Immortality Starts With Generosity

The New Year was a cause for great celebration in the Basin. The whole village came to life with renewed energy as homes were cleaned from top to bottom in preparation for the week of festivities. Tapestries of red silk were hung out over the walls of homes and embroidered with images and sentences depicting the happenings of the family over the year: births, marriages, progress in cultivation, successful hunts, and proud achievements. All those and more rolled down the tapestry, each family’s telling a different story, but all ending with the same words: Be at peace. We are living well.

Red paper lanterns and long strips of red silk were draped over the low-hanging branches of the trees and wrapped around their trunks. Poles were erected all around the village, painted red, and hung with cages of singing crickets. Children ran from home to home waving small flags emblazoned with cicadas. Cultivators carried enough tables, chairs, and logs to seat a small army down to the central lake to prepare for the joint celebration with the other tribes.

Soon enough, however, the time had come. The villagers donned their finest clothes, washed and scolded their children into behaving, carefully took down and folded the banners, and made their way to the village temple where the Chief Shaman Xie Ling resided. From what Xie Jin had told him, they would burn the tapestries so that their ancestors would be able to learn of what had happened to their families and soothe their worries. Notably, Xie Jin was the only one who did not put out a tapestry. It wasn’t a shaman thing, either. He’d seen the others putting out their own, although he didn’t see Bao Si’s either for the sole reason that he didn’t actually know where she lived.

Chen Haoran couldn’t contain his curiosity and asked about it. Xie Jin graced him with a small smile and shook his head. “I have no one to tell.”

Despite not having a tapestry, Xie Jin was still required to be present at the temple as a shaman. As such, Chen Haoran found himself a bit out of place. Guest that he was, it would be a bit awkward to shoehorn himself in while the village was honoring their ancestors. So it was that while the entire village was converging in the temple, Chen Haoran wandered off with Phelps to the training ground to practice.

He had to start the new year off strong, after all.

The Screaming Giant’s Lake was fed by numerous hidden rivers that themselves were fed by the waterfalls dropping into the Basin. It was, in fact, quite the miracle to Chen Haoran that the Basin wasn’t more flooded than it was. According to Xie Jin, despite so much water entering the Basin, just as much left it through various underground rivers connected to the lake.

After sending off their well wishes to their ancestors and fallen, the tribe carried large baskets full of food and drink and met their cousins from across the Basin at the shore closest to the skeleton’s drowning skull. Large bonfires roared and lit up the shore under the day’s waning light. Round tables were scattered around the fires, each one belonging to a different family. Relatives from different tribes all came together to feast at the same table. Chen Haoran couldn’t see much of a difference between the four tribes of the Basin, especially now that they were all garbed in red and accented with black bone ornaments. The tribes freely mixed as they met with friends and acquaintances and exchanged gifts of apples, oranges, and small gold cicadas.

Chen Haoran himself was dressed similarly in a red and gold robe. Two horned snakes worked in gold thread coiled around his sleeves, their tails starting at his shoulders before ending at his cuffs, poised to strike. Another golden snake patterned his belt, cleverly designed such that it looked like it was eating its own tail while the belt was clasped. Bao Si had come through on those silk robes she promised, and among the many outfits she prepared, she had the foresight to include one for the new year.

He was seated together with Xie Jin, Ren, and Xie Ling, Phelps and a large pile of food, taels, fine silverware, and precious gems. It wasn’t for them; however, and Phelps was sorely disappointed by that fact, Xie Jin’s Beetle Gu and Xie Ling’s Snake Gu were still as statues as more food and treasures were stacked before them until, at the silent command of their shamans, they ravenously pounced on the piles and devoured them.

“This is the price of raising Gu,” Xie Jin explained when he saw Chen Haoran’s curiosity. “In exchange for their obedience, the shaman must ensure they’re well rewarded or else… well, nothing good will happen. The tribe collectively supports the price of all Gu in return for the shaman’s work.”

