v4c75: To Home

It was raining. The sky was drab and grey, and I had a frown firmly planted on my face as I stood across from a great, bloated beast.

It was a truly massive thing, after so long of glutting itself on my farm’s bounty. Its corpulent body rose into the sky, and its smell struck my nose with the sickly sweet tang of decomposition.

I took a breath, and with a heave I thrust my mighty weapon into my foe. The blade bit deep, penetrating into my adversary’s very core; a sublime blow that any cultivator would be proud of. With a flex of my muscles I heaved; and I felt things tear as I ripped open the wound I had made in this great beast. Steam erupted from its innards, billowing in great gouts into the cold air.

But one strike, no matter how perfect, was not enough to have defeated this foe. There may have been a time when I could have conquered it with just this, but it had grown large indeed.

Like really damn big. Man, my compost pile had gotten fat.

My shovel struck again as I heaved up the mass of decomposing food, manure, and other assorted farm waste, aerating it so it would decompose properly instead of just rotting. Normally, I actually liked this job, but I was in my least favourite state as I worked—wet and a bit cold.

Rain fell down from the sky, too much to be called a drizzle but too little to be an excuse to stay in… not that any amount of rain would really be an excuse to a cultivator.

Instead of sitting inside and watching the rain fall, I was wearing the very nice jacket Meimei had made me and a thick hat made of reeds and rice stalks. It was almost a poncho, and it helped keep the rain off… kind of. That rain, in addition to the biting north wind, had made it the worst kind of day to work.

But it needed to be done.

So my shovel churned up the mound of compost. The hot innards of the compost heap made it look kind of like the ground was on fire, belching smoke into the air—and as I worked, some of the annoyance from the cold and the rain faded away.

It sounds kind of weird, but working by the compost pile always did make me happy. I wasn’t sure why, honestly; it wasn’t the smell, that’s for certain.

No, I did know why. It was the fact that I could feel how lively the entire thing was. I could feel the microbes and bacteria and the various detritivores as they did their work. I could feel the nutrients in the soil. I could feel just how good the compost I was making was for everything that would grow within it.

Tianlan could feel it too. She said it felt good, and that she couldn’t exactly describe it. Maybe a bit like getting to drink warm tea after a day out in the cold, a sudden burst of warmth that improved everything.

And maybe a little bit of my momentary contentment was from remembering the teachings of an old man who resided in Tianlan’s dreams.

‘Behold: I follow the path of Shennong. Composting is, after all, destruction. The first step on the path of creation,’ I thought at her, making myself sound like an old master.

I heard Tianlan’s laughter in the back of my head.

‘Indeed. Truly, my contractor is most wise to recognise this,’ Tianlan declared pompously. ‘But he is still a fool! He claims the work of the Master of Destruction as his own! May Heavenly Master Worm strike you down for your hubris!’

I nodded solemnly. ‘You’re right, my martial sister. Heavenly Master Worm, forgive this unworthy man for taking credit for your work!’

I kowtowed immediately. A pink creature poked its head up from the compost heap, seemed to look at me for a moment, then burrowed back into his home.

‘Master Worm has acknowledged us!’ Tianlan shouted.

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‘Praise Master Worm!’

“… Jin, why are you bowing to the compost heap?” my lovely wife asked as she dumped some scraps that even Washy didn’t like eating onto the pile.

“I received enlightenment from the Heavenly Master of the Dao of Destruction, Master Worm,” I said seriously.

Meiling just stared at me for a couple of seconds. She considered at length my words. She walked over to stand beside me.

“Praise Master Worm,” she intoned, her lips twitching as she struggled not to smile.

==============================

We could only praise The Heavenly Master of the Dao of Destruction for so long, however, because we both had other things to do. The barn needed mucking, the sheep needed to be fed, and I put out some more birdseed in the feeders Yao Che had made for us.

At first Meimei hadn’t liked the feeders, deeming it wasteful… but she had come around to them pretty fast, and now she looked forward to watching the songbirds eat their fill at breakfast.

The drop hammer wasn’t pounding today. Instead, Bowu joined myself and Gou Ren and we taught him how to do some repair work on the fence.

It was brisk work, and away from the warmth of the compost pile the world made it very clear that it was truly getting into fall. The leaves had already started turning, and the main harvest of rice would be very soon.