disciple at the moment. I think she is the first woman in the village that charges money for her work. It is still in my name, but she charges and only pay me a cut.


    Spring came with the chirping of birds, the leaving of foresters and the arrival of my brother''s bride to be. Brothers future wife was also named Su, which caused some confusion in the start, but it passed quickly. ¡°This is Su, my future bride.¡± My brother introduced the young lady to the family. This constipated my mother to no end since she had first say on account of being his mother. I saw that Su¡¯s father and mother were no more pleased with this. ¡°Nice to meet you.¡± My sister said I think she was more excited than my brother to meet Su. She had spent all winter talking about how the would get over splendidly. It all boiled down to the gossip that Su had once beaten one of the boys senseless.Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.


    The parents went off to their part of the hall to talk and we stayed. ¡°It is really true you beat up a boy?¡± My sister comes straight out and asks. Su seems perturbed at the question and a bit sad. ¡°Is that thing still haunting me?¡± She asks and turns to my brother, he gives her a pat on the back. ¡°Nooo, not at all, just for my sister.¡± He tells her and smiles. My brilliant detective senses tingle and tells me Su would rather not have to defend her actions too much. ¡°Is it true or not?¡± My sister tries to hammer on the subject. ¡°No, I hit him, like once and he fell down and began crying,¡± Su tells her and my sister smiles. ¡°Just like boys, can¡¯t take any pain.¡± I think my sister''s whole worldview has been validated.


    When my parents come back it seems they have reached an agreement with Su¡¯s parents. There is a small feast, Su¡¯s family stays over for the night and leaves with Su the next morning. I slept in my other bedroom and during the night all my siblings came over as well. My brother and Su seemed to do some catching up. All fine now that they are married, but not too comfortable to listen to.


    Preparations for the wedding were many, but this time I had my own. I needed to see to the orderly transfer of the deed to the mill. Breaking the contract with the lord because as the contract stated I no longer owned the mill. I found out why this clause was in there when working on this. Since there are mainly three ways to legally loose ownership of the property after the law. I could have ended up owing taxes and having to give the deed as part of the tax. If I loaned money and could not pay any contracted loans could have been reimbursed with the contract. This included failure to deliver after the contract with the merchant. Any of these options would give either the Lord or the merchant control of the mill, just good business.


    The last option, but not least, I could transfer it through one of two legal property transfers for free. Either through dowry or inheritance is legal, but only one would void the contract. In the case of inheritance, all contracts would also be part of the inheritance, and I would need to die. As a dowry, however, the contract would be void since it was a new start. My brother''s wife would get half of the mill, but she could not divorce him. Divorce is considered a male privilege. I sent notice to the merchant and the Lord of the arrangement, registered the transfer in Banks and a host of other small niceties. But afterwards, the contract was considered void.


    My brother''s wedding was much more fun than any of my other sibling''s weddings. Partly because it was a bigger deal, the transfer of the mill the biggest talking point. I saw no resentment from my oldest brother because of this, maybe because I had told him I would help him expand his farm. The reason it was more fun was that I had become older. The difference between ten and twelve is large. There were dancing, drinking and even a bit of fooling around later in the evening. I got to kiss a girl and feel her up behind the temple. The most exciting part of it was that we were behind the temple and it was the priest''s granddaughter. I was not scared of the priest, but rather her father whom will the priest later on. Then and there settling down and having a couple of kids did not seem too bad. But that too did pass, when I got a hangover the next morning.

 Chapter 10

    Ah, my plans my beautiful plans. The law is one thing, a reasonable merchant is something entirely different. I know they exist, they are not a mythical creature like the unicorn or the honest car salesman. But the Lord''s merchant is not a reasonable man. He regards me like an ant, an uneducated peasant who is not supposed to beat him. in his eyes, he is the victim here and he needs to be compensated for his troubles. I do not entirely support the caste system where merchants have no honour and no worth in a society, I believe they are an important part of making trade work. This man, however, puts all my beliefs on a test since he is a merchant with no honour.


    ¡°There is a letter for you.¡± The priests tell me when he comes over one morning with a missive in his hand. I am enjoying my new invention and is not well disposed of for people to interrupting me. I am also fearful of anyone stealing my spot. I have had my first hammock made and am enjoying a day in the sun. I am silently swaying from side to side looking up at the sky and playing with the clouds imagining them to shape. Tun the priest is worth of respect however and I will give it to him, even if he steals my spot. For I know he has ordered his own hammock.


    ¡°Thank you for bringing it so fast,¡± I tell him and look at the envelope. ¡°It is from the merchant.¡± The priests tell me. I grunt with hatred since I now have to get out of my hammock. I flail and swing a bit before I get to my feet and see the priest smirk at me. Getting out of a hammock is something no one does with grace. Some try, but when it inevitably fails the look more stupid for it. I know I look like Bambi on the ice, but that does not mean he needs to smirk. I want to call him something bad but have entirely forgotten his name. I tell him to wait and he grabs my spot in the hammock while I read the letter.


    The letter is filled with flowery language about confirming the contract and such. It is filled with words I have to ask the priest for the meaning of, I even have to wake him twice. ¡°Well, the matter is clear enough.¡± I tell the priest ¡°and please correct me if I am wrong. The man threatens me tries to make me confirm that the old deal is not void.¡± The priest waves at me before mumbling that I am right. It seems the hammock have stolen all his energy like it does to me whenever I lie in it. Only the fight to claim the spot produces more flurry than the hammock manages to steal away. The rest of the family is out of the house for the day helping my oldest brother with his farm, I stayed home to ¡°meditate¡±.


    After the first letter, I give it to my brother and together we consult the elders. Some time and effort are spent on drafting a letter based on our strategy for handling this. We also send letters to safeguard the legal niceties, among others storing verified copies with different temples and monasteries in neighbouring regions. This is the elders and my idea since we don¡¯t trust the merchant to not break the law. He has already threatened to pervert it. There are also two other regards, his class has no honour and he is closer to our Lord than us. Just his attitude and conduct shows us he is acting above his station.


    ¡°This is some dirty business.¡± My brother tells me when we walk away from the meeting and I smile back. ¡°This is the world of trade, the middlemen try to squeeze all the profit when they don¡¯t produce any goods. The tanners are a higher class than he.¡± I tell my brother, common sentiment. We who produce goods are above the tanners, but not by much. ¡°Can¡¯t wait to be done with this though.¡± He says and I have to smile and pat him on his back. ¡°You will never be done with this, but remember it and don¡¯t act it,¡± I tell him before we depart and he goes home to his pregnant wife. There is only me and my two sisters left who are not married with kids.


    Time flows like a lazy river in the fine summer time we have. I laze around in my hammock when I am not working and looking at finding me a fitting girlfriend. A wife is out of the question for me, but a mistress might be nice. There is, of course, several problems with this. Least off all is that I am too young, too poor and there is no tradition in the village for it. Me, with all my money and connections, are too poor for a mistress. If it had not been for the fact that I keep tight control over what I am owed, have and owe it would be worse. My problem with money is that I see far too many places to use it and earn more. My brother''s farm, education in the temple for the children, walkways, an improvement on the mill and a dozen small and large other projects. The main problem is that I am not all that interested even as horny as I am.If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.


    Letters are sent back and forth over the next month and the frequency accelerates since it looks like the merchant is closing in on the village. He must be out trading or doing his dealings for this to happen. Maybe even travelling with the tax collector since it is the season. The tone in the letters swings rapidly between negotiating a new deal and threatening with reprisals for backhanded dealing. In the village, there is a sense of foreboding, but I have the villages support. Both because of the obvious but also since I never hid anything from them and they feel as dishonoured as my brother. I would too since he is the one with the deed and I am the one that gets threatened.


    ¡°Well, that says much,¡± my father says when we see the merchant rides in together with the taxman. At the last switchback before the village, the merchant gets off the horse and goes to his waggon at the back. We are four men overlooking them and we too set a fast pace back to the village. It is me, my father and two other men from the village. My dads'' friend Yu and the village chief son Yi. I don¡¯t know who is more angry with my father or Yi since both are red in the face. When we get back to the village the taxman and merchant have arrived and been welcomed by the village chief.


    ¡°What!¡± the village priest and chief say at the same time. ¡°Quiet down you two,¡± Yi tells them and hush. ¡°We need to do something quick.¡± The priest says and all nod. ¡°Get more witnesses.¡± Is my father''s solution and after a small get together the plan is ready. The priests pen a letter and I find my travelling clothes. ¡°Do you have enough money?¡± my father asks me and I nod to him. Before midnight under a half moon, I set out. The mission is simple, get to Banks to get witnesses, and send the letter with a boat down to the city. We need the word to spread since a merchant and tax collector working together is bad. Underhanded dealings and pressure is one thing and we can deal with an up hopped merchant. The tax collector is the Lord''s representative, that means it is a rebellion if we deal too harsh with him. So in the middle of the night, I set off to get witnesses and send the letter to the Lord, and open letter so all that carries it can read it.


    I sneak through the hills and take the game trails to keep away from the road. There is only one road and I cannot risk that there are people to stop me there. Walking to Bank usually only takes two hours downhill, the backtrails usually takes twice as long. Running at full tilt and I am there in thirty minutes and not even breathing hard. Cultivation pays off. There is no wall and I run straight for the Temple to find their priest. He is a cousin of our own priest, just like the village head here is a cousin of our own.


    ¡°Why the heck are you disturbing me at this hour, Su.¡± The priests ask me when I finally wake him. He stands almost naked in the door and inside I can just make out his young wife in the light of the moon. ¡°The tax collector and merchant arrived together.¡± I say and the priest snorts ¡°I know, we sent word like you asked.¡± I shake my head ¡°NO, they arrived together, the tax collector let the merchant ride at the front when they came up the hill.¡± There is silence from the priest while he digests this. ¡°No, no, no fuck no.¡± He says with growing anger and anguish in his voice. He hits the doorframe a couple of times so it rattles. My message creates more furore than I would imagine and after having read my letter the priests send me out in the night to rouse the elders of the village.


    I would like to say we marched that night in a great upheaval like a pack of hungry wolves. Like out of the tales and fables from the righteous rebellions in the past, we did not. I suspect from the handling of the elders in both villages that neither did those heroes of virtue and pride in the past. We are farmers not stupid, instead, they continued the plan. Boys and men were instructed to send the message on into the other villages and after some preparation, the village head and priest followed me back along the game trails home to Rapid.

 Chapter 11

    In the morning we meet the tax man in the village square outside the temple. It is not a large square, but big enough. I see some of the foresters forming a wall and stopping the merchant from entering. ¡°Good morning¡± the tax collector greets the village chief and smiles ¡°Would you please let my witness for these proceedings through.¡± The village head greets the tax collector with all the ceremony he did not receive. ¡°We will not, we brought our own witnesses.¡± There is only a need for so many witnesses after all. ¡°Then I am afraid we will have to postpone this.¡± The man says and smiles at us gathered behind the village chief. I at least do not smile back. ¡°Postponing is fine by us.¡± Our chief says the taxman leaves and people go back to work.


    ¡°Well that settles it, this is a siege.¡± Banks elder tells us. Apparently, his father sent him into the army so he should know. I would not have done so since the man is the second son in the family, but that is not for me to say. I am only in the meeting since I have been in all the others and like usual I don¡¯t ask permission. ¡°Yes, this is a bother.¡± our village head says. ¡°The problem is not the money, rather the time.¡± There is an agreement in the group. ¡°Having to meet them there every day will be a time drain.¡± My father says in his gruff voice, my oldest brother nods. ¡°We will have to do so in shifts.¡± Our priest says and so the men work out shifts to work in.


    The next month is hard on the village. Every morning we get up, greet the taxman and then the meeting is postponed. Only a third of the village meet each morning while the rest go about their business. Every day the merchant comes to someone in my family and talks incessantly alternating threats with bribes. We even begin taking some of the lesser bribes, like everyone else in the village. No one gives their word to anything and no one seems to care. Elders from the village Banks travel on shift to us and I help them with their problems for free. At the end of the month, it seems the intruders has had enough and meet with force at the morning meeting.


    ¡°Are you ready to let my witness step forward?¡± The taxman, his name is Jo. ¡°No, we have brought our own witnesses.¡± The village chief says in the same ritual that has gone on over the last week. ¡°Then I charge you with a vote to remove you as chief of this village.¡± The tax collector says and grins at him. I am happy I went around the whole village every week and took a survey of how anyone would vote. ¡°Good, do you have a candidate?¡± The priest says the first time he has spoken at these daily meetings. ¡°Yes, I nominate Su.¡± The man says and his foolish grin is plastered on his face. ¡°Okay,¡± The village chief says and looks over at me, I shake my head at him.


    ¡°Keep in mind the wrath of our Lord if you don¡¯t pay taxes.¡± The tax collector says to me and I just smile back. I still have the possibility of going to the lords keep and pay my taxes there if he refuses to collect them. I have no doubt in my mind that the Lord is willing to take taxes and flay his skin like a dog. Even if only metaphorically. I step forward in front of the gathered people. ¡°I wish to remind you all of the talks we have had and vote like you all have told me,¡± I tell them all and smile. Even if everyone votes for me it will be invalidated since I am only twelve and not eligible for the position.


    ¡°Thank you for the vote of confidence.¡± The village chief says after everyone has finished the dog and pony show in front of the tax collector. ¡°Here are our taxes, are you going to take them now?¡± He asks and even though the tax collector looks furious and the merchant behind him crestfallen, most of the money is from their own bribes even as small as they were. ¡°Thank you for paying the lords taxes¡± the man finally says and write out our writ of payment with the priest of Banks as a witness.Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    Their hurried retreat after the failed coup is kind of hilarious, but this will lead to further problems in the future in my mind. After all, they are powerful men or they would not have tried their gambit. Only knowledge of customs and grit made it possible for the village to succeed in pressuring them. There is also the fact that no one fears any minions or though guys they can send at us. The village, with my family in front, breaks open the casks of beer and bring out the food. There is a mood for a party after the vile bastards defeat, but I am left with some others to fret over the future.


    ¡°What do you think big brother?¡± I ask when showing him my new idea for a business. I have drawn up the patterns for a honeybee hive. ¡°Producing honey?¡± He asks me while we sit at his table. ¡°Yeah, could get a pretty penny for it,¡± I say and looks at them. ¡°You want to do this?¡± He says and looks at me with doubt in his eyes. ¡°No, no of course not, I was hoping you would. I like honey.¡± I tell him and smile. He and my father are the farmers in the family. My brother is the one with the green thumb while the other one has a head for trade. Me, I consider myself the restless and talented one. ¡°I will think about it.¡± My brother says I think it is code for ¡°I will ask my wife.¡± Ah, the joy of honey all year round. I am in a good mood as I walk home through the village. I have turned thirteen a week ago and we had a real party.


    The only worries in my mind are gathering enough money to realise my dream of going travelling and see the world. The big problem with me being a healer is that when I don¡¯t work there is no money coming in. Not like my brothers who have workers doing some and nature doing more for them. They could take a year off and still earn money. So I try to start a business that pays me a small percentage as part owner. It is not easy since the law does not recognise more than one owner in an enterprise and I have had no luck so far.


    ¡°Good news Su.¡± The village chief says when we arrive at his house. He is smiling and has opened one of his wines. ¡°Sit down, sit down and I will tell the tale.¡± He says with big flourishes of his arms and a bigger smile. We all gather around to hear what he has to say. ¡°When I was down in Banks on business¡± he begins and I cannot help my own snark when I think of the ¡°business¡± he was engaged in. And it seems none of the others can stop their thoughts either. ¡°When I was down in Banks on business and pleasure¡± he amends ¡°there was news about our dear departed merchant and tax collector. It seems they were not well liked at our Lord¡¯s court and when news came of their disgrace here thing began to happen. People came forward with their own allegations far worse than ours, they were harassed on their way home and few samurais wished to see them. It all culminated when they entered the Lord¡¯s castle and found in the belongings of the merchant a knife longer than prescribed.¡± he tells and then takes a drink while the rest of us sit leaning forward to hear the rest. ¡°The merchant tried to bribe the guards, the tax collector tried to appease the local representative. It was to no avail and they chopped the head off of the merchant and his helpers.¡± The men laugh and I with them, but the last part leaves me a bit queasy, those helpers were but boys. ¡°The best part is that one of the hot head and traditional samurai was so appalled that he confronted the tax collector. Their confrontation went badly and now the tax collectors head adorns the samurai trophy room.¡± Good humour is had at the expense of the men and I join in, they were no kin of mine.

 Chapter 12

    Summer, winter and repeat feel like all there is in a year. Spring is awesome other than that there is so little food and it is a short season. Seeing the newborn animals, flowers in bloom and girls in flimsier clothes is nice. I get to try out all the work I put in over the winter and begin my trading walking down to Banks and sometimes even up to Cliff another village east of Banks. Meeting people and earning money.


    Then it is summer with all its work long lazy days and fun. Less fun than before since all my friends work hard. I have turned fourteen and marriage have gone from being a nuisance to serious discussion in the family. At least I have established that I might have a girl in the village, but I will probably not stay, I need to go out and experience the world. It is a need in my bones.


    Working the smithy or even being in the temple is no rest for me so I have taken to wandering the woods instead. Having sessions out in the wilderness when I can. My problem with this is that I keep having new pupils when my older ones grow out of my teaching and find their own way. And I kind of love teaching. When summer is over there is winter and all the joys of spending time indoors with family and friends.


    I meet Xia, daughter of Cu village head of Bank, after my fifteenth birthday. I have seen her around when visiting Bank earlier, but never really met her. A fleeting introduction here and a bump in there does no a meeting make in my eyes. No there is a need for more, an exchange of words with meaning at least. Xia is a beauty to be sure, but not material for my future wife. She is known to be traditional in her views, she is two years my senior and there are others pursuing her hand for marriage both young and old.


    ¡°Su, we have decided you shall marry.¡± My father told me one evening. The conviction in his voice hit me harder than the words. It was clear this was not his idea, but he is in on it. ¡°Oh dear, so father you have decided?¡± I ask him after silence has reigned between us for some time. I am not happy with how this is turning out, they want to tether me to the village and I don¡¯t like it. ¡°Yes, we have, we have entered negotiations with Cu to marry you and Xia.¡± He tells me and his words give me a fright, it seems more serious now than before. ¡°Well, have I met this young woman?¡± I ask him, I know of her, but I do not know her. Fighting this is just necessary if I find her distasteful, their nagging have ground my resistance away. My family do not even need my consent, or for the marriage to be consummated, for it to be legal.


    ¡°Su, it is my pleasure to introduce you too Xia, my daughter.¡± her mother tells me and smile looking between us. The room is filled with relatives overlooking this first meeting. I have no idea why, but it is different from all the meetings my brothers had with their wives and similar to how my sisters first meeting were. I don¡¯t like it, for either, I am the horny old man, which is bad. Or it is worse and I am the girl that needs protection. ¡°It is nice to finally meet you, Xia,¡± I tell the girl while looking her over. She has been or has prettied herself up, but someone has done their homework. The dress is tight and shows off her boobs and ass to great effect. ¡°Nice to meet you too.¡± She answers me and smiles while blushing.


    With a firm hand and glaring at the others in the room we go out the back to have a chat. ¡°So, this is awkward¡± is my first words when we get out of the stuffy room with all the relatives. Xia giggles a little and smiles at me. ¡°You might say that.¡± she agrees and flutters her eyes at me. ¡°Well, I imagine we will be able to weather the scandal.¡± Her face turns red when I mention it and she tries to hide her face. We talk some more and soon get over our embarrassment getting down to the nitty-gritty. There is one question I need to be answered by her, or rather three.The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    ¡°I like you Xia and even with how heavy-handed our parents are handling this I don¡¯t think I will fight it too bad.¡± I tell her first ¡°but that is if you are of the same mind.¡± She looks into my eyes for some time searching for answers before speaking. ¡°I will go through with this regardless, but you are right in that a mutually agreed upon relationship would be beneficial.¡± I smile when I hear this and forget all the rest I wanted to say. It is clear to me that Xia has a good mind and her body is smashing, such a wife I can live with.


    After this first meeting, there are many others both between me and the families about the marriage contract. Also between me and Xia rehashing the contract and renegotiating it for our own ends and means. This makes the whole process tumultuous and hard to follow, especially since there are four negotiations going at the same time. The fathers do their think, mothers theirs, I and Xia ours and then I and the rest negotiate on the negotiated agreements. After seeing and hearing of the trouble I see the villages splitting and betting on who is going to win. Well, in the end, everyone feels like they have won, but I think Xia is the real winner. Not one of my demands on her was she against, but she played well and got all of her own.


    ¡°There we are agreed,¡± Cu says finally after we all have gathered in his house for the last day-long session. It has taken more than a month to come to an agreement, but now finally we have agreed. ¡°Xia is to be Su Mings first wife with all the rights and privileges this entails until she either breaks the contract or they come to some other agreements.¡± Cu begin talking through the main points of the contract. ¡°Su will raise either enough capital to buy a farm or buy a farm for Xia to live and run before again leaving the village. Xia will bring into the marriage rights on transporting goods down to Mao, keeping the farm running and supporting her husband in all matters regardless.¡± Cu takes a drink of tea after this last part since the transport rights are a big deal in Bank villages economy. Xia basically brings with her all the lifeblood in Bank and gives it to me with this marriage. ¡°Su also agrees that any mistresses, concubines, bounded or other women he brings into his bed will be in agreement with Xia either before or as soon as possible thereafter. Xia agrees to bring no man into her bed other than Su.¡± Earlier I would have blushed over this part, but we have been over the words so many times that it can no longer even excites me. ¡°I think that is the salient points,¡± Cu says and look around the room. ¡°Are we all in agreement?¡± Some nod while others smile, some even sounds their consent with an ¡°aye¡±. ¡°Good, then I hereby sign the contract,¡± Cu says and makes three crosses at the bottom, my father follows while I sign my own name. Some men step forward to sign their own name or crosses under it. I am in practice married, only the ceremony is left.


    Cu is called the ¡°head¡± instead of ¡°chief¡± because of the charter of the village. Most of the people in Banks are bound farmers and the position of the village head is hereditary. This is unlike here in Rapid where the position is up for election and the families are freeborn. This is because Rapid is actually an older village than Bank and was founded when one of the older dynasties in the area fell. I have no idea of the circumstances, mostly since I just am not interested. Being married to the village heads firstborn daughter means that I need to have some Idea. It also means I have to travel to the capital and secure more land and other rights to establish an estate.