Their Gu weren’t the only one feasting. It seemed like every shaman in the Basin turned out today. Chen Haoran counted 32 different Gu chowing down on offerings.

“And what would you know about that, you brat?” Xie Ling downed his saucer of wine in one go. “I should beat you silly for all the work you’ve skipped over the years.”

Xie Jin sneered. “Just wait until I’m a Crystal Transformation Realm, old man.”

Xie Ling helplessly looked up to the sky. “Youth today. What is wrong with them? Threatening their own grandfathers. If it weren’t for the other tribes being here, I would toss you into the lake for that cheek.”

Ren ignored the quibbling between Xie Jin and Xie Ling. In fact he didn’t seem interested in any of his surroundings. The man was frightfully reserved. Chen Haoran couldn’t get a read on him at all. That being said, he did notice how Ren was on his sixth cup compared to everyone else’s three. It seemed even stoics had their vices.

Familiar laughter drew his attention to the bonfires. Bao Si was there surrounded by other youth from the various tribes. A net of black bone beads was woven into her hair. Her short red top exposed her midriff and revealed another portion of her centipede tattoo running up her side. The hem was embroidered with a golden snake like on his own robes wrapping around it, chasing its own tail. Her long red skirt was plain by comparison but not in effect. Standing by the firelight and watching how it played across every flutter of her dress made her look like a phoenix in bloom. Chen Haoran was not blind to the fact her dress and his robes looked like a matching pair.

“See something you like?”

Startled, Chen Haoran turned and looked at an amused Xie Jin. A streak of awkward guilt at being caught staring flashed through him.“Xie Jin, about Bao Si—”

“Let me be clear, Brother Chen,” Xie Jin interrupted. “I do not care what you do with Bao Si. Tie her up and run off with her. I’ll pay for her dowry, and thank you.”

Xie Ling slammed his saucer into the table. “Brat, what do you think you’re saying right in front of me?”

Chen Haoran flinched. Xie Ling hadn’t flared his aura at all, but that was no reason not to be worried when a higher realm got annoyed. He’d been careless. Why would he have this conversation about Xie Jin’s fiancee right in front of the man who most likely arranged it?

Xie Jin meanwhile calmly sipped his wine. “Don’t get so worked up about things that are long dead. It’s bad for your heart.”

Xie Ling sighed and covered his face with his palm. “I’ve raised something useless. How is it that you always put down the jade I give you and pick up bricks instead?” He stood up and ruffled Xie Jin’s hair, messing up what Chen Haoran knew to be an hour’s worth of work. Xie Jin cursed and ducked. Futilely trying to slap away his grandfather’s hand but only hitting air as he’d already moved on. “I’m going to meet the other old bastards now. Don’t let Ren drink too much.”

“Too late for that,” Xie Jin muttered.

Chen Haoran turned and found that in the time he hadn’t been looking, Ren had emptied two more bottles all by himself. The only indicator that Ren was affected by it at all was a faint red tinge to his cheeks. Phelps squealed and curiously sniffed at the bottles. Chen Haoran and Xie Jin automatically placed the bottles out of his reach. They weren’t repeating that mistake anytime soon.

“I see Ren has already started having fun.” Bao Si walked over as soon as Xie Ling had left. Rather than sit at the chair Xie Ling vacated or take Phelps’s, she instead walked around and dropped herself on Chen Haoran’s lap. She wrapped her arms around his neck and leaned over to Xie Jin. “What were you talking about?”

“How you’re a pain in my ass,” Xie Jin said, downing the rest of his wine.

“Come now, Jin,” Bao Si chided. “As fellow shamans, we should at least get along today if no other.”

Xie Jin dug into his pocket and flicked out a red card that Bao Si deftly caught between her fingers. A cicada was stamped on it, and the other side had the word ‘Greeting’ printed on it and nothing else. “There. Happy new year.”

