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72.98% Learning To Live As A Cultivator / Chapter 235: Chapter Thirty Five - She misses him, he misses school

Chapter 235: Chapter Thirty Five - She misses him, he misses school

Little servant girls looked demure as they poured tea for the ladies while little servant boys appeared tall and amicable as they poured wine for the men. The guests were very satisfied. One little servant girl bent at the knees as she presented a tray of little cakes and sweets to a group of girls before being jovially dismissed with the wave of a hand and a small pouch holding a silver coin passed by that girl's personal maid. The girl, who happened to have burnt umber coloured hair prettily braided and caught in a half bun upon her head turned to ask a question of the girl beside her.

"Are you also here to see Qinwang's sons?" She spoke behind her lace fan as if attempting to hide her blunt words.

Carmen huffed and glanced at that girl's colouring, admittedly jealous that the girl had such a wealth of rich hair, while hers seemed so dull in comparison.  Of course, there was no comparison between skin tone; Carmen's was like milk, this old Marquis granddaughter had to hide the ruddiness of her skin with pearl powder.  "I can't say that is not what my Grandmother might be thinking," she replied with some evasiveness.

The girls all nodded; they knew that Carmen was her Grandmother's favourite.  "They are quite handsome!" A girl with indigo curls sighed as did the others, causing Carmen to almost sneer in front of them.  Could they not be any less like sheep?

Her sultry eyes glanced over at each princeling in turn.  The older brother was much like his father, but virile in his youth with a pointed chin and narrow eyes.  Two sword shaped brows neatly finished his handsome face and his dark steel coloured hair was captured in an ornate silver crown.  He was very broad of shoulder.  The younger brother was known to take after his maternal family more, he was round of face, which was very youthful and his hair was like strands of spun gold held in a crown of the metal with the same name.  His height just about reached his brother's chin.

"They are alright," Carmen finally gave her response.  It was just that hair as black as coal was more appealing, a man who was tall and strong but not build like an impenetrable wall... ("I question your eyes," Sun would have said if he had access to his cousin's mind.)

The girls all looked at each other, enlightenment suddenly lifting their features and with a rustle of silk, they all took a seat about her with broad smiles upon their lips.  "Just which cad has attracted our Carmen's attentions?"

"Yes, yes," the Marquis granddaughter tugged her sleeve coquettishly, "is he here today?  Surely we should confront him!  How dare he steal our Carmen's heart and leave her so melancholy!"

The girls all giggled, but Carmen just smiled, coyly and allowed them to coax and please her for a while. Eventually, she gave them a little fodder for their thoughts. "His name is Jin Li."

More glances were exchanged and a girl with hair the colour of grape wine asked aloud; "Is that person of West Xulaphrey? He sounds such with that unusual name."

"I couldn't say," Carmen allowed, not admitting that actually she knew very little about the young man, not that she hadn't attempted to find out. But Sun's servants never showed any face to her maids when they inquired. "He attends that school that my sixth brother attends." Although they were cousins, as they had the same genealogy, it was natural to refer to him as such.

"Speaking of your sixth brother," said the girl with indigo hair, who happened to be related to a duke but not close enough to be considered for marriage amongst the purple. "He seems to have matured somewhat over this half year."

Carmen scowled using her fan to discreetly hide this from the Madams who happened to glance their way from time to time.  "How so?" She wanted to know what was going through this silly girl's mind.  They looked at her as if her eyes had no sight to see.  "What?  Do you look at the brothers in your family and think they have grown up during the time that you had not seen them?  Besides, what is half of a year?"

The girls looked sheepish; she had a point.

Sun shuddered as he felt too many eyes boring into him, like he was some object upon display.  "Are you alright, brother?" Mond asked him, lightly as he stood beside him, their grandfather having wandered off in some other direction.

"I... I'm fine, I think," Sun replied with slight hesitation, before pouting.  "Why was it that Grandmother insisted we attend tonight?  I feel as if I have been put out on display at auction as one of the lots!"

"At least you are not considered one of the most valuable items, little brother," Mond indicated the starry eye girls practically lining up to greet the second princeling with their parents.  The man's bright smile remained upon his lips, but his eyes seemed very weary.  Their Grandmother was not the sort to throw her granddaughters in front of men's eyes to try gain their attention, so neither she nor any of her granddaughters were amongst that crowd.  And with Grandfather remincising elsewhere, the elders in the room did not approach them as that was beneath their status and was inappropriate.

"You're the luckiest, brother," Sun was not resigned.  "You are already engaged; they won't look at you like some prize bull, ah!"

"Not entirely so," Mond denied.  The elders were not considering him and his future wife's family were not present at the affair this evening, but he'd felt a handful of burning stares regardless.  He then decided to tease, albeit clumsily, his little brother.  "So you want Grandmother to find you a wife, I should inform her."