 Chapter 13

    In the fifteenth year, I set out together with my little sister and one of my other male pupils to travel to the Lord¡¯s capital. We will travel down along the river originating in the mountains above our river until the city Mao which lies along the Mao lake. From there we will travel overland until we come to the capital of the region. The priest explains the journey to us since he takes it about three times a decade. It usually takes two to four weeks, but we will use more than half a year on the same trip. I need to ply my trade on the way both to build my reputation and coffers for buying land. Both are needed if I wish to buy parts of the forest to the west of the village. I have looked over the terrain and with a road to the village and work, I will be a nice big farm. About half as large as the village and fitting in my mind for me.


    ¡°So you are off.¡± My new fiancee states when we arrive in Banks after having greeted her family properly. ¡°I am off,¡± I tell her while working her back like she likes it. The least I can do after once again pounding her in bed. I also enjoy exploring her body at my own leisure. We both seem to like it kind of rough and it was part of the contract. Cu even built us a small place like the one I have at home. What a nice man, I will need to find him something special. Maybe place when I unlock the paper printing secrets I will place it here in Bank. Xia would like that. ¡°Are you sure it is needed?¡± She asks me, demure and submissive in public but speaks her own mind in private. I like it, but it also means I need good arguments for my actions. ¡°Yeah, it is necessary for my plans. The family and village would not stand for it and I would like to be able to come home.¡± I tell her and begin working my magic so she shuts up. There are two reasons for going on the trip, one is to buy the farm. The other is to gather the needed money for it, more money than our villages pay combined in taxes over ten years.


    We spend three days in Banks working on our teamwork and sales tactic. There are two important things to consider while working. How we present us and how much money we earn. Neither my sister or Xi my male pupil argues with my goal of money over honour. It is in my mind possible to buy honour with money as long as the method of earning it is not too far off. So we work on how to entice customers what to say and how to work them through the system. Xi is not part of the salesforce but a guard for our money and otherwise a gofer.


    We leave Banks in the morning taking a boat down to the next village where we ply our trade and move on draining the village for all the money we can and at the same time being helpful and courteous. We spend three days to a week at every village and after only a month and five villages, we arrive in the city of Mao.


    Mao is a strange city in many regards, at least to me. It lies between the river and one bank of the lake with farmland stretching out behind it. I can see fishing boats on the lake and even a larger barge coming up the river. The strange part of the city is that it is built much like a fortress and most of the city is outside the walls. This is because the city is on the region''s frontier and even with years of peace is guarded. This creates a strange mix of civil and military architecture. It is exotic and exiting however and it does ease some of my anxiety for travel.


    The first stop on the way is to acquire entry to the town. This is not so hard to do, merely paying for the right to enter Town proper. The outlying area is not possible to hinder access to. We pay the guards and get some tips from them on where to stay.


    Walking through town should not take more than ten minutes at the longest. I have other ideas though and swirl from one attraction to another. The typical tourist when seeing a new place. Everytime Xi or Ha, my sister, manages to get me back to walking towards the resident manager of the city I go down a side street because something caught my eye.


    I get to see the docks where fishing, floating timber and trade boats are brought in. The dock is built out of wood around the town walls and look ridiculous but fun. I chat up different people and get different questions answered. Silly things really, like ¡°what is that¡± and ¡°where do those guys come from¡±.


    The architecture is different for different parts of town. Close to the small temple, there are traditional buildings with their ski jump roofs and circular doorways. Most houses are built and painted in black and white, they look regal. Towards the dock, the houses have roofs like barns and as much storage space as there is room for. The houses people live in and work out of also have more colour. The colour schemes are dominated by muted colours like light blue or yellow. Some houses have either frescos on the entrance or elaborate tiled pictures. The streets are narrower and side streets blocked or locked. The other direction away from the gate and along the wall houses are built up against the wall. Some look military while others are working areas. Outside the walls, there is even more variety with more colours, but we entered and will stay inside for some time.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    After what feels like hours of sightseeing and chatting with the locals we arrive at the administrative centre of the city. It is a fortress adjoined surrounded by what I call the temple district. Where all the important people live. Getting in costs me another fee similar to the one we paid to get into the city.


    The name on the door tells me I am to see Li Xiong. ¡°Good afternoon, are you Li Xiong?¡± I greet and ask the man whose office we are shown into. ¡°Good afternoon to you too, and yes, I am.¡± He greets me as I stand before him alone. My companions stayed outside the fort so we did not have to pay for all three. ¡°What may this lowly servant help you with this fine day?¡± He asks me and smile, he is tired of the day. ¡°My name is Su and I am a licensed healer from Rapid village,¡± I tell him and show him my license and documents. I even have brought documents signed by all the village heads or chiefs along the trip. ¡°Good good, you wish to practise in the city?¡± He asks and I agree. ¡°Okay, what treatments are you applying for a license to?¡± I fill him in and he writes them down. ¡°uhu, good, good.¡± Is all he says after a while. ¡°We currently do not have anyone with your speciality practising here so I see no problem. You do have to show your skill and be evaluated.¡± He tells me and then goes on listing the fees for three months work, the least possible. ¡°I do house calls, so you just give me a call if want help with your back,¡± I tell him before we say our goodbyes. He says a runner will come for me when I can be evaluated. I tell him I will send a runner when I know where I stay.


    ¡°Everything seems to be in order,¡± I tell my travelling companions when I rejoin them outside the fortresses walls. ¡°Good, let us go outside the walls and find a cheap place to stay.¡± My sister tells us and marches on, seemingly fed up with my whirring around. Finding a place to stay turns out to be less work than we first worried. The prices are strictly regulated after what amenities the inns supplies. We go to a nice quiet place in the lower middle ranking. The difference in price is worth it for our own room. I pay one of the younger sons of the proprietor to send his son with a message to the administrator''s office and after dinner, we turn in.


    A messenger arrives the next morning even before I am awake, but Xi is up practising his kata¡¯s and wakes me. After a hurried breakfast and sprucing up I leave for the fortress again, having to pay both entrance fees over again. Some kind of pass is needed, but I have yet to see it. Maybe a good suggestion for my friend the administrator, he looked to be low on the pecking order. When I am showed inside I am not shown to his building, but rather around the back where there is a nice quiet corner. There I am met with an older man sitting on a small veranda outside a quaint little house.


    ¡°Greetings elder¡± I bow and say to him ¡°Greetings young one,¡± he says back. He introduces himself as the resident healer and the cities spiritual leader, San Ma Can. The longest name I have yet to hear of. ¡°So I hear you try to pass yourself off as a healer.¡± He says having left me standing before him, he is reproachful in his demeanour. ¡°Elder I cannot do anything else and follow the law.¡± Tell him and smile. ¡°My gifts are not strictly healing, rather massages that bring wellness and healing to the body.¡± He looks at me for quite a long time and shakes his head. ¡°And what other than a play on words is that?¡± I shrug and look at him. ¡°A flawed representation of the subjective matter tried to communicate through the media of speech from a subjective understanding of the worlds and heavens larger truths.¡± I tell him and finish off with ¡°respected elder.¡± All respect is long gone from my words since the man refuses to do his job as off yet. Rather he is concerned with testing me for his own goals and I have to say I look down on such behaviour. ¡°Well, we will have to test you then.¡± He answers in response to my petulance.


    ¡°Ah, heaven¡± is the response when I crack a really though part of his back. I have been working for more than an hour on his lower back. In the start, he surprised me by telling me it was him I would be working on. And he scoffed at my warm up. When I had warmed up and found most of his problem areas, mainly that he seemed to be unable to relax the muscles in his back, in addition to all the other wear and tear in the tissue. I used all my expertise and magic to rock his world. Now he is a shivering plump of water and tissue under my fingers and I think even had a small orgasm. When massages become magic there is so much potential. I even have a small moment thinking on all the other medical stuff I would like to try. There are sharp limits to what I am able to do with massages. Inside organs, bones and such deeper issue I cannot reach by treating the patient by doing a massage.


    ¡°So what do you think?¡± I ask the good old healer when he finally wakes up again. I am sitting outside and waiting on him and have seen quite a few servants looking at me from doors and windows. ¡°I retract all my bad words, that was heavenly. How long are you staying?¡± He asks me and I tell him I will be here for three months. ¡°Put me down for an appointment once a week.¡± He tells me and does not even ask how much it will cost. I really have to set a price, and I know how. I will take the probable price of the land I wish to buy, multiply by two and add five percent to the price before dividing by the amount of time I have in the city. Start there and work my way down, or up, depending on demand.

 Chapter 14

    While I was up by the fortress, totally dominating the most respected healer, presumably, in the whole city. My henchmen, maybe minions, but most likely companions, and woman were out looking for a place to start our temporary business. I could base it wholly on house calls, but then advertising would be a problem. When I meet them after lunch they seemed to have a solution.


    ¡°Brother we looked at some of the houses available to rent in the area, but they are very expensive.¡± My sister tells me taking charge of Xi, something she has become quite adept at. Xi is a quite boy some years my senior, and a full adult. He is the quiet brooding type who love the forest and hunting. I think he has come along for the promised money and adventure. Probably should have travelled with someone even older, but we will meet the priest in the capital. Now we are just working to earn the needed money. ¡°Yes, they saw us and wanted more money or longer contract,¡± Xi says in his quiet and voice. ¡°Saw we could rent tents, large once, in the market.¡± My sister glares at him and kind of pouts when he steals her thunder. ¡°Yes, they have these large tents with space in the back. I thought we could put up a table in the back and me and Xi mind the front.¡± Ha says and they both look at me for agreement or refusal. ¡°Good good, have you thought of price?¡± I ask them and they nod again.


    ¡°We checked out the other healers outside the walls and they all charged twenty shekels per treatment on the lower end and up to a whole dima on the high end.¡± My sister says before Xi gets to open his mouth. ¡°Okay, that is much more than out in the villages,¡± I say and think a bit. ¡°We will begin at a dima per treatment or hour, but run a campaign at the start where the first ten gets it for twenty shekels. Then we will hike the price if demand explodes. Everyone who makes an appointment will have it on the agreed price when the appointment is made. Further, all house calls cost twenty shekels extra and are charged by the hour.¡± I tell them after having thought the problem over. ¡°What do you think?¡± I ask and they agree with me.


    ¡°Good, then other than this we do it like usual. Xi you go hire the tent for the week and Ha you go and get a sign made.¡± I give them money after handing out the assignment. I go into the back garden at our in and find a spot in the shadow where I can recharge from the strain of handling the elder. I hope that I am able to treat five or six clients a day, that would be five or six, maybe seven dima a day. What I earn in a month back in the villages. Not what I charge, but a whole lot more than I actually collect. I am just too nice to those close to me. The disconnect is strange in many ways and I really hope I will not have to lower my prices. I decide that is part of what the first ten will help me with, telling me what the treatment is worth to them.You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.


    Xi comes and fetches me when he is finished with his part of the preparation and guides me to the marketplace. The market lies behind the docks on the riverside of the city. The dock sneaks around the wall out in the water and in the area between the wall and river the market lies. A spattering of permanent buildings, booths and some few larger tents like mine. There is no order in the area and clear that at some point there has been a careless administrator. From a military and civic standpoint, the area is a disaster. It is a pure example of capitalism. Maybe because it is beneath men of stature to associate themselves with any trade below the cast of a craftsman. Few craftsmen are at the market, it is the traders.


    The tent Xi has found for me is dark blue with a nice shape. Poles hold it up and give it a kind of castle-like shape. It is open in front where there is a table and chairs for Xi and Ha, but also extra space if it¡¯s needed. A partition with a curtain is all that separates the front from the backside of the tent. Xi has gotten a table with padding and a place for the clients head. Kind of a nice setup. There is a table for the few instruments I need. ¡°I got extra linen for the table so it can be changed with every client,¡± Xi tells me and show the pile of them in front. ¡°This is really good, really good,¡± I tell him and see a small smile.


    Ha comes by while we sit and look at the other people in the market. It is the middle of the week and the place is far from full. There is still enough foreign and exotic to look at for us. Ha comes by with the signs and a quite nice addition if I can say. The signs are nice and standard. They are customizable so that what is sold and at what prices can be changed. ¡°Good, very good,¡± I tell her when she shows it off to us. It is patently obvious when thought off, but I did not think of it. Xi then shows off the tent to her, I think I hear giggling from her.


    Back at the inn that night none of us drink much and we are early in bed. Even so, sleep seems to elude me and all of us talk too much. I feel the butterflies in my stomach and know why, not much to do other than make the best of it.

 Chapter 15

    It starts slow the next morning and takes a couple of hours before the first customer benign to pay for our untested treatment. The second is right after me and then the floodgates open. We raise price twice the first day and decides in the end to take four dima per hour or treatment. Even with this my whole first week is booked full.


    It is first the second week when I again visit San Ma Can the business really take off. ¡°Good morning Su.¡± The elder says when I meet him outside what seems to be his residence inside the fortress. ¡°Good morning to you too respected elder,¡± I say and bow with respect to him, I don¡¯t know but without the man beside him, I probably would not have acted with so much respect. ¡°This is Mane Be Tein the administrator for this region.¡± San Ma Can introduce the man beside him and I bow even lower again. ¡°He heard of your amazing hands and asked to be here when you came next.¡± San tells me and I smile ¡°Your interest honour me.¡± I tell the administrator and bow slightly with a smile. The kowtowing will be murder on my back, but no matter I will earn money from this. Not from charging them, but from charging their sycophants. ¡°Well, let us have a look at what you can do then?¡± The man says in somewhat of a brusque tone. I smile and we retire inside for my session with San.


    ¡°When do you have time for another appointment,¡± the administrator asks me when we sit outside waiting on San getting back to himself after our session. I began working on his calves and leg now and at the moment he is incapable of walking. ¡°Give me some time to recuperate and we can have a look at you to determine the treatment needed,¡± I tell him and he agrees so I use some time to meditate again. The treatment is entirely standard, but I use some more time and goes in depth. If something is different is it that the man has far more heavenly energy in the body than any of the other people in the city. Working on makes me entirely exhausted, but the results are just fantastic. His skin is clearer and I can feel a lot of different stress damage and what must be battle damage being healed by the man.


    While sitting outside the little house in the shade on the veranda I wonder about the heavenly energy in this world. I know manipulating it and fighting with it is a big thing, but then again it seems not to be either understood or actually used all that much. Rule of law and custom is strong, the evidence is our beef with the merchant and tax collector. When they met enough resistance in us they fell foul of other forces in society very fast. There are sects and schools for heavenly energy, but they seem more concerned with their own existence rather than interfering with the world at large. It is strange to me and another thing I wish to explore. At least to have knowledge of an important entity in this world.


    ¡°Thank you,¡± Mane says to me with a very small bow. ¡°I hope you have time for another weekly appointment.¡± He says and I nod ¡°It would be my honour.¡± I tell him and bow a bit lower. The money is going to be pouring in if this keeps up, I might expand the area I wish to claim. Or maybe even change it, I have thought of the plateau above the village, would have to build a fairly expensive road up there. I am daydreaming while meditating and gathering strength for the road.


    I say my goodbyes to the old men lounging in the sun beside me. They look happy and content at the moment. I am not sure, but they seem like close friends in the way they are lounging. On the way out I pass by the administrator who gave me my license, Li something or other. ¡°Good midday¡± he greets me and gives me a slight bow. ¡°Good midday to you too,¡± I say and smile back while also giving him a similar bow. The etiquette is formal and mysterious for me, but I am happy that I am thinking old and very conservative form. Might seem like a country bore and simpleton, but no one can fault me for it. ¡°What brings you out in this beautiful weather?¡± he asks me and I smile back unsure of what he knows. ¡°An appointment with respected elder San Ma Can I tell him. He smiles at me and invites me to lunch which I accept, free food is always nice.Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.


    Li it turns out is a good nice guy, and that is about it. We talk about small stuff, nothing earth-shattering for either of us. Turns out he paints and after lunch, I follow him to his house and see some of his paintings. He has a very traditional style painted on rice paper. I see his problem as more hiding in other shadows rather than actual lack of talent and tells him so. ¡°Dear Li, this is not my place but let me ask you this. Why do you paint the same as everyone else?¡± I ask him and look at the paintings. It is the same style as I have seen around town and in the few shops for paintings, I have seen. ¡°You are an artist, paint with your heart,¡± I tell him when I leave and thank for the enjoyable meal. After this pause, I have an appointment with one of the older merchants outside the walls. Ha admonishes me for being late and then we are off.


    While I was off building a better relationship with the merchants and petty nobility in town Xi had his own adventure. When we come back to the inn we find him sitting in the bar drinking. This is strange because Xi usually drinks nothing stronger than a weak beer, and still here he is with wine in the cup.


    ¡°Xi, what has happened?¡± Ha asks him when we have had a good look at him. ¡°I saw other cultivators fight.¡± He tells us and begin describing his first meeting with other cultivators. ¡°After being done for the day I packed up faster than usual and had plenty of time before you came back.¡± He begins and only stops to take another drink. ¡°I wanted to have a look around and find out the lay of the land, you know like Su tells us to do. Listen to the gossip and gather knowledge. Well after looking around the merchant district by the wall I followed it, the wall, around. On the outskirt of town, there is a lot of open farmland. You know, for wheat and stuff, not like rice like we farm. Nice stuff too, could really hide in it and hunt game in new fashions.¡± He begins rambling about hunting while also drinking at the same time, just when I am about to make him go back he snaps into focus again. ¡°Well there is saw them, two men a bit older than Tatum. They just stood there for a long time looking at each other. Then one guy drew his sword and cut a huge swath of grain in the same swing, really destroyed that field. The other one stopped his swing with a punch, the punch somehow had flames in it.¡± Xi stops and looks at me before beginning to speak while still looking at me. ¡°Why do you not teach us to do stuff like that, not all the healing all the time?¡± I smile at him and shake my head. ¡°Finnish your story and I will tell you why. ¡°Well, there is not much more to say, they destroyed a poor farmers field, one of the men managed to cut the other and they bowed and went their separate ways after.¡± Xi finishes his story and looks at me again. ¡°Why?¡± I shrug and tell him the truth. ¡°I know it is possible, but I just don¡¯t know how. You will have to find your own way to do stuff like that.¡± Xi and Ha nod and I think I see a new determination in their eyes. Seems there are more to being a healer than just technique.


    Work work work. It turns out Ha really enjoy the wealth we are gathering and so does Xi. They both enjoy spending nights counting coin and dreaming of what future it might buy. Had they not been close and family I would have begun wondering about their motivation. For myself, the money is becoming a problem. It is enough for it to become a target of thievery from the gangs and just vagrants. I look for something like a bank, but it seems not to exist. People travelling with wealth hire guards. Luckily for me, I have begun having connections around town.

 Chapter 16

    ¡°Is this really necessary?¡± My sister Ha asks me while sorting, counting and storing my money in a nice wooden box. Xi sits beside her and are himself hard at work. ¡°Well, I am becoming increasingly worried about people breaking in and stealing my money,¡± I tell them while filling yet another bag with twenty dima. ¡°We have about one thousand dima here sister, that is more than our entire village is worth.¡± She looks at all the money and sigh. A thousand dima equals sixty thousand shekels and is enough to pay taxes in the village for the next three years. After my introduction to Mane, I hit paydirt with all the old families in the city. Most of the old and frail and desperate for anything that could help for a decent sum of money. I kept up my practice at the market with three or four clients every day earning six or seven dima. Other than that I had one client in the morning and two after dinner paying almost a twenty dima each day. It seems that when one steps just one step up the amount of money gets added another zero. It is strange and makes little sense other than a way to keep the classes below down. Either that or I have destroyed the cities economy and this does not seem probable either. Something is causing the difference, but I don¡¯t know what.


    ¡°Yes, it is so much,¡± Xi says to me and looks at the marks in his book. One slash for every ten dima grouped in five. ¡°It is bad to pay money to store it.¡± I smile at him and shake my head. ¡°Better to have almost all than to have none,¡± I tell him and he shrugs. ¡°But we brought Xi to defend us against bandits and such.¡± My sister whines and I get a small itch of irritation. ¡°Yes, partly. But such is no longer the case. He cannot defend us against the quality or quantity such amount of money can attract. Neither can he spend all day with it. No, it is better to get it protected by nobility and with a contract.¡± I say and smile at them.


    In many ways, it seems my status has been elevated, but mostly it is a favour for clients. There is no banking system for the lower classes, it seems to just don¡¯t make sense for large organizations to care. For the nobility, there is a kind of banking system, families or offices that take in money one place against a contract and where I can take it out in another branch. It is my great fortune to be acquainted with an old gentleman in just such a business. There are all sorts, but retiring to Mao seems to me to be a boring choice. Especially when there must be so many other possibilities for him.


    The gentleman''s name is Tiong Nama Giuan and from all gossip and reports I have managed to gather he is kind of a big deal in the area. I have worked with him a lot over the last month with thrice-weekly sessions. His body seems to have begun kind of freezing up and he could not move a lot of his muscles. Now he has somewhat full mobility and can move, I think he is my greatest fan in the city. He is what I can understand to be a noble of the empire, different somehow from being a noble of the land. How I just don¡¯t know. He does have access to the banking network and has gracefully allowed me to give access to the network similar to a bank through him.


    ¡°Ah, my fifth favourite person in the world, I greet thee.¡± He says with both humour and respect. I bow low back and greet him. Xi and Ha bow even lower, nearly kneeling. ¡°Good, good boy come over here and get this over with so we can get to the fun part.¡± The banking is done swiftly and mostly by Tiongs retainers. I sign and get my own copy. ¡°Good, done,¡± Tiong says and smile before undressing and laying down without regard for anyone else or the fact that we are in his great hall. ¡°You are too impatient Tiong,¡± I tell him and smile when I see Ha already moving to prepare the oils. I hand my own clothes to Xi and begin working on Tiongs body.This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.


