Chapter 6:

Chapter 6



Power over others is born out of responsibility over them.

When people look up to you, when they're willing to follow your lead you gain leadership over them and that comes with duties you need to attend to, such as cutting wood.

"I think the axe is blunt father." I said to my father.

I didn't stop cutting though, I won't stop until the tree falls as we need the wood for the winter.

"Once the trees fall we'll head back home to sharpen our axes." Father replied bluntly as he too hacked at his own tree.

The tree was half as thick as me and it would make for excellent fire wood, same as mine. Neither of us would stop despite our dull axes.

"What will we do with the animals?" I asked, the tree still wouldn't fall but it was close at least.

"We're consolidating homes for when the great freezing comes, the village wants to keep as many of them as we can so we cut wood. Rong Xiaoli said he's not letting any die if he can help it and he's got the feed stacked, the sheep will help keep us warm." Father answered.

"The sheep will shit and stink." I observed.

If the ground will get so cold that it starts flash freezing then the sheep will need to stay in-doors with us where it will be kept warm, but unlike humans the sheep will shit wherever they want whenever they want which will stink up the place and cause illnesses.

During warmer winters they can stay outside, but flash freezing will kill most if not all of them wool or no wool.

"We're already lucky the cultivators in the next province managed to divert the flood," Father responded back.

I nodded at that.

Old Man Yi was proven wrong with his first prediction thanks to Cultivators saving the day somewhere east of us, otherwise from what we found out our attempts at making a dirt wall around the village and trying to find the river that would flood would have been in vain. The entire region would have been flooded by a river outside of it diverting course and most if not all villages and towns in the province would have just died beneath the water.

At least the rice season is over now.

They won't be able to do that with the harsh winter.

My axe continued to hit the tree and I could hear a crack. I looked at my father and saw that he heard it too and stopped his swinging and his face turned sour.

"I win this round old man." I declared cheekily.

"Not yet boy, I still have my swing." My father said and with a mighty swing he prepared to hit the tree.

He did so with gusto and so did his tree fall and it was my turn to eat crow.

"We're tied." My father laughed after the tree hit the ground with a thud.

I laughed still and father quickly followed and did the same.

"How much do you think these two will last us?" I asked as I started pulling apart loose branches into the log carrier.

We'll have to return and sharpen our axes to cut the tree in pieces.

"If us and the Xiaoli's live together three, maybe five days of keeping the fire up constantly, and with the others we've cut it should last us a month at a minimum." Father declared as he too was pulling loose branches off the tree.

That was our system, bring down the wood, get the easy to get wood as fire starter and easy to ignite wood, return to give some to the village for looking up to us and choosing to trust us then come back and get the big wood. We'll continue to do that until we have three months of wood for ourselves then give to the rest of the village as they make us a place to keep the wood dry.

Nobody is not preparing for the freezing winter, because if it comes then we'll die without the preparations and if it doesn't then we'll have some extra wood.

"Has Lord Xi agreed to start preparations for the freezing?" I asked him.

He's recently returned from the town to check on his friends, train a bit in spear use and see if any of them got married to bring them here. None of the did the latter yet, but he did tell me that one of his friends might have gotten a girl pregnant and my unborn sister might be getting a friend shortly.

"No, not publicly at least, lord Xi doesn't put stock in 'rural superstitions'. I'd agree with him if old man Yi wasn't as right as he was since I came and settled here." Father replied.

"There are people that can divert rivers, our Empress is Immortal, there's other worlds out there and more, but being able to tell the weather by getting drunk and hearing spirits is too unbelievable." I scoffed and shook my head.

Father finished filling up is carrier with loose wood and so did I shortly after. I put the carrier on my back and both of us headed back to the village, not that it was far.

"Tai, you need to understand that people will only believe you if they have a reason to, and it doesn't matter how much sense and evidence you bring if the people believe there is an advantage in not believing it. Lord Xi does not believe us because he comes from the heartlands and there listening to villagers is how one loses all credibility and he wants to return there and he can't do that if he starts actually caring for what you and those like us say. Your view of people listening to evidence only is one not even scholars believe." Father said as we walked.

"They should, they'd probably learn more useful things." I replied.

Father chuckled.

