v4c46: They are a Changin’

“Alright, now here, pull this and off you go!” the kid, Bowu, said.

Mi Lan watched intently as Yao Che’s apprentice gave his instruction to One-Leg Boquin. He was the first of their number to be allowed to ride the ‘Steam Reaper.’ Lan was holding the old dog’s crutches and watching with interest.

Boquin licked his lips and then pulled the lever. The artifact made a ca-chunk noise, the weird looking kettle on top spluttered, and then it started moving forwards of its own accord.

Like a cultivation artifact in a story. Except Bowu had said it was just hot water! Hot water! How could hot water have such magical power? Lan didn’t know, but the results were self-evident.

Boquin whooped as it rumbled forwards, blades snipping and shearing the rice to lay it in a flat row. The rest of the crowd started shouting too, marveling at the iron and wood beast.

It was… it was… well, Lan had no real words for what it was. It was. A few of the men looked a bit uncomfortable at the sight of it. Lan knew his fellows’ worries well. If this had been the first contraption the boy had brought out, he likely would have gotten a less receptive audience.

They were mortal. They should be using mortal tools, and none of this… nonsense. But the boy had shown them the ox-powered one first. He had shown them the gears that spun to shear plant stalks, moved by the wheels.

This was just that, but without the ox. It was… kind of understandable, and not cultivator magic beyond their station.

Mortals using cultivator things upset them, as the stories went. And nobody should make cultivators upset. Lan had seen the aftermath of Sun Ken when a town had tried to defy him. He used to have bloody nightmares about it, but the Demon-Slaying Orchid talisman he had put above his home’s door frame warded those away.

She was definitely a powerful cultivator, if even just a doll of her chased away the evil, nightmare-causing spirits. Lan’s granddaughter was in charge of offering the tiny cultivator her weekly offering of rice wine.

As the last of the rice fell into a pile, Lan squinted at the machine as it stopped at the end of the row. It was a slow, trundling thing. It belched smoke and hissed. It wasn’t graceful, or pristine… so it shouldn’t upset cultivators.

Lan nodded as he finished reaffirming his understanding of the world and turned his eyes to the rice itself. He walked forwards and picked a stalk up, inspecting it to see if the machine had damaged anything.

It hadn’t. It was cut through like with a hand-scythe. He glanced at the fat head of grain… and froze.

Mi Lan knew rice. It was said his family were given the surname Mi, Rice, for their rice was the favourite of some noble lord a long, long time ago. They knew rice so much that every head of his family was named Mi Lan. Indeed, they grew the most consistent Blue Grade Rice in the north!

All he could do was stare for a few moments at the rice, feeling slightly faint.

He had never seen such fat heads of grain in his life. He swallowed. Then he glanced down at the row and paused. It was straight. It was too straight.

He looked up at the machine and the perfect line it was traveling. When it stopped again, he spoke.

“Really?” Lan asked, bending down. Seed drills did make things easier, but they were rickety, unreliable things.

“Yeah, it’s this one over here,” the lad replied, walking over to something that was not a seed drill. Or at least like no seed drill Lan had ever seen.

This one didn’t have a kettle, so once more the remarkably obedient ox was hooked up and another demonstration was run.

When it was over Lan resolved himself to purchase one as soon as possible.

“Do you have any other machines?” Boquin asked.

“Here? Just the inter-row tiller,” the boy replied.

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Everybody paused at that.

“‘Inter-row tiller?’” Lan asked.

“Yeah, for when you till the rows between the rice to help with aerating the roots and dredging up weeds?”

There was silence.

Lan had never heard of… inter-row tilling before.

“…how does that work?” Lan asked.

Bowu shrugged. “You’d have to ask Big Bro Jin,” he replied.

They all looked over to where the big lad was sitting in the shade, chatting with the Lord Magistrate. There was an awkward shuffle. One didn’t just ask a man for his family’s secrets.

“Big Bro Jin! Big Bro Gou! They want to know about how you guys do your rice!” Bowu just shouted, and the big lad looked up.

“They do? Well, sure!” he replied as he got up along with another—Lan had to do a double take at Gou Ren. He looked a lot different these days.

“The young lad said you grow your rice differently, and it makes it easier to harvest with the machines,” Lan said as the man approached.

“Well… Instead of telling you, how about we show you?”

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Mi Lan marveled at the road as they walked down it to Hong Yaowu. It was a thing of beauty, made of pristine paving stones, and every fifth of a Li was carved with spiraling vines. Normally it would have taken two days for them to get to Hong Yaowu. The new road would cut it down to hours.