CH54 — Family
656 2 9
X
Reading Options
Font Size
A- 15px A+
Width
Reset
X
Table of Contents
Loading... please wait.

Mahran wasn’t a day's journey away.

The lone snowy peak harbouring the bandits was still looming behind, but a large mountain range could vaguely be made out far south.

Approaching the small village, the noise and chatter of daily life became audible, soon before their sources came into view. A hammer smashed against the hot iron heated in the forge as kids played on the road surrounded by rice paddies. 

A boy driving a wooden wheel with a stick was the first to mark their approach. 

Oh, right… everyone should know each other here. And he didn’t even have the faintest clue where his family lived nor how they looked like.

“Xar!” an aunt harvesting the rice fields screamed at the boy. “Get back here!” 

The boy gave a clumsy bow to the three and followed the order. Alerted by the shout, the present villagers cleared the road in slight unrest.

“Have you seen my mother?” 

The aunt pointed out a direction with her hand. 

In the direction was nothing else than the other road out of this village and alongside it a shack that was about to crumble. 

While the Huang sisters stayed outside, Ku Lo pushed aside the tattered rag used as a door, and called, “Anybody here?” 

Silence was his answer.

Inside the shack his eyes needed time to adjust to the near darkness; even a cultivator, though faster than a mortal, couldn’t escape this hindrance completely. 

Only with time did the contours of an ashen firepit and iron pot come into view.

A few seconds later, what he assumed to be a bed could be made out. On it, a human shadow lay motionlessly. 

Approaching it, he discovered that the person he spotted was a sleeping girl in her teens. So this is ‘my’ sister, huh?

While he knew next to nothing about the young man whose body he had robbed, he always assumed her to be the best way to repay him, even if it wasn’t by his choice to wrong him.

But before he could ponder longer, voices from outside reached his consciousness.

“... doing here?”

“We’re here wi—”

Him dashing out of the shack caused Gingge, who was talking to a middle aged woman, to halt and stare at him.

“Lo’er! You’re back already? What happened? Who are these ladies?” The woman, dressed in rags almost worse than the curtain, began bombarding him with questions.

Unsure what answer to give, or even which one to respond to first, Ku Lo could only stand in place.

“Were you thrown out of the sect?”

Ku Lo blinked before answering, “... No, I didn’t, I’m here to take you with me.” He opted to omit the fact that his current status in the Yin Yang Sect was very similar to expulsion and brought up his goals first.

“The healer from your sect tried to diagnose her, but he couldn’t find anything. Did you…”

“Don’t worry, mother,” he tried to ease her worries. “I have found something to help her.” Once again, the more questionable parts were left out as he clenched the amulet in his fist.

“Thank the heavens for showing pity towards our misery-” She stepped towards the door. “ But we must not idle, the faster your sister is cured, the better.”

“Of course, let’s go back inside.”

While he followed his mother inside the shack, the twins once again kept their distance. Then again, the shack would be crowded if five people were in it at the same time. 

His mother walked to the end of the bed, lifting the wet cloth on Ku Xie’s forehead“Look how pale she’s gotten without you.” 

Ku Lo nodded and without his prior hesitation fell to his knees, hands on the construction of straws and bamboo. One hand carefully lifted the sleeping girl’s head, the other took out the silver amulet.

With a small prayer to no specific deity, he put the chain around her neck.

The very moment he let go, the dim radiance it emitted turned brighter. Though instead of actual light, the shimmer was illusory, always disappearing if directly stared at.

But not a minute later, its entirety had rushed into the sister’s chest, leaving a mundane-looking silver accessory.

Soon after, her whole body jolted before her eyes opened. “Brother? Is that you?”

“I’m here, don’t worry. I’ll never leave you like this again, I promise.”

“Really, you won’t leave again?” Ku Xie through his eyes and into his soul with her eyes, which had white irises — separating her iris and sclera was a thin line of black.

“Of course, never.”