"Don't you dare!" Sun leapt up at him and covered his mouth with his hands, attracting a fair bit of attention before realising he'd been played.  His face reddened brightly as he lowered his hands, his older brother apologising to him, even if he offered others stares of indifference.  "Brother!" He wailed softly after the crowds resumed to chatting and making uncomplimentary compliments with each other, letting them slip away unnoticed.

"What do you plan to do?" Mond asked with some curiousness.  He'd not the options that Sun currently had available, he was an ordinary person after all.  Marrying, having a young wife to return home to once he'd gained some merit in the army then raising children with her had never seemed a bad notion to him, however, so he was not jealous of Sun. 

Sun beamed as he answered; "I'm going to prove to everyone that a wind root is not lame!  Did you know, my Teacher Corvus has just a wind root, yet he's amazingly strong and fast!  Admittedly, he can be a bit weird sometimes and annoying, impulsive, doesn't think things through, likes to show off... a lot and he doesn't understand the concept of privacy at all, but he's taught me a cultivation method that is perfect for me as well as some techniques I didn't know were possible!  I get a cloudy Spiritual Pill every month, access to the medicinal baths everyday, the food isn't bad and no one looks down on me because I am short!  Well, some of the other first years did in the beginning, but those idiots alienated Jin Li because they were jealous, so that type of people aren't worth my time anyway!"

A small smile curled Mond's lips as he listened to Sun rattle on, uncaring that he had heard much of this before.  Sun began to once more embellish some of his adventures at the school, some including his Teacher, some including the young Master Jin Li and the alchemist boy, Leon.  As his brother spoke, he noticed from the corner of his eye someone pause in the shadows of the palisade, but as he turned about, there was no one to be seen.  So he simply dismissed it and returned his attention to his little brother, enjoying the renewed connection with him he'd thought some ten years lost.


Chapter 236: Chapter Thirty Six - They get a divorce

New Year's in the village had a slightly different atmosphere in some houses than in previous years.  Women still gathered in the kitchens making use of the meat and eggs and precious white flour that they had traded and stored away just for this one day's celebrations and these women still gossiped.  Meanwhile, the men would do a few menial chores such as feed livestock and clear the light snowfall from the paths and bring in more firewood or gather to hunt in the morning.  And later these men would share cups of wine with their elders and ancestors and ruminate about political things that sounded very important but had otherwise little effect on them.

However, the gossip also included mention of their village's respected elder Leonard, who had some learning and his little grandson who had stepped off the beaten path and would leave no descendants to continue Old Leonard's family line.  Forgotten was the fact that Leo himself should have taken another person's name, that was a hushed subject that no one bothered with anymore, not wanting to speak ill of the deceased.  Both men and women would shake their heads while lamenting on behalf of Leonard, but the man himself was not bothered at all.

He still went to a few houses to exchange for dumplings and moon cakes (neither could Leon make). Some of the families were cold, even tried to charge him more to which he rose an eyebrow and simply walked away. Others were far more generous than usual or tried to be as Leonard really didn't want their sympathy. Besides, behind at least one person's eyes was calculation that reminded him of his daughter. Why did these fools think like that woman, thinking that he was holding some sort of legacy behind his doors? Just because he could read, did not mean he had wealth. In fact, all he had was the courtyard house, which had seen better days, and a bit of farming land that he rented to the next door neighbour for a couple of sacks of rice a year. Most families had much the same and could even earn more money as they could raise herbs on their farms and had many sons who could bring money in from elsewhere.

The village chief was not like the rest; he could be seen as to be a little more worldly than the villagers.

"I know don' know much abou' the immortal realm, bu' there's this Cultivator who makes special trip t' the village every ten years or so," he had mentioned, "an' tha' fella will sit with me, like he sa' with me father and me grandfather and me great grandfather, an' tell us stories.  It's no' unusual for men to couple for there are fewer women Cultivators.  A Cultivator would risk them heart demons if he had t' continuously watch his brides die, cos she cannae be an immortal like himself."

He was quite correct in his analysis. There were fewer female Cultivators for many reasons. For one, in poor families, the eldest son was the only valuable resource; didn't matter if anyone else had ability, a family would not give them money to aid them and learning, whether it be scholarly or cultivation, cost money. So no other boys got the chance unless a sect or school found they had something rare, let alone the daughters. And in more affluent families, daughters were often considered valuable in creating connections through marriage, while surplus sons having ability would be literally given to sects and sent to schools in order to use their worth for the family. So only unmarriageable daughters and daughters of cultivating families might be blessed to walk the path of a cultivator along with the rarest amongst the gifted.

There was also the fact that two Cultivators might not be able to procreate and bring a child who could follow them on their journey to immortality, though the chances were indeed higher. A woman who had carried this little bun for two hundred and eighty days within her might not easily accept that they would lose the child as soon as eighty years, while living on for centuries after the loss. So while finding a partner to Cultivate with upon this path held some importance, gender was no longer relevant.

