Chapter 28:

Chapter 28


~~~Tai Su~~~


Being a bannerman is not something I was fully prepared for, a cultivator even less so, even if my father tried his best.

Father had told me of what he and his friends in the city guards and beyond, which were a part of the banner, would get up to and he has told me of the opportunity he had for me if I wished to take it. He agreed to serve in the reserves with no pay for it and one of his children gets on the accelerated track to elite training if I can't pass the tests to become a cultivator with the full backing of the banner.

He has lived the life of a poor farmer in a village not even worthy of a name, all of that to uphold the duties and honor of a Banner which would see his children be granted opportunities he could only dream of and now it's my turn to make said opportunities a reality.

"Where is that damn river?" Ya Xue grumbled as we walked.

And seizing said opportunities unfortunately means I have deal with people that are far too close to getting violent with one another.

"Assuming that the map I copied is correct and we managed to keep a straight line? We should be somewhere near it." Bao answered, her tone slightly annoyed.

Her tone was deceptive, as even before becoming a cultivator Bao was rarely one to show when she is annoyed. What she was feeling now was indignation at being doubted, which was not what her junior was doing at all.

She was just whining, but that was enough to get on Bao's nerves now.

"Why would it be wrong?" Yu Zong asked much to my chagrin.

And that was my sign to intervene now, because Bao was getting defensive.

"Because a lot of the information we managed to get upon asking from the sect was suspect, more specifically the one about rivers being danger spots. Drinking is a daily necessity for most animals. If they had to fight each time they had to drink even prey would stop running and just take the predators down with them, and so most of the time places with potable water are the ones animals are least likely to be violent in. This is common knowledge among herders and hunters so I am not surprised neither of you were questioning it." I answered grumpily.

And yes, I noticed something might be wrong when I read that, but I assumed the beasts were kept like that on purpose for the trial, but now I am not so sure. Neither of the supply drop-off points had any supplies in them and I have not seen any animals so far which was starting to freak me out.

The were no birds, no rodents and barely any insects. This forest has less animal life than towns and this is not normal.

"Oh, do the two of you come from hunting families too? Is that why you're so good at navigating this place?" Ya Xue asked, her voice filled with curiosity.

"No, my father is both a reservist and a farmer occasionally acting as a woodsman, Bao comes from a family of sheep herders, I assume that all of you comes from towns then?" I answered.

I managed to get some of their stories from them, Mei Lin and her siblings as well as Da Xiu's, but they were vague things with little details. I know Da Xiu's and Yu Zong come from towns, proper towns at that and not the one near my home that has been through numerous iterations of itself, and little else.

I don't know even that about the rest.

"The rest of us come from Xibeilan, the capital of the Prefecture, all four of us came in the same group." Mei Lin answered.

She did not offer more about her own family, we all knew that without parents and having to do things herself she had to stoop low, not merchant low but close enough. There's a reason her brothers are loyal to her after all.

"I come from a wood carver clan, the Xue's, albeit I doubt any of you have heard of it, we're a pretty small one. I've spent most of my life with a knife and block of wood in hand when not training and learning for the exams." Ya Xue answered happily.

Her mood quickly turned dour however when she recalled more details about her family, and the fact she might not be able to return to them.

Bao took the chance to hug her slightly as she put the map away and the woman desperate for any encouragement welcomed it and the rest of us stopped for a bit and gathered in a circle by unspoken accord.

This made me think of how each of us changed since becoming cultivators and how sudden it was. One moment we were a person, and then we were another, and yet the old us was still there. This felt like reincarnation all over again, where I am a different person, and yet the same.

Old Bao, was a chipper woman that did not think things through sometimes and that loved to play and rarely cared for what others thought of her unless she was the one that screwed up. The new one however was quick to think people are criticizing her, she loved more deeply and care less for killing.

Yu Zong and Da Xiu I knew less, but both of them turned colder after they became cultivators. Da Xiu started talking less and Yu Zong started looking at her self-appointed task of keeping people happy as if it was a chore she felt obligated to do and yet both of them continued being the same they were before. They loved each other, their sex drive remained as active, the big lug of a man continued to not know how to use his mouth to be diplomatic and Yu Zong continued looking at people's emotional issues like problems to be fixed.