"Yes, but don't let them hear you say that, because if it doesn't come from one of the books of people they were told to listen to they won't listen, I should know I've seen it happen." He chuckled with an reminiscent smile on his face

I couldn't let that slip now could I?

"Oh? How so father?" I asked giddily.

Father does have some interesting stories.

"One of the scholars in the town, Li Na was a young girl from some city and was convinced that swords were a mightier weapon than spears due to some book from an ancient general saying so. She insisted on it, bothered lord Xi about it claiming that by getting us to only use spears she was 'diminishing' our martial spirit or such nonsense. Lord Xi told her that spears are better, every single soldier in lord Xi's service told her that it was better, the average peasant told her that even an axe was more useful than a sword and both were less useful than spears but the woman would not budge.

Eventually Lord Xi gave her the authority to train some men out of her own pocket in using the sword as her books told her they should be taught for a year and have them fight against some peasants drilled in using spears for a few months. If she wins then Lord Xi would reimburse her with the money she wasted twice over and change his ways and 'repent for his foolishness', if she lost then she'll do the same and the fool agreed." Father revealed.

"No, she wasn't that stupid was she? That was a trap you had to be blind to not see coming." I asked as I tried to stifle a laugh.

Father nodded.

"She was, I was one of the peasants lord Xi trained and we defeated her men with ease. I was given the position of a guard because I defeated six out of the twenty enemies, and the woman was sold into slavery for not being able to pay and to repent for her foolishness. She was saved from it by her old school which gave Lord Xi much face by apologizing publicly to him and begging him for mercy, which he granted and pulled the scholar out of dung duty." Father continued.

I shook my head.

"Should have left her there. If she's unwilling to listen to those that know more than her on a subject and can't see a trap that obvious then she doesn't deserve her title." I observed.

We were close to the village now as the rice plains came into view and the village houses were getting closer.

"That's the way the world works Tai, people are willing to do strange things in the name of what they consider useful to believe, whether or not they can prove it true, but speaking of scholars, how is Hao Wen? I haven't seen her since I came back." He asked.

"She's with Bao visiting Black Table Village and teaching those there how to read now that both Bao and I can read at an acceptable pace and I finished the plaque with numbers. We did promise her that we will introduce her to the other villages and Black Table is the closest. She should get acquainted with them and, once Spring comes, go and teach some people there as she taught us then move to the next village and do the same." I answered.

We promised her introductions to the other villages, and while I am too busy to do so Bai can do so in my stead. My multiplication plaque was an old ten by ten multiplication table from my past life that used my own base ten numbering system as the basis for the base one hundred.

It was the first bit of knowledge from my past life I could easily apply and so I was quite proud of it even if it wasn't that impressive.

"Hopefully that should build her enough of a reputation and Virtue that she can go back into the town and teach properly." Father said with a nod.

He approved of us being proactive in fulfilling our promise. Teacher Hao Wei had been far more generous than she strictly needed to in our deal at my prompting. This made her well liked by the villagers and made my reinterpretation of her story from believable to the truth as far as the village was concerned.

"We can hope, but she'll most likely just return home to collect on her bet with her father."

She is a merchant at heart from a culture that puts them just below nobles. She'll take her knowledge back, earn plenty of Valor from her clansmen for finding a way to present themselves in Imperial Lands that doesn't get them stoned to death and win her bet. Even is she choose to settle on learning it won't be in town.

"That's fair, but a shame, the woman is always welcomed here and it would be a shame to see her gone." Father observed

"That it would be." I answered.

I liked spending time with father, even if it was this sort of back breaking work. I hoped Teacher Hao Wen and Bao were having a good time too.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


"Thank you for helping me with this Bao." Teacher Hao Wen said as we left Black Table Village.

I laughed, teacher had nothing to thank me for, especially when she still has to drag her own cart.

"You have nothing to thank me for, teacher Hao Wen, I told you that everything will go well and that you'll be received warmly." I explained.

People have heard of her by now, and some from other villages have come meet her and asked her to come visit them as well.

The other woman's face went through several emotions from worry to relief to chagrin and more until it settled back into relief.

"It was certainly a lot more welcoming with you around." Teacher said

I shook my head.

"If anything they were less shameless in their attempts to get you to stay with me there. Having an educated woman choose your village to stay in it is a great honor and gives it much face, similar to how trying to get her to move takes it from the one they move from." I explained.

