Chapter 21:

Chapter 21

~~~~Tai Su~~~~~

Trust is an interesting concept, one that always confused me. At it’s most basic it can be defined in two ways.

The first is the likelihood that a person will not betray your expectation of them and the more you are certain of it, then the higher your trust in a person is. The second is unlikeliness of a person betraying you and the less likely such a thing is than the greater your trust in them is.

The two might sound similar, but they are not, because you can always trust scum to be scum, but that doesn’t mean you ever trust them to not shank you in the back.

“We found the place where the cherry boys supplies went it seems.” I observed.

Said place was in front of us and had five backpacks and some bones I recognized as human but which were cracked and stripped almost completely of meat.

I would like to say that the scum got what they deserved upon looking at it, but I was more worried about what killed it. Unfortunately I do not recognize the bites.

“Looks like wolves, but smaller and not quite it, but it’s the closest type of bite to it?” Da Xiu replied as he tried to make sense of what he was seeing.

I could see the same thing as he and I tried to match what I saw with what I knew as I've never seen that sort of bite marks on the bones and what was left of the flesh either.

“Dholes, they’re like wolves but smaller and reddish, but they don’t attack people. They’d rather eat a fruit than a man even if they’ll hunt livestock. Maybe they just scavenged the carcass?” I replied.

I’ve never seen a living dhole or could say how their bite looked, but I managed to find a dead one some years back. They look like a small wolf with a reddish coat. When I asked the other men in the village one of them told me they’re familiar with them and that they’re small and aggressive but are scared of humans and will not bother us most of the time. At least that’s assuming if what I was told is right, it might very well not be.

I don’t know of anything else that might fit the description of wolves but smaller and not quite right.

“Maybe they just found the body?” Ya Xue opined.

That was a possibility, if one less likely to be true than the fact the Ki affects animals the same as humans and they become far more willing to kill.

“It’s unlikely he was killed by other Aspirants at least. All his tools are still there.” I observed softly.

It’s been a few days since we’ve all awakened our Qi and the one constant was that each of us were more impulsive, more quick to take sides and be angry, and so I had to avoid direct conflicts I didn’t need. The worst part wasn’t the fact that it could be seen, the conflicts were invisible fault lines my instincts told me were there even when nothing else told me there was anything there.

I felt it deep in my heart, Ya Xue’s desire to be useful and to think she did the right thing when she started wearing Bao’s shoes as opposed to her banner’s boots. She needed, not quite validation, but to not be proven wrong, to not have her call and instincts questioned, not yet at least.

All of them had such an issue I needed to work around but for now what I needed was for them to work together and for this feeling that my squad are one mistake from getting at each other’s throats to go away.

“How far do you reckon we are from the next supply drop?” I asked my subordinates as I turned towards them from the cadaver.

We’ll be taking what we need from it and the others once we settle on our next steps.

“I don’t know, perhaps a day? Assuming everything on the map was up to scale then we should be there by then.” Bao answered.

“If only we had the real map.” Yu Zong complained.

I could feel Bao’s reaction to it, born both from these new instincts I was still gripping with and my experience with the woman I call wife. It was the one way I managed to realize that yes, what I am feeling might be true, as my instincts as to what is going on matches what my eyes are telling me when I look at Bao.

“And what does that mean, that my map is not enough?” She asked coldly with a raised eyebrow.

I took that as my signal to intervene.

“It means that for a map done in a rush it has served us well, but you’re no cartographer yet Bao. You did not have enough time to make a map like the one we saw back at the outpost, nor did you have any tools to do it with. Even so, we make do with what we have, especially as you did a better hob than any of us could have.” I intervened.

“I certainly couldn’t have done a better job.” Da Xiu continued and covered for me.

That seemed to take the sails out of Yu Zong’s sails and the others hummed in agreement at our point. So what if the map is not as useful as the real thing? It’s more than we would have had without Bao.

I nodded at that and silently thanked Da Xiu for choosing to follow my lead, I don’t know what I would have done if the mad wasn’t raised to be a ‘ride or die’ sort of subordinate, because there’s no way that man went against his wife, even in an oblique way like this.

I hate this paranoia and overthinking, I want to not need to worry about this anymore, to look at my friends without them being one mistake away from being at each other’s throats.

“We’re searching the bags for anything useful and then we leave to search for the supply drop.” I instructed and proceeded to do just that.

I took the bags around the corpse to not have any of the others need to handle it, especially Ya Xue. I do not need the sort of drama her looking over her former bannermen’s corpse would cause.

My squad proceeded to do just as I trusted that they would do, and I did trust them.