"A wood carver huh? Once we're done with the Trial I have some ideas I would like your help with. We'll take a small break everyone." I replied.

The place we were in was in-between some trees and while it wasn't a clearing, all of us had enough room to sit down and rest a bit, and so all of us put our backpacks down and rested.

"What ideas?" She asked eagerly.

"I've made some table games on some pieces of bark and rocks some time ago and I would like to see if we could turn them into proper family games and not some improvised things Bao and I made. We can talk about them more once we're done with this Trial and we've settled down." I answered with a shrug.

I also has a few more ideas, such as an artificial bee hive and a few other things from my past life that I saw were missing here, but that could be left for later.

Bao and Ya Xue settled around me, while Mei Lin settled near her brothers to my left side. While everyone was tired we were otherwise in good spirits now that we got a break, but I could feel that she was stressed from having to look after her brothers.

Da Xiu and Yu Zong settled to my right and the latter settled on the lap of the former with a satisfied smile.

"What about you Da Xiu, Yu Zong?" I asked the two.

"Our clan is a warrior clan, all of us join the army or stay home." He replied bluntly.

His wife sighed at that.

"What my lug of a husband means to say is that his family has served the banners of the Empress for many generations and his family have always been warriors. Mine… not so much, but they took me in anyways." Yu Zong said as she covered for Da Xiu's speech deficiencies.

I nodded at that, Yu Zong is better at this sort of thing and I felt a sort of kinship with her as both of us have to cover for our spouses lack of social graces.

"Does anyone know why we can't find any bamboo? We might be able to get some water out of the stalks if we can find some." Haoran Lin asked out of nowhere.

Some of us grimaced at that and his own sister sighed when he noticed his question was something none of us wished to acknowledge. Ya Xue just looked curiously around as she had just noticed that yes, there was no bamboo anywhere in sight.

I was hoping nobody would remark on it, but the question was pertinent because there was no bamboo.

The land near my village did not grow any for some reason even as we had trees, but on the road towards the outpost we've seen some. This mountain, despite being so far south, had no bamboo even as there was some near the outpost.

Bamboo does not just stop growing for no reason, but the plant is far, far too useful to be ignored.

"The frost killed it." I answered tiredly

"What frost?" Cheng Lin asked curiously.

Bao chuckled bitterly as Ya Xue was looking rather worried. Da Xiu and Yu Zong shivered in remembrance. I felt an aftertaste of loss and fear from them and I sighed.

It seems it's up to me to explain.

"A few years ago there was a huge ice storm during the winter that lasted months that drowned the southern part of the Prefecture in snow and killed many. Bamboo does not do well in cold and this sort of storms happen every few decades and the bamboo stopped growing much except in areas where people actively try to keep it in." I answered tiredly.

Bamboo can survive a lot, it can't survive near arctic conditions when its preferred environment is hot and humid. The elders told us that the southern parts of the prefecture were filled with bamboo a century or two ago, even if the area near our village never grew any, but now they are a rarity and only remain because people actively try and bring it back each time a cold snap kills it for good.

Bamboo can survive one such snap, perhaps even two, but not centuries of it happening every few decades. Combine that with Ice Qi that seeps into you and takes all heat from the soil and living creatures and it's a wonder the trees survive it. Many humans don't, especially as with the exception of the rare shamans we can't predict it.

"Why didn't we hear of it?" Ya Xue asked.

"You don't experience it, only the south does and it's a reason why the south is far poorer than the north." I answered.

Bamboo can be used to make homes, clothes, paper and even tools in a pinch. It can be used for plumbing, it keeps water that you can drink if you know how and so much more and the south of the prefecture is nearly empty of it while the north has plenty.

"Don't things get colder the further north you go? How does the south get these ice storms?" Cheng Lin asked.

He doubted our story and I could feel some of my fellow southerners indignation at it. I felt a sliver of it myself, but I ignored it.

"If we knew, we'd tell you about it, all we know is that every few decades there's a storm during winter that kills a lot of vegetation and few things can survive it. Also I would suggest you to stow your doubt away, none of us appreciates having our suffering mocked by doubt." I answered plainly.

