Chapter Eleven #2
“Of course not, Master Yang. I am paid by the plant, so I am motivated to bring the skilled master as many plants as possible if I hope to build a future for my son. I am, however, limited by how many plants I can enrich with chi. If I bring you only ginseng, I will still only be able to bring you between fifteen and twenty plants, but if Master Yang wishes to purchase only ginseng, I can only oblige.”
Leander spoke loudly and clearly, making sure that everyone heard he expected to get paid per root, and as he expected, Master Yang turned red, even on his balding head. Miserly, yuan-counting pissant
“I offered ten yuan per plant when you had to search for each separate plant. If you find a cluster of ginseng, then you are not working as hard.”
“I must enrich each plant, regardless of how long I take to find it,” Leander countered.
Master Yang came down his steps, his heavy belly shaking with each thudding footstep.
“You are trying to take advantage of my good nature.” He spoke as if he had any good nature to take advantage of.
One of the servants even graced Yang with a disbelieving look.
Hell, Xi had likely figured out Master Yang’s true nature already.
Leander bowed. “I would always hope to find mutual benefit for any arrangement,” he said.
That was almost true. He wanted any deal to benefit himself and for the other party to get enough out of it to avoid hard feelings.
With this deal, Master Yang had no right to any hard feelings at all.
He was getting plants enriched beyond anything he could do.
Leander knew pills were not only highly valuable but also highly dependent on the quality of the ingredients.
Master Yang stalked forward, a sense of foreboding filling the surrounding air. “You should worry about benefiting the village. We have taken you in when your own country has thrown you aside. And yet you stand there and try to negotiate?”
Leander debated bringing Auntie Daiyu into the conversation, but he had the feeling she was the nuclear option and he didn’t want to suffer radiation poisoning.
“I do not negotiate at all, honored pill master,” he said.
“We have agreed on ten yuan per plant, and given the difficulty of enriching the ingredients, I would ask for more, but I will not negotiate an agreement already made.”
“Master Yang,” the female servant said, “I have heard that he uses his powers on the reeds of the river instead of your ingredients.” Her smile was vicious. “In fact, it is said that his baskets can hold ling, which must take a great deal of chi to manage.”
“I have not heard that, and I am the one who wove the baskets in order to make a little more money to support my son,” Leander said.
“I wove them to hold water, so anything more is a surprise to me.” Leander wasn’t sure what ling meant exactly.
He knew lingshi were stones that were imbued with power–enough that cultivators could use them to develop their own abilities.
They were tiny spiritual energy batteries.
Lingqi was some sort of spirit power that Leander didn’t understand, but ling by itself was a new term for him.
But if his baskets could hold ling, he assumed that had some value.
Master Yang looked from Leander to his servant girl, his eyes narrowing. He raised a hand, and she fell silent even though her mouth was open. He stepped down the final step and stared at Leander. “If you hope to find peace here, you must honor those of us with roots in this land.”
Leander bowed. “Of course, Master Yang. I honor your knowledge and your power. To make pills is a great and honorable occupation.” One he couldn’t do half as well without Leander’s plants.
If Yang had worked with the supplies Leander had brought back yesterday, he knew that.
He kept a neutral expression even though Yang was a short-sighted, pig-headed moron who would not just kill the golden goose but throw its body to the pigs.
His brain was rattling around in his skull because it was too small to fill the space.
Yang breathed through his mouth because he wasn’t evolved enough to know how to use his nose.
Leander fought to keep the insults behind his teeth.
“Yet you challenge me,” Yang said.
Leander bowed again. “Never, great Master Yang. If you wish me to expend all my chi on ginseng, then I will bring you as many plants as I can. I will return as soon as I can with fifteen or twenty good-sized roots, the largest I can find. You will make incredible pills with the roots I will harvest for you.”
Master Yang’s nose flared. Leander wondered if that was some affectation he used to intimidate people or if he genuinely had so little control over his emotions.
That was strange because Leander thought separating from the concerns of the world was vital for Chinese magical cultivation.
Maybe Yang was just bad at cultivating. Maybe he was skilled with making pills the way Leander was with plants, and he couldn’t do anything else well.
Without another word, Yang turned and headed back up the stairs, disappearing into his house after slamming his door with a startling crash.
“Here.” The servant woman shoved the donkey’s reins at Leander.
“Thank you,” Leander said.
He didn’t bow to her, and her eyes narrowed.
Clearly she thought her own status was higher.
Either that or she expected Leander to want to impress her.
Objectively, she was attractive, but Leander thought her cold expression made her appear constipated.
He led the donkey away from Master Yang’s house.
“Nice guy,” Xi whispered.
Leander glared him into silence. “Those with magic can develop a much wider range of skills. Many will have heightened senses, so it is particularly rude to make loud noises when people don’t expect it.
