Li Yao made a face, looking at the massive monster she would have to cut into, then at the injured Wu Ying. She hesitated, searching for an excuse to not complete the work alone.
“Unless you want to sit around while I harvest, Senior,” Wu Ying pointed out.
“No. No, this is more efficient. I’ll harvest the stones and get the villagers to come and butcher the beasts,” Li Yao said decisively.
Immediately, the noblewoman moved away from Wu Ying, heading for the corpses. Getting up gingerly, Wu Ying pulled up the top of his robes and flicked his hand, making his harvesting gear appear from his storage ring. Time to get to work.
“Can I ask a question?” Li Yao said to Wu Ying as the pair lounged in the village elder’s hut later that day.
Rather than riding for the sect immediately, the pair had elected to stay for the day. The elder had insisted, offering to cook up a portion of the demon meat for tonight’s feast while buying the rest from the cultivators. Since the Elder had offered a much better rate than the sect would, the pair had happily traded the meat for taels.
“Of course, Senior.”
“Why did you not take all the yellow vein primroses? Also, you took the majority of the other flowers, but left the plant. You didn’t for some others,” Li Yao said.
“There is no additional reward for bringing the full plants since the sect grows them already,” Wu Ying explained. “The flowers are worthwhile and can still be sold, but the plant itself is worthless. This way, the plant can continue to grow out here, in the wild. It’ll even be ready for harvesting next year.”
“Ah…” Li Yao shook her head. “I never knew it was that complicated.”
“Neither did I till recently.”
Li Yao sighed. “You’ve found a better occupation than the one my family made me take before I entered the Sect.”
Wu Ying made an encouraging noise as he sipped the tea offered by the village elder. Good tea, he would have thought once. Now, Wu Ying knew it was of poor quality. The leaves had been left in the sun too long for drying, making the tea a strong, bitter brew but which held up after multiple brewings. It was so different from the delicate, layered tea Ah Yee made for Wu Ying.
“Terpsichore.”
“That’s… the dancer occupation?”
“Yes,” Li Yao said, lowering her head as she tried unsuccessfully to hide a blush.
“It might help with the martial styles.”
“Oh, it does,” Li Yao replied, sounding grumpy. “It really does, which is the worse thing.”
Wu Ying could think of no rejoinder, so he said nothing. Better to enjoy the day off. He would cultivate, but his wounds still leaked traces of demon chi, something time or a good pill would fix. Till it was gone, cultivating was a foolish idea, since drawing in external chi would draw in the demonic chi too. He would have to spend as much effort cleaning and ejecting the demonic chi once it polluted his body as just waiting. So for now, he and Li Yao could rest, relax. Enjoy their time after the battle, away from the sect.
Chapter 15
“Seniors.”
Green-clad bodies bowed and stepped aside, the outer sect members clearing the way for Wu Ying, Li Yao, and Tou He as they made their way back from another mission. It was their sixth—no, seventh—mission since the start of summer. The monsters might have changed, the harvest altered, but the demand on the martial specialists had continued to grow.
Wu Ying shook his head as the trio clambered up the stairs. Time since Li Yao’s and his inaugural mission had flown by as quick as an arrow loosed from the cultivator’s bow. So much had happened that a bare few events stood out in Wu Ying’s memory. Elder Li’s first words of praise when he brought back stalks of Celestial Marsh Grass in good condition. A demonic hippopotamus as it bore down on Wu Ying, its mouth wide as it threatened to swallow the cultivator whole. Training beside one of the many waterfalls during spring, while a light rain fell and his jian cut apart drops of water.
“Were they always this young?” Tou He asked, eyeing the group of new outer sect members who bowed and scraped. “Were we?”
“Look at the bearded elder speak,” Li Yao teased Tou He. “Oh, wait. You’d need hair first to be bearded.”
Tou He sniffed as they continued to climb, the outer sect members scurrying off to classes or their tasks. “It is a choice to be beardless.”
“And bald?” Li Yao shook her head. “You’ve been in the sect for a year, and you’re already putting on airs.”
“Are we?” Wu Ying recalled his impression of the inner sect members, the nobles, when he first arrived. Wu Ying looked back, searching the faces of the outer sect members as they left. Looking for what, he was not sure. Disdain? Disgust? Disappointment? He found nothing but deference from those who met his gaze, few as there were.
“Are you what?” Li Yao said, poking Wu Ying to get him moving again.
“Arrogant.”
“My confidence is not arrogance,” Tou He said. “We are, as Chao Kun says, one of the better, younger teams.”
“You do realize he had to add the younger before he said one of, right?” Li Yao teased again.
Tou He shrugged, his confidence unshaken.
“He has been insistent we take on more missions.” Wu Ying grew gloomy. “Though it’s partly because so many of the martial specialists have had to leave for the war.”
“Wei has really pushed their armies this year,” Li Yao said.
“If General Shen had managed to stem the enemy at the river, it would not have mattered,” Wu Ying said. “Now, they’re in the plains and threatening three cities.”
“Please stop. You know talking about war bores me,” Tou He said. “And I just want to get the mission reported and have a proper bath. We’ve been on the road for a week this time.”
Wu Ying sniffed but sped up as Tou He pulled away from them. The man was right—faster was better. If nothing else, depositing his heavy bag filled with the plants he had harvested would be a relief. Wu Ying dreaded the upcoming meeting, knowing he would be spending the remaining daylight and quite possibly a chunk of the night arguing with the attendants over the quality of the items he had brought back. As he grew better and more competent at harvesting, the volume and quality of his harvest had grown. Now, the attendants had become parsimonious in their payments.
As they finally ascended to the inner sect, the trio split up. Li Yao and Tou He would go to the assignment hall to turn in their assignment token and let the sect know they had completed the job. Wu Ying went straight to the apothecary’s shop to deposit their harvest. As he walked, Wu Ying could not help but look around, taking in his surroundings and marveling at how a single year could change things and his view of it.
Now, he was an inner sect member. A rise so fast that some of the other outer sect members were of a higher cultivation base than he was. Yet even those members had to pay him deference, societal and sect rules reinforcing the rigid social structure. As he passed, outer sect members stepped aside, allowing Wu Ying to traverse the pathways without issue. Now, he recognized and was even on nodding basis with many of the other inner sect members. He no longer felt lost in the sect, knowing his way around the grounds.
Still, some things stayed the same. Elders were still existences that towered over the rest of them. The Elders in charge of the various halls were of even higher prestige, though their presence was rare. As for the Protectors, Wu Ying had yet to catch a glimpse of the famed guardians. Which, considering what they did for the Sect, was probably for the best.
It was strange to think, but a year in, Wu Ying was settled. Even his interactions with Elder Pang were coolly cordial. Wu Ying had begun to hope he could, like so many others, exist in quiet solitude and cultivate.