Sky Pride

Chapter 47- Eating Rice Today

The two young immortals ran home. Their feet flowed over the long miles more slowly now. Each struggling with the enormity of what they believed was the truth. How could they face their brothers and sisters, face their elders, face their families? How do you answer the courtesy questions about how you are and what you have been up to recently?

A random thought tickled Tian, and made him laugh. “Have you eaten rice today?”

“I’m not very well, no.” Hong grunted.

“No, literally, ‘Have you eaten rice today?’ When people say it, they are really saying ‘How are you?’ and nobody expects you to answer with anything but ‘Fine, thanks.’ But what it literally says is-”

“Have you eaten food today? Or, in the right context, have you eaten rice. Which says… kind of a lot, now that you point it out.”

“It’s seeing all the rice paddies that made me think of it,” Tian explained. “Everyone’s got to eat. ‘How are you?’ is no different than ‘Have you eaten?’ And food is no different than rice. Everything else is there to support the rice and make it more delicious and nutritious. It’s all built on rice.”

Hong nodded. “And rice doesn’t just grow wild. Or, I guess it does, but not in useful amounts. It needs proper fields. Proper irrigation. There are a lot of details and techniques to it that you wouldn’t think of. The fact that we can farm rice at all is a testimony to the perseverance of our ancestors.”

“But with that, we can feed a nation of a billion people. So long as they are left to farm in peace.” The blue sky seemed empty today. There were birds wheeling high up, and the crane was flying around somewhere, but there wasn’t a hint of clouds. No sign of the heavy rains to come. Funny how a sunny day sounded like a wonderful thing, right up until you needed the rain. You had to have both, if you wanted to eat rice today.

The nights were spent peacefully. They subconsciously stayed away from villages and towns, preferring to sleep in their tents. It wasn’t discussed. It was just the instinctive desire not to stare at corpses that didn’t yet know they were dead.

Tian found his thoughts skittering around, like they wanted to poke at the wound but also run away from it. What would he say to Brother Fu? How would he feel seeing him? Seeing West Town, and the Temple, and his brothers? The ones that were so wounded they had to be sent home, anyway. The rest were out fighting and dying in the Redstone Wastes. All because of an old man’s grief.

Even as he thought that, he knew he wasn’t being fair. Starsieve hadn’t made anyone act a certain way, he just closed his eyes to it, and everyone noticed. Then they just did as they wished.

Ancient Crane Mountain slowly rose from the horizon. Its peak was never visible. Tian had always assumed it was hidden by the clouds, and it was, but the fact a cloudbank existed permanently around the mountain’s waist was suspicious. Perhaps it was some sort of sect protecting array, a bewildering formation to keep invaders lost in illusions.

The villages they passed started looking familiar. Places Tian had visited on a mission, or when he was gathering herbs with Brother Wong. Lanes and paths he had first learned an immortal’s stroll on. They felt alien, now, despite their familiarity.

“Where is your parent’s place in relation to West Town?” Tian asked one night.

“It’s on the way, if that’s what you are asking. Ten minute detour, tops.” Hong shrugged, looking uncomfortable. “I keep in touch, but I haven’t been back in a long time. Four years, almost.”

“Want to go visit?”

“No.” She sighed. “They won’t recognize me.”

Tian silently nodded. “I want to go. You don’t need to show yourself. But I want to visit. I… won’t hurt them, or anybody.”

“Why?” She gave him an inquisitive look, but he just shook his head. Then Liren had the grace to look embarrassed, and nodded.

He hadn’t pinned his hair up. He was still wearing his coarse linen clothes. A madman or a beggar, racing down the roads faster than a horse could run. As things became more familiar, they became increasingly strange. Everything seemed varnished with the unreal, their vividness was evidence of their intangibility and increasing indistinguishability. He stopped seeing individual trees or rocks or walls or fields. They merged into a floating illusion that clung to him as he ran.

“I remember this. I was almost blind when I was here last, and it was nighttime. But I remember this place,” Tian murmured. “I stood at the edge of the jungle right there and looked over the valley. The villages were just little twinkling lights, West Town was barely even that. The river was a glowing silvery snake that cut through the darkness. It was when I first saw the world outside the dump, and learned world was huge.”

Hong silently guided them to her family’s village, stopping in a stand of trees just outside. “My family’s house is the big one on the small rise at the back of the village. I won’t be going in.” She pointed out her house. It wasn’t easy to spot, as it was back a good way from the rest of the houses. It was smaller than the word ‘manor’ had led him to believe.

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Tian looked out over the fields. It was after harvest, so you wouldn’t expect to see anything growing. Even so, he could tell something was wrong with the fields. The color was off, grey earth that should have been a rich black. Not many ducks and chickens running around, and the ones that were looked thin and mean. Not many kids were running around either, though there were some. Stick thin limbs on men and women, pinched mouths and narrow eyes. Not mean, exhausted.

He scooped up a bit of dirt and sniffed it. Tasted it. Spat it out. “The roots were cut away here. I suppose they really were heretics. Or whatever they did, it does what the heretics are trying to do.” Tian muttered. “Hasn’t gotten better in ten years either. That’s not good.”

