Volume 2-Chapter 12

Chapter 12

~~~~Yang An Xie~~~~

The transition from sleep to wakefulness used to be a muddled process once upon a time. It would take me minutes to wake up, but no the transition was near instant.

A life in the Endless Plains Sect will do that to you. Late sleepers or individuals that couldn't wake fast enough would not get food or find themselves beaten and turned into food the next day, and not even a life of comfortable hardship was enough to take that instinct away from me.

It was the sound of footsteps on dry ground that awakened me and I jumped to my feet ready to make whoever tried to turn me into stew dead.

"Hiii! Ma said to awake!" A young voice shouted confidently in broken imperial.

I looked down and relaxed, the boy was not a threat. Van Binh was the son of the Van, the family that agreed to take me in as I proved myself to the clan.

I chuckled and went to ruffle the boy's head, the little scamp was one of the few children that could speak both the local forest-tongue and imperial thanks to his father being one of the clans traders. His imperial wasn't the best on account of being five, but it was still easy to understand him.

"Thanks for waking me up Van Binh. Do you know how long was I asleep?" I asked.

The young boy shrugged.

"Dunno, you… carried yesterday night with the imperials." He replied.

"I was carried back to the clan yesterday? Also what imperials?" I asked him to clarify.

The boy nodded his head.

"Yes, and I dunno. I fell asleep while the boring man spoke, now come we're having breakfast and auntie Ahn and mamma wanted to speak to you." The boy declared and started pulling me outside the tent.

I wanted to protest that I needed to clean myself first, as I was filthy from yesterday, but I noticed that I was clean and that the clothes on me were not the same ones I wore yesterday.

It will never cease the amaze me, how much the people in this clan seem to care and genuinely be kind. No, the more surprising part is that the people of this world I still don't know the name of seem to generally be kind.

In my past life someone like me of another species would have been lucky to receive a quick death for being in other people's lands, but here I was politely told where to go to reach the clan and the clan received me with amiability as opposed to the expected hostility.

I covered my eyes with my free hand as my eyes needed time to adjust to the outside light. I didn't stop however, the young Binh did not have the patience and the last thing I wanted was to get in a tug of war with a five years old.

Young boys are always relentless until they learn restraint and I've had plenty of them to know that it's best to ease them up into the realities of life. He is not my son, so it's best if I don't do that.

The boy started shouting in the forest-tongue, all I could make out of it being the words for Anh and auntie, as well as mother.

The two women greeted us warmly and the boy let go of my hand and ran towards his own mother.

I bowed deeply, my back bent to a fourty five degree angle and my hands forming a traditional closed fist salute.

"This Yang An Xie greets you first huntress." I greeted.

The naming traditions of my body's family and of my people did not match well and I had to give up half of the name Yang An Lu's family had given him and only keep my connection to his father and my own personal name, but I was finally among the people my heart belonged to.

I've lived for one hundred-and-seventy years, it doesn't matter what my body tells me, I am a wolf-blooded and even if I have to start from the lowest tiers again, at least I am among my people.

"Rise Yang An, I told you that we don't do this sort of thing. We bow on special occasions or to elders, and even then not this deeply. We don't bow when greeting each other, we only do that with outsiders and you are a Xie now." She said tiredly.

I rose back awkwardly. My new clan had some strange habits, bowing was universal among any species I knew of, even the kind humans thought nothing of bowing, but the Xie clan insisted on not doing it. I'll have to get used to this now it seemed.

Strange, but I had to deal with worse.

"Yes First Huntress." I replied, my tone respectful.

Kim Anh was the daughter of the clan head, despite the two not sharing a surname due to some strange tradition and she was one of the most accomplished huntresses in the tribe, as well as the first among their council. I may not be able to set an exact rank to her from among my old fellowship, but she was near the top and I was at the bottom. When someone like that says you do something the answer is yes and then you figure it out or die trying because the alternative is always worse.

Her left eyebrow rose and I started to wonder how my next life will be as it seems I have displeased her. Her tail was frazzled which told me she was displeased and I knew from experience that displeasing those ahead of you rarely ended well.

She shook her head.

"No, I am not dealing with this right now, I'll let the Van deal with your nonsense. They decided to take you in, they can deal with your issues. Come, we need to eat and then you have to go speak with the imperials" She declared and then left off.

"Come Yang An, let's give our spider killer some food in his belly." Van Hien said kindly and bid me to follow and I obeyed.

The Tail-less woman and her husband were a mystery to me, I didn't even know one could be born without a tail, the loss of it, being always a punishment given to those that have dishonored themselves.

"Yes auntie." I replied and followed.

She and her family were my guarantors, they decided to take me in and guaranteed my good behavior. Her husband was a trader, one of the few individuals tasked with trading with the imperials and my request to join his clan made the man glad for some reason and ever since he brought me to the clan, the kind woman has been making sure I am ready for the trials to join the Xie clan.

If they had a daughter to marry I could understand why, but they don't which makes them being so open to me being here strange when considering what I knew of how families are meant to operate.

"I'll go get us some stew, boys you wait for me in our spot." Van Hien instructed the two of us.

"Come, come I am hungry!" Van Binh declared and rushed to our spot.

The Xie clan had various families a part of it, each family tasked with a certain primary duty and each of them generally stood among their own.

The Vans are the traders, the Kim are the leaders, the Le are our chief gatherers, Huyin the healers and the Vu the main hunters and warriors with some clansmen families without a family name doing whatever odd jobs need doing. As I was taken by the Van, then that meant I would be a trader, which meant I needed to know how to fight, barter, not cause offense and have a good eye for quality in that order, because humans treat most merchants worse than the sects treated mortal slave-warriors.

At least those wretches weren't hated and insulted for doing a good job, unlike how Imperials treat merchants. My body's hometown treated them bad and would whip or beat them any time the people felt like they cheated them on or used wrong measurement, but I've seen Imperials do far worse to merchants for selling the wrong thing and with no warning.

The two of us sat in the family's stone circle among the others of the Van and did some small talk until the women came with the food.

Van Hien carried two of them, one for me and one for her only son.

"Thank you." I said as Van Hien gave me the wooden bowl filled with a thick steaming swarm-skull stew.

In my past life such a stew would have been given on great celebrations only, in this one this was common.

"Thank you Ma, but aren't you eating with us?" Van Binh asked.

"Not yet my dear, I and the rest of the women of the family need to discuss something important before we can get to eating." She answered.

I considered asking what that is, but thought better of it. It was only the women talking judging by how only men and the children were eating, which meant that it was none of my bussiness.

"We'll wait for you then." I declared.

"Yeah, we're not letting ma eat alone!" Van Binh did the same shortly after.

Around us the other men stopped eating as they too decided similarly

That made the few women still around giggle, and suddenly my worries about the meeting with the imperial officials eased a bit. If auntie could laugh so carefree, then things were probably fine.