    ¡°My grandson Tiong is passing through later in the month on his way to the capitol. If you wait around I will tell him that you can follow along with him.¡± Tiong tells me after I am done and while we are recuperating in his fabulous garden. Some very nice maids have served us tea and snacks. ¡°That would be very gracious of you,¡± I tell him and bow slightly to him. ¡°The spoiled little brat would well take you with him, he is on his way to see my daughter in the regional capital,¡± Tiong says and spits. I don¡¯t actually know why he does not like his grandson, but that is the case. ¡°We would be honoured and I am sure the road will be safer with him along,¡± I say as to not disrespect anyone. Tiong might not like the little lord, but on one hand, I might, on the other Tiong, can disrespect family, I can¡¯t disrespect him. ¡°I think you would enjoy it, he is a smart little bugger.¡±


    With this our departure is delayed by a couple of weeks. This enables me to earn even more money. I tell my clients that I have gotten an offer to accommodating someone to the capital. At the end of the first week of us waiting for the village, the priest arrives in town.


    ¡°I was not expecting to catch up with you so soon,¡± Tun tells us as we settle into the bar at the inn. ¡°Well stuff happens and we were delayed I tell him.¡± I turn around to order food and drink while Xi fills him in on what has happened. ¡°This is wonderful and will probably speed up our time in Nassan.¡± Tun manages to get out between gulps of drink the waitress brought him. ¡°I really look forward to the travel.¡±


    Tun settles in quick and borrowing some money from me at an atrocious interest he goes to town looking for girls and a good time. We hardly see him in the week leading up to when Tiongs grandson arrives. He is older than I would have thought. He looks like he is about twenty or twenty-five from how Tiong described him I imagined that he would be more like thirteen or eighteen. When we are called over and introduced it becomes clear that the relationship is not a happy one.


    ¡°Greetings esteemed healer.¡± Tiong greets me with far more respect than earlier and a deeper bow. I try to greet him back with even more respect and a deeper bow, but the change tips me a bit off and I do not manage it perfectly. ¡°Allow me to introduce my grandson Tiong Buang Nuin.¡± We greet and smile at each other. ¡°My grandson has at his grandfather''s order graciously allowed you to accompany him too Nassan,¡± Tiong says and I get to see a scowl on the man''s face. He does not look too happy to have more hangers-on from his grandfather, but accept and bring us along. It is especially when we are leaving and I hear the man half whisper to his grandfather that his displeasure becomes clear. ¡°another healer?¡± He complains to my grandfather whom to my kind of horror spits on the floor and tells the man to ¡°Not be a bitch and don''t scoff before having tried.¡± Tiong the second seems to be kind of a hard nut to crack and being that he is Tiong the elder''s grandson and powerful in his own right, a nut I have to crack.

 Chapter 17

    ¡°Welcome,¡± a grey gentleman greets us when we walk into the camp Tiong the second has made outside the city. It is not so large a camp consisting of only two tents and a wagon. But far larger than any camp we would have to make. ¡°Thank you for the generous invitation,¡± I tell him and smile while giving the old man a small bow. ¡°We will be travelling together so it will be helpful to make arrangements.¡± He says and sits down. ¡°My name is Tuan Heiduan and I am the young master''s majordomo.¡± He tells us after having served tea from a can over the fire. ¡°I am told his grandfather made him take you along to the capital of the region?¡± He kind of asks while his tone makes it a statement. ¡°Tiong Nama Giuan was so gracious as to arrange passage for us,¡± I tell him and smile while cursing the whole deal in my head. Security will be great for my money, but this company will be a nerve-wracking test. ¡°We will set out in the morning and try to make good time, the young master does not wish to linger in the area.¡± The old man tells us and describes the routines of the camp in a clear way, while still coming off as condescending.


    ¡°What a total bore and prick.¡± My sister says when we are back in the security blanket of our room at the inn. ¡°Yeah, they usually are like that.¡± The old priest says and lays down on my bed. ¡°Looking down on us from up high. They have reason to though, probably warriors the whole lot of them.¡± He says and this statement from the old man wakes Xi up from his brooding. ¡°Do you think I could get any hints?¡± He asks and smiles. Last month he caught two men his age sparring and was fascinated with the fluidity of their moves and strength. The incident grew with the telling and now they cut stone with every swing. ¡°Maybe if you can get them to talk, they will probably practise though,¡± I tell him and smile. Cultivating I can help him with, but I am no fighter. Mainly because I just am not interested, seems boring. ¡°Men¡± comes frustrated from my sister and for once I have to agree with her. I smile back and shake my head at her before mouthing ¡°boys¡±.


    The first day of our travel with the young master passes fast. A boat takes us to a small village on the other side of the lake, and even though more than half the day has passed, the young master pushes on. When we finally make camp for the night few look like they are up for anything but eating. Cold rations are passed around and eaten. It seems the young master wishes to get far away fast from his grandfather.


    The next two days pass in the same fashion, but on the third, there seems to be a rest day. The press to move has passed from the young master. It could also be that we have found a place especially nice for cultivation. I tell my companions to cultivate while I take a nap in my hammock. I love napping in hammocks, it is the best. The gentle sway from a breeze rocking me to sleep. I am started when someone violently rocks the hammock to wake me.


    ¡°What, what,¡± I say after landing, the rocking has caused me to spring from my hammock like a lowly fly. Harsh and violent movements with little coordination. I see it is one of the young master''s guards who wakes me. It seems he has no regard for the joy of lazy work. I was in the middle of exploring napping and cultivation in a beautiful efficiency build. I can only imagine the possibilities. ¡°The master wishes your presence,¡± the man tells me in a gruff voice in many ways similar to that of Xi. An older more world-weary voice than him, but still brooding. ¡°I am coming,¡± I tell him while I dust off and smooth out my clothes. ¡°What does the master wishes to see me about?¡± I ask, but I get no answer to my question from him. ¡°Show the way,¡± I say and fume while walking behind him. After only a few steps I have counted to ten and smothered all the irritation I am feeling, maybe not all.Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    After a short walk, we arrive at a small glen where most of the party has gathered. It is a beautiful place with a smattering of sun-filled spots and comfortable shadows. Guards and my party sits around and chat, but they clam up when we arrive in the glen. I have no idea what they wish to talk about, but it seems that they expect something. But my party does not look very nervous, either because of their trust in me or the situation is not very dangerous.


    ¡°Ah, you have finally joined us.¡± The young master says with a tone far more familiar than any I have heard before. ¡°Your companions have told me about your achievements in healing.¡± The man says and I bow in appreciation of his words. ¡°I am sure they told you everything there is,¡± I tell him and try to smile as innocent as I can. I am wary of hidden dangers, I have no idea what they might be. ¡°Yes, they did tell a tall tale.¡± He said, not calling them liars I hear, but certainly implying it. ¡°All true I am certain,¡± I tell him and try to walk a thin line where I have no idea what is on the other side. ¡°Okay, I wish to see these healing arts in action then.¡± The man says and I kind of grow angry at his words, no respect from him it seems and none forthcoming either.


    ¡°Very well, but there is not much to see,¡± I tell him and smile. ¡°So whom of your retainers would like a free treatment?¡± I ask and look around, none seem forthcoming. ¡°Ta has been muttering about sore knees for some time.¡± The young master says and points out one of his older guards. I smile to the man ¡°So you are the lucky one then, well it is my pleasure.¡± I tell him and smile with a bow of my head. The man sighs when he stands and I cannot refuse to see the hurt in his eyes. There are more in the present company not happy with the young master. He is a right bastard.


    ¡°Well, let us find a good place,¡± I say and Ha comes to my rescue. She gave thought ahead and point out a good looking stone with a thick carpet of moss on top. To be sure of my patient''s comfort I roll around on it looking for twigs and small stones and find none. A bit suspicious, but good fortune for me. I have the man lay on his back since it was the knees that seemed to be the problem and begin the usual procedure to fix it.


    After about an hour of kind of hard work, I am done with the man. The work is not as hard as it was when I started working with massages. I don¡¯t have to spend an hour in meditation and half that taking a nap. Practise makes perfect and I have over time amassed a lot of practice. Lordly etiquette and flowery speech are too hard to go right at so I sit down and meditate instead. I am left alone until I am ready this time and it does not seem like even the young master or lordling like I have decided to call him in my head have greatly improved his regard for me. But his men certainly have.


    ¡°That was certainly impressive.¡± The young master tells me when I rise again. I did take some extra time regaining my wits. ¡°Thank you,¡± I say and give him a small bow. He smiles ¡°Come let us have a meal and some drink.¡± He says and orders his servants to act.


    ¡°Who thought you these arts of healing?¡± The young master asks after having had his servants prepare and serve the meal. I smile and look the man in the eye. ¡°I am my own teacher,¡± I tell him with confidence and dare him to disagree with me. ¡°That is a large claim.¡± He says, continuing prodding me about all I have shown today. ¡°Not very, so far I have met no one else healing like I do.¡± I say with confidence and then humble the statement ¡°But then again I have not been out much and come from a small village.¡± I tell him and shrug. ¡°There probably is someone healing like me, I just have not been thought by them.¡± He looks me in the eye like I do him, probably searching for a lie or falsehood in my speech. ¡°Truly a remarkable feat.¡± He says after some time and goes back to drinking his strong liquor. ¡°Might I ask you to treat me as well?¡± He asks finally, probably embarrassed to ask. ¡°Of course, we can do a preliminary this evening and look at what is needed after,¡± I tell him and smile, it is hard to hate your healer.

 Chapter 18

    Our tempo on this trip has been changing dramatically. From the great speed in the start to the almost glacial speed we experience now. A weeks trip have already taken two and will probably take another week. Even if the young master Tiong would like to reach Nassan the region capital faster, I don¡¯t think his servants would agree. For me, it makes little difference and I am learning so much. After the first day''s hostilities between us, the young lord has melted and shown his agreeable side to us. He is even showering us with small comforts at every opportunity and serves a fine table every evening. The reason is my work with him, his retainers and servants.


    ¡°Ah, Ah, Ahhhhh¡± my current patient shudders under my fingers and my kind of have to agree with him. This is the first time I have tried combining my massages with their active cultivation. Effects from this combination are even greater than I could have foreseen. Both in that, it brings pleasure to the client on both a physical and metaphysical level I have yet to experience. It is to such a degree sexual that doing it on my sister is out of the question. ¡°Thank you, Ah heaven thank you.¡± my current vic¡­. client says when is have finished with him. It is the old man, Tuan, and there is no more of his condescending attitude anymore. ¡°Your welcome, and thank you for the good food this morning,¡± I say to him and give his ass a slap. As I said, sexual. ¡°I don¡¯t swing that way.¡± The old man jibes me and I deploy my new secret weapon. I find that everyone has some nerve cluster where a poke or touch will make them orgasm. He shudders again and look at me ¡°but for you of course.¡± This attitude is shared by most of the men in our company and is a grave departure from how I would like it to be. On the other hand, it is just too much fun playing with them and teasing.


    I take an offered cloth from my sister who is studying my every session. She has far more power than me, but not the same control and purity, it hampers her ability with what the young master terms my Dao.


    ¡°So, what is cultivation?¡± I ask the young master one evening after he has had his turn for a treatment. ¡°I do not think I understand your question.¡± He tells me while I clean off and he turns over to bask in the aftershocks of my treatment. ¡°Huh, might be why I missed information then,¡± I say and think on how to ask. ¡°The arts that you thought I learned from a master or sect, what do you call them.¡± He looks at me a bit like I am stupid. ¡°Ah, training the Dao.¡± He says and I kind of understand something now. When stories tell of how the hero train, they mean training their Dao, not just training. ¡°Well, that makes some things clear,¡± I tell him and laugh at myself for such a stupidity. ¡°Well, what is a Dao then?¡± I ask him and he explains how a Dao is a way the world looks and how energy is moved through the body while training to achieve that specific Dao. A Dao is both a manual for how heavenly energy work and how the world needs to be seen both in life and while working to train the body in the Dao. In my mind, it is all one big convoluted mess that pays little regard to any form of scientific understanding.


    ¡°So what is your Dao?¡± The young lord asks me after explaining all of this to me. I am certain I did not catch all the different words and meanings in his explanation, but more than enough to confuse me. ¡°Have yet to verbalize it, it¡¯s there, but I lack the words to explain it,¡± I tell him and his nod. ¡°I would tell you to try and put it in words, but then you clearly are a prodigy in the art and have your own ways.¡± He tells me and smile. ¡°Which Dao do you follow?¡± I ask him since I have become curious. ¡°My sects and families Dao is named ¡°Temperance through fire and poison.¡±¡± He tells me and then explains some very basic parts of it. I get the feeling there is a lot of the art I have missed in my own search for understanding of the heavenly energy. ¡°Good name, strong.¡± I tell him and he laughs ¡°Yes it is a good name, have to have a good name to look splendid.¡± Tiong tells me and sits up. ¡°But enough heavy talk, time for dinner.¡± I agree since the smells from the grill are scrumptious.


    ¡°Having a good time?¡± The old priest asks me while borrowing my hammock. ¡°Yes, but I kind of wish we could get a move on. Am not looking forward to being married and spending the winter together with my wife and my family.¡± I tell him and he laughs at my predicament. ¡°Don¡¯t worry at that count, but I agree we need to get to the capitol since it will take time for your petition.¡± I can do nothing other than agree again and do so with a grunt. ¡°Brother get a move on.¡± My sister tells me from her own hammock. At least Xi does not pressure me to get the young lord to move faster. ¡°Yeah, yeah I will tell him our need for speed,¡± I tell them. ¡°Your need, I am loving this holiday.¡± The priest says and sinks back down in my hammock.Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.


    The next morning I decide to talk with the young master about our need in the capitol. ¡°Good morning Tiong.¡± I begin when I sit down among his men at the breakfast table. This night we have spent at an inn closer to the capitol. ¡°Travelling with you have been an eye-opening delight and I would love to have it take forever, but due to personal need I hope we could move somewhat speedier,¡± I tell it all to him in one part because I just don¡¯t know of a good way to say it. ¡°Yes, I can see that we have used some more time than usual getting to the capitol.¡± He says, which I find to be a huge understatement since we spent three days at the same taverna one village back. ¡°I will instruct Huan of your need and have him plan accordingly.¡± The young master says and that seems to be that.


    The plan was before to move only one village closer that day, but after my request, there was a change of plans. We arrived in the town of Flat that afternoon. I helped those in need with any blisters and calluses from the march. Most were among my own companions, but also some TLC among Tiong servants. The young master got a full round of treatment. In which I decided to pump him for information on sects and schools.


    ¡°Sects and schools exist officially to spread information and teaching of different masters to the masses. These claims are just the skin of the matter and are no truer than tales of water running uphill.¡± He begins while I am warming up. ¡°The truth of the matter is that masters of a Dao are fearful champions on the battlefield and lords bind them with oaths and rights in their schools and temples.¡± He pauses while I stretch his arms and move on too his legs after. ¡°There is also the fact that all lordly families have some secret techniques that make them more secure than others.¡± Again he stops while moving over and spreading his legs so I can get to the inner thigh. ¡°It is a game of cat and mouse between lords and masters of whom is dominant. Sects and schools are just the recruiting ground and public face of these powers.¡± He explains all of this because I asked him to, I like such favours since he has also explained how I should act to achieve my goal of land. Much of it is to just pay the sum asked. The sum will not be more than twenty years of taxes on the land.


    I think I also begin to understand the exorbitant prices I am able to earn through my work. In the countryside it is lacking in people, wood is scarce and the food is plentiful. It is the basic function of supply and demand, food is just not worth all that much so the land is not worth all that much same with the work.


    I still want more information and asks why all the sects and schools seem to be spread all over the country. After a long-winded explanation with back and forth over the properties of heavenly energy I find to be ludicrous some nugget of wisdom is delivered. ¡°There seems to be a positive relationship between wild areas and heavenly energy, wherever man is not there is a lot of energy and so schools and sects monopolize such areas. They and the monsters also living there tries to push everyone else out.¡±


    As part of young master Tiongs entourage, there is no problem passing through the gates of Nassan. The city is far larger than little Mao and I could probably have earned more here, but I would not have had an as easy time of it. Several places along the road I can see healers plying their trade. ¡°Why are there so many healers here and not in Mao?¡± I ask the old man Huang. The answer is depressing for me. ¡°There is few here, like all cities except the capital where the emperor resides. Little honour in these places.¡± He tells me, back to the formal tongue we started with. All members of their party seemed to have raised walls when we entered the vicinity of Nassan. Probably with good reason so I warned my companions as well, causing me to be told off.


    ¡°I hope to see you again,¡± Tiong tells us when we split from their party. Old priest Tun has an acquaintance that he stays at. We will join him there and informs Tiong of where we are staying. Tun''s friend turns out to be another priest and his family. His house is full with us all, but he is a gracious host and good company. Turns out we only spend one night there before a haggard-looking Tiong turns up at our host''s door again, scaring the daylight out of his wife. Tiong is of course invited inside and offered tea.


    ¡°You look run down Tiong, what happened?¡± I ask him when the tea is served and everyone has been introduced. ¡°My grandfather had sent off a message and told my aunt of our arrival. She grew anxious when we took more than a month to arrive. So I told off you and now she wishes to see you.¡± He told me going on about how he did not wish to disturb us, but could we please come. To my surprise, only Xi and Ha wished to follow and we left Tun¡¯s friends house on amicable turns.

 Chapter 19

    Like Mao, Nassan the capital is divided into districts. Unlike Mao where the districts are ill-defined and nebulous in Nassan, they are clearly marked by low walls and broad boulevards. There is even a wall between the Outer common district and the inner nobles district. In the rest of the city, broad streets define the borders between areas.


    In the company of Tiong and his majordomo, we have little problem traversing the different districts, but even he uses a token to pass through. I see what must be servants and retainers that don¡¯t bear a house or sect mark on their robes have a far harder time of it. Even when they have tokens to pass.


    ¡°Would you mind not staring so much?¡± Tiong asks me and I can hear my sister snicker at it behind my back. ¡°Sorry, I just really find everything here so fascinating. I wonder where that cock is pointing and why are there signs in the stone we tread upon?¡± I ask him and Tiong almost turns red when I mention the cock. ¡°The phallic points to the red light district in the noble district and the signs denote different borders between houses,¡± Huan says to rescue his master from having to speak of such in the open. ¡°Interesting, might we visit at some point?¡± I ask and look with the most innocent eyes I can muster at them. It looks like Tiong will explode with the inner pressure in him to both laugh and stay formal, he looks ready to explode because of the inner pressure. ¡°We are here.¡± He states instead and lead us to a magnificent entrance in one of the side streets to the boulevard. I do a little mental shake to get out of tourist mode and into serious mode. ¡°I warned you, but I will tell you again. My aunt can be a bit much to handle.¡± Tiong says and I together with Xi and Ha nod respectfully at this. ¡°And remember my aunt is the head of her household and beholden to no one else there, whatever some of my cousins might think.¡±


    ¡°Greetings dear guests of my nephew.¡± An older matron greets us when we are shown to a beautiful pagoda in the centre of a garden. The manor has a strange layout, like a capital H where one has to pass through the main hall to get into the garden in the back. The garden has an unfamiliar design dominated by hedges and large bushes instead of the subdued gardens I am used to. The pagoda is painted clear white and with raised benches and tables. It feels strange to walk into such a familiar setting. ¡°Greetings honourable matron of the Niun Family,¡± I say as I have been instructed by Tiong. The lady is named Nuna Nima Niun, but she like all the nobles I have met will of course not tell me her name herself. She has people such tasks.


    There is some talk for a while about the weather, how this season has been especially warm and such. We are even asked a couple of questions about our village. Innocent stuff like how the weather is or when we last were there. ¡°My nephew tells me you have healing hands, Ming.¡± The conversation turns a bit more serious when the matron states this. ¡°My hands are certainly part of my technique for healing,¡± I tell her with a smile. She is not amused ¡°As I said, healing hands.¡± I bow a bit deeper but decides to challenge her a bit. ¡°I will have to respectfully disagree, my hands cannot themselves heal, only as a tool for my Dao do my hands have healing qualities.¡± After my statement, there is silence for some time in the pagoda while it seems they all wait for the fury to descend upon me. It does not however arrive. ¡°Good, at least you understand the basics of life. Not an intolerable airhead like was reported to me.¡± She says and right there, a chill goes up my spine, being a tourist is fine so long as no one is judging. It seems I have made a grave misstep acting like I have. ¡°I wish to judge your technique.¡± She says and even though it is presented as a wish, I have no other option than to comply, I kind of want to as well, she is a fine woman.


    On my instruction, we draw back from the large garden and into a corner where tall hedges provide some privacy and were convenient enough, someone has prepared a table. Ha preps it all while I get into the right headspace waiting for Nuna. Ha has become proficient with massages herself over the last six months and I foresee that when we come back she will branch out on her own among the villages. If she dares, she might even practise in Mao from time to time. Ha leaves when Nuna arrives and I think of as a dare, she walks naked into the little space.


    I do not have very much experience with naked women in this world, maybe more than many. Most of the girls do not let me massage them totally nude, more men are willing than women. Nuan is not the prettiest of all the women I have seen naked, but her form exudes a sense of sexual and formal control that none other have. She smiles when I bow in respect and look at me. I have dressed down since I prefer to work in light clothes, but even so, I have thin covering top to bottom. ¡°please, lie down and relax¡± I tell her and she complies, but not without showing off all her assets. She even spreads her legs so I cannot fail to see all of her sex.Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    ¡°You have a fine body Matron Niun,¡± I tell her when I begin running my hands over said body. It is clear that she works hard at it with training and care. ¡°Is that not a bit forward of you?¡± She asks, but not in a hostile manner. ¡°Not when you show up like that, I would be an asshat not to compliment you for that,¡± I say and begin warming up her skin so that it is ready for the more labour intensive work and I can find any flaws. Proper preparation is half the work. ¡°Would you be as kind to explain this term ¡°asshat¡± for me?¡± She says and squirms when I touch upon an old scar on her leg. ¡°Of course, it is the term for a person so blind to his surroundings and insensitive that he could just as easily wear his ass as a hat than anything else. Also, it denotes the unpleasantness of such a position for once head.¡± I say this with all the formality and seriousness I can manage, and to my delight, she giggles in response. ¡°Well, then thank you.¡± From there conversation becomes difficult for us both. My work necessitates my full concentration and nothing less, especially when I give it all I can like now. Using my new learnings I also immobilize Nuna beneath me.


