Chapter 7:

Chapter 7

Cold, I hate the cold and not even hugging my tail is enough to keep me fully warm. I almost can’t believe that outside it’s worse but I am too scared to try and find out, especially as my hosts have done all they can to keep me warm. The north is worse than the stories said when it comes to the frost.

The least I can do is teach them how to read.

“That is the ‘Mni’ symbol, you curved the tail to the right, the ‘Ni’ symbol curves it to the left.” I said as I instructed the two men.

Both of Long Su and Mu Xiaoli seemed to do the same mistakes when it came to writing, they had the brush flow first and hold it steady second, when they should first have it be steady first and allow little flow after the big strokes happened.

I assume it’s something all warriors that learn to write after they learn how to wield a spear deal with as my cousin Yang had the same issues as them. Long Su is obviously and openly a warrior but Mu Xiaoli does not look like it at first sight. He is old and frail and soft spoken as opposed to the confident Long Su and he does not remind someone of a warrior, even an old one, even if he certainly moves like one.

But it’s not for me to ask this sort of thing, I am a guest in the man’s home after all. This sort of questions are not the type one asks unprompted.

The men were quick to correct their mistake, but it was a brute force method, their bodies moved a certain way and they went against it at the finish line.

“No, you’re getting the right result this time, but everything needs to flow smoothly or you’ll hate writing and it will feel unnatural, here let me show you again, try following the way my hand moves.” I instructed.

“Yes teacher.” The two older men said as if I was some officer.

I wasn’t, I was just an educated woman in a home filled with smart individuals whose lives are wasted without a chance to achieve something great.

I showed them the loops slowly as my tail continued to be hugged around my body and I could feel through it a whiff of cold air.

Tai Su and Bai Xiaoli returned.

The boy’s fathers noticed only after they finished writing and the two men entered the room.

“Yes like that, excellent. I believe that’s enough for today.” I told the two warriors.

“Thank you teacher.” The two said as they bowed.

“The two of you are excellent students, a pity I can’t teach you properly here as I lack the materials and books to teach you history and logic.” I replied with a sigh.

It was true, back home there wasn’t a village without writing implements in it, but here? I am the main source of them outside of the town and I have more books that aren’t tax records than the town lord, probably, back home.

The Imperials in this province value books greatly, but few can read them and even fewer own any.

A man like Tai Su and the way he approached me and inserted me into the local hierarchy as both high up in it and indebted to him was something terrifying to behold. I was the sort of thing Guild Lords do to favored scions and represents the difference between a prosperous guild and a poor one. And a man who has this sort of skill spends his time chopping wood, feeds animals and working the fields and dreams of being a cultivator.

A waste, a waste of a talent, of a mind and of a good man, that’s what this is.

“The sheep are fed in the barn?” Mu Xiaoli asked.

The other man was busy cleaning the table and ordering the sheets and brushes and ink by unspoken agreement.

‘We’ll be running out of ink by the end of winter.’ I thought annoyed.

I wasn’t expecting to be here for that long, I was expecting a month or two going between the villages and towns nearby as I made connections, but I might need a year before I am anywhere near close to that judging by my current progress.

The merchants in this region can’t own any animals but dogs and cats, certainly not horses or anything that could be used to pull a cart which meant I’m slower and more tired, eat more and are both less productive, more miserable and can move less and need more rests.

The plan was simple, sell writing implements, supplement that with teaching some Imperials how to read and write in their own language and poetry then haggle and help depending on what I need, most likely things I could store for a long time and I succeeded great.

“Yes, we’ve also re-dug the trench to the barn and some of the other homes.” Bai Xiaoli replied to his father’s question.

“Those we managed to get to still respond and their hearths continue to burn, but I am not sure the trees will survive, they’re just ice.” Tai Su continued.

“They’ll survive, just don’t break the branches. A Tree’s vitality is only matched by their stubbornness, you know this boy, I am sure it’s also written in some of those books, and this hasn’t been the first harsh winter we had and more people than trees died in the last one.” Mu Xiaoli replied gruffly.

“Wish there was anything else we could do.” Tai Su observed.

The young man was tired it seemed, he probably worked himself hard as usual.

I nodded at that, Tai Su has the eye and mind of a merchant and the heart of a priest. Always looking at what other people need, but instead of looking for ways to make money off of it he looks for ways to help them first, a way to make himself be liked second and material benefits third.

“We did all we could son, we raised the dirt to act as an additional barrier along the house, are keeping the snow trenches up and have stockpiled all we could. Anything more is in the hands of the Heavens or the Empress.” Long Su said as he finished packing everything.