~~~Tai Su~~~

Elder Shen Xifeng told me that official policy on reincarnation is apathy. The phenomenon is known to the Empire of the Blazing Sun, with there being few cities with no tale of a man or woman that can remember a past life.

Some can only remember being animals, some recall a past human life centuries ago and even from before the Era of Darkness and others can remember life on other worlds and know this for a fact.

Official policy is apathy, as the Empress does not care for their past lives and from what she has told me in the letters we exchanged, she is actually sympathetic to their plight, as her own father suffered from a similar condition too, and the word suffer was very specific. As far as the Empress is concerned those with memories of a past life suffer from it.

That didn't change the fact that the powers that be acknowledge the fact that reincarnated individuals from other worlds carry a possible treasure-trove of information with them, information that is the unofficial policy of the various sects that we need to acquire.

This is expressly not supported by Imperial authorities, but it is also not forbidden, as the techniques and knowledge we could gleam from other societies was too valuable for the sects to not at the very least try to get it.

Different species and cultures approach cultivation differently and what is common knowledge for one culture is a closely guarded secret in another, and what Yang An Xie told me was normal for his past life's cultivators to do made my mind short-circuit.

"You did what?" I asked him, my tone a mix of shock and outrage.

"The Last Breath Ritual? All cultivators in all of the sects were using it to be able to gather Qi from the air and awaken their meridians. Do you do something else to Awaken Meridians and allow cultivators to draw Qi from the air?" The madman explained.

By my side Mei Lin was dutifully noting everything down. It was only the two of us interviewing the reincarnator, as Ya Xue was busy getting to know the wolf clan better and Da Xiu was on a hunting trip with the Xie huntsmen to learn what animals are edible and which aren't.

My hands covered my face as I considered his words. The madman burned the capillaries of his Meridians, effectively cutting his cultivation speed to one tenth of what it should be, because it was normal in his past life and knowledge of something we didn't even know was possible was so common to him as to the man to not even think it strange.

"Humans can naturally absorb Qi from the air unassisted. The Beast clans are half human and half beast, they get our meridian network, but are forced to rely on the method of the beasts of ingesting Qi to advance. You're telling me that your people have a way to allow the beast clans to cultivate normally?" I asked, my hands still covering my face as I tried to process his words.

"What?" He asked, his own voice just as shocked as mine.