    ¡°Fuck, Fuck Fuuuuuck¡± She screams when what I estimate is the seventh orgasm hits her. She lays on her back and since I am in front of her it seems like she wants something. With no warning, she throws me off of her and down on the ground following straight after. Straddling me she smiles down on me ¡°Don¡¯t think you can work a girl like that and not expect something.¡± My look must be of pure surprise, the first time this happens to me. With greedy hands, she gets hold of little Ming and with the other hand rips my pants off. Before she straddles me and takes control I find one of her weak spots and immobilises her with yet another orgasm. Using the moment and a shift I leverage myself back on top and continue my work where I left off, now with her on her stomach and my cock in her asscrack. She retaliates by rising on all four and throwing herself back on top of me. We continue battling for the top dog the rest of the session and it is first when she lays panting and exhausted beneath me it stops.


    Full of dirt, leaves and small stones we lay panting looking at each other. She did manage to remove most of my clothes and jack me off, but I consider myself the winner since she ended on the bottom and with far more orgasms. ¡°Well, that was good fun.¡± She says while both trying to sound casual about it and fighting to breathe normally. ¡°Don¡¯t play coy, you loved it,¡± I tell her and get off of her. Dusting myself off I even find a couple of cuts I did not feel before. ¡°same back at¡¯cha.¡± she says and rises herself to dust off and. ¡°Might even have bruised a little.¡±


    She invites me to clean up in the bathhouse, or rather a bathroom. It seems one part of the H is where there is a bath for her and her close family. The room is in another small enclosed area, but with a wall rather than a hedge. Cleaning the body consists of pouring water over us and using towels and soap to wash up. Freshwater is pumped in from below and servants bring warm water. I like it, but that might have something to do with the company. ¡°Little Tiong tells me that you yourself have invented the Dao you are using,¡± Nuan says to me after we have cleaned ourselves and now sit and dry in the midday sun. ¡°Yes, and from your tone this is unusual,¡± I say and look at her while shielding my eyes from the sun. Sunglasses or a sun hat should be my next invention or acquisition. ¡°As in never happens among the common people, yes it is unusual.¡± She says and scoops even closer to me, I lay an arm around her shoulder and poke her in a sweet spot. She shudders and tries to scoop back again, but I don¡¯t let her and instead grab her boob. ¡°Don¡¯t play games with me?¡± I tell her and smile ¡°I am a straightforward guy in this regard.¡± She sighs, with content I think, and lean into me instead. ¡°Then don¡¯t do that every time I come too close.¡± She says and gives my ear a little nibble.


    ¡°You are going to cause such a ruckus when others hear of your discovery,¡± Nuan tells me after she has cleaned herself and me again. I let her do all the work this time since I could. ¡°Why tell them then?¡± I ask her ¡°I have no need for the recognition.¡± My statement makes her laugh and shake her head. ¡°I don¡¯t think this is up to you, sure you can try to hide. It will not matter, powers greater than you are always hunting for the new thing.¡± She drags me up and gives my tush a real clap. ¡°No, you need a better plan than that, join a family or sect.¡± Is her conclusion for me. ¡°Would like to have you in mine, but I don¡¯t think we can poach and the rest of the family would not stand for it.¡± We dress and she gives me a kiss before leaving the room. ¡°And don¡¯t put a kid on any of my daughters when you fuck them.¡± Is her parting words, mine die in my throat and when she is gone I think to tell her off. The two of us never had vaginal intercourse even though we both had our fun. Should be something good material in there, but I am far too late for such one-liners. I see her walking away from me, once again the proud and in control lady.

 Chapter 20

    I find my companions together with Tiong in the opposite wing of the one where I entertained Nuan. A maid shows me the way and by the way, she looks at me, I kind of get the feeling that there is gossip floating around about what we did. When the door to the room where the others are open and I see their faces, it is certain they know, maybe even the neighbours.


    ¡°Seriously Su, Seriously,¡± Ha says and shows her sadness of what she must see as a grave moral failing on my part, somehow. ¡°What were you thinking, and so loud.¡± It seems my sister has no appreciation of her brothers conquest. Xi is the only one not staring daggers at me when I enter. ¡°She is a beautiful lady,¡± I say, which is wrong on so many levels since Tiong is in the room. ¡°I will leave if you talk like that of my aunt,¡± Tiong says and looks away from me. If I saw his face it is probably red from all blood rushing to his face, he is blushing hard. What kind of thoughts does the guy have for his aunt? ¡°Not my idea,¡± I say at last and shrug. ¡°Really?¡± Xi says this time, and I agree with him, it does not sound like me. ¡°No, really. Her all the way.¡±


    Silence dominates the room for a long time before anyone else talks. ¡°Well, my aunt did speak with me about your unusual discovery,¡± Tiong says trying to divert the theme up for discussion before. ¡°Yes, she called it unusual,¡± I tell them and recall her words. ¡°¡±As in never happens among the common people,¡± She said,¡± I tell them and think it over for myself. ¡°Is it really so unprecedented?¡± I wonder out loud. Tiong answers me ¡°You will need an explanation for where it came from. I like you and have no beef, but others might not be so forgiving. Especially if they find you a threat, and the locals might.¡±


    I sit and think of this for some time and cannot find some good way to shove it off. ¡°For heaven''s sake Su, just tell them the truth,¡± Xi says and Ha¡¯s eyes light up in mirth. ¡°Tell them that you found a similar method in the ancient scrolls the priest collects and that you are a major pervert.¡± Xi states and laugh, Ha and Tiong joins him after a bit. I kind of try to play angry with them, but can¡¯t. It is close enough to the truth and embarrassingly enough that it just might work. ¡°Aw my, the rest of the village will be happy for this, known for the village raising the pervert manchild.¡± My sister says and begins almost rolling around on the floor. I like the plan, but it needs a twist to work properly.


    Then looking at my sister rolling around on the floor I have a eureka moment. ¡°I know, I will tell them that it is a women''s art and really should not be taught to boys. I set it up so Ha is the functional leader of the sect with me as a figurehead for legal purposes.¡± Ha stops rolling around on the floor and look up at me. ¡°Really, for me?¡± She asks and looks at me with a sparkle in her eyes. Xi does not look as happy, but whatever, he ain¡¯t kin of mine, but maybe I will do him a good turn too. ¡°Could work, but it will need to be sold properly and the law will need to be followed. The pervert angle is not hard to sell. You are a pervert, Su.¡± He tells me to my face and his speech seems to pour cold water on Ha¡¯s excitement. ¡°Could you please take it to your aunt for advice, I don¡¯t think we can see each other again today,¡± I ask him and he agrees, especially when I tell him about seeing her myself might not be a good idea. I really should not tell him about the daughters Nuan warned me about. The puritan ways of the commons and noble are something I clearly do not understand. The red light districts seem trafficked and expensive enough. During my ¡°studies¡± every kind of perversion has cropped up. If there is money there is a way and few if none legal problems. On the other hand, are people scandalised at the sight of a bare ankle?


    ¡°Xi, let us have a look around the district, maybe pick up some gossip,¡± I say while changing clothes. ¡°Ok,¡± he says and Ha looks like she is fuming over my decision to do more sightseeing. ¡°Ha, could you maybe have a look around the house and maybe ferret out some gossip?¡± I ask her and after a moment she nods in agreement. I need to know the lay of the land for a new school or sect. Exiting the manor is easy after we tell the majordomo why he hands us seals like the one Tiong was walking around with. He also implores us to not cause any trouble.


    Walking around the district is kind of boring. The buildings are walled in and little can be seen from the streets. There are few people in the streets and those that are rush past us. We walk until we hear sound and music and in a little side street, we find a pub with lights and quiet song. ¡°Just sit down, drink?¡± A young man asks when we walk up and look around a moment. ¡°Thank you,¡± I say and give the man some coin. It must be enough since he does not scoff at us. We find a small table by a wall and soon we have our drinks. Two mugs with a brown frothy liquid like beer. When I taste it and it tastes of beer, I decide that it is beer. Whatever the locals might call it. Xi broods and listens while I talk with some of the neighbouring patrons while a nice lady strums on the guitar in the corner.


    ¡°Nice talking to you, but be quiet now.¡± The middle-aged man I was talking to says and turns to the old man who has stood up. The place falls quiet and the man grunts before beginning to recite poetry. Five lines and it is all jokes, he is reciting limericks and after the first one, we are in. After the first person, he is followed by the next and the energy in the room and street outside rises. One of them hit Xi like a punch so he ended up on the floor laughing. I get to talk with others and maybe even more importantly I get a feel for the inhabitants. The jokes they tell is telling of what is happening in the capital.


    I think Shakespeare said it best ¡°something is rotten in the state of Denmark.¡± These people give a sense of knowing something is wrong, but they don¡¯t seem to know what it is. Some say the lord can¡¯t get it up, others that he killed his brother. Their derision and contempt for the ruler of our region are not hidden. I with my quiet secure position of respect in the village would not jest with any of the elders in such a fashion. It makes it certain that I do not want to be involved in any politicking since whatever I do I will make enemies from it.Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.


    ¡°We need to do our thing and get out of here,¡± I say to my companions back in the room. Xi nod and adds his shekel to the mix. ¡°There is something brewing and I don¡¯t want to be here when it begins cooking.¡± He says and Ha nods. ¡°This is in line with what I managed to pick up from the maids in the manor. They did not know what it was, but the tension is there.¡± She says and we sit down. There is little we can do other than wait for Tiong to come back with either good or bad news.


    After we have settled down another person appears at the door, the maid who escorted me here earlier from Nuans rooms. ¡°My lady Tion asks me to make you aware that she welcomes your presence in the garden.¡± The young woman says and when the others also raise she clarifies by saying ¡°only the healer¡±. I try to apologize to them, but they will not have any of it. ¡°Try to befriend the servants, maybe offer to show them some stuff,¡± I tell them instead and get grunts back. Maybe Xi finally will talk with Ha about his feelings for her. This gives me another good idea for the burgeoning sect, I like travelling with Xi if he was my brother in law it would ease some worries back home. I change into something other than the flimsy robe I was offered in the bath.


    Following after the maid outside we again arrive back in the pagoda hidden in the garden, a garden made larger than it seems with a myriad of small hiding places. It intrigues me, but also disturbs me, I am not too good at directions and hope I will not have to find my way here alone. Or maybe even worse in the dark. The lady I am to meet is a trap. I can see so from the moment she greets me, the adam''s apple is on full display. If this is one of Nuans daughters her jape of getting them pregnant is in poor taste.


    ¡°Good afternoon¡± Tion greets me and I bow with respect. ¡°Good afternoon to you honourable lady of the Nuin family.¡± I greet her back with all the respect her position is due. ¡°I have been informed that my aunt did not introduce or explain to you the procedure for acquiring your money.¡± She says and presents me with some papers and numbers on them. ¡°Sorry, but could you call a servant to fetch my papers with my companions?¡± I ask her and she complies with a serene smile. ¡°Thank you, your aunt''s attention came rather sudden,¡± I tell her and get an enigmatic smile back. ¡°Yes, she was rather more abrupt than she is used to. Maybe she likes you.¡± She says after having sent off a servant that moments before was invisible to me. ¡°Well, she is something special,¡± I tell her and again there is the smile.


    Only moments of silence lasts between us before the maid arrives back with my papers. She walks when I see her, and I heard nothing, but she must have run the whole way. Her breath is heavy when she hands me the papers. I roll them out before me and line them up with the others. Tion studies them some moments and nod. ¡°Everything seems to be in order and you can withdraw the full amount at any time with me.¡± I bow slightly with my head and thank her for the services. ¡°Before you leave I was wondering if I might not make use of your services?¡± She asks me and I smile. ¡°Of course, no problem. I assume that the same spot that I served your mother is appropriate?¡± She nods and if it is not my imagination I see her blush.


    Unlike her mother who had servants leading us, Tion leads me herself. This time I have no fitting clothes on under, they have been rendered useless so I will have to do this nude. I even tell Tion this and am certain she blushes when she says it is no problem.


    I am a man of a particular taste so when I see Tion undress and stand there with his bare upper body and a tight wrap around the waist I have no reaction. ¡°Good, remove that wrap and get on the table,¡± I tell him in a voice which I hope is not brusque and unpleasant, I have no problem with gays it¡¯s just not my things, he only blushes and submits. Upon the table, I begin moving my hands over his skin before sitting down on him. I am larger and if I am not wrong, more powerful in heavenly energy. Not like his mother whom could overpower me in both had it not been for my knowledge. A conversation seems in order before we begin, however.


    ¡°So, you are a crossdresser,¡± I say while kneading his upper back. I think the nods, but can¡¯t see so I tell him to speak. ¡°Yes.¡± He tells me, kind of not telling me everything. Then I remember my stupid mistake of words from before. ¡°Are you a crossdresser because you enjoy dressing as a girl or are you a crossdresser because you want to be a girl?¡± I ask to clarify his position. The answer takes some time to arrive, but I like it when it does. ¡°I want to be a girl.¡± He says, or maybe she. I work on his back some more and move downwards, soon changing position and working on his legs. ¡°I can understand that,¡± I tell him and work his toes. ¡°So, do you like boys or girls?¡± I ask him people who think they are the wrong sex always makes me wonder. He takes his time to answer, but in the end, he says ¡°both¡±. ¡°So, you want the same treatment your mother got?¡± I ask him and he shudders a bit when I find one of his sweet spots on his foot. ¡°Tiong called you a pervert and I had to try.¡± He tells me and I nod. ¡°I have no problem with that, but I will not be joining,¡± I tell him and smile when he looks kind of disappointed at me. ¡°Sorry, I just don¡¯t swing that way.¡±


    I enjoy looking at him when I bring him to orgasm. He makes a cute face as he bites down on the piece of leather I stuck in his mouth. We agreed to some safe words and that he would have to stick something in his mouth to still the screaming. I really found my dominant side with him and enjoyed the session endlessly. Entirely different from the fight I had with his mother or the teasing before. I kind of wish I had some lube so I could fuck him, but I don¡¯t so I won¡¯t. He kind of looked sad when I told him this. ¡°Thank you,¡± he says when I tell him to get off the table and sit down on the bench myself. He blushes when he scoots closer and try to flirt with me. I don¡¯t know what to do, but lay down the law and tell him again I am not interested. When we went to clean off this was also how his mother found us, sitting beside each other and talking. I came to mention the possibility of a sex change and Tion jumped at it. The fact of me being a pervert is at least well established.

 Chapter 21

    ¡°Oh my,¡± His mother says and poor Tion look up. We have not seen her come up behind us. ¡°Look at you two lovebirds.¡± She says and smiles at us, it is not that nice a smile. One thing is not liking guys myself. But he should at least not feel ashamed of who he is. Maybe I am hamfisted and stupid, but I do it with the best intention. ¡°Really?¡± His mother says and I shrug. ¡°I have no problem treating a guy like a girl,¡± I tell her and smile. She stays there for a moment and then nods. ¡°Would you be so kind as to come and see me in my chambers when you are done.¡± She says and I answer before Tion ¡°Certainly, it would be an honour to be allowed in your chambers.¡± I say and bow my head with a show of respect. Real respect is hard when her ¡°daughter¡± is sitting beside me.


    Poor Tion is red with shame when his mother leaves. ¡°Are you for real?¡± He asks me and I shrug. ¡°Don¡¯t know probably did something stupid, but on the other hand I have no problem with you dressing like a girl and hitting on guys,¡± I say to him and smirk when this really dawns on him. We clean ourselves up, before dressing. ¡°Yeah, that certainly could have gone better,¡± Tion says and look at me. ¡°Damned good time though.¡± He smirks and shows off a more confident side to him. ¡°Yeah, but like all good times, there is nothing but trouble when they end,¡± I say and we leave the bathing chambers.


    ¡°I wish to follow you to your school.¡± Tion tells me as we walk through the mansion. ¡°I wish to learn your technique and hope you can keep your promise.¡± I nod to her in agreement, having her with me would be a boon. The body is malleable so changing the characteristics of the body should be possible without surgery, but even if I resort to surgery I am certain I can do it fine.


    We go straight for Nuans chambers with Tion showing the way. On the way, I try to actually think through what I feel for Tion. At the moment though he/she is nothing more than just this scene. I kind of feel his mother will not feel the same way however Tion might feel about it. I don¡¯t even know what the etiquette is in this situation, no more the law. Because as Tiong said, Nuan is the head of the household after her husband died. That would mean that there are no sons, even though Tion is one. I kind of get a headache when I think of all this.


    Tion opens the door and steps back letting me enter first. The room is larger than the guest room me and my companions share in the other wing. Nicely decorated with a black and white base in the beams and thin paper walls adorned with statues, paintings and pottery. Where we entered the floor is level with the hall, but just a bit further in the floor is raised. Nuan sits on this raised part of the room and beside her sits another spitting image of her, but younger. This must be Nuans actual daughter.


    ¡°Greetings honourable matron of the Nuin family,¡± I say when I enter and bow in the proper fashion after my villages teaching. I can feel Tion being behind me and don¡¯t know why he does not precedes me in here. ¡°Greetings Su Ming,¡± Nuan says with a voice full of strain for some reason. I cannot fathom why there is the strain between us other than her jus catching me getting a BJ from her son, presumed daughter.


    ¡°Why Tion.¡± The other daughter breaks in and I look behind me to see Tion sitting there. He sits a respectable distance behind me as if he is part of my retinue. He even looks to me for permission before he speaks. Of course, I give it. ¡°Sorry dearest sister, I lapsed.¡± The girl, maybe woman huffs and look at Tion with sorry in her eyes. ¡°He is sent from grandfather.¡± She says this with a straight face as if this should tell me everything. ¡°Tiong came to take you to him and then you just throw it away?¡± Her anger is palpable, there is some big scandal unravelling with me in the middle and I have no idea what it is. Had this been in the village and two guys had been caught going at it there would be shame on their families, but really no consequences all that big. Sex is sex after all and there is the threat of pregnancy that causes the real problems. And we did not even have sex? That is if sex means penetration of some kind.


    I take a deep breath and exhales to centre myself before I butt in. ¡°Okay, I have no idea what is going on here and I see no reason for there to really be a problem,¡± I say to the two ladies and get angry stares back from them. ¡°No problem, really?¡± Nuan says before her daughter can speak. I go on before I lose my nerve ¡°Yes, no problem. So Tion is your son, I presume that if it was publicly known you would have to let him run the family. That would cause all sorts of problem, especially now when he has been known as your ¡°daughter¡± for so long.¡± I say and get nods from the two ladies. ¡°Well, I see no great problem then, I have no reason to tell. Either we don¡¯t speak of it again or Tion comes with me. And we sort it out later, I what is really the problem if I don¡¯t tell anyone. A small scandal that one of the households daughters had sex with a guest?¡± After my rant, if delivered smoothly, is done I shut up and so does the others in the room.Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    ¡°Fuck control yourself Tion.¡± His sister says at last and I turn to see Tion look at me with begging eyes. ¡°Su seems to bring out the worst in your sister,¡± Nuan says and I disregard telling of how she played with me. ¡°Okay, I can see why you might want to keep this secret. No gain now in saying anything.¡± Nuan says and I smile ¡°Yes, and it has been pointed out to me by several people that I should pass as silently by as possible here.¡± I say and they nod. ¡°So we both have something on the other?¡± Nuans daughter asks and Nuan nods. ¡°Then this might be sorted more easily. I still think Tion needs to leave.¡± The unnamed daughter says and looks between us. I feel a tug at my arm and when I turn I see Tion receding and again asking for permission to speak. ¡°Go ahead, don¡¯t mind me,¡± I say to let know he can speak freely. For some reason, it seems he really need my permission. I wonder why I have not stopped him.


    ¡°I wish to stay with Ming,¡± Tion says in a very quiet voice. So quiet that I for some time miss what he actually says. The two women at the podium also stay silent for a moment. Then his sister draws out a long ¡°fuuuck¡± and turns to their mother. ¡°We really should never have raised him like we did.¡± She says and even rises and begin looking for something. ¡°You are right dear, but done is done.¡± Again I am out of the loop, but for some reason this time I know it really is not my fault. ¡°But why, Tion why?¡± His mother says in a dejected tone. ¡°Ming has some very interesting ideas about how to turn me into a real woman, the body I was born to have,¡± Tion says.


    Nuans sister has found what she was looking for in a cupboard on the side and now brings over three glasses and a bottle. She sits down on the edge and pours a drink for all of us. ¡°So, little Tion has found her master.¡± She says sitting there like a guy drinking. She hands a glass to me and another to her mother. ¡°Well one had to be raised a guy and another a girl.¡± Her mother says and then begin explaining the real trouble for them. Nin, Tion¡¯s sister, and Tion are twins. Their father knew one was a girl and the other a boy, but not which was which. So in a bid to take more power, their mother switched them. Having the girl dressed as a boy and the boy as a girl the first years. Happy with this state of affairs their father wrote his will all around this division, leaving almost nothing for the girl. The state of laws being what they are, fragmented and overlapping, their mother moved to where if raised as a boy a girl would have legal power. This legal fiction would create a matriarchy in their part of the clan and be a real change. Poor Tion, on the other hand, would have to be raised as a girl regardless of where they lived because of the will. The convoluted shenanigans the family went through for this legal fiction is strange for me to hear and I am not able to understand them. In the end, the whole tale boiled down to ¡°Stupid shit people do for power¡± in my mind.


    ¡°Okay, I kind of understand what happened.¡± I say, lying my ass off, ¡°But what has this to do with Tion wishing to be a girl?¡± I ask and look up at the two ladies sitting on the edge drinking. ¡°Well, the female Dao in my father''s clan is such that it moulds the practitioner to wish to be feminine as to look better for the men. ¡± Nin says and take another swig of the drink. I think it is whisky of some sort, brown and tastes foul.


    ¡°Okay, and why is this a problem?¡± I ask further, so big deal if he is a girl even to the law why can¡¯t he come with me for some time and be turned into a girl. ¡°Tion is in charge of our branch of the banking system,¡± Nuan tells men and sigh. ¡°That really is a weak excuse to throw at your son,¡± Tion says and I have to agree. They look at the two of us and kind of do a mental shrug. ¡°Well good luck and I hope you two have a happy life,¡± Nuan says and rises, she is a fine looking lady and nice, but so cold. ¡°We will respect your decision and find a way to make it work,¡± Nin tells me and then look over at Tion, maybe for the first time seeing him, or maybe just dismissing him, I don¡¯t know. ¡°Good luck sister, hope you are happy with your choice.¡± She says and begins to leave. I sigh and empty my glass. ¡°Mind if we stay here and talk it over?¡± I ask Nin and she shakes her head. I look at that fine ass as she walks out. ¡°Assholes,¡± I say when they have left, low though since the walls might listen.