I trusted them, the same way they trusted my decisions, the same way I knew they trusted that I had their best interest in mind and that I knew that they did not hate each other. That didn’t mean that I trusted them to not get at each other’s throats if I wasn’t looking over them.

Becoming a cultivator removed far too many compunctions and limits from us and now each of us has to find a way to deal with that and see if we can’t build them back up.

I’ve already started to build them back and I was incredibly thankful for my experience with reincarnating, as I’ve had to build a personality for a second time. Despite having the memories of my past life, they did not come with my old personality or habits and so I had to build everything back up myself.

Personality is habit, it’s what you decide to do each day that turns into habit and all of the habits you develop turn into who you are.

“All of the food is eaten here.” Ya Xue observed.

“Same.” I answered.

“There’s some rice here.” Da Xiu said.

“If the bags were touched and opened, or it smells weird or it seems like there’s something there that shouldn’t be then leave them there, they might have been spoiled.” I instructed but otherwise let him decide what to do with said rice.

Yu Zong and Bai both said there was no food in their self-assigned posts either.

Rats might have picked them clean or perhaps the dholes ate grains and rice too assuming they had any.

There was some rope here at least, which meant that it wasn’t humans that rummaged through this. I can’t imagine anyone sane saying no to rope and while I was happy to rummage through the blood soaked bag I decided to randomly pick a line, any line as to what I am not taking. What either of us is not taking.

“Pick a type of item you don’t wish to take from the dead, something you would have never touched before you entered this forest. You don’t have to tell me what you did not pick.” I pleaded.

I could feel their gazes as I decided on not taking any of the man’s clothing, despite it probably making for good kindling.

Habits are formed one act at a time and putting a line at not taking the clothes of a man eaten alive by animals and whose kin I killed a few days ago sounded like a line past me would have not crossed if ever presented with it.

It felt taboo to say why I asked them to do this, to admit that the us from a few days ago no longer existed. Or maybe it was just me and Da Xiu choosing to trust me as the girls did not yet notice what is going on.

Nobody knows I used to be another person before birth, to speak of the fact I used to be a different person a few days felt the same as to admit that same thing, as if it is something that my grave is the only one that could know of it.

None commented and I took the silence as agreement, for disagreement would have been louder and yet meant a lot less.

“Good. Bao, please take the lead, you’re our resident cartographer.” I said once all of us seemed to have taken something from the bodies.

She nodded happily and proceeded to do just that as I made a tally of what I had still. We had food for a few more days still and water needs to be constantly refilled. I took the dead man’s waterskin and essentially doubled my water capacity even if I had to empty the waterskin of water at the next source just in case it was contaminated.

I am risking illness only if I need to and risking stagnant water is not on my to do list.

The days passed quickly at least, all of us were focused at the world around us for anything that would try to kill us and that felt far more relaxing than it used to feel. It was true though, for this little trek felt shorter than the span of time we spent talking today despite it objectively lasting for many hours.

Not having to do any talking as I keep on the lookout for danger is now somehow more relaxing than talking.

“I think I am seeing it, over there!” I said and pointed towards the point in question.

There was something else there as well.

“People.” Ya Xue observed simply.

Yes, there were some people there, three to be more exact, albeit I could not tell the exact shapes, one of them was a woman at least. She had quite the sizeable assets that were left bare to the world so it was hard to think she was anything but a woman.

“And they noticed us.” Da Xiu continued.

“What do we do Tai? They don’t seem to enthused to see us.” Bao asked.

I considered the words and thought about what would make me less paranoid when I met a larger group than mine after all I have been through.

“Smile and wave and let me do the talking, I have a plan to have this not end in a fight and hopefully the group ahead of us are reasonable.” I answered.

They proceeded to do just that as the three looked at us in confusion. Two men and a woman and judging from their features I would say related somehow.

The woman put her red robe back on her properly as she and the other three were increasingly serious with each of our steps towards them

“Greetings friends, mind if we settle down near you and exchange some stories? We found some cherry bastards trying to shake us down a few days ago and we’d appreciate a good conversation over a good meal.” I shouted to them.

That seemed to take a lot of their worry straight out of them and my smile turned from strained to genuine.

There’s nothing quite like common enemies turning strangers into friends and few things are as sweet as the sound of those that have wronged you being dead.

“Only if you’re willing to share some of your food, the rat bastards took most of ours.” The woman answered.

I nodded at that.

“Fair enough, we have some jerky still to share if you’re willing to let us rest here for the night without issue.” I offered.

The woman looked like she could kiss me for that jerky and I relaxed, that’s not the face of someone that wants to stab you, even if that face might get her stabbed by Bao.

I put my hand to her shoulder and squeezed gently in reassurance and she relaxed under my touch.

‘This is going to be a long night.’ I thought tiredly.