My hands came back down.

"Humans and dragons can get Qi from eating Qi infused meals and from the air. We are the only two species that can do it, you crippled your meridians for nothing." I explained to the green eyed man.

The man looked the same as any imperial man. except for his green eyes which were a sign of very distant fox ancestry. The only thing that differentiated him from any imperial man I've seen before was the leather clothing he wore, which marked him as a member of the Xie clan.

"Every human can do it? Even the awakening of meridians?" He asked numbly.

"There are active, but Qi deprived, meridians that can be activated through specific meditation techniques. We can't naturally awaken dormant meridians, but we have pills that cost one or two spirit crystals to manufacture that can do the same thing." I answered.

We have been discussing simple things, how life was in his old sect, how disciples were treated and how were normal people treated. In short, slaves are treated better and with more dignity than disciples of their sect and mortals are treated even worse. We discussed how their training was, abysmal, the would-be cultivators being afforded little to no formal training and were expected to kill and eat each other and those that were worse at it became the meal.

All of it was a mix of horrifying and mind numbing, as sects numbering in the millions churned through aspirants as if the sect was a living creature and it fed on their suffering and deaths.

Calling the charnel house known as the Endless Plains Sect an actual sect was an insult to sects everywhere in the Empire. The thing calling itself a sect was an overcrowded abomination that used the corpses of its dead disciples to feed the living and turned its members into a cauldron for the advancement of the talented.

The logic was as simple as it was monstrous, get as many wretches that can take Qi from the air, have most of them die in a pseudo-darwinian contest of suffering and adaptation and at the end you'll get an adaptable cultivator that can survive any indignity or strife you throw at him. In the meantime the dead serve the living, their Qi infused flesh being used to empower the remaining disciples of a similar tier until someone Ascended to the next tier. Then the same happened on the next tier, but now the conditions were less abominable.

It is monstrous, wasteful and the sort of thing that churns through more people than the Empire has to produce one cultivator capable of even attempting to ascend to the Fourth Tier every few thousand years.

I've had my misgiving on the Imperial system, or even the Ming system, as elder Shen Xifeng went to great lengths to explain to me how the Sect system in the Empire of the Blazing Sun and the Martial School System in the Empire of Ming operate and why they are the way they are. If this abomination is the other alternative, then I retract any and all objections I ever had to either system.

"That's…" The man said, his capacity to form words leaving him.

This represented an opportunity, and I would be a fool not to take it. I turned towards Mei Lin, to pitch her my idea.

"Let's put that aside for a bit, Mei Lin, if I am not mistaken we still have the Lesser Phoenix Elixir right?" I asked the woman.

The woman's head rose from the paper and she gave me a stink eye.

"Tai Su." She said simply.

"I know elder Shen Xifeng said to only use it in an emergency, but I would like to make a deal with Yang An Xie and I want to use it." I replied.

Mei Lin was the one trusted by elder Shen Xifeng with looking after our health. She knew I quite literally couldn't care about it for now, my only care for my own well-being coming from the fact that it would make my own family sad if I were to die or be injured. Da Xiu and Ya Xue weren't as bad, but Da Xiu was a meat head and Ya Xue didn't have the temperament to handle medicine, so it was up to Mei Lin to handle it and make sure we used responsibly, or at all in my case.

This meant that if I wanted to use any medicine, she was the one that had to agree to it and I couldn't order her otherwise unless it was an emergency.

"What deal?" The man asked, his previous shock replaced with an unnatural focus.

I turned back towards the reincarnator, Mei Lin will tell me what she wants when she finished thinking about it.

"The Empire has multiple foxes which are allowed to join the banners, I would like you to write down anything you know of this 'Last Breath Ritual' and teach any bannermen of the fox clan coming here to learn it. In exchange I am willing to give you a medicine that should fix your meridians." I answered his question.

I wanted to continue talking with him, but Mei Lin decided to interrupt me, with the price of her allowing me to do go ahead with my plan.

"I want you to talk with Senior about me having children." She declared.

That was it? Bao already told them they will have children together.

"What do you want exactly?" I asked as I turned back towards her.

She already had all of the freedom in the world on the topic. All she had to do was buy her own fertility elixir after Bao got pregnant and she'd allow her to use it and get pregnant. As long as at least one of them was willing to help Bao with child rearing, Bao was perfectly willing to let them do as they pleased on the topic.

"I want a guarantee. I've seen far too many women held with the threat over their head. I want you to make sure that she'll keep to her promise." She replied.

I raised an eyebrow as I looked at her.

"You do know that cultivator women are not beholden to the quota right?" I asked her.