    ¡°This is a right mess,¡± I say and look over at Tion, he only nods. I rise and find another glass to drink from. ¡°Know if they have any more palatable stuff here?¡± I ask Tion before I pour drinks for us. It burns and tastes rotten the drink the ladies served. We sit in silence for some time drinking together and looking at each other. ¡°Think you really can turn me into a girl?¡± Tion says with a worried voice. I laugh since if that is what he worries about we will have no problems. ¡°Oh yeah,¡± I say ¡°That is easy. Not like you will be able to bear children or anything without us doing some major work. But the looks, no problem.¡± I say and smile. ¡°Lot of work, but not an actual problem.¡± He looks forlorn for a moment ¡°Then what are you worried about?¡± And I tell him of the trouble with the sect, worries for my soon to be wife, the farm and all the other stuff weighing in my shoulders. We shoot the shit for some time and he helps me not to worry about all the things he calls ¡°little things.¡±


    I also get answers to some questions I have been asking off of him. ¡°What is the deal with red light districts?¡± I ask him and he laughs at my innocence. ¡°Men are hypocrites.¡± He tells me and we laugh, it is certainly true.

 Chapter 22

    Having gotten Tion on the team and with my and Xi information on a storm brewing, we together put a picture of the situation that is not pretty. ¡°So we know the men in the taverns are making fun of the lord,¡± Xi says and holds up one finger on his hand. ¡°Ha tells us that the servants know something is brewing in the city.¡± He says and holds up another. ¡°So what does this mean and what do we do?¡± I say when he stops and does not go on. I look to Tion who joined us early in the morning. ¡°There are rumours going around that the lord is impotent and his son is not his,¡± Tion says and I nod. ¡°Why does he not just squash such rumours?¡± Is my next question. ¡°I do not think he feels like he has the support to do so,¡± Tion says it is obvious and true. Another reason might be that serves a purpose, but there is no reason to speculate. ¡°How do we get what we want from him and not be too noticed while doing so?¡± Is my next question.


    We ponder this a while and decide to wait for Tiong to come back with news instead of rushing off and doing something stupid. While we wait I give Tion a massage, it starts on her reward for all the help. Ha meditates and from time to time ask me questions about what I am doing. Xi tries to read a cheap manual on the path of the sword. He picked that manual since the one on archery was too expensive. Even with as much money, we have earned we are not exactly rich by city standards.


    Tiong comes back closer to lunch and launches into a tirade about the foolishness of bureaucrats. It seems he has spent the whole morning working the mysteries of rank and privilege in the hallowed halls of the learned. I have no idea why he did not send his butler Tuan instead. ¡°Tuan did the same song and dance yesterday and got even shorter than I did.¡± answers the question and finishes Tiong¡¯s tirade. ¡°What it means is that while the Lord''s servants are more than happy to let a school be started they do not want it restricted to women with a male head. And even so, large bribes are required.¡± He tells us.


    ¡°What do we get for such a large bribe?¡± I ask Tion when Tiong is off getting his shoulders rubbed by Ha while Xi ostensibly intrigues him about the manual on the sword. ¡°Well, some land, rights and of course most of all a veneer of respectability in the region.¡± She answers me and I have to nod. It is all I am looking for and no need to dawdle or trick entities higher up than I. ¡°Anything we need to do before we pay the bribe?¡± I ask and Tion smiles at me like I am a fool, which I probably am. ¡°Of course. First, you need to see if you can join any of the other schools as a master and then you need to haggle with the bureaucrats till they squeal.¡± I feel my hopes of an easy victory get squashed. ¡°Well, needs must,¡± I say and look at her. ¡°want to make a list and work on my pitch before going further?¡± Again she smiles at me, and this time I lift the corner on my mouth back. Why could she not have been real women, we could really have gotten along. Not like Xia whom I barely know, even as we have had sex.


    A week, a whole fucking week just to get an appointment at this crummy little no one knows the school. I fume in my mind as I think of the inefficiency and face giving rituals needed. Tion has worked miracles if I listen to others talk. Even Xi and Ha are impressed, but they are more of this world than I am. After all, I have a distance and perspective that show me how idiotic this all is. First was the dancing around for a couple of days and then the blatant lies. Face, they talk of the face, but what about my honour. I am bored out of my mind and angry about it since it is someone''s fault.Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.


    ¡°Calm, count to ten,¡± I tell myself while walking into the grounds of the first school I am to visit. ¡°Open fury closed palm¡± is the school''s name, the most prestigious and learned school in the region. Focusing on the art of combat. I have to visit here before anywhere else, out of respect. The worst part is that we are all waiting to be laughed out of here, and planning on it.


    ¡°It has been a pleasure to meet you and I look forward to meeting you again.¡± The master says and I can see he is as bored with this as I am. I hope I can hide it better, but the whole meeting has been a dance around the subject without saying anything really. The real negotiations have been through mail and servants. This meeting is for keeping face. ¡°That went well,¡± Xi says and I can see the hurt in his eyes over our treatment. ¡°Yes, it did. Do not, at all, like it, however.¡± I tell him and see the infuriating look on my sisters face beside me. ¡°It was not so bad, a woman would have done much more to your pride than that.¡± Are her remark and I believe her, living in the Nuin household for the past week has shown me how heartless and ambitious women can be.


    ¡°Hate it,¡± I tell Xi while we walk to what has become our favourite hangout. The bar I have begun calling the comedy club. ¡°I know, the first was the worst, after that the bite was taken a bit out of it.¡± He tells me and I nod back. I can feel the rejection grounding on my poor nerves, however. The first I hear from in the club does not help, however. ¡°A man walks into a school, he is a man with a woman''s job¡­¡± It is a bad rhyme and coined on me ¡°On second thoughts I am not thirsty tonight.¡± I tell Xi who has also become red in the face and turned. ¡°I will show them, someday¡± I can hear him mutter under his breath. ¡°They are fools and like all fools, they will never see, but their descendants will laugh,¡± I say in a weak attempt to cheer us both up. It is not as successful as I hoped.


    ¡°Thank you for this honourable,¡± I say and clutch the document tight to my chest while bowing to the man. He bows back and smiles. Probably because of the hefty sum of money I left in his office. ¡°It is I who should thank you for being willing to share your wisdom in our humble region.¡± He says back and we both bow again before I exit the room. I want to skip on my way home, but hold it in. Trying instead to look like the perfect gentle gentleman I supposedly am. On this whole trip no one has asked for my age, just treated me like a young master. Even Tuan and Tiong never questioned my age, just looked down on me.


    ¡°We are done,¡± I say and hold the document up in the air like a trophy taken in battle. ¡°Finally,¡± My sister says and take the document from me. ¡°Is it all here?¡± She asks and begins reading. ¡°Yes, all, even the small provisions of being able to run our own industry on the compound,¡± I say and smirk. That one is the real biggie, even as it was the easiest provision to get. Rights to license or hold festivities were way harder to come to an agreement over. I teach a Dao, it is not just for healing. Getting a right to teach both, however, was a right pain. Tradition working against me. Nothing compared however to naming Ha my vice-master of the school, however. There only the fact of the method was in the end enough to overpower the tradition of women not being able to do basically anything.

 Chapter 23

    Leaving Nassan turned out to be harder than I thought. First off was all the ceremonies between Tion and his family, more talking, eating and drinking than I did at my engagement ceremony. Tiong was coming back with us, his mission here sorted with Tion coming with me. After having squared up with the Nuin family I had to do all the ceremonies with the lord. Saying goodbye is not an easy thing when it took me a whole week and was more exhausting than bribing my way into the position. Tion for all her faults and flirting was invaluable on my side. Tiong tried to help, but being a bit thick he did not tell anyone what to do. Charging ahead thinking that everyone else knew their place is his style. Good when your team is on the same page, otherwise a disaster.


    While saying goodbye to the Nuin family and the lord¡¯s bureaucracy I had to pay my respects to all the sects and schools represented in the capital. Even with all this running around and tea drinking I never once met anyone truly important. Not the lord, the highest I got was his chamberlain or any of the school or sect masters I knew where in town. There was like a stink surrounding me even when I had become the titular head of a school. Maybe it is the name of the school, ¡°Floating rose¡± or ¡°School of roses on water¡±, both very feminine names. It could also be that I am not well known and none wanted to sit through the tedious ceremonies required to speak with me, I know I don¡¯t.


    Regardless I drew a deep breath when our small procession left the capital. Me together with Tiong in front followed by Tion and my sister and behind them all the others. Having named Ha the second in command of the school or vice principal made her day. This title making her equal in rank to Tion, on paper. ¡°Well it took longer than I hoped, but we did it.¡± I say and smile at my close circle that evening.¡± I look at Ha and Xi sitting beside each other unsure how to act in this new relationship. Old priest man Tu maybe equally unsure of Tion beside him. ¡°Eight months brother, eight months and more money than the village has seen in ages,¡± Ha says and Tu chimes in. ¡°A grand adventure I must say, and well done. How did you earn exactly?¡± He asks and we all look to Tion who have taken over our accounting. ¡°At last count, I sent three thousand dima to my grandfather for safekeeping.¡± I think the priest eyes will explode. ¡°After it is split that means three hundred dima for the village, a hundred dima to Xi and Ha, fifty to Tu and the rest for me,¡± I say and look at Tion who nods her head. ¡°That is correct.¡± She says and Tu claps his hands and smile. ¡°It will be a pleasure to ride back with Y''all.¡± He says.


    And we set a good pace back only stopping three days in Mao to see to Tiong and Tion¡¯s grandfather and pay our respect to the military commander of the city. Travelling by barge up the river allows us to reach Bank in less than two days after leaving Mao. There we are just in time to meet the Forresters gathering for the work of this winter. And somewhat to me, and everyone else''s, surprise the nephew of the vile merchant is back. He looks more happy about it than us, but that may be because he still has a job and his head. His uncle has lost both after stepping outside his bounds with us.


    Arriving in Banks is nice. I get to spend a day with my bride and we have a nice little walk through the fields around Banks. It is a nice day and she is good company. Very shy and demure, but after coaxing her I get her to speak her mind on some matters of preference about living arrangements. She looks to be the perfect wife after local standards, and I already know she is a good lay. There is no reason for me to make a big deal about getting out of the wedding.Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work!


    Arriving in Rapid is a whole other beast, we walk up the trails and are welcomed like heroes returning from a grand journey. I am broke after having split the profits with my crew and Tun seems to have no regard for showing off his new wealth. I think it foolish, but he wants to and I have little sway over him. The amount I had to pay him also grates since he turned out to be to so little help.


    ¡°We welcome Su, Tun, Xi and Ha back from their adventure and trip.¡± The village chief says and holds up a tankard of beer to cheer us. ¡°Thank you¡± I stand up and say, looking to sit down my father gives me a hard look. I stay standing and have to perform a speech, I have had a little too much to drink so it takes some time to form. ¡°Thank you for the blessed welcome among my family, friends and fellow villagers. I could not have done this trip without your unwavering support over many years and I hope the school I found will give back tenfold of what I have received from you.¡± Done with the speech I raise my tankard and cheer them. I get e cheer back and everyone seems merry and pleased with themselves. Their good humour is not without backing and they have good reason to be proud. In my last five years in the village, it has proposed to such a degree that no one in the village could have imagined it just years before.


    The next day, when my headache has subsided, my family show me the addition to their house built for me. ¡°We thought you would need a place to live while building the school and mansion.¡± My father tells me and everyone nods. ¡°Thank you, and I think you are right. It will take time only finding where the school should lie. Not talking off design and actually building it.¡± I say in agreement with them. ¡°Thank you for this,¡± I tell them again while looking around in the cosy little home.


    They took my study and turned it into the common room. Off the side, they built a kitchen and bedroom while building a small annexe for my new study. It is not big, maybe a hundred and twenty square meters with the garden, but a perfect place for a pair of newlyweds.


    ¡°On that note, your mother and Xia¡¯s mother has been planning the wedding, I think it will be a big deal.¡± My brother La says and I can feel the hair rise on my back. ¡°Why could it not be more like sister Hu¡¯s wedding, nice and simple.¡± Lu laughs at me and slaps my back like he uses to do. ¡°Because you are not simple, you are a big boy now.¡± I kind of have to agree with this and laugh with them. At least the house I live in will be nice and cosy.


    ¡°What do you think son?¡± My mother asks me those dreaded questions holding two different colours up for me to decide between. I have no idea what she is asking me for since I tuned out more than an hour ago. ¡°Mother, I trust you in this. Choose the one you think is best.¡± She huffs and stalks away. My wish for a simple wedding fell on deaf ears and the women are spending what little money I have like water in a river. Arguing with them seems to have no effect whatsoever. ¡°Thank you father¡± I mumble to myself again for his sound advice. ¡°Don¡¯t get between them and the planning.¡± He told me and I just have to agree to this. While they plan the wedding, I am doing my own planning for the school, but it is slow going since I get interrupted all the time.

 Chapter 24

    ¡°I, Su Ming promise to uphold and keep my wife like culture, tradition and we have promised each other to do,¡± I say and hear the same line back from Xia. She does look beautiful this day and I look forward to being done with all the fluff so we can spend some time together. Over the winter we have had little time just the two of us, and I barely know her. Part of this is that she is so shy when talking to me.


    The party is ostentatious and in poor taste, if anyone would have asked me. Bright colours, a lot of extra fluff and little real emotion. Rapid has a proud tradition, but this seems to be washed away with money and ambition. The women of the families are the most prominent culprit, but the menfolk is just as bad. Imported beer, wine and spirit is all their doing and tastes just bad.


    ¡°Thank that it is over,¡± I say and smile while leading my wife into our home. ¡°You did not like it?¡± My wife asks with trepidation in her voice. ¡°No, but I liked doing it with you and you seemed to like it,¡± I tell her and smile. ¡°Why did you not like it?¡± She asks me continuing digging. I try smiling at her, sensing problems with my response. She will have nothing of it and I sigh inside hoping I come well out of it. ¡°I like giving the women in the family room to do their own thing, but I would have preferred if the wedding was a bit more traditional. The purity of the ceremonies was lost a bit in the glam and it is supposed to be about you and me and not money.¡± I tell her and put my arm around here to squeeze her tighter. She smiles up at me and I hope I did not misstep so early in our relationship.


    The first two weeks after the wedding I spend with my new wife just enjoying our time together. I put the fact that the match has been more or less forced on us behind me and just try to make a good life together. I am only sixteen and she seventeen after all, young and married. The feeling is strange and I can see why some relationships don¡¯t last too long like this. In the village there is a lot of sleeping around, overlooked, but it must be just because of this. Both my older sister married men older than them and will probably marry men half their age later if they survive long enough and I will see to that. I think Ha is the luckier of the two since Xi is not so very much older than her. My brothers have been more fortunate managing to find themselves wifes agreeable to them.


    ¡°Husband?¡± My wife calls and I raise a hand from my hammock and call for her. Xia is traditional so, me making food with her is out of the question. She walks into the garden and I peek out of my hammock at her. She is only dressed in an apron, her punishment for not letting me help her with the food. ¡°Husband, your sister tells me someone is looking for you in the village.¡± She says and I sigh, I was hoping to spend some more time just relaxing with her. Maybe try to have sex in the hammock again, it is hard work to get it right. ¡°Thank you, if we have guests I guess you will want to dress again?¡± I ask her and she begins to blush furiously. ¡°That is fine, just prepare for a fun evening,¡± I tell her. She gives thanks as she walks back into our small house. Her sass has grown in the time we have spent together, the woman only demure, who gave in to every wish of mine, is mostly gone replaced by a woman who tells me what she wants and still let me be the man of the house. It might be an act, but I like it.


    I must say we got into a good mood after the first few awkward days. She being somewhat of a prude with a kink streak a mile wide. Exploring our shared likes and dislikes has been a truly bonding experience between us. It also helped that I totally refused to leave her alone the first two weeks and we spent a lot of time together. I took her to the site where I would like to build my school. Cooking together for breakfast and lunch is okay with her, but she draws the line when cooking for dinner. Therefore she is punished by having to do it in only an apron. I give her a kiss when I walk by and go into my parents part of the house. Our gate to the outside has yet to be even opened.This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    Yuan, a pretty girl we grew up with only a bit older than us, is waiting for me in the house. ¡°Good, you came fast.¡± She says and I smile at her. She is a really pretty lady and my sister''s helper and apprentice. ¡°What is the rush?¡± I ask her as we exit my parent''s house. ¡°There is a delegation from the sect up in the mountains looking for you.¡± I stop a moment and think it over. ¡°You mean the strangers tramping through here from time to time?¡± I ask her and nod. ¡°Well, they must have been doing something up there in the mountains,¡± I tell her and she smiles back at me. ¡°Yeah, they look harmless enough if a bit rough and dirty,¡± Yuan says and guide me toward the building site for my school.


    At the moment it is just a clearing in the woods in a more rough part than elsewhere. I chose it because building here will not destroy too much farmland we can use for other purposes. I see them standing around my sister, two older men and a younger man. Their clothes are a bit dirty and have seen better days, but other than the swords and spear on the young guy is carrying they seem harmless enough. I walk over to Ha who smiles at me and bows in a show of respect. ¡°Let me introduce Su Ming the head of our small school.¡± She says and shows me into the spotlight. ¡°A pleasure to meet a fellow Daoist starting teaching.¡± The oldest of the men say and bow slightly to me. ¡°My name is Yo this is my brother Yi and his disciple Huan.¡± He says and the two other men bow when introduced. ¡°I am elder in the ¡°Tiger mountain¡± sect.¡± I bow back and smile to them as pleasantly as I can. ¡°I have to apologize for not being able to invite you to share tea or food with us, but we are living a bit rough at the moment,¡± I say and stand there looking them over. I can see the men are here for some reason and wish it is a well-natured purpose.


    ¡°Yes, my brother told me of you when he came back from the city this winter,¡± Yo tells me and I have to appreciate the feat since it is not easy passing up to our village in winter, much less even further up into the mountains. A meter snow on the ground is the norm in the village and they often dig to cut the trees down. It gets deeper and colder the further up you go until you come to the glacier close to the top. I have no idea where their sect lies, but it should be some way in there. ¡°That I some feat passing these mountains in winter.¡± is all I can say to this, the man just waves his hand ¡°Used to it.¡± He says, but I can see a glint in his eyes over the compliment. ¡°Would you mind showing us around?¡± Yo asks me and since I like showing off I do. It is nice telling them my plans, there are little detail and a lot of dreams. ¡°You have a big plan then?¡± Yo asks me and smile. ¡°Yes, well I try.¡± is my answer. We spend some more time chatting, but then finally it turns more serious.


    ¡°We are wondering what you will be teaching here?¡± Yo says and gesture out over the small glen. ¡°Well, I don¡¯t know yet. I will be teaching my speciality which is massages and some healing. I have an apprentice very interested in archery and if I know the nobles right they will insist on some sword practice as well.¡± I tell them and scoff at the last. ¡°But fighting is not the school''s purpose,¡± I tell them and smile to them. ¡°It is a pleasure to know you are not militaristic, if you need any help we might come to some agreement,¡± Yo tells me and I see the mercenary in him and get a feeling of mafia standing before me. Running a protection racket is profitable. ¡°I will keep it in mind,¡± I tell them and smile.

 Chapter 25

    ¡°The Tiger mountain school,¡± I say out loud when we have gathered all of what is the school board at the moment. There is me, Ha, Xi, Tion, and Xia, we are sitting down to have tea and strategize together. ¡°Hear of it?¡± I ask Tion, she is the only one of us with any experience in the area. I will have a chat with Tun the priest and the village head later to sound them out about the sect as well. ¡°No, but it is not surprising. Many sects have their own aims and hide. They usually fight amongst themselves or work as mercenaries for lords in time of strife.¡± She says and sips on the cup of tea thinking. ¡°Well, then we need information,¡± I say and everyone nod. ¡°I will send to my family and ask if they know anything.¡± Tion tells us and the others have their own sources they can try and talk too.


    I¡¯m happy when I do not have to do anymore and go back to the drawing board for the school. Some plans are already put in motion like clearing the area and building up some parts. We will dry the lumber this year and cut it later for timber to build with. In the meantime, I am working on contraptions for my own enjoyment. I also teach Xia advanced forms of bookkeeping like double entry bookkeeping. She has her own plans for our farm planned to lie below the school, but this is a separate project and more hers than mine.


    Weeks later Tion and Xia bring tea and snacks out to the building site. Sitting overlooking the fifteen or so men working I can both enjoy their company and appreciate the power of cultivation at the lower ranks in this world. The men are and barely what others would call first rank cultivators but they can still toss large stones around like gravel and the work is progressing at a frightening pace. I am wondering what truly battle oriented cultivators in this world can do.


    ¡°There is very little information on this sect. My mother has had some to do with them, but they are interested in their own things rather than worldly power.¡± She tells us while I get to enjoy my wife''s cakes. ¡°Is this good?¡± Xia asks when no one else speaks. I kind of have to shrug since I have no idea, but it seems to be my turn to talk. ¡°Don¡¯t know truly. I think it means we do not know what drives them.¡± Tion nods at this giving me a signal I have at least gotten the gist of it. ¡°That is worrying.¡± Ha is the next to speak. I don¡¯t know why but after Xi knocked her up it seems to me her words have gained additional weight. Maybe it is because she is speaking for two, or maybe because being pregnant is a hassle. ¡°No, I have to agree with my sister, this is not good.¡± I agree and begin wondering what can be done about it. The danger might be there and I have no idea if or what it is.


    Our day outside away from work passes and soon I am back to work. My days are filled with teaching all the students who have an aptitude for learning my more ¡°pure¡± dao. I also spend time writing manuals on all the different teachings. It is a lot of work since it is the first time I put my thoughts into words. Developing a curriculum from scratch while at the same time working out the kinks in my own is not easy. Teaching Xia while I do so is helping since with her I feel I don¡¯t have to be all-knowing. The plusses with having a wife turn out to be many more than I ever imagined before and rather than an anchor dragging me down she is helping me stay afloat with all the work.


    Time passes and soon we lay out the design for the buildings and begin putting up the foundations. It is an exciting time and my brothers are helping me a lot with being foremen directing the work and putting my vision into reality. I have designed the school with four terraces each with their own function.