“I’m glad then, now that you’re back, I’m sure I’ll get healthy in no time. I’m already feeling better!”

“I’m sure you will,” he said, messing with her black hair. The first step was done. Getting his family out of this place was next.

Along the new task came new problems. The biggest one being the lack of habitable buildings in his possession. 

“Son, where are we going?” 

The mother adding weights into his worries forced Ku Lo to act without subtlety. “Gingg’er could you come in here?” 

Looking at the rag used as a door he saw Gingge indeed come in, though wary and subtly uncomfortable. 

“I-I’m s-sorry-” His mother bowed. “P-please don’t take offence at my poor hospitality, O great cultivator.”

Gingge’s facial expression changed in an instant as she rushed and beckoned her to stand up with her hands. “Please don’t bow to me, mother-in-law.” 

It would appear that his mother was adamant about bowing as Gingge couldn’t get her to straighten. “Son?” she asked him. “What is the meaning of this?” 

“As she says, mother-” He joined the effort to straighten her back while speaking with a tone filled with pride. “Huang Gingge is her full name, but for you it’ll be daughter-in-law.”

At first, Ku Xie’s mother just blanked when faced with a cultivator’s bow.

Maybe I shouldn’t have pushed them. He didn’t even quite know how to deal with the two himself and this awkward atmosphere of skewed relationships and lacking social rules rapidly grew beyond him.

Meifen’s comment about sluggish village life popped into his mind. If the distanced cultivators harbored such prejudice, how much worse would it be for the mortals who were defenseless against their every whim?

The girl got into a sitting position on the bed. “Ku Xie greets Lady Huang.” 

“Xie, lie down before something happens!” Her daughter moving was enough for her to forget Gingge’s presence. 

Ku Xie placed a hand in front of her mother, though very weakly. “I’m fine… I haven’t felt this good in years.” 

“Xie,” he opened, trying to find common ground. “Gingge’s been ecstatic about meeting her new sister.” 

“Really?” Ku Xie returned, turning to the two of them with confusion on her small face. “Excited to see Ku Xie? But Ku Xie isn’t anyone important, not even a cultivator like brother.” 

“Not everything is about strength,” Gingge said. “Sometimes it's love, sometimes it's a mix, sometimes something else.” 

“What is it between you and brother?” 

“Love,” Gingge must have had this on her tongue for she said it right after Ku Xie shut her mouth. “Your brother is such a caring man.”

“Lo’er is-” Ku Xie grasped the amulet on her neck. “Sending so many doctors to see Ku Xie…” 

Everyone else in the room had their eyes enlarged. 

“Many?” her mother was the first to ask.

“First there was the young healer from the sect. Then the man wearing the rags of an ascetic. At first, the ascetic did some analysis before bringing other people to see me…” Ku Xie went on for a minute or two, telling them of a small army of doctors visiting her. 

It must have been him, he conceived, staring at the amulet around Ku Xie’s neck. But why did he give me the amulet? He was strange enough back then, so who knows…

“D-daughter, w-why didn’t you tell me about this?” His mother appeared frightened, her hands and legs were visibly shaking. 

“I thought you knew.” 

“If you are right and there were tens of healers and mystics,” she contemplated another question. “How did you stay awake when they were here?”

Ku Xie blinked and stayed silent. 

“Daughter?” 

“I shouldn’t speak more…” 

“Ku Xie, how long have you been bedridden?” Gingge changed the subject away from the topic her sister-in-law didn’t want to speak off. “I can’t imagine how rough your childhood must’ve been.” 

“It wasn’t so bad thanks to-” Cough. “Lo’er spending every extra moment he had by my side.” 

“That’s enough, for now.” His mother forced Ku Xie to lie on the bed. “You’ve spoken enough for today already.” 

Ku Xie didn’t object as she coughed a few times more before leaning back.

As she went to sleep, the remaining people tacitly, in silent agreement, walked out of the shack and onto the road between rice paddies.

9