Women in the Empire had to have two children by age thirty, with exceptions applied to cultivator women who are allowed to go childless, and women held in concubinage, for as long as the arrangement lasts and an extra two years. It also applied to women under the staggered birth system, who are given a special dispensation from the Southern Lemon Tree Banner, if they happen to have been born outside of it, and adhering to the birthing period would put them over the age limit normally.

"Not my fear and you know it." She replied flatly.

Ah, yes she does not want to die alone like she saw so many other women do.

"You're already getting what you want, but deal." I agreed easily.

The woman nodded and snickered as if she got one over.

"Could you please take this seriously!?" The man all but shouted as he rose up angrily.

My voice turned frosty at his tone.

"Sit." I ordered simply, my voice promising violence if he disobeyed.

I was permissive, but I will not accept any disrespect or shouting, especially not when I just offered him the deal of a lifetime.

The man glared at me, until he remembered the position his clan was into and did as I told him.

"Explain." I demanded.

"A single spirit stone would be worth more than my life, more than dozens of lives actually, and an elixir capable of regenerating spirit veins, or meridians as you call them, would be worth thousands. Please do not pretend you can give me that, or that you would argue whether or not to give me that over child birth." He said through gritted teeth.

"Mei Lin please pull out the medicine and one of the spirit stones, make sure it's one of mine." I asked her.

The woman noticing that things were getting tense did as I asked her and pulled out a small wooden vial that would at best fill half a tea cup and a small quartz crystal the size of my pinky. She then proceeded to bring them to me before settling back to her writing spot.

"The elixir is worth fifty spirit stones like the one I am holding. Assuming I receive no remuneration from missions I, and any other sect disciple in the Empire of the Blazing Sun, would be able to afford to buy one such elixir once every ten years by the grace of the Empress, who ensure all disciples receive five spirit stones a year for being in her service." I explained and gave both of the spirit stone and elixir to him.

Mei Lin started to write down my words, but neither I nor my fellow reincarnator could be bothered to care. The other man did not care for the record keeping and I actively wanted what was being said here be written down and read.

The man looked at me in disbelief and then he touched the spirit stone and noticed for himself how filled with Qi it was.

"How?" He whispered in awe as he realized I was serious.

"By being in service to a Fifth Tier whose Dao Heart can create an Elixir that makes this one's properties feel like stale water. The Empire's Sects are focused on the quality of the disciples, as opposed to numbers, and despite most sects barely reaching one thousand members, each of them has multiple Third Tiers and a pipeline to creating Fourth Tiers every five centuries." I answered.

I could almost feel his reticence as he gave both of them back, the poorly lit tent we were in doing nothing to hide the conflict raging through his mind from my eyes. For the first time since we started this interview the man could no longer hide his emotions behind a mask.

"Do you agree to my deal?" I asked him, my tone not losing any of its edge.

"Why do you want to enter such a deal with me?" He asked me, his voice just as severe as mine, if far less hostile.

My voice lost most of its edge now that I knew he was taking my deal seriously.

"The Pavilion of Harmonious Cooperation and Integration is meant to create an environment where the various factions and species in the Prefecture can live harmoniously. The fox clans operate under similar restrictions to the wolf clan and they can only Advance through the tiers by eating Qi infused meals, which is an issue as said foods are highly restricted.

Your Last Breath ritual would allow the few foxes that are allowed to be bannermen to Ascend through the tiers at a fraction of the cost for the Empire and the Lesser Phoenix Elixir would also serve as a reward to cement the loyalty of any fox bannermen that does become a cultivator. The Prefecture is about to have a large growth in the fox clan population in the new future and we need a way to make sure they are loyal to the Empress first and foremost." I answered.

Fifty spirit stones for another institutional leash to keep the foxes loyal? The Pavilions alone would pay one hundred times that amount for it and the Empress would outbid us by a hundred times over. The Empress wants the loyalty of both the banners and the sects, and is perfectly willing to pay whatever it takes to get it.

This? This is pocket change, and judging from the horrified look the man in front of me gave me, he too realized the unfathomable wealth the Empress had access to.

"I… I will need to talk to the clan head about this deal. This is something with far reaching consequences that I can't decide for the clan." He replied and bowed his head in a silent apology.

I considered his words, before I nodded in acknowledgment to his words. Yes, I got greedy and this should have been discussed with Pham Trung Xie.

"Fair enough, please go talk with clan head Pham Trung Xie. We'll continue our interview, tomorrow should your duties allow it, if not the day after tomorrow and no later." I allowed.

The man nodded in gratitude and left. Mei Lin noted that too, before she put her pencil down and there were only two cultivators left in the tent for now.