The gossip itself was not pleasant, but not detrimental in the end. Leon's memories of this place were much like movies starring someone else, even if they did happen through his eyes. It was not that he disassociated them from himself, but that the him now would not necessarily have behaved like the him then; their personalities weren't too much different, but the environments in which they grew up in were a lot. So while Leo would have been most upset with ruining his small reputation and friendships within the village as well as the hurt he might have caused Leonard, Leon didn't care so much (with the exception of upsetting his grandfather, who was very good to him and had accepted the situation anyway).

Besides, just the night before, something occurred that muted gossip about him a little and gave those men and women something else to shake their heads and talk about; Russ' father got exceptionally drunk in town and on his way back, slipped on a patch of ice and tripped and fell into a deep ditch. He broke his leg in two places during the fall as well as fractured his arm.

A doctor had set his limbs with splints and had advised him to stay off his leg and mind his arm and charged three silver for the late night call and prescription.  He also had warned that the man might not have full use of the leg in the future, though the arm would heal well enough. Russ' grandmother had wailed so loud that she woke up many neighbours and insisted that Russ go beg some alchemy pills from Leo.  Unfortunately for Russ' father and the old lady, Leon was still at a low level when it came to making pills and he certainly couldn't make Bone Regrowth pills yet.  Plus many of the herbs were fairly rare so more expensive than the average pill, Leon didn't even know if the money he brought with him would even cover the expenses even if he wanted to make the pill for the unpleasant drunk.

Still, just to help Russ keep face, he did give him a bottle of False Recovery Pills, which would be better as painkillers than the bitter medicine that the doctor prescribed.  However, he had told him that the man could only take one a day.  The more he took, otherwise, the shorter they would last to the point that they were not effective at all.  He didn't say that once they wore off, the man might feel a slight increase in pain; all medicines came with the risk of side effects after all.

So New Years was a strange affair in that family, with Russ' father hollering for a drink and wailing that he was in pain... and where was his drink (dammit!) while his Grandmother wept and blamed Russ' mother for letting her child drink to excess and causing this to happen. Russ had scorned all 'filial piety' at that point and told the old woman clearly; "My da' is a grown man who eats meat an' can lif' up a couple sack of rice, while me Ma is lucky if she has a bowl of rice soup fer a meal. How is me Ma mean' t' stop 'im?"

The old woman paused for half a heartbeat before wailing again; "I shoul' ne'er le' him marry ye an' now ye son is as unfilial as ye! Ye is this family's unlucky star! I'll have our secon' divorce ye!"

"Bring i' on!" Russ sneered.

"Russ..." his mother tugged at his sleeve, pleading with him.

"No, Ma," Russ put his foot down. "Did she once think abou' ye when Da broke ye fingers 'cos he though' ye had some dowry left t' sell for a jug o' wine? Le' me take care of ye and me sisters. They won' have t' go bed cold an' hungry anymore!"

"Slanderous, unfilial boy!" Russ' Grandmother continued to stammer and wail. "Jus' because me poor son cannae bea' manners into ye, don't think this old woman cannae!" She began hitting the floor with her cane, but when it landed on Russ' body a couple of times, it snapped in two! She finally realised that this child was not a weak boy anymore and wanted to call in her sons to deal with him. Only as they rushed in, Russ' mother was finally standing tall and declared that even if the old woman wanted to have her son divorce her, it wasn't possible, as she would request a divorce first!

Stunned, she swept out of the main room to her own tiny compound before instructing her eldest daughter to request the village chief to come to the family. Russ first uncle attempted to soothe his mother, reminding her that a divorce in the family would ruin the family's reputation as her daughter-in-law had not, to this point, broken any of the women's stipulations (she had borne a son and she was usually very filial to her elders as well as obedient to her husband). And his third uncle attempted to soothe Russ' mother, who was far too upset to be pacified as she recalled all of the times that she had failed to care and protect her children from their selfish father and grandmother.

The village chief spoke to everyone, including Russ' father, who said she could leave only when she had given him ten silver (enough for a several barrels of cheap wine). She had tossed the pouch of all her savings (and Russ') for her precious daughter's dowries upon the bed he lie in, before providing her thumb print and walked out with her packed things. Russ' Grandmother hadn't ever thought it would go so far and had fainted completely away. The village chief had only shaken his head and helped the woman and her children settle into a courtyard that belonged to his second son, who'd moved to town some years ago, temporarily so at least she wouldn't have to spend the winter in the cold.

Other than that, it was up to the family's themselves to deal with and regret.


CREATORS' THOUGHTS
Ebonsolaris Ebonsolaris

I was trying to write something else, but the drama developed before my eyes!

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