I could see that he wished to push uncaring of the fact that more than half of our group were giving him a stink eye that threatened a beating if he didn't.

"Cheng, stop it, they know their life better than we do." Mei Lin interjected.

Her voice held the tone of a tired mother asking her son to be patient and it struck him like lightning.

The change was as sudden as it was jarring and his defiant look changed to an apologetic one.

"Sorry." He mumbled.

"Apology accepted." I said with an approving nod.

Mei Lin acts more like the twins mother, than anything resembling a sister and the twins didn't dare to so much as think in dissent to her opinions which was a strange thing to see.

"Let's return back to reaching the river. What do we do if the map we were given is wrong Tai?" Bao asked me.

Everyone was now looking straight at me for an answer.

I looked at the waterskin at my waist and pulled it off and showed it to everyone. It didn't have much water left in it, perhaps enough for today if even that.

"We need water. Food we've managed to find in some bushes as well as taking from those we've killed, but water is now something we desperately need. I have little water left and I doubt any of you are any different. It's been useful so far and there's no reason not to trust that it is mostly correct." I answered.

"How do we find water then?" Da Xiu asked bluntly.

I thought about it for a bit, but I guess we'll have to do the exact opposite of what I wanted us to do. We'll have to separate into groups.

I looked at the sky, and while I couldn't fully see the sky or the sun, it looked like the sun was an hour or two after noon.

"We'll assume the map is roughly true and that we simply couldn't keep a straight line walking through the forest. As such we'll have to split up and find the river. We'll separate in two groups of three: Da Xiu, Bao and Yu Zong in one group and me, Ya Xue and Mei Lin in another, while Cheng Lin and Haoran Lin stay here to look over our bags." I said after a few moments of thinking.

"Why do we have to stay here?" Haoran Lin asked.

I could taste the feeling of outrage as he felt he was not trusted. I could also feel Bao wished to say something as she gently squeezed my hand but did not wish to say it out loud.

"We're not taking all our provision with us, we need someone to guard them so we can move faster and waste less energy. I've chosen to trust you two that you can hold your own, look after our supplies and deal with any lone idiots that thinks to steal them, but I don't trust you to navigate the forest. Bao and I are the only ones I know for sure know how to navigate a forest, so we have to be in different groups." I answered plainly.

I could taste Bao's satisfaction and a slight grumble from Yu Zong and Da Xiu.

I sighed at that as I felt the feelings of the two chafe slightly at being put under my wife. Dealing with cultivators is tiring. They keep finding reasons for taking offense when there's none.

If I couldn't smell emotions I think we'd be at each other's throats by now.

"Yu Zong, you've lived most of your life in town so you know little of wilderness and while Da Xiu can handle his own survival in the wilderness he knows little of forests by his own admission during our private talks. I trust you, you specifically, Da Xiu to handle any idiots that wish to start a fight and to bring both your wife and mine safe back safe, the same way I trust Yu Zong to smooth things out with any group where that is an option." I said calmly as I spoke to each in turn and tried to assuage their egos.

The groups were made based on what little I've been able to learn from our interactions these last few days.

Both of our groups had a sociable individual, a navigator and a third to support us in case of a fight. Both groups also had our best fighters in it and those that were left behind were men and thus were stronger physically and could hold their own, somewhat, in a fight.

The two accepted my words with nod as their reluctance vanished and they had a silent conversation among themselves.

"Do any of you have any other objections to my plan?" I asked.

Everyone started thinking and it was Yu Zong that seemed to come up with a question first.

"How will we know how to return?"

A reasonable enough question, considering that we're in the situation we're in because we probably can't walk in a straight line in a forest. It is also one that I've already thought of.

"Each of you will take a knife and one of the writing coals and make an arrow with each on some trees, with each indicating where you came from." I answered.

Yu Zong nodded at that and nobody else seemed to have any other questions.

"Good, if none of you have any other questions, then our break is over, time to get moving." I declared and started to rise.

Having a spear was again proving useful as I could just use it as a walking stick and so I was up in no time helping Bao and Mei Lin.

Everyone else followed me as we left our heaviest baggage behind with the twins and then we were off to search for the river.