For the same reason, people are expected to avoid strong smells.
” He would never call Yang rude, but he was happy to imply it.
Xi made a show of sniffing the air. “There are strong smells here.” The scent of cooking drifted on the breeze.
“Those are normal smells, delicious ones, even,” Leander said.
Xi gave him an incredulous look. Chinese cooking wasn’t the same as Chinese-American, but Xi better get used to it if he planned to stay.
“Do you know where to find ginseng?” Xi asked.
“I think so, although I don’t want to take fifteen large roots from one place.
” Leander also did not want to bring the best roots back, so he sorted through the locations he had found yesterday.
He was developing a mental map of the local vegetation, reinforced by his connection to the plants physically closest to him.
Plants had a chemical understanding of the surrounding vegetation, so he could send his awareness sliding along that network.
“So, it sounds like we’ll finish early today,” Xi said with far more cheer than appropriate. “What do you do for fun around here?”
“Work,” Leander said dryly.
“Sounds fun. Anything I can help with?”
“I started making baskets,” Leander said. “If the woman back there is telling the truth, it sounds like they are more valuable than I thought.”
“About that.” Xi hurried ahead and kicked a ball back to a cluster of young children who had kicked it out of bounds. He turned back to face Leander. “What’s ling?”
“No idea,” Leander admitted.
“I thought you took a translation pill back in the day.”
“That makes it easier to remember and learn. It doesn’t put a Chinese dictionary in my head. I suspect it has something to do with spiritual energy, but I don’t know for sure.”
“If your baskets can hold ling...” Xi gave him a significant look.
Leander nodded. “I know. After I have made more baskets, we’re going to visit Auntie Daiyu and get some answers.
” If the baskets had value because of this ling, Leander might establish himself as a serious craftsman.
That would give him more status than just being one of Master Yang’s servants.
While he would accept that role if it kept him safe, he would rather not have his safety depend on others.
He’d already played sycophantic sidekick, and the gig did not pay well.
“I could help with the baskets,” Xi offered. Now they’d left the village Xi moved to Leander’s side. They left the path, walking through the flowers while orange petals rose into the air like a cloud.
“You can’t make baskets from shadow,” Leander said.
“No, but I know how to use shadows to create permanent stains. Shadows are more flexible than you’d think.”
Leander didn’t want Xi to become a big part of his life.
It was hard enough to have Shanlin close.
It felt as if his skin had stretched too far because a new person was underneath.
His life was small with plants as companions.
Their life cycles had become his sole personal connections.
But now Shanlin had wormed his way in, not only as someone he had to protect, but as someone who made him want to change.
Asking him to take yet another new person into his life was too much.
“I don’t know why my baskets hold ling,” he said, “so changing anything could damage that quality of the work. We can experiment after we determine the worth of the baskets.”
“Right. But look.” Xi rested his hand on the basket strapped to the donkey’s back.
Some reeds darkened while others slowly turned pale, as if they’d been sun bleached.
In seconds, the plain basket had deep brown and bleached pale gray strands woven together.
“Cool, right? The color stays unless I reverse the process.”
“Which you need to do,” Leander said sharply. “That is not our basket.”
Xi sighed. “You have not changed at all.” He put his hand back on the basket, and the color faded. “I can help. You don’t have to shut me out.” The basket was normal again, and Leander leaned against it. Since they had stopped, the donkey grabbed a mouthful of flowers and started chewing.
“I’m not trying to shut you out,” Leander said. They were wasting time.
Xi snorted. “Right, like you didn’t shut out Tecca or Petel or me. Hell, you shut Finn out even though you two loved each other more than any two people I’d ever seen.”
“Given that he got Tecca pregnant, clearly we weren’t that much in love,” Leander shot back.
“You knew Finn and Tecca messed around. You always said you were fine with that.”
“I was fine with teenagers fucking because they were exploring their options! I wasn’t fine with him getting her pregnant! I wasn’t fine with her taking over our life!”
“She lost the baby! She needed us after that!”
“I needed to know that my relationship wasn’t over, but Finn wasn’t there to say that.
He was never fucking there to say anything I fucking needed him to say.
And this is in the past. If you’re here to shove my nose in the mistakes of the past, you can find some other hiding place.
Just because you ran away from your masters doesn’t mean I have to feed and clothe you,” he shouted.
Xi was pale, and guilt swamped Leander. He hadn’t meant to say any of that.
Yes, maybe he felt it, but that was his pain.
He hadn’t wanted to share it, and he definitely hadn’t meant to turn it into a weapon.
But now the words were out there, and the color left Xi’s face.
Leander swallowed, not sure how to repair the cracks he had just left in their fragile friendship.
He opened his mouth, but before he could cobble together an inadequate apology, Xi’s eyes fluttered, and he fell to the ground unconscious.