"I am surprised that Chao Min wasn't as open with his desire to get me to stay as the villagers of Black Table Village were, or is it that they are as strange as their name?" Teacher asked.

Who is Chao Min? I have never heard that name in my life.

"Chao Min, who's that?" I asked.

"Your Village Head?" She asked back as if that's important knowledge.

Now I suppose it should be important knowledge, as I know the names of Village Heads from other villages but Village Head is Village Head.

"Ah, never heard his name spoken in my life, he doesn't interact much with us. He keeps the tax collectors honest, makes sure everyone is organized when something needs to be done and proceeds to ignore the fact that we exist whenever something important isn't happening." I answered.

Teacher looked puzzled.

"Is that normal?" She asked

I thought for a bit, and realized that no, that wasn't quite normal but hardly unheard of.

"It's uncommon, but Village Heads are all weird in some way. Plenty just stay in their homes and do nothing while others want nothing to happen without their say so. Our Village Head wants to be addressed as Village Head and unless an emergency happens we don't notice he exists while he does whatever it is that he's doing." I responded with a shrug.

At least ours lives with us, there's some villages that don't know if they even have one still, as they never even come to visit it.

Teacher sighed at that for some reason.

"You humans have strange ways and stranger traditions." Teacher said.

I shrugged, that was true, each village and town had their own tradition. We had the strange shaman, Black Table Village had their strange stone table, there's a village downstream of us that likes painting themselves green during the winter and a whole host of other weirdness that seems unique to each of us.

"Tell me more of you clan then, you surely have some strange traditions yourself teacher." I asked.

We had nothing but time now as we left Black Table Village and are heading back home. We should be home by sunset and we have nothing to do but talk.

Teacher looked pensive at that.

"Have you ever heard of boats?" She asked.

Boats? They're the wooden things that float on water if I recall. We don't use them in the region as there's few rivers large enough to merit it. I think they're just some logs someone cut and put soldiers on but they don't seem that important , albeit I think I recall them being used to conquer some island.

"I heard of them, some weird logs that float on rivers and can help carry people. I heard they were important to some campaign but I don't know much about them." I answered.

Yes I think I heard of some soldiers using boats to invade an island a few years back.

Teacher did not like that answer for some reason.

"Sometimes I forget you live in a small village, you speak so well. Boats are not pieces of wood or logs, they are like floating homes or even castles that can sail on rivers yes, but also lakes or even seas. You use them to transport goods and people over large distances."

Homes that float? How does that work?

"How would homes float are they some sort of cultivator treasure?" I asked.

"No, certain types of wood float and you can make quite large buildings made out of wood that can float. Back home there were Sea Lords, Individuals with hundreds of ships that could sail from one end of the continent to the next and fought evil pirates."

What's a pirate? I never heard the term before.

"Pirates?"

"Think like an evil tax collectors guild combined with a bandits guild, but without a lord. They come take your stuff and don't protect you for it and if you don't pay they burn your home and kill you, but then they rob you anyway if they feel like it."

"That sounds like the old tax collector from when father was a child, who got killed for insulting a cultivator and had his own heart fed to him." I answered.

Tax collectors are not evil as an occupation, but it always seems like only evil people go and become such. The fact that such evil people would band together is not surprising.

Teacher sighed at that.

"Your cultivators are far more violent than those back home. There them killing a tax collector or really anyone for insulting them is almost unheard of because they're usually too busy killing each other or their families or some beasts."

"They do that here too, but everyone knows you don't mess up with cultivators as they always seem prickly, but enough about them, could you tell me more about you Sea Lords? I want to hear about them killing those evil bandits guilds!" I pleaded to teacher.

Hearing about these lords of the seas sounds much more interesting than comparing knowledge of how cultivators of different species act. A cultivator is a cultivator and I know plenty of stories about them but I've never heard of pirates or Lords of the Sea.

"Well… there is the story of the captain of the Dark Heart, she was a terrifying creature, one of the evil spider-clan from beneath the earth that was exiled from her home for being too vile. She found a love of the sea, but her true love was misery and she made sure she spread across the islands!" Teacher said as she started her story and I listened attentively.

I did not know all of the terms she used, but I had all that I needed, because a good story and good companionship is how all road trips should be.