Bao Si sighed and pulled out a red card exactly the same as the one Xie Jin had given her and threw it to him. “Women would like you more if you learned from Chen Haoran. He won’t just give a card like you.”

“I’m plenty popular with women. You know that.”contemporary romance

Bao Si’s smile turned ugly as Xie Jin apparently hit a sore point for her. Chen Haoran just wished he hadn’t done it while she was sitting on his lap. His last experience with an angry woman with her arms around his neck didn’t end so well for him.

Bao Si looked at Xie Jin with disdain and immediately pivoted to Chen Haoran with a charming smile. “I gave you your gift in advance, so don’t hate me for not giving you another now.”

Chen Haoran froze. “The robes? I paid for them, though.”

“You paid for some of them.” She dragged a finger down his chest. “Not this one.”

He put up an admirable front of calm despite swearing internally. He should have gotten a clue from everyone exchanging gifts and prepared one. Now he was caught out with no idea what to give her. Thankfully Xie Jin came to the rescue.

“He’s married, you know,” Xie Jin snidely said. He poured out the last of his bottle. “She’s pretty scary too. Personally, I wouldn’t get on her bad side.”

Atop him that she was, Chen Haoran could feel Bao Si pausing. “When has that ever stopped you,” she retorted. Even so, she pushed herself off his lap and stood up.

Chen Haoran caught her wrist. “I’m not married anymore.”

Xie Jin choked and spilled his wine while Ren looked on mournfully. “What? You divorced her? That scary woman? And you’re still alive?”

“We didn’t get divorced,” Chen Haoran corrected. “It was annulled. We both wanted it.”

Bao Si fell back into his lap with a smile. “It sounds like quite the story.”

Chen Haoran shrugged. “We were only together until she finished destroying her family. There was no point in being married after that.”

“Wait, that was you!?” Xie Jin reared back, shocked.

Bao Si’s smile, if anything, became deeper. “Now that sounds like quite the story.”

“No, before that—”

Xie Jin’s question was interrupted by the beat of drums. The laughter and talking died down as four powerful presences filled the air. Xie Ling stood ankle-deep in the lake facing the giant skeleton with three others, two women and one man, the Chief Shamans of the other tribes presumably. Each one held a bottle of alcohol, and together they poured the contents into the water. Lesser shamans rushed up to collect the empty bottles, and another handed a sack stuffed with choice meats, sweets, and more alcohol over to Xie Ling.

Xie Jin’s grandfather raised the sack above his head. “To you who has come before and seen much, we hope that you continue to watch those who come after us and see more. We offer these refreshments and ask you to watch our descendants for a thousand years.” Finished, Xie Ling stepped back and threw the sack across the lake and directly into the drowning skeleton’s half-submerged mouth. Once the sack disappeared beneath the water, Xie Ling turned around and addressed the crowd. “Our ancestors have been informed, and our descendants have been arranged. Drink and make merry now. You have all worked hard this year.”

A large cheer rose up from the tribes, and soon enough, a band of musicians gathered together and began to play a tune.

Bao Si’s eyes lit up, and she jumped up, pulling Chen Haoran as she did. “Let’s dance.”

“I don’t know how.”

“I’ll teach you. If you think I’ve earned your arms, that is.”

What else could Chen Haoran say to that? He let Bao Si pull him up and drag him away, calling over his shoulder to Xie Jin. “Watch Phelps, please.”

He didn’t hear Xie Jin’s reply as Bao Si brought him over to the bonfires where hundreds of couples had already begun dancing. She took his hands in her own, and soon enough, they were whirling amongst the dancers. Bao Si took the lead and Chen Haoran quickly discovered how useful a Liquid Meridian cultivation was for mirroring her movements and catching himself before he blundered. Matching clothes as they were, and with him not stumbling all over himself, he even dared to think they looked good.

So why was he feeling so many unkind stares?

He cast his sense out and found the culprits, various young men and a few women, most of whom had been surrounding Bao Si before. “I getting quite a few evil eyes right now.”