The other three men put their hands in a prayer as he said it and murmured something I am not sure was meant to be vocal yet carried such a component.

The people here are religious, no that is doing them a disservice, for the people back home know to honor the heavens as well, but the people here honestly believe that their prayers help, that if they pray there is a chance that the Heavens will come and help. Everyone home knows that you pray so that the Heaven’s don’t make your life worse, because they will never give you more than they gave you at birth even as they’ll take from their blessings.

Just one more way that humans did things differently.

“Where are the girls?” Bai asked.

The older men were already pulling out their game cards which I took as my clue that the men wanted to have their fun

“Sewing, speaking of I should probably join them.” I answered and rose up.

I finished the lessons for today, everything is in order and so this means I get to relax.

Making pretty patterns and matching them with your friends is fun, I don’t know why the men insist it’s not for them then proceed to do things like gambling and card games. I never saw the appeal and probably never will.

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

The four of us looked at our cards and spoke in whispers now that the women were no longer around and thought we were playing.

“The Lai’s did not respond this time either.” I broke the ice and put a card down.

I didn’t need it, I needed to know that everyone in the village was well.

“They won’t respond the third time Tai Su.” Mu Xiaoli responded.

He pulled a card and scowled at it as if it owed it money.

“We should have prepared better.” I objected.

“We prepared more than the last time, less will die and when you are my age the village will probably be twice the size.” The old man answered.

“The Li’s knocked thrice, do we ask the Mei to come see them?” Bai continued.

The Village Head’ home is the largest and warmest, so all of the mothers with newborns went there for safety, but it is also further away from the other homes which meant we couldn’t reach it by digging through the snow. It’s up to us to make sure our village of one hundred survives now.

We settled on a system of knocks to not open doors and preserve energy and heat. One knock to check on people, two for everything is well, three for someone is ill, four and we have a dead man or woman.

If there’s no knocks back we don’t break through the door, because if we do we condemn the house to freezing as except our own home, all other homes have had their door outside covered up in mud and hay to preserve heat and to open it from the inside requires special preparations as the door is locked.

The only dead so far are the Lai’s and we need to make sure the women aren’t getting scared, especially as one of them is mother and she’s pregnant.

“Yes, Mu, you stay with the women, at first daylight tomorrow we dig through to the Mei if the snow covers up the path and get one of them to go see who’s ill and if we can do anything, have both of you managed to clean the snow off the wood?” Father asked.

“Yes, we cleaned it off the others and put it at their entry box to minimize heat loss.” I replied.

“I still think we shouldn’t have bothered with this system, mold is not that big of an issue.” Bai replied.

“Mold will take your lungs if you think like that boy, Tai Su’s idea to make the dirt boxes near the home entrances meant that the wood does not have the time to heat up and fill the homes with mold if they’re filled with it. Seen one or two people that died with green teeth after a winter, that was a good idea.” The old tree said.

Mu Xiaoli lived up to his name now, it seemed.

“How tall is the snow now?” Father asked.

“We’re digging tunnels.” Was my reply.

The fact we were previously digging trenches was left unsaid. Our homes have been consolidated any opening covered with dirt and hay to insulate things from the storm but now the snow is above our homes.

“This is not normal, when you were young the frost only reached hald as tall as our home.” Bai observed.

“Cultivators.” Was Mu Xiaoli’s answer.

Bai hissed and I groaned.

“Not something we can do anything about.” Father continued tiredly.

Time passed as we remained silent and pretended we were doing anything else but putting one card over the other as we thought about what we can do.

“I have an idea, I want to dig stairs up to see if there’s anything over the horizon and learn when the storm ends.” I offered.

“Why?” Father asked.

A tremor happened, our tunnels fell in some place. We did not react as the oldest of us went to assure the women.

We heard some noise about our trenches being poorly made or us making piles that got brought down by the wind or some nonsense and the women seemed to eat it up.

I was thankful all our homes were sturdy and that it was unlikely that it was a home that fell. It would have been louder… probably… hopefully.

“I want to know when the storm ends so we can dig towards the babes and mothers. They have enough food and wood and two men to look after them and dig if needed be, but they are alone.” I replied.

“We’ll wait for the old man to return and we’ll vote, we can’t stay outside for long without freezing, we’re not risking frostbite Tai Su.” Bai answered.

I nodded at that, that was fair.

What wasn’t fair was that we had to deal with this situation in the first place. I don’t know who is responsible for this storm but if I fins who they were then I am killing them the moment I can.

I liked the Lai’s, Fen Lai made good cakes and liked to fish, now she died frozen in her own home.