    ¡°We had a look at your designs brother and liked them. Putting all the students up here at the top together we find a good idea.¡± My brother La tells me and show me their outlines. ¡°We thought you were too generous with space so we changed it a little and instead changed it so there is more space for recreation around the buildings.¡± He says and shows me their thoughts. I am so happy they have a better understanding of space than me. ¡°I like it, maybe if it really is hurting we can make the buildings two stories,¡± I say and look it over. ¡°That could work fine,¡± Lu says.This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    Walking down from the upper level we descend down one level. ¡°I really like the staircase, cutting it into the stone like this is nice,¡± I say and let my hand pass over the stone as we descend. ¡°Yeah, it is a good experience for our workers.¡± Lu says and looks it over ¡°had been nice with some artwork though.¡± I have to agree with him in this ¡°let us hold off on it and look at what the school will produce before we put something down.¡± they nod and I think of actually making place somewhere for all the people helping me and building the school.


    ¡°Having all the buildings in danger of burning above has given us some good opportunities for construction down here,¡± Lu says and show us his designs. ¡°We have thought to have the main hall built in wood, but with stone pillars for effect.¡± He points over to long stone pillars laying on the side. ¡°We had some luck and managed to extract those six with no problems.¡± He smiles at us and points it out. ¡°Should make for a fantastic hall.¡± He goes on showing us the smaller buildings on the sides and open spaces. ¡°We have tried to incorporating the defences Tion mentioned, but we have not worked on it,¡± Lu says and we look on the open spaces with steep drops on the downside. ¡°It is kind of strange how the platforms butt out. It looks mighty though.¡± La says and we just have to agree. ¡°Dad has helped us loads with removing all the earth and threes.¡± La says and then go on ¡°But I am proud of what we have built here.¡±


    Again we descend the stairs and look over the large empty space around us. ¡°Here we are level with the village and this will probably be the entrance to the school. We have cobbled the road up to here and then made a circle where you can choose where to go next. Should hide the gardens and the school from prying eyes and give some control over the entrance.¡± La says and we look around. ¡°Here I need to work more on the designs. The layout will be important, but I need to work more on it.¡± I tell them and look at what is supposed to be the cultivation gardens, the crowning achievement of the school. I have a theory that I can artificially increase the density of heavenly energy if I build this right, but I will need to experiment more with it.


    We stand above the level beyond, nothing much to look at and no reason to go down there. ¡°Your mansion will lay by that door, Xia has agreed to it.¡± La points out and I agree, I couldn''t care less. This is Xia¡¯s project, the school is important to me. ¡°Good, this all looks amazing and I am really impressed, just tell me if there is something I can do to either help you or your workers,¡± I tell them and get kind of hungry smiles back. It is a bad case of having a lot and wanting more.


    ¡°It looks good,¡± I say to my two brothers one evening when they have both been here working. ¡°It does, the speed increase has been amazing,¡± Lu answers and looks it all over. ¡°No wonder that cultivators are renowned for their massive buildings. If they can work faster than this a new fortress would take months not years.¡± La says and looks it all over with a smile. He has been mostly in charge of the masons, mostly being taught here. ¡°Why don¡¯t they?¡± I ask and look around. ¡°Fighting I think, even Tion is scared at how open you are with your teaching. She told my wife that the manuals in one''s school are the most priced treasure.¡± I look over at him, she has told me no such thing. ¡°That sounds stupid, the more that know the more is possible to be done,¡± I say and my brothers nod. ¡°But then again, with such power, it is easy to see lord being scared for their position,¡± La says and after his remark and how I heard people talk in Nassan, I kind of have to agree.

 Chapter 26

    Walking home that evening I have a lot to think about. Coming home and seeing my wife looking over my last writings spurs me to talk with her about it. ¡°Wife, have Tion told you that these manuals are the most prized possession in the school?¡± I ask her after having found a place to sit beside her. ¡°Yes, of course, I thought you knew this dear husband,¡± Xia says and look worried at me. ¡°Kind of did not know that, land and people is more what I value. I plan to teach those manuals not hoard them.¡± Xia gives me a little kiss after this statement. ¡°I know, but it seems others do not see it this way. They are looking for personal power not just a good time like you.¡±


    I sit a while stewing in my own filth then and there. The filth is what I think of such short-sighted and stupid people. Those who disregard others and only look for their own, maybe clan or families, good. Trampling others for power and control. It is such people who make tyrants and dictators. And worst of all in my mind is that the always do it ¡°for the greater good.¡± In their minds, they have all the answers and no one else.


    ¡°I can understand them,¡± I say at last filling the silence in the room. For it seems Xia has no need to talk of such things. ¡°They are selfish to the extreme, not that I am any good example,¡± I tell her and Xia giggles at this. She knows my plans of leaving her and Ha here with my whole mess. I wish to see and experience the world, not be stuck one place for the rest of my life. ¡°I know dear husband of mine, but you don¡¯t run away at least.¡± She says it to be nice, but I can feel the scorn beneath it. ¡°Thank you, wife¡± is all I can say to this ¡°it does give me an inkling on what other sects and schools will hunt us for though and what ¡°Tiger mountain¡± sect is looking for,¡± I tell her and lay down on the floor behind me. ¡°Stupid idiots the lot of them,¡± I say at last and look around me. ¡°How to trick them?¡± I the next question, but my trusty wife has no real answer to this.


    The question of how to defend against someone larger and more powerful spins in my head constantly for the next several days. I share my concern with both the family and the rest of my school board. No one has a eureka moment solving the problem, but on the other hand, we have heard nothing and it might not be a problem at all.


    ¡°Steady, do not rush this,¡± I tell Ha as she is yet again working on sensing within herself. I keep up talking with her in a quiet and hushed voice. Not for her to follow what I tell her, but to keep her rhythm in check and soothe her while she is trying something new for the first time. She is trying to connect with the baby at a deeper level and find out if everything is okay with the small child. She is going crazy staying in bed and relaxing with what she calls ¡°the little monster¡± growing inside. Her tongue and manner have been shocking the rest of the village. She is not behaving ladylike.


    Xi is looking on nervously from the side while I am supporting his wife in this matter. He is not fond of trying to mess with the baby, but less fond of a screaming wife. They are the odd couple in the village and even my father has been heard saying he should have a stricter hand with his wife. My father has no understanding of what powerhouse his daughter has become. Only Tion is more personally powerful in the village. ¡°Don¡¯t worry,¡± I tell Xi when Ha gives up after the last try. ¡°No harm can come to the baby by doing this.¡± He nods and looks at me before smiling. ¡°I know, but I see no good coming from it either. And it is not right messing with babies like this.¡± At this, I can only shrug since he might be right. The only thing it has achieved until now is to exhaust Ha. ¡°Well, it keeps Ha more docile,¡± I say in a hushed voice so as not to be heard by the sleeping women. ¡°Yeah,¡± Xi says deflating a little. ¡°Let us go outside and have a look at your latest progress,¡± I say in a bid to distract the worried husband.


    It is a joy working with everyone in a more structured manner. My days are planned by Xia and I have time for everything since it does not all come at once. Watching and observing Xi while he performs his latest move is part of this. Everyone is tweaking and discussing new methods, even Tion who previously saw her manual as ¡°The perfection of Dao in this world¡± has been experimenting in secret to improve the methods. I love it, especially since it gives me so many new ideas.


    There is pressure to keep to tradition, however. ¡°This is a perversion of the heavenly energy.¡± The angry man tells me after having entered the village. He has been screaming at me for over ten minutes and only my enjoyment of seeing him so angry and red is saving me from making him angrier. ¡°Could you please tell me what is a perversion and who you are?¡± I ask the man at last and he just huffs at me. ¡°Never you mind, I will not be sending any family of mine to this perverted place.¡± I am flustered and have no idea what this man is here for and what he is doing. Tion only told me I have a guest.


    ¡°Sorry for that¡± Tions says while meekly asking for forgiveness. Tradition and upbringing must be the reason for her humble position before me. ¡°Did you make him angry?¡± I ask her and she winces where she sits leaned forward. ¡°A bit,¡± She tells men and I sigh. ¡°What did you do then?¡± I ask her and she tells me how the man came to her inquiring about a student place for his daughter and to show him what we are about she showed him into the temple where Yuan and the others were doing some treatment. ¡°So they were half naked and making the guys orgasm?¡± I ask her and she nods. After some time of enjoying her sitting there, I, of course, forgive her. ¡°It could be worse,¡± I say and smile. ¡°It could be the guys practising. Tion pull a bit of a face and again bow down before me. ¡°Bring potential students or their representatives to me in the future and we will need to formalize the process,¡± I tell her and in my eyes, the matter is done.If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.


    ¡°Did you not forgive Tion for this mornings mishap?¡± Xia asks me at dinner that evening. ¡°Well of course I did,¡± I tell her kind of bewildered about this. ¡°Well, could you tell her, she was crying about it today,¡± Xia tells me and it drives home how much more I have to learn on etiquette and women. With Xia¡¯s help, we get it sorted and I learn more about how to act with noble ladies. What I did wrong was to forget to say the words ¡°I forgive you.¡±


    The episode with the screaming father drives home a matter I have yet to take up. The need to formalize the school''s leadership and customs. How will we handle recruitment? Who will admit new students how will apprentice programs and disciples work? Who and when will people have access to the library. Will there be mixed or separate dorms? These and many more are questions that need answers before the school can function properly, and I have put off dealing with them.


    ¡°Okay, this the first formal meeting of the school board is open,¡± I tell them and use the small gavel I had an apprentice carpenter carve out of a piece of wood. Around the table I have gathered all the people I think as important for the school. There is, of course, me and my inner circle. Then there is the village chief, Tatum is there since the village is an integral part of the school. Tun the priest who is the moral and spiritual guide of both the village and school. His earning has not been able to keep up from his trip with us. Mainly because he squandered it all on getting himself a second wife. The first one in the village to do so and thereby kind of breaking tradition himself, even as he is in his full lawful right to do so. Had I been able to he would not be here.


    ¡°Thank you for calling this meeting Su,¡± Tatum says and look over us. ¡°It is an honour being included and I look forward to a prosperous relationship between the school and village.¡± I smile at him and nod ¡°thank you for these kind words. I have the same hope and that is why I called this formal meeting even though we have had several informal meeting before.¡± I tell them and show off the board where I have written down the agenda for the meeting. I really need to get a paper mill going soon. Tablets and wood are not good to write on. ¡°We have many matters and positions to decide on,¡± I tell everyone around the table. I know there are many differences in opinion and foresee a long meeting. I know this because I have talked with everyone beforehand to prepare.


    ¡°Shared dorms are out of the question. Women cannot be left alone with the temptation of men at such a vulnerable age.¡± I am so happy Ha already has had her baby when she lays into the priest after his stupid outcry. ¡°Says the man having cajoled a family into marrying their daughter as a SECOND wife.¡± She screams back over the table at him. The play is just too good and I love it. Especially since I know they both see good sides in each other. The matter is decided with a vote and since no one other than Ha and Tun care too much it is decided to have mixed dorms based on year and rank in the school.


    Rank is another touchy matter since in my Dao there is no breakthrough system. Even for those practising variants, there is no threshold between one rank and another, therefore we decide to base such matters on skill and proven knowledge. Both Tatum and Tun decides my idea of testing skill and proving knowledge is an excellent idea. ¡°I agree wholeheartedly that one knows something only when one can explain and teach it,¡± Tun says and snacks on some dried meat Xia has had brought in. Tion, Xi and Ha are not too happy with it. ¡°sharing knowledge for free like that will be dangerous and open us to criticism from others. It will open for peasants and bound servants that they can reach beyond their station.¡± She says and I can kind of see where she is coming from. Not her argument, but the sentiment that nobles will be scared off it and attack us is a good argument. ¡°Okay, so keep it to people with family in our village or in the school,¡± Tun says and that decides it since if it is part of the pay it somehow is okay.


    After the first day, we decide we need a second one, that one leads to a third and before I know it we have discussed different matters for more than a week. ¡°Okay, I think it is time to stop and write the charter for the school,¡± I tell them after one week of meetings. I am tired and when I look at the others they are also tired of the matter. ¡°I will use this winter on writing and have a document ready for you over winter,¡± I tell them. This will be the last winter before the buildings are finished and when summer is here we have decided to formally open the school. I am looking forward to it but also dread it. I will turn seventeen and only have two years before my self-imposed deadline of being as I say ¡°outta here and adventuring.¡± I don¡¯t like missing deadlines, even those that are no more than dreams.

 Chapter 27

    Working on the charter takes time and several nights I sit down talking about the language in the text with different people. In the end, I think almost everyone in the village has contributed in some way either directly or indirectly. The drafting once again convinces me I need to work on producing inexpensive paper, or at least bigger quantities of paper.


    So I design a blueprint of a paper mill in between writing the charter. After having become more involved in the day to day working of both Bank and Rapid village I have a clearer outlook on what wood is worth. Had it not been for the rights of land I have the school would be an all stone construction. Wood is so expensive that it should be criminal of our Lord to not pay more in wages to Forrester. One three can be worth upwards of five hundred silver when it reaches the big cities. The reason is that most places wood can be sourced are occupied by sects or schools who don''t want it cut. Forest is a more valuable resource than almost any other. To then get nice paper necessitates finding other sources of cellulose. Rice paper made by hand is at the moment the favoured solution in the land. Others use bamboo either in thin strips tied together. My solution is to use the same material in the pulp. Cliff has a substantial area with bamboo and can supply it easily to Bank, some are even exported at the moment. It will make Xia happy as well giving her hometown a new industry.


    My plans stay just that for the time being though, the charter is a more pressing matter. ¡°Looks pretty,¡± my wife tells me when I show her the final draft of the charter. ¡°Why have you left so much space empty at the end?¡± is her next question. ¡°Well, I think it looks nice and I left it empty since I will need to add to it,¡± I tell her and look it over myself. Drawing inspiration from art around me I wrote the text kind of small in the middle of the large document and painted on the sides. There are roses and water with hints of creatures around them. I am no great artist so I tried to keep it simple. ¡°Well, whatever it looks pretty,¡± Xia says and then shoo me off so I don¡¯t ruin it while she is serving dinner.


    ¡°Such an important document deserves a party,¡± Tun says when he has had his time to peruse the document. ¡°Hear Hear.¡± Tatum and Xi call from their end of the table we sit around. ¡°Well, I would consider this enough of a party,¡± I tell them and lift my own tankard to my lips. The documents have gone around the table while we have been drinking. ¡°No Su, Tun is right. We should sign the document and have a proper party. Maybe a bonfire in the main courtyard at the school.¡± Ha says ¡°Now put away that document before someone spills at it and Su have to do it all over.¡±


    It is late winter and the snow lies heavy both in the village and around. In this weather the sturdy construction of the houses in the village really comes to their right and seeing them piled high with snow is really pretty.


    The men working on felling timber in the woods are tired and the whole village is looking forward to summer. Work on the school has stopped since there is no more that can be done before the snow clears. All in all is everyone very ready to have a party of some kind. After my tentative okay to it preparations were already on their way. My reputation would have taken a hit if I denied the people their party.Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work!


    The men from the village have been even more eager than anyone for a party. Having exhausted their woods for threes fitting for feeling they are left with very little to do. Fishing and ice bathing have become activities, some have even taken up sculpting since their masonry skills are not useful for anything else in winter. Even I, the serious and studious, young master of the village is bored.


    We make kind of a big deal out it though. ¡°Thank you, everyone, for coming. Through hard work and dedication from all in this village and help from outside, we have found a school for healing and the arts.¡± I say smiling at all gathered here. ¡°Today we will celebrate the signing of the school charter by the first school board and I will guide everyone around the compound we have built.¡± My speech is short and sweet, I think. It is followed by all the others on the school board and we then pack the charter away and begin the procession to the school.


    ¡°As you all know we needed to build a bigger mill to keep up with demand and we have plans for different mills in the same area. We, therefore, moved them and instead built a bridge over to the gardens of the school here.¡± I show everyone the frankly beautiful stone bridge with a nice bow over the water. ¡°It is decorated by our very own artists who I intend to let have a go at making all the sculptures in the school.¡± We walk over the bridge and into the coming gardens. ¡°It is the school boards intention to keep the gardens open for everyone in the village between sunup and sundown and we hope you will have as much use of it as any of our coming students.¡± I lead the procession up the stairs all the way up to the top. There overlooking the village there is a clear view almost all the way out of the valley and down to lake Mao far beneath us.


    ¡°This party was a very good idea,¡± Xi tells me while holding around a plastered Ha and steading her. They have been drinking and dancing around the big bonfire. Everyone has been drinking heavily to keep the cold out while we signed the charter of the school and ignited the bonfire piled heavy with dead trees. It burns very hot and has cleared a big part of the ground around it. I am sitting down on a skin Xia brought and having learned my lesson drink far less than anyone else. ¡°Yeah, good that you convinced me, we should probably make this a yearly affair,¡± I tell him and smile looking around. It is such times that should be treasured.


    ¡°Su, Master Su.¡± I hear someone shouting at me. I was just about to find out how many layers of clothing Xia has packed herself into. I look up and look over at a boy coming up to me. ¡°What?¡± I ask the young boy and look at him panting while trying to speak. ¡°Stop, take a breath and then tell me.¡±


    ¡°Someone is coming, I and Ioa were out playing scout and saw them.¡± He says and I rise. I see them walking up the stairs from the garden beneath us and groan at the interruption. ¡°Xi, Tion¡± I shout but in a lowered voice. ¡°We have company,¡± I tell them when I find them. ¡°I will find out what they want. Prepare for them as best you can.¡± I tell them. It is too bad they both seem to be drunk.

 Chapter 28

    I walk over to our unwelcome guests and greet them with respect. ¡°Greetings elder Yo, what brings you esteemed gentlemen to this humble gathering of ours?¡± I ask them after having bowed to show my respect. I am trying to use my power at the same time to burn out all effects of alcohol in my system. ¡°Greetings master Ming, we were just passing by and heard all the festivities and were hoping to join in.¡± Yo answers after having bowed back when I did. I smile but can feel the vapid disregard it belays to the gentlemen. They have never wanted to join in and now is no different.


    ¡°Show them the power of our school¡± Yo commands and one of his men draws his sword, an extra long katana. His draw is an art in itself because of the swords length. He flips it and catches it from the air before smiling, a showoff. On the other, it is a demonstration. The man takes a stance and begins running, to what I am at first not certain of, but it turns out to be one of the stones we intend to use as a sculptor in the garden. It is a giant granite stone. ¡°Tiger slash¡± The man scream at the top of his lungs and slashes the stone. Sparks fly as he cuts into the stone and when it is over I can see three parallel cuts in the stone. It is terrifying since the grooves are deep in the stone. The man turns and smirks when he cheats his sword again. ¡°We are two worldly men and I am sure we can come to some understanding,¡± Yo says while my eyes are still fixed at the stone. He smiles with what I can only term a shit eating grin. I turn to him and smile back ¡°I am sure we can come to some sort of understanding.¡±


    Instead of going to sit around the bonfire where we were celebrating the founding document of the school I take them the long way back to my parent''s house. ¡°I see you have been busy building a fitting compound for your school,¡± Yo says like nothing has happened before. I stop and begin showing them around buying the rest of the time to scurry out of the way. ¡°Yes, my idea is to turn this into a recreation area where students can contemplate the Dao. Creating a space where thoughts can roam free is difficult. I do believe we have some good ideas for it though.¡± I tell them and begin walking over the area, to my surprise they follow.


    Walking through town is kind of eerie, there is no one around before we come to my parent''s house. Xia stands there waiting in the doorway for us. ¡°Put a kettle on for tea dear,¡± I tell her and she disappears into the house before us. Yo¡¯s entourage bumps me out of the way and begins searching the house. I hope no one else is inside there and while I and Yo wait outside I am nervous. More nervous than when it was only him and his entourage with me alone. A single man comes outside and just nod to Yo. Yo gestures and says ¡°after you¡±, so I lead him inside.


    I do not lead them into my quarters, but rather into my father''s sitting room. ¡°Please have a seat,¡± I tell Yo and show him to my father''s chair. ¡°So this is how you live, not traditional, but I like it.¡± Yo tries his hand at small talk while we wait on Xia and the tea. ¡°I know, it is more suited for the winters and we do have plenty of wood,¡± I tell him trying to keep the good tone going hoping that this day stays at pleasantries and there will be no more violence. It is not to be since we stay silent the whole time even after we are done drinking the tea. Xia has even taken out my mother''s good china and Yo compliments it, but there is no more talk.Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    ¡°You left us waiting.¡± Yo starts his talk with ¡°it was a most unpleasant wait.¡± He continues and I wince inside. ¡°There was no disrespect intended,¡± I say and he just glares at me. ¡°Whatever, now we are here.¡± Is all he answers my apology with. ¡°Let us talk business. This is a very dangerous world you and yours are stepping into, many dangers for an unaffiliated school like yours.¡± He looks on me with what I think is supposed to be a fatherly look, but there is no love in his eyes. ¡°Since we are such good neighbours we try to look after upstarts like you and make sure they do not come to any harm.¡± I nod at this and smile to him ¡°what a pleasant and kind outlook.¡± The smile returns to his face ¡°yes, well we try. Protection, of course, cost something.¡± I sigh and open my palms. ¡°In that case, I am very sorry, I have used all my money paying for the construction.¡± At this, he nods ¡°Money is no problem, we can help with that. No, what we are looking for our knowledge.¡±


    ¡°Well this is a school and I am more than happy to let anyone enroll,¡± I tell him and smile. ¡°I want your library.¡± He says with steel in his voice and I can almost hear the sword of one of his companions being drawn. ¡°We can of course pay.¡± He says when I don¡¯t rise at once. ¡°Well, the protection would be good and I do need money I tell him.¡± One of his companions throws a purse filled with money on the little table between us. Had it not been a sturdy table it would have broken, I can hear the wood groan. ¡°Follow me,¡± I tell them and bring them further into my house where my own quarters are. I, of course, pick up the purse filled with money first.


    I pick down most of the books on the shelves and then go into the floorboards where copies of the old manuscripts are hidden. Dust and sand have covered the box and I blow it off before handing it to them. They smile at me and then walk out like everything around them is theirs.