Bao Si laughed. “It’s because you’re dancing with their dream girl. How does it feel?”

In lieu of a response, Chen Haoran placed a hand on her side, right over her centipede tattoo, and felt the jealous stares spike. “So it’s really a full-body tattoo. That’s pretty cool.”

“Would you like to see more of it?”

Chen Haoran leveled her an unimpressed look. “You’re not trying to use me to get out of some kind of forced marriage, are you?”

“There’s no one in this world, alive or dead, who can force me to do something I do not want to do,” Bao Si declared. “Don’t worry, though. I’m not trying to marry you, either. If you were from Zumulu, it might be a different story.”

“Why would I be worried about a beautiful woman trying to marry me?” Chen Haoran asked. “I should feel disappointed that you won’t”

“But you’re not.”

“How do you know that?”

“Consider it a woman’s intuition.”

Well, it would be a lie to say he didn’t feel a little disappointed, but this feeling came from a dumber, instinctual part of his mind. The rational side was feeling quite relieved, as Bao Si had said. He wasn’t looking to get married again anytime soon.

“Can I ask if you got that intuition from your investigation?”

It was Bao Si’s turn to look impressed. “So you found out after all.”

“I didn’t, actually, which I commend you for. I didn’t notice anything at all.”

“So you guessed?”

“I like to call it a reasonable prediction.”

Bao Si rolled her eyes. “So you guessed.”

“Moon moth silk isn’t enough to make someone like you all touchy-feely like that.”

“Maybe a talented Liquid Meridian Realm is.”

This time Chen Haoran rolled his eyes. There really wasn’t a need to compare talents with a Qi Realm who studied a Liquid Meridian Realm with them none the wiser.

He stopped and spun Bao Si. Her skirt fluttered in a circle of red, high enough that Chen Haoran caught a flash of her leg. A leg that was soon pressed up against his side as Bao Si spun into his embrace. “Will you tell me what you found?” he asked.

Bao Si hummed and then fell back. Chen Haoran followed her, one hand grabbing her leg, the other holding the small of her back and her fall was turned into a low dip. He pulled her back up and spun her in the opposite direction.

“You’re not what you seem,” she said. “Mid-grade spirit root and you have a strong mother. Jin said you had a Liquid Meridian servant so everything points to you coming from a powerful clan. I can’t imagine that Xie Jin just so happened to meet someone like you in a weak place like Clearsprings.”

Oh, he was a Mid-grade? That was good to know. It cleared up some questions he had about his improving qi absorption. Turns out his predecessor really was a waste. What the hell did Bao Si sense to say he had a strong mother, though? He would have to ask Xie Jin about it.

“That’s quite specific,” Chen Haoran said.

“Healing is just another of a shaman’s duties, although Jin has never paid attention to the art. You have a body similar to other clan cultivators I’ve treated before. Yours is better, though.”

Interesting. In both senses of the word. Given that anything good about his body would have come from the Chen Family, it meant the better he was, the better they were. “So now that you’ve investigated, what’s the verdict?”

Bao Si made a sound of disgust and pushed Chen Haoran away. There was no qi behind it, and even if there were, it wouldn’t have actually moved him. Instead, she pushed herself away. “Why ask when you know the answer? If there were anything wrong with you, you wouldn’t be here pawing me.”

Chen Haoran chuckled. “So, as soon as you get my arms, they become paws? How cruel.”

“When did I say that was a bad thing?”

“So it’s a good—”

“Brother Chen!” Xie Jin’s anxious voice carried over to the dance floor.

Chen Haoran whirled around, his heart beating a mile a minute in his chest. Ren was slumped over the table, surrounded by bottles and two kegs. Xie Jin was standing atop the table with horrified eyes turned heavenward. Phelps was nowhere to be seen. Chen Haoran looked up and found his worst fears made reality. Phelps was soaring toward the moon with a bottle in claw.

“Goddamnit, not again. Phelps!”

done.co