v6c52: Inching to Spring

And so the days marched on.

Our home was a regular winter wonderland, blanked in a thick white layer of fluff, and watched over by the General That Commands The Winter. The great snowman’s smile was bright and cheery, and his giant hat was filled with birds that flocked out every morning, chirping and singing their little hearts out.

A small legion of smaller snowmen surrounded the good General’s base, made using the snow we had shoveled from the pathways. Our hills out back were a patchwork of toboggan runs, jumps, and even loops. There was a permanent patch of cleared ice on the ponds, nets set up and centerline marked for our hockey games.

But all of us knew that it wouldn’t last. Winter would soon be coming to its end. All of us could feel it in the wind, in the way it started coming from the south, rather than the north. In the way the sun felt, warming us all.

And while winter was fun, all of us were glad that it wouldn’t carry on. We were all eager for spring.

But that didn’t mean nothing was happening in our lives.

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Everyone had their own project. Mei, Rizzo, and Yun Ren kept up in making their herb series and anatomical scrolls, with Yun Ren transferring direct recorded images to paper. Babe produced the first volume of his second manga… or rather manhua, with Big D. It was based on one of the Old Man’s stories, and Gramps found the entire thing quite amusing.

Peppa, with her new hands, had taken up knitting, while Chunky continued with his pots and planters. He had shifted after breaking one. Instead of recycling the clay… he sealed the crack with a mixture of lacquer and fool’s gold.

It was a rather beautiful piece, when he was finished with it.

Washy kept messing around with new recipes and desserts, and we even had our first harvest of greenhouse beets. They grew quickly, only fifty days from planting to harvest, and were a deep, rich purple. They had a wonderful, earthy taste, and tasted great with vinegar, as well as in my own take on borscht. Big D had a recipe that looked a bit similar from the Howling Fang Mountains, but without the potatoes.

Big D looked a little sad as he ate it. “It tastes almost like Old Ling made it,” he murmured, mentioning the old groundskeeper who had made him meals while he lived at the sect.

“He’ll be alright,” Ri Zu said, putting a hand on Bi De’s shoulder.

“I do hope so,” he replied.

The mood was a little down after that, but Gramps seemed amused as he took a sip of his drink and said nothing.

As for me? I started getting back into calligraphy more, after seeing Gramp’s work. We began making nights of it; me, Gramps, Babe, and Big D all practising our brushwork, with occasionally somebody else looking on.

It was fun getting to flex that muscle. The part of me from before didn’t really consider himself much of an artist. Simple drawings and crude carvings were about the extent of that part of my life’s skills, but now that I was here? Doing the characters was getting to be really engaging.

Though I have to admit sometimes I did shamelessly steal some of my concepts from the Before. I picked one I was pretty sure most cultivators, and especially Gramps, would like.

“A man is both the sculptor and the stone?” the old man asked, looking at my latest work. His bushy eyebrows had climbed up into his hair. “That is good.”

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The biggest project that was finished was the telescope for our observatory. Noodle had evidently been satisfied with the designs of the other project he was making, and shifted to finally finishing the lens. With his spine fixed, Noodle had been determined to get it ready.

The building had been framed in and covered since before the winter started, and now it had what it needed.

A quite frankly absurdly large lens for this time period sat in a housing of brass, pointed at the heavens, another successful collaboration between Noodle and Bowu.

“Most cultivators simply use the Thousand-Li view to achieve a similar effect,” Gramps observed, looking at the long tube with interest. “Some cities and nobles have rooms where the technique is rendered as a formation, but to use wholly mortal means… if it can be further modified with formations, this will be quite useful.”

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

Both Bowu and Noodle smiled, their postures full of pride for their accomplishments.

For me, it had been an idle thought. For the world? This was possibly game changing for a lot of people.

I scratched my chin. This and the beehives both had the potential to do a lot of good. While I wasn’t exactly looking to change the world, perhaps I could get the word out there a bit. Maybe via the Archives? I would have to ask Pops.

I put the thought out of my head for the moment, and instead looked into the telescope.

In a world with basically no light pollution, the sky was utterly magnificent.

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There were a hundred small moments, spent together and apart.

“You ready? I asked. Zhuye was standing up and grabbing my hands. He had taken a few steps with my support, and now I was going to let go.

“Ah! Jah!” Zhuye babbled, his eyes locked on his mom.

“Come here. Come to mama,” Meimei encouraged. Zhuye reached his arms out towards her. His legs wobbled. His eyes were full of determination. One step, two step, three step, four— he staggered, and fell back onto his butt, then onto his side.

He paused for a moment, looking a bit confused. He looked at his mom, like he was checking if he was supposed to cry or not.

“Good job!” we both cheered. Our bright smiles made the decision for him. A tentative, then genuine smile lit up his face, and he started giggling, crawling over to his mom and completing his mission. She scooped him up and showered kisses on his face.

“He’s getting better!” Meimei said with a big smile.

“And more confident,” I agreed. I slung an arm around Mei’s shoulders and gave Zhuye’s stomach a tickle, provoking another round of giggles.

“Ah! Jah! Tuh Buh!” he babbled.

“Hmph! Again with Ti and Bi!” Meimei complained. “You dare insult your mother like that by not calling to her first!” she mock complained.