    ¡°Thank you for being such an understanding and reasonable man,¡± Yo says and smiles to me, his smile is condescending and filled with hatred for me. I think it is because I did not stand up and fight them. Backing down and retreating is not something this man is familiar with. ¡°Thank you for your patience and good luck in your endeavours,¡± I say and walk with them outside. I am joined by Xia on my side. One of his thugs swipes the coin purse in my hand as he walks by me ¡°for making us come down here.¡± he says and laughs, his companions laugh with him. Yo does not even turn back. ¡°Don¡¯t be a smartass.¡± One of Yo¡¯s men says before turning back and retreating from us. They slink more than walk out of the village even though we are not aggressive and they are armed.


    I see them off standing beside my wife Xia. Behind us, I can feel the eyes of the rest of the village. ¡°Did they pay?¡± Is the first I hear from Tun when they are well gone. I turn to look at the old priest and shake my head. ¡°You saw them take it back just now,¡± I tell him and shrug. ¡°If it buys us peace it will have been a bargain,¡± I say and Tatum gives a small laugh at this. ¡°They are bullies, they will never be happy with what they got.¡± Others are nodding at this, among them my father. ¡°If they did not buy it, it will buy us time,¡± Tion says and comes to my rescue. After this the party does not resume, some are up for drinking after the bullies visit, but few. I go to bed with my wife instead and dream of red snow.

 Chapter 29

    Winter passed and after what I term ¡°The first hurdle¡± we started our school and almost immediately met problems. Our charter is the school''s founding document, according to Tion a very usual practice and also little more than a formality, a guideline for students and nothing to anyone else. Even as it is supposed to be the law inside the school''s boundaries. This of course, and us being a new school leads to problems. The first years will be setting the tone of the school so I have decided to be extra strict.


    ¡°No,¡± I say to the young man kneeling before me. ¡°I don¡¯t care how proud your parents would be, you are not ready to be any kind of apprentice in this school,¡± I tell him and huff, both in frustration with my sister and this young man. ¡°You have little control and no sense.¡± I look to Tion sitting beside the young man further down in the room. ¡°It is not a matter of money or talent, it is a matter of work. You do little or no work outside of sparring and look only to the fight, this attitude does not work with my teachings, you need to know yourself and for this, you need to meditate and experience. If all you look for is the sword my teaching will be of little use to you.¡± I tell him and rise. Tion will take care of the youth for me and I will have a word with Xi. He is the teacher responsible for these uncouth youths wanting to learn the way of the sword. A position he really is not fit for, he is an archer.


    ¡°Why oh why do you keep sending stupid little shits like him my way?¡± I ask Xi and Ha after having enjoyed their hospitality for some time. They have settled down in their ways very different from other households in the village with Xi cooking and Ha doing manual labour. ¡°We try not to, you know this brother. But they need a real beatdown emotionally from time to time and only you can give them that.¡± Xi tells men while pouring me another glass of wine. I let the wine swirl in my glass while I look at them. ¡°We need a better system if it is so,¡± I tell them and all they do is give a nod in confirmation. ¡°Any suggestions?¡± I try to get them to brainstorm, but they will have nothing of it and I am left to go home to my wife and Tion trying to find my own answer in a drunk state. Xia is not amused by it and complains a bit when I want to cuddle and have sex. She gets over it and a short session later I fall asleep with her in my arms. Poor girl, she is still not used to me after more than a year of marriage.


    ¡°So what do you think?¡± I ask Tion when we have tea later. Xia is serving and looking bemused like she always does at the scene. Tion has changed since she came here and she looks more and more feminine every day. We have a traditional tea ceremony once a week to teach me and I have to spend it with a board on my head for my posture. ¡°Hire a samurai.¡± She says and I nod, it is a good suggestion and better than any I have come up with. When Xia speaks up I can feel the joy, it is my corrupting influence otherwise she would never have spoken. It is easier since Tion nearly is a girl. ¡°Hire female swordsmen that can beat them with the sword.¡± She says and I nod. ¡°We need the competence and everyone else is female.¡± I say and sigh ¡°Why did we ever agree to open the school for men?¡± I ask Tion, it is a rhetorical question since I know the answer, we could not restrict it. Damned laws.


    This is a good example of our problems I think while walking down from the teacher''s buildings. It is later in the day and I have taught a lesson to the younger students. I have room there, but my wife sets a fine table and I hate to miss any meal she prepares for me. This year we might even have bacon since she found someone dealing in pigs and bought some off of him. Or rather her father did and she brought it to me. Traditionally fish and veggies are preferred to keep the body and mind clean, but fried bacon is just too good. Xia is not convinced, but she is good about my eccentricities.If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    ¡°So you need some women sword fighters.¡± Xia ponders after lunch while I just pat my stomach and lie there. I usually just take a nap like a baby or an old man after lunch, it is strange since I am in the prime of my life. ¡°Yeah, and I have no idea on how to make it happen. We need someone who fits in as well.¡± I say and turn over on my side to look at her. ¡°And with the building and buying over the last years, we have little money to attract someone with,¡± I say and to my surprise yawn. Xia tries to keep it in, but she too yawns, it is contagious when it takes root. I giggle and look at her lying there perfect I think and really enjoy myself. We do not find a good solution to the problem other than putting out the word through the grapevine that we are looking.


    Another type of problem that is easier in finding a solution to is students getting caught sneaking out. If we only had female or male students it would be no problem, but since it is mixed it is our problem. The next day I have just such a case before me. ¡°I caught these two going at it in the gardens,¡± Xi says pointing at two young students, the boy is from outside the village, but the girl is local. Most of our girls are local. ¡°Well, what is the problem?¡± I ask him, there are enough jobs to humble and punish wrongdoers of such deeds. ¡°Well, it is not the first time and none of the punishments seems to stop them,¡± Xi admits and I nod, they must really like each other than to run through all our punishments in less than three months. I smile at the two with an evil glare when I hear this. ¡°Well, simple enough then. I have some work with my new experiments for young Zu here he will enjoy and the same for Wa. You see I am trying to produce saltpetre and to do so I need someone to collect and spread urine on hay before turning it again.¡± I say and see Xi light up in glee at the torture. ¡°It will take a year to finish and I imagine Wa here would like the distraction,¡± I say and see the horrified expression on the girls face. ¡°I also know for a fact that Tion needs help with her knitting group and Zu here most certainly will be able to help them hold order in the yarn,¡± I say and hope the tasks are horrendous enough that it will keep the two apart at least for some more time. I am loath to expel someone yet but will do it if this goes too far. The worst is that they keep getting caught marking them as clueless in sneaking around.


    ¡°Why do they keep getting caught?¡± I ask Xi when the young people leave us alone. They are three years younger than me after all. How the hell has I convinced parents to leave their children with me is a thought I keep having. After all, I started the school to be free of just the sort of people that are in the Tiger mountain sect and Tions family, not because I really like education children. ¡°He is sure of himself and has no skills and she wants to get caught I believe,¡± Xi tells me and drink from his tankard. Not beer mind you, but fruit juice one of the ladies tired of getting beaten in the beer competition made. It is really good and she keeps the recipe close. ¡°Please let it not be young couples who drag us down,¡± I say and have to snicker at Xi pulling a face on my comment. ¡°I agree wholeheartedly, let us rather hope we succeed or go out in a blaze of glory fighting those bastards in the Tiger mountain sect.¡± I look over at him. ¡°something the matter?¡± I ask and he shakes his head. ¡°Don¡¯t know, but someone is sniffing around the hunters tell me.¡± He says and I get a cold feeling in my stomach. ¡°We better find some fighters soon,¡± I say in the end not enjoying my drink as much as I used to. Xi is silent a long time before speaking again. ¡°I don¡¯t know Su, they seem really bad at their job of sneaking so maybe we can just kill them all out in the woods.¡± I stay silent but decide it is worth to work on and bump training hunters up in priority. I will teach and help for free all those that hinder or rid me of my enemies.

 Chapter 30

    ¡°It seems they did not believe us and instead have chosen to go for it,¡± I say looking down on the dead man before me. He is clad in green robes with clear markings from the Tiger mountain sect on both the back and front of his clothes. It resembles our own uniforms. Xi stands beside me and I am kind of worried about how cavalier we are with the dead man. Death is not something foreign to me, but this is the first murder victim I have seen. It might be considered battle, but even so, that is just agreed upon murder. ¡°Sa tells me he saw him lurking around and he ran away when noticed.¡± I look back and see the three Sa shot his arrow through after having killed the man before me and am awed at the power represented. ¡°Well I kind of think it is good, but I would rather we knew what happened and could interrogate the man before he was dead.¡± I say and stop Xi before he speaks ¡°I know, I know it is too risky. Few things we can do would keep him and he would probably not talk.¡± I say and swear. ¡°Just saying it would be nice,¡± I say and Xi stops. ¡°Sa should get a reward for the kill, hope it will be nothing more than a skirmish in the woods, but I doubt it. We look like an easy kill, good we have some tricks.¡± I say at last and turn to walk away from the man. I don¡¯t even consider him poor because he died, it is the most usual end of people is his profession. Thinking of this I turn back to Xi and the dead man. ¡°Would you be so kind as to transport the body to the school, let us have some use for it. We can put the body in a hole later as well.¡± I say.


    I inspect my tools for the job at hand. Check that Tion has enough paper and Ha is ready for the dissection of the Tiger mountain member in front of us. We are in my private rooms at school. The room is set up like an old-fashioned dissection school room, but it has yet to be used. It is built with thoughts of the future, not the present. Today is actually the first day of using it. ¡°What are you hoping to learn from this?¡± Ha asks me while looking the naked man over. I shrug and look at her. ¡°Well at least pictures of the inner organs. I think this is the first step in furthering our craft. But I am especially interested in knowing if he is different from ourselves inside since he uses a radically different cultivation method.¡± I say and smile at her, it is a weak smile since it turns out I don¡¯t really like dead people and cutting them up.


    Steeling my nerves and stopped stalling I begin working on the man. When I finish, I clean and disinfect my body as best I can after I look over Tions drawings of the now poor man. There is no longer a corpse in the room, the man is gone and only parts and pieces of him is around. I will need to have it all cleaned up and carry the worst parts out myself as not to start too bad rumours. ¡°These drawings are really good,¡± I tell Tion who also looks a bit green in the face. My stomach does not feel as good either, which is a stark contrast to Ha who seems to have found her new calling in life. Maybe I should have a talk with Xi about reigning her in a bit. At least I should make a change in the school charter about dissection.


    Instead of talking about our discoveries inside the cramped and stuffy room we exit and go to my office. We sit down in silence and I serve fruit juice, it is not cold, but soothing all the same. Tea is good most of the time, but not always. Sometimes something sweet and coolish is needed.


    ¡°That was interesting,¡± Tion says at last and look over at me. I don¡¯t know if she has seen the light the session sparked in my sister''s eyes. Her intuition is so good I cannot imagine she has not seen it. ¡°That is a weak statement, I learned more about the body in that one session than my brother has managed to teach me the rest of my life,¡± Ha says and begin talking about the muscle structure she saw and ligaments. I listen with interest since this is far from what I learned in the same session. ¡°It is clear to me now some of the ways master, you method touches the inner soft structure of the body and heals it.¡± She finishes after some time leaving me feeling good from the compliment and the learning. ¡°That was certainly different from what I saw,¡± Tion says and saves me from saying the same thing. ¡°Okay, and what did you see?¡± I ask her and she speaks about the inner organs, their intricate structure and how they played as part of the whole structure. ¡°More than ever I understand the importance for every function in the body for these different organs. The interplay is interesting and delicate¡± In her conclusion from all of this. I am thinking of not speaking my of my own insight, not to hide knowledge, but out of fear, they will think I have done so. I decide such fear must be part of the reason there is distrust in the cultivation community, probably why the man came to our door and died.The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    ¡°What did you find?¡± My sister asks me while I sit thinking about these subjects. ¡°Well, certainly not the same as you two did,¡± I say and think how to put it. ¡°His bone structure had some differences from our own.¡± I begin and take a moment to collect my thoughts before continuing. ¡°I am not certain, but they seemed reinforced somehow with two layers instead of our uniformity. I saw this from his remarkably sturdy teeth and spine. He had fewer bones in his hands like some were fused together. That was not all, his organs looked sick, not a healthy red colour like mine is, but a sickly grey and black. On the other hand, they must be more efficient since he was heavier than us and his muscles looked denser.¡± I tell them. From all the work I really got very little information that was new. It seems medical science when one steps away from spiritual work, where one can sense the work in progress, becomes much more complex and intricate. ¡°How do you know our inner structure and colour?¡± Tion asks and I can see Ha asking the same question. ¡°I am capable of it since I follow the strictest interpretation of my manuals. Ha studies a variant more suited for her and her work.¡± I tell them and it is true, not the colour part of course, but the rest. ¡°So our conclusion from the work is that the Tiger Mountain sect will be better fighters than us?¡± Ha asks after having mulled over my answer and not looking too happy about it. ¡°Well kinda,¡± I say and try to formulate my own observation in words rather than the feelings I have now. ¡°They will be close quarters fighters based on this one man. Not the sneaky type at all, their hands are not suited for deft work like that.¡± I nod to myself the observations coming together as I speak. ¡°Most probably fast and strong but not nimble. They were carrying swords and spears all the times we saw them so that will be what they fight with.¡± I say and stop Tion is at this. ¡°Such sects like to specialize so it sounds reasonable, although if they are large enough we might see several specializations within the same sect.¡± I nod at this together with my sister. ¡°Well, there seems we will have to prepare for a fight regardless.¡± Is our conclusion from the session.


    Being exhausted from the long day I go straight to bed when I get home. Not even stopping to eat the food Xia has left out for me and now is cold. Instead, I go straight to bed and cuddle up with her and her gigantic stomach to sleep. I mull over how to try and reign in Ha the next morning and decide to bring it up with my wife before doing anything.


    ¡°Let me get this straight.¡± Xia is not amused by it. ¡°You cut a man up after having killed him out in the woods and you think it is the wrong Ha was the one taking most of the intellectual pleasure from the exercise?¡± I try putting up a defence against such an argument, but in the end, my conscience won¡¯t let me. When the damned women put it in such real terms I have no defence and must buckle under. ¡°What about changing the charter so only enemies and volunteers might be dissected or experimented on?¡± I ask her and she thinks it over. ¡°That is more reasonable, but include slaves so there is some baseline material available.¡± She agrees, she is a scary woman sometimes, when not cuddly and nice. Sometimes I wonder if I should stay home and bring up the kids properly, but I disregard it. Xia seems to have turned out like I like it so why not the kids.

 Chapter 31

    ¡°We need to prepare for the worst outcome. maybe Tiger mountain sect will come back and try to lean on us again. But I doubt it, they are bullies and probably see wrongs where there are none.¡± I say and look the council over. We have gathered the village council which is the school board and the elders in the village. ¡°Xi and Tion have been working on some preparation. I want Tion to tell you of how such fights usually happen and then Xi present how he thinks to counter.¡±


    Tion rise from her seat and stand before us. ¡°Sects and schools are very secretive in their dealings. After all their greatest value is in knowledge and fighting reveals much of this knowledge since most followers of a Dao can observe others and learn. In addition to this, there is seldom fights over territory since sects and schools keep away from each other. They require the separation to get the best spots to train their Dao both because of secrecy and because of how heavenly energy acts.¡± She takes a moment to breathe while her last words sink in. ¡°Your interaction with Tiger mountain sect is in this-this regard entirely textbook, the weak trampling the strong.¡± Her smile after this is kind of sad like she has no belief in our ability to fend off the other sect. ¡°If this continues you will see single members from the other sect testing the waters. If you manage to fend them off they will come back to kill you all and let someone else pick up the pieces after having looted all they can. They will bring overwhelming power to ensure they do not let any witnesses alive. If you do not manage to fend them off they will harass you and ground you down beneath them over time until someone else stands up for you.¡± Her words are depressing and it seems there is little choice. ¡°Our only option is to fight them then?¡± My father asks and Tion nods before sitting down again.


    ¡°It is a sad thing that such barbarians are running around in our great country, but there it is,¡± I say and smile a sad little smile to them all. ¡°My father''s question is so far as I know the right one, and tradition and their culture of barbarism seem to leave us little choice.¡± There is silence among the men gathered here, and Tion. ¡°Can we not call for help from the Lord?¡± Tun asks and again begin to Tion rise, but I gesture for her to stay seated. ¡°I have asked Tion to send a letter, but if my visit in Nassan and rumours from there are true there will be no help for our Lord. The Tiger Mountain sect might even be supported from over the border and that would mean war. No, we need to prepare us self for the tribulation ahead. In that regard let us listen to Xi¡¯s plan to defend the village.¡± I tell the gathered men and gesture for Xi to rise and lay forth his plans.


    ¡°We have already met one such ¡°tester¡± as Su called him and dispatched him easily. Su, Tion and Ha examined the man afterwards. Based on data we have they are certain Tiger Mountain sect are close quarter fighters, as much as such a term can be used for followers of a Dao. We all saw one sect member cut a stone from far off.¡± Xi takes a pause in his telling and finds a glass of water to wet his throat. ¡°After some discussion with the men in the village, we have decided that we need to exploit this weakness of theirs. Hunters are able to take out the lesser of these men with ease at a distance and we need to improve on this capability in the village. Su calls such attacks hit and run. The problem is that we have a fixed position and even with such tactics at some point, our enemy will manage to penetrate. Tion tells me this can happen quite easily.¡± Again he stops to let his words sink in, or maybe he is tired of his own voice. I have never heard Xi talk for so long.Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.


    ¡°In preparation for this, we have designated certain areas as safe spots and Su is financing further defensive works. Even as impressive the ¡°Tiger slash¡± was it did not penetrate the stone so we have decided to build stone defences with narrow entrances. Here we hope to hide the villagers, not on the defence. Everyone will know where the defences are and guards will be appointed for each. There will also be medical personnel for each and a central location. Training on what to do in the event of an attack is central in our plan. Hunters and woodsmen will be outside the village and attack our enemy as they can from afar while close quarters fighters try to hold them still.¡± Xi looks kind of exhausted with all the talking and take another break and drink water before continuing.


    ¡°None of this is happy thoughts, but we are certain that if we all work together we will be able to survive this storm like we have done some many others.¡± there is silence when Xi is done speaking and one of the other elders clap. ¡°Thank you for such a detailed description of what we will be doing if attacked.¡± I take a moment coming back from thoughts of formations and defences so I don¡¯t recognize that the man is Xi¡¯s grandfather. ¡°I support Xi as the leader of our warriors in the defence of the village.¡± The man says and gets support around the room. Xi rises again and bows to the men before smiling a bit mischievously ¡°I will remind everyone here that all warriors must be in our dear honourable schoolmaster Su Mings service. We are a local village to our lord after all.¡± There is some laughter, but less heartfelt. We are not after all inspiring rebellion. ¡°It is decided Xi will lead our men into battle and we support Su Ming in preparing for the troubles ahead,¡± Tatum says and there is a murmur of acceptance around the room.


    ¡°What will you begin with?¡± I ask Xi and he looks at me over his steaming cup of tea. ¡°I will begin with training the men. As you have taught me, men are the worth everything else is there to help them.¡± I nod at this and look out on the view over the school. We are sitting in my office where there is the best view of the school from the main plateau. ¡°Good, I will support you where I can so just tell me what you need.¡± ¡°Thank you, but your teaching of the men and working with them is all I think I can ask for.¡± He bows his head to me and I shake my head. ¡°No, that is not all, I will begin teaching better medical practices and we will be buying plenty of supplies for the men,¡± I tell him. I do not intend to let all my work fall just because Xi thinks he can manage by himself. ¡°Tell me when you need something. We will have a weekly meeting and I will instruct the elders of your progress.¡±


    I am hoping our preparations will be enough, but I am not looking forward to what is to come. Spending time thinking on it does not help either so I get off my ass and begin my own preparations. I look into making techniques of my cultivation for hurting others that are easy to master. Like potions where the opposite is poison, healing and hurting go hand in hand. Thoughts like this have swirled around in my head for a long time so going the distance is not too hard a task to master and I soon find several easy to master arts where my healing powers can be used to hurt. Either by momentarily strengthening the user body or inflicting increased damage on the enemy.

 Chapter 32

    Xi knocks on my door and opens it when I tell him it is okay. ¡°We killed another one.¡± He tells me before I get to ask what he is here for. This is the second since the hunters began patrolling the area around the village up towards the mountains. ¡°Thank you, I will notify Ha and Tion at once,¡± I tell him and rise. ¡°No need, I did so already. But I need to show you something.¡± He says and comes over to my desk. There he lays gently down a piece of paper. ¡°Found it on his body.¡± He says and I look it over. It is a message.


    ¡°Look in at Rapid, no scouts have returned¡±


    The message says and I smile. ¡°If this is true then we have managed to kill all of them,¡± I say and look the piece of paper over. It also means the sect is rich if they use paper for this purpose. The paper is even of good quality. ¡°I think it is true Su, this man was far better equipped than any of the others. He died as easily though.¡± Xi says with a smile on his face. ¡°Well, Tions first fear seems not be coming true if this is the quality of their men we will have no problems finding them off,¡± I say and Xi nod. ¡°Thank you for this, now let us have a look on the man sent here.¡±


    Walking through the school show me how much has changed since this began. The school feels more settled not only because it has been standing for some time, but because it looks used. There are signs of wear on the walls and I see I need to order a new round of polishing the floors. It is said it will take several years before the building is finished, but I love it. On the walls, we have begun hanging up artwork made by students or villagers. I even meet some girls going to class and tell them there will be a dissection on the way.


    ¡°Quiet¡± Ha says in a stern voice to the room filled with people. It is full and students are hanging over the second set of balconies. We have had to cut extra windows in the room to get enough air into the room. I as the master has floor space beside Tion whom sketches it all down. ¡°Let us begin with the usual. The hands.¡± Ha says and begins the dissection. In our study of the other bodies the hands have been the most different so now we start there. No cooling or formaldehyde means we only have one shot at a dissection.


    ¡°That was very disappointing,¡± Ha tells me and look over the notes Tion has made on paper from the session. ¡°There was nothing different about this man and the others.¡± I look at her and shake my head. ¡°That is heartening, there must some part of their early training which leaves their hands in such a state. It must make it harder later to be anything other than a close quarters fighter even if they want to.¡± I take a sip of the beer Xia has brought us and look over to where she and Tion have their own heads together. ¡°That is true, but I want to see something new.¡± Ha complains and I laugh when she pouts. ¡°Don¡¯t worry as soon as this fight erupts you will see a lot of new things,¡± I tell her and sink a bit together. My demeanour might not reveal it, but I am not looking forward to the evening more blood.Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.