It was easy to slide between the gaps in the peasants’ perception. They were looking down a lot. Tian was wondering why, until he saw a boy lifting up a rotting log and with a yell of triumph, grabbing a big bug. Then he directly ate it, afraid that someone would steal it from him.

Tian stared at the boy for a long minute, then strolled on.

The manor was just a courtyard with a wall and a gate. Larger than most, he supposed. Strictly speaking, it was smaller than the manor part of the Windblown Manor, even if the ground it enclosed was larger. The one-time herb boy appreciated the plantings. Everything was exactingly positioned to have the best chance for survival, but like the ducks and chickens, the survivors were looking raw and rough.

He tasted the dirt here as well, and spat it out instantly. He paused and looked at his fingers. There was a little dust on them, and he could feel his body becoming irritated by its presence. It wasn’t painful, just unpleasant. He wiped the dust from his hand and kept moving.

Nothing here looked familiar. Which he should expect. He had no memories before waking up in the dump, and the old manor burned down. It sounded like he never left his bedroom, or even his bed, anyway. But he thought something would remain. Some remnant memory or relic of the family that had lived here.

Something of the heir of the Xia. Something other than a curse.

He peeked into the house through the windows, then jumped up onto the roof and down into the courtyard interior. Ordinary. All ordinary. White plaster walls, neatly framed with oiled wood. The wood was fading now, the oil had long since dried out, and they hadn’t painted. The roof tiles were blackened clay, many broken, but most not.

There were servants busying themselves, sweeping, scrubbing, hanging out laundry or taking in deliveries. Better fed than the villagers. More neatly dressed, and they moved with a degree of assurance. They didn’t look comfortable, just a bit better than the ones below, and keenly aware of how fragile that condition was.

He didn’t see anyone that looked like they were part of Hong’s family, but he wasn’t really looking. What would he do if he found them? What could he even say? What was there to say? Vendetta would be reasonable. Appropriate, even. Filial. “I cannot live under the same sky as my parents’ murderers!” Something dramatic and heartfelt like that. He just felt sick.

What the Hongs did was sick. What the Xia did to this village, and the Hongs, was also sick. What the Long family did was sick. A chain of victims making more victims, extending down and looping back endlessly.

Could he forgive them? Seeing all this? Tian looked in his heart and found that his lamp of compassion wasn’t bright enough to clear all these shadows. No. He didn’t forgive the Hong Clan. All the pain and loneliness from the junkyard was still in him.

He half-seriously thought about making good on his threat to piss in their wine, but gave up on it. Too much work for not enough reward, and Liren trusted him. She was waiting at the gate of the village, hoping her brother was as good as she believed.

Tian jumped out of the courtyard and put his hair into a loose braid. He walked around to the gate, catching the eye of the old man guarding it.

“State your business, stranger. If you are here for food, scram.” The old man’s voice was hoarse.

“I’m looking for an old man named Chen. I understand he is badly burned. Does he still live here?”

“Old Chen?” The guard looked startled, then glared at Tian. “Why do you want to know?”

“I understand he knew my mother. I never really knew her, so I hoped to talk to him.”

The guard’s face softened. “You are a year too late, boy. He died last winter.”

“I see. Thank you.”

Tian cupped his hands and bowed very properly. It was an old man, tired, covered in scars, given the job of sitting on a rattan chair and guarding the gate. Was he one of the surviving guards who slaughtered the Xia? Maybe. He wasn’t going to kill an old mortal for that maybe. Tian turned to walk away, then paused and looked back.

“Senior? Let me ask you something. If you never knew your parents, who do you owe a filial duty to? The ones who bore you, or the ones who raised you?”

The old man frowned. “Both. You can never be too filial. I think the rule is that birth parents trump the adopted ones, but I’ve known too many orphans to take that rule seriously. If you only knew one set of parents, I’d say the duty lies with them. Though if your birth parents are dead, you must erect a memorial tablet and offer incense to your ancestors. THAT is non-negotiable.”

Tian smiled, the expression startling the old man into a surprised grunt. “Thank you, Senior. I will do exactly that.”

Grandpa Jun was his ancestor, guiding him from beyond the grave. Brother Fu was his father, who guided and cared for him in this life. And Sister Liren was his sister. At least, that’s how he felt. The heir to the Xia died in the fire with his mother. Tian would honor their memory, and carve a tablet for them. It would be enough, for now.

He still wanted to smack around Grandma Hong. And the vendetta against the Long Clan was set in stone. He would take care of it once he was strong enough, assuming they didn’t all die before then.

He untied his braid as he walked away from the Hong Manor, letting the weight fall away from him as his hair shook loose. Their next stop would be West Town, then Mountain Gate City. Then, if he had any say in things, the Monastery. It was past time he had a good chat with the Grand Elder. Long past time.

His steps stuttered to a stop in front of a confused Liren. He turned on the spot, and raced back into the village. Every child inexplicably found a steamed bun landing on the ground in front of them, stuffed with meat they only got to taste at the New Year festival.

It wasn’t anything, in the grand scheme of things. It wouldn’t fix anything either. But when he was starving, he would have appreciated it. He was an immortal cultivator with enough food. He had the capability. And he was not indifferent.