    After this last scout, there is no new contract with the Tiger Mountain sect. It becomes very quiet and this leaves everyone nervous. As time passes nervousness turns to boredom and pride in having fought the evil sect off. I know that we are not done with the men, but my feelings do not matter much. Xi and the hunters remain vigilant though. With fall comes the Forresters and money. There is trade downriver with Banks and I finally have made inroads in how to produce paper.


    It happens the week before founding day. The winter has been hard and only the followers of my Dao in the village are able to traverse the landscape in the worst snow. This is what warns us of the attack. Coming from a direction not usual for them it seems they wanted to surprise us. Luckily for us, Xi did not disregard this and had patrols there as well. Word reaches us in the middle of the night. But we have time to prepare.


    ¡°Well, time to wait,¡± I say and look over the students gathered in the main hall. They are armed, but they are also ready to assist anyone hurt in the fighting to come. ¡°I think we are as ready as we can be,¡± Ha says and does the same once over I did. ¡°Yes, but the killing is going to kill me,¡± I say and laughs with as much good humour as I can. The least I can do is to show everyone else that I am not worried. Panic can have more people killed than is necessary. In addition to the shelters and defences built there are also escape routes laid in case of a breach.


    Minutes turn into hours and I make certain people are fed and everyone have something to do. I don¡¯t want them to be bored. My surprise is great when the students sit down and play games and make fun while waiting. I even join one with Ha, Tion and an older girl being taught under Ha, Yuan. She is Ha¡¯s apprentice and I have very little to do with her on a daily basis, not like when I lead meditation sessions or teach. Which I admittedly do very little off, I am more the administrator and I have enough of my own thing to do.


    When we have quieted down and gotten on other thoughts is when we begin hearing noises outside. There is clashing of metal and once something scrapes the stone with a horrible sound. The wait is over and a battle is upon us. I check that my own equipment is in order and go to link up the medical section with the guards around the building. My role is to bring the wounded back for healing. Tion joins me and two other male students in the same mission. Combat medics I have named us and armed with personal weapons we are neither fighter nor medic, but rather ambulances.

 Chapter 33

    The walk is short and feels shorter by the fact I have adrenaline pumping through my body and I am shaking in fear. Gripping my staff I soon come to the entrance where we have stacked stones to make it even harder to pass. ¡°Come, carry him back¡± I immediately hear and see a man sitting and holding his stomach together on the side. I move as fast as I can extracting bandages from my pack and put the compress on his stomach.


    I carry the man, I have no idea who it is, back to the hall where I meet Ha. She takes over and sends me in the other direction. I no longer dawdle and fidget, I have no time for such foolishness. I run, I fetch men and direct others to where the fighting is hardest. Seconds feel like hours and minutes like days. Five men, I have carried back to the infirmary. Four of them is already back in the fight.


    ¡°We can hold them no problem.¡± A young man says to me and grin. We have a short sit down since there are no enemies outside at the moment. ¡°They can¡¯t pass and we have gotten into a very good rhythm.¡± His name escapes me, but he is younger than me and it seems glad for the fight. ¡°They will do something soon, now they are hounding after the huntsmen.¡± An older man says, he is the one holding the door at the moment. ¡°Let them, they will not manage.¡± The younger man answers back with a grin.


    I feel it before it comes, a wave of power building up outside. The men I am with seems more wary of the surroundings. ¡°Get down, fight when it has passed,¡± I tell them and run off in the direction of the power. ¡°Make way and bunker down,¡± I scream as I pass through the halls by both wounded and healthy people. I feel it when it hits, the strike makes the building shudder and heaves like a ship at sea. Some scream, but most stay silent so I run toward the entrance.


    Stone blocks have been moved around and our defences have been opened. A man is pinned beneath one of the stones, I leave him to the tender hands of the students following me. It seems I have to actually fight the opponent causing this ruckus. Yi stands there like a true villain in the snow that falls from the heavens. There is less blood on him than on me, but it is clear he has been fighting hard and long.


    ¡°So you finally show?¡± He says and spits blood on the snow. I don¡¯t tremble and stand my ground. ¡°Well, what am I supposed to do when weaklings knock on my door,¡± I say to him and smile the happiest smile I manage. ¡°Losers such as yourself should really stay away from the big boys,¡± I say trying to goad him into speaking more, I need time for other men to help me.


    ¡°You crappy dog of a man unworthy of being a warrior of any kind. Whoreson and demon spawn who perverts the heavenly energy for your own twisted benefit. You mongrel and guttershit dares to stand up against us. You have killed my brother and spit on the agreement between you.¡± Yi rants at me and I can see spittle flying from his mouth and blood leaking down his chin. He looks tired and more than a little crazy there he stands. ¡°I will kill you and all your loved ones, then I will salt the ground you stand on so nothing can grow there for the next thousand years.¡± He is screaming and to rile him up even more. ¡°What an unforgettable and weak brother you had, I was here drinking tea and all you have met so far are the hunters from the village,¡± I say to him and smirk while thinking of how both he and his brother can eat shit for all I care.Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.


    ¡°You ungrateful little swine of a coward hiding behind women and children. You are a disgrace to all men.¡± He continues to rant, but then he stops and looks straight at me. I see he has recovered and looks to be about to attack. ¡°Well, you are faring worse than me in this fight so I would imagine you are the disgrace to the concept of man since you don¡¯t seem to be able to hurt me,¡± I tell him and know it was a mistake when the words leave my mouth. Yi screams and the sound sends a chill down my spine. He then rushes at me and slices with the sword that up until now has hanged by his side. I manage to move my staff in front of his sword and the clash sends me flying backwards. I smack into the fallen stones behind me. ¡°Ha, insolent whelp, like I the great Yi master of the Tiger Mountain sect can¡¯t hurt a little shit like you.¡± His laughter is that of a deranged man and he stands there laughing at me. I try giving him a good show groaning and even crying a little, it is not hard, I am in so much pain.


    I see the shadow creep up behind Yi, no idea who it is before his face becomes revealed by the rising sun. Xi steps forward and his axe gleam when a sunray catches it going down. There is no great boom, no big sound, just a wet ¡°schlop¡± and some bones breaking. Xi is not done and wrenches his axe out again while Yi begins turning towards him. These men are tenacious to the last it seems. Again Xi chops down with the axe, and again until Yi¡¯s head lay splattered all over the ground beneath him. As the snow falls the only sound for a while that I can hear is the groan and roar of flames burning down in the village. Xi wrenches his axe out the last time and the corpse of Yi makes a thud on the ground when it lands.


    ¡°Thank you,¡± I say to Xi after a little while. What else am I to say to the man. He saved me and probably everyone else, it seems to be so little and my gratitude is greater. Xi just smiles back and waves it off. ¡°My pleasure, think he was the last still attacking. His brother was caught by an arrow early in the fight.¡± Xi says while I stumble over to him. I just embrace him in a hug and hold him close for some time. ¡°Thank you,¡± I tell him again and smile at him. ¡°Okay¡± Is all Xi manages to say after this and I begin looking him over. ¡°No wounds?¡± I ask him after a bit and he shrugs. ¡°Not that I know of.¡± I pat him down and can¡¯t seem to find any. ¡°Okay, go to Ha and get yourself checked out, then gather your men and send the wounded for healing. I need you or whoever is healthy to go back into the mountains and hunt down the rest of the sect. If you can find their headquarters I need you to burn it to the ground.¡± I tell him, he nods at my message and moves on leaving me standing there alone.


    When he is gone I can let my emotions get the best of me for a moment. I shudder and tremble a while before I walk over behind a stone and retch. I vomit out all I have in my stomach and begin crying. For some time I stay there and let it wash over me. The fear and disgust of what has happened today, and what I will need to do going forward this day. After some time I straighten out, pat myself down and clear the tears. I need to show a brave face to the men and women depending on me, I cannot break down on them.

 Chapter 34

    Inspecting the land around the school buildings is a grim affair. The falling snow will soon cover the blood and bodies and some we will only find again when spring comes. I know there are two men missing, probably dead, all the wounded have been taken care of and are healing while being looked after by volunteers or family. They will pull through so the losses must be said to be minimal. One hunter, three Forresters and women from the town. It is nothing less than a miracle compared to what stories and common sense should tell us. There will be more bloodshed in the future, both soon and with time.


    I find Xi and he has gathered the burgeoning security force around him. six grim-faced men armed with axes and bows look up at me when I enter the guardpost. The words of encouragement and moral boost I wished to give die before I let the words leave my throat. ¡°Get them all, we do not want more trouble,¡± I tell them and they nod. It slams home for me the three different worlds we have grown up in. The gap is large between those growing up in the village after my tenth birthday and those before. This gap is nothing compared to the one between my original upbringing and these men. To them life is cheap and what I have wrought here in battle is great. I fancied myself a calloused and hard man before, I am nothing compared to these men. ¡°Good,¡± I say, give Xi a pat on the back and turn away from them. They will go out and do what I cannot. Instead of leaving out into the cold I walk back to the infirmary, where I can be of help.


    After the first rush to get everyone gathered and prepared for healing there is the bounding of wounds sowing shut cuts and bandaging scrapes. Several places I see people with a missing arm or leg. Men and women scarred for life by vengeful bastards. I feel less bad about sending Xi away to hunt down the rest after this.


    ¡°Where can I help?¡± I ask Ha when I catch up to her. She looks at me with a tired look and then takes a deep breath. ¡°Please look them over and find what we have missed.¡± She says at last and goes back to what she was doing before I came. Following her orders, I dive into the work.


    I feel like I am working a conveyor belt as I am walking from patient to patient checking them over before telling their loved ones or volunteer what is wrong. I feel bad about taking a break and even worse when I feel how the exercise is improving my speed and accuracy in finding faults. The feeling of being of use is at least good for my ego if it is bad that I feel good for finding others mistakes.Stolen novel; please report.


    ¡°This is amazing,¡± Tion says to me in a moment where we both have a break. ¡°What is?¡± I ask her and she just makes a swipe with her arm. ¡°You beat them back with so few casualties and now you are helping the wounded.¡± She laughs a little bit like a crazy person. ¡°Your weak little school is mightier than an established sect from the mountains.¡± The sparkle in her eyes is actually more unsettling for me than the laugh from before. ¡°I will join you and see to what heights you soar.¡± She tells me and pats me on the back before going back to her own work of helping to feed everyone.


    A week later all the hubbub has died down. I am busy working with everyone still injured, but the crisis is over. The dead have been buried with honour in the cemetery and their bodies thrown in pits together with the bodies of our enemies. It will become fertilizer for the fields in time. Now we are all worrying about the men going into the mountain to hunt down the sect and ridding us of this plague with one stroke. I hope no one will live to tell the tale of our might, looking weak while being strong is basic in the art of war.


    ¡°We found their trail and followed them back to their hideout up in the mountains,¡± Xi tells us while warming his hands over the fire. ¡°It seemed nearly everyone had come to raid us here. So we waited for early morning and with the sun at our back and as much surprise we could manage we fell upon them.¡± He smiles at this, and he has reason to. No one of our men died up in the mountains. ¡°We slaughtered them in their beds like they wished to do to us and then we robbed them and burnt the buildings down. There will be no sign of them in some years.¡± He tells us and smile. Ha is happy to have her husband back and the village is happy for the loot they carried back. Not so much silver, but luxuries, animals and a lot of fine clothes and pelts.


    ¡°I am proud of your success,¡± I tell Xi and give him a pat on the back. ¡°Please tell your men there will be a reward from me. And tomorrow when you are done being welcomed back by Ha I hope we can write your whole adventure down.¡± I tell him and rise. Outside I meet the villagers going over the loot and carrying it inside. It brings a smile to my face and hope of us bouncing back from the ordeal.


    Tion waits in my house when I come back together with my wife. ¡°We have heard the glad tidings,¡± Xia says and smiles while handing me a steaming cup of tea. ¡°Yes, it has been a great success and I hope all of the bastards are dead,¡± I tell them, Tion is just smiling over the news. ¡°Greater and greater glory. Soon all the walls of the school will be filled with signs of your glory.¡± I like Tion, but the hunger and taste for glory she seems to have scared me more than I would like to admit.

 Chapter 35

    I walk through the garden and see how the work is progressing. The gardeners are working hard to make it perfect and out work is really paying off. Paths circle the different parts and in a while, the garden will be filled with plants purifying the air and providing shelter for the cultivation stations around the school. It will be both pretty and functional, as well as the first proper park in the village. I am proud of what we have managed to accomplish over the last few years. The school is up and running, the village is prospering and growing. All is well and stable enough that I now can leave.


    My walk brings me into the large central hall of the school. The hall is the biggest room in the area and can house more than fifty people listening at once. I really enjoy seeing when it is filled with children in the summer months. All the student and disciples of the school have to teach the children reading, I have adopted as one of the school tenants that ¡°You have not understood something before you can teach it.¡± So each summer there is teaching for free in the village. One or two months depending on weather and season when kids from all over can come and be thought. They get a piece of wood showing what they have been through so they can advance the next year.


    The hall is filled with people, all the teachers, some disciples and all of the movers and shakers in the villages of Rapid, Banks and Hill. I have called them here because it is finally time, and I do not want it to be a surprise, I am soon leaving for my adventure. Having told and gotten feedback on the process I am hoping everything will be okay with the school and villages when I come back. I am leaving Ha in charge of the school and my brothers in charge of my many businesses. Xia is in charge of the manor and the different farms around it. She is also in charge of our fortune as a wife should be. I have thought her double entry bookkeeping so she can keep our finances in order, and even though money is not pouring in, there is still money.


    Everyone rise and I can enjoy the colours in the room from all the pretty clothes. All the teachers are dressed in white and black with the school''s mark on the back and right front. Ha has silver on the edges of all her clothes, it is mirrored in my gold. The teachers sport white while the different ranked students also have their colours. Tion tells me that it is unorthodox how little emphasis on the ranks we put. Her own family''s cultivation method expels all the poison in the body when changing ranks and that is the norm. They then also put more emphasis on the different ranks in their clothing. When she told me this I was horrified at the damage these methods must have on the body, but I also saw money since just such damage is what my method is good at repairing.


    I smile at all gathered ¡°Please take a seat.¡± I tell them and with a bow they do. Rising when a superior person enters the room is not part of our culture, but part of the growing culture around the school. Rise, bow and then sit when the person entering has acknowledged the honour. I make my way to the seat reserved for me at the head of the table. Sitting down I see the papers laid there for me and the little gavel in case the room won¡¯t come to order. This is also part of the growing culture, I call it open meetings and they can get very rowdy. It is like a brainstorming session with note takers and rules of conduct. The most important of which is that no one is allowed to take offence at anything said, and all disagreements have to be resolved before ending the meeting. I remember the first meeting where I had to keep it going for three days. Turned out to be a great success though.Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.


    ¡°Thank you all for coming,¡± I tell them and look around the room. Everyone knows why they are here, but I go over it again. ¡°I have talked with each and every one of you before about my desire to travel and now I have decided it is time. This meeting is to organize my departure, settle all matters internal to the school and decide upon any tasks I should try to fulfil outside. There are four purposes to my travel. I wish to explore and bring back knowledge to the village, I wish to find new opportunities for growth and I wish to spread the word and renown of this school.¡± My little speech did, I again survey the room and see the Village head of Banks holding up his little paddle to speak. ¡°I have long known this day would come and I have not looked forward to it. After I have spoken with Learned Su about his reasons I have agreed with him. In this regard I sent around a paper with the goals I think worthwhile to pursue.¡± He says and everyone finds his paper in the pile. That paper mill is a fucking wonder and it is like printing money. It is situated in Banks since it needs so much space, water and manpower to run. Small speeches like his goes around the room and in the end there is a long list of matters for me to look into. My mind might have despaired at it if it was a task list, but it is more like a dream list. ¡°Meeting the emperor¡± is on it, but I see no great reason for me actually working towards such a lofty goal.


    ¡°No, I do not think it is enough with two companions,¡± My father says for the last time. ¡°Three is the least you will leave this town with my boy.¡± His voice is firm and decided, but I have managed to pass under ten at least. ¡°Agree¡± I hear from many around the Hall. I cave and look around me ¡°Then whom do you think should be the third?¡± I ask them, I wanted to bring only Xi and Tion on this adventure. ¡°You need to bring one of your disciples,¡± Ha says with a firm voice and her arms crossed. ¡°Okay, but whom?¡± I ask again and the discussion continues. They end up sending Yuan, one of my oldest disciples with me. She is unmarried, close to twenty-five and good with her hands.


    Xia does not seem happy when we walk back from the meeting. ¡°You are leaving me behind.¡± She states when she finally says something. I look at her and think about our agreement before marrying. ¡°Yes, everyone knew this when we married. I even made a point talking to you about it.¡± I say and continue, she stops and I have to turn when she speaks next. ¡°So that is all I am to you, someone to keep the home?¡± She looks hurt and I feel like I am on the uneasy ground again. I need to tell her how I feel and not make it sound like I am a pompous ass while doing so. ¡°Kind of, since you are the only one I truly trust to not mess up leading all I build. Ha has her own plans, Xi is a battle maniac and the elders have no vision for the future. If I am to leave and have something to come back to I need to leave you to watch after it.¡± I tell her and smile while walking over to her. ¡°You are probably the best person in this whole region and I wish I all our children will take after you.¡± I hold her hands and draw her up to me for a kiss. ¡°Really?¡± I kiss her on the mouth and answers her with a smile. ¡°So why do you have to leave?¡± I feel all my good words fall down around me since she does not seem convinced. Again I have to find the right words. ¡°Do you really think keeping me here is a good idea?¡± I ask her and look around, here and there I see pretty girls doing their own thing and leer. Xia grip my upper arm and drag me along behind her back home.

 Chapter 36

    I sit in the little courtyard that is adjacent to my office behind the manor. It is the only space in the house where my wife is not allowed and where I cultivate. They call it closed door training after Tion put a name on it, I call it my man cave. It has an office with a desk and drawing board, oven and outside a courtyard filled with plants and a table to work on. Of course, my wife spends time with me here, it is just not her domain like the rest of the house. Now it is filled with my travelling party.


    Tion look the beauty she is after three years of work the only thing that can betray her is the small penis between her legs. I have shrunk it, but not removed it since it might someday be needed or wanted. She has pert breasts sized like a small C and a bubble butt ready to be grabbed. From being all man and having to work hard to be feminine she now exudes sex, and I know that she has male lovers in the villages. Her dress is what has begun to be known as the floating rose schools style. It is much less heavy clothing like Chinese or renaissance form of dress and rather a flowing kimono. I like it on the women since they usually only wear one or two layers.


    Xi has grown with the growth of his children, a boy of two years and a girl of one. His brooding and serious demeanour has opened up and become more playful. He is still a brooding person, but with that little spark creating knowledge that has humour inside. He is also now what I would call a battle maniac having sought to teach in the school and become serious about his life choice. Last year he swore allegiance to me having understood that he needed someone to guide him and serve. Ha was furious at the decision, even as she did the same three years prior to become the vice-head of our school. He sports a red stripe on his clothing representing his rank in the school. Could have been white by now, but he has yet to master his career choices to split his focus three ways between the sword, bow and massage.


    The last person in the group is Yuan. One of my first disciples being thought daily at the temple. I am surprised that Xia did not protest more about having her as part of my retinue on my travels. She is beautiful, nearly as pretty as either my wife or Tion. Her demeanour is also good and the only reason I did not marry her rather than Xia is that her parents are just day labourers working on the villages farms and forest on a wage. Not like Xia whos father is the village head of Banks. Her family will rise with her however since she will earn more in her life than the family has earned in generations.


    These are the people I will travel with to see all the wonders of the land. I am giddy with excitement looking forward to this. Having scores of plans myself. I hope to see spectacular landscapes. Discover new and exciting people while uncovering the secrets of this world. There is so much to see, feel, enjoy and experiences. The capital is the first big goal for me since I wish to see the seat of power. The most magnificent buildings and people are said to gather there and I wish to take part. On the way, I will get to do all the other things and maybe even have a fling or ten. I hope to earn money, eat good food, drink all the different drinks and meet people from near and far. Three or five years I have planned to be away, then I should have kids at a good age since Xia is pregnant for the first time now. I will see the kids born and then I will be gone.Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.


    ¡°Good, finally can we gather and plan our journey, any suggestions?¡± I ask them and write down what they say. ¡°First Mao of course,¡± Tion says and the think it over. ¡°We really should go to Nassan and back towards the capital.¡± She thinks it over and nods. ¡°Yeah, that is about all I have.¡± I nod and think it over since I have nothing better. ¡°Wait a moment and I will find a map,¡± I tell them. Xi begins rattling off a whole slew of places he wants to visit. Know battle sites, sieges, school, sects and a whole range of families and know masters he wishes to see. Yuan has her list of cities, most for the money she can earn I think. ¡°Okay, Okay,¡± I tell them and hold my hands up. ¡°First we need to decide if we will go in the mountains or along the ocean,¡± I tell them and look at the map I found. ¡°We can also pass between them crossing the rivers,¡± Tion says and traces the route with her finger. ¡°So three choices.¡± In the end, it is up to me to decide. I take a stick from a game with three sides and throw it. ¡°It is decided, we will follow the mountains to the capital,¡± I say Xi is overjoyed by this while Yuan and Tion groan. The mountains are cold, hard to pass through and little life. On the other hand, there are many schools and sects there know for their battle prowess, fortresses know for great sieges and some really heroic battle sites. ¡°That decides it, we will leave early in the new year,¡± I tell them and everyone nod at this, no reason to pass through when there is too much snow.


    There is a lot to do and the extra time will be useful for me. I can begin construction on the bamboo paper mill. Finalize the work needed on the school and get a feel for how the gardens progress. I have big hopes for them and if they are able to cleanse the area of polluted energy it will be a great leap forward in cultivation. Looking it all over I am not so sad that I will break my own promise. I am able to leave no when I still am eighteen, but I will not, I will wait and do so when I am truly ready. Rushing into something is not the solution, rather I will take my time and truly savour the world around me. That is my goal after all. I will set out on new adventures soon enough. Postponing also means I will have more time to work through all the hurt the attack caused on me and my people.