Chapter 47- Eating Rice Today

The two young immortals ran home. Their feet flowed over the long miles more slowly now. Each struggling with the enormity of what they believed was the truth. How could they face their brothers and sisters, face their elders, face their families? How do you answer the courtesy questions about how you are and what you have been up to recently?

A random thought tickled Tian, and made him laugh. “Have you eaten rice today?”

“I’m not very well, no.” Hong grunted.

“No, literally, ‘Have you eaten rice today?’ When people say it, they are really saying ‘How are you?’ and nobody expects you to answer with anything but ‘Fine, thanks.’ But what it literally says is-”

“Have you eaten food today? Or, in the right context, have you eaten rice. Which says… kind of a lot, now that you point it out.”

“It’s seeing all the rice paddies that made me think of it,” Tian explained. “Everyone’s got to eat. ‘How are you?’ is no different than ‘Have you eaten?’ And food is no different than rice. Everything else is there to support the rice and make it more delicious and nutritious. It’s all built on rice.”

Hong nodded. “And rice doesn’t just grow wild. Or, I guess it does, but not in useful amounts. It needs proper fields. Proper irrigation. There are a lot of details and techniques to it that you wouldn’t think of. The fact that we can farm rice at all is a testimony to the perseverance of our ancestors.”

“But with that, we can feed a nation of a billion people. So long as they are left to farm in peace.” The blue sky seemed empty today. There were birds wheeling high up, and the crane was flying around somewhere, but there wasn’t a hint of clouds. No sign of the heavy rains to come. Funny how a sunny day sounded like a wonderful thing, right up until you needed the rain. You had to have both, if you wanted to eat rice today.

The nights were spent peacefully. They subconsciously stayed away from villages and towns, preferring to sleep in their tents. It wasn’t discussed. It was just the instinctive desire not to stare at corpses that didn’t yet know they were dead.

Tian found his thoughts skittering around, like they wanted to poke at the wound but also run away from it. What would he say to Brother Fu? How would he feel seeing him? Seeing West Town, and the Temple, and his brothers? The ones that were so wounded they had to be sent home, anyway. The rest were out fighting and dying in the Redstone Wastes. All because of an old man’s grief.

Even as he thought that, he knew he wasn’t being fair. Starsieve hadn’t made anyone act a certain way, he just closed his eyes to it, and everyone noticed. Then they just did as they wished.

Ancient Crane Mountain slowly rose from the horizon. Its peak was never visible. Tian had always assumed it was hidden by the clouds, and it was, but the fact a cloudbank existed permanently around the mountain’s waist was suspicious. Perhaps it was some sort of sect protecting array, a bewildering formation to keep invaders lost in illusions.

The villages they passed started looking familiar. Places Tian had visited on a mission, or when he was gathering herbs with Brother Wong. Lanes and paths he had first learned an immortal’s stroll on. They felt alien, now, despite their familiarity.

“Where is your parent’s place in relation to West Town?” Tian asked one night.

“It’s on the way, if that’s what you are asking. Ten minute detour, tops.” Hong shrugged, looking uncomfortable. “I keep in touch, but I haven’t been back in a long time. Four years, almost.”

“Want to go visit?”

“No.” She sighed. “They won’t recognize me.”

Tian silently nodded. “I want to go. You don’t need to show yourself. But I want to visit. I… won’t hurt them, or anybody.”

“Why?” She gave him an inquisitive look, but he just shook his head. Then Liren had the grace to look embarrassed, and nodded.

He hadn’t pinned his hair up. He was still wearing his coarse linen clothes. A madman or a beggar, racing down the roads faster than a horse could run. As things became more familiar, they became increasingly strange. Everything seemed varnished with the unreal, their vividness was evidence of their intangibility and increasing indistinguishability. He stopped seeing individual trees or rocks or walls or fields. They merged into a floating illusion that clung to him as he ran.

“I remember this. I was almost blind when I was here last, and it was nighttime. But I remember this place,” Tian murmured. “I stood at the edge of the jungle right there and looked over the valley. The villages were just little twinkling lights, West Town was barely even that. The river was a glowing silvery snake that cut through the darkness. It was when I first saw the world outside the dump, and learned world was huge.”

Hong silently guided them to her family’s village, stopping in a stand of trees just outside. “My family’s house is the big one on the small rise at the back of the village. I won’t be going in.” She pointed out her house. It wasn’t easy to spot, as it was back a good way from the rest of the houses. It was smaller than the word ‘manor’ had led him to believe.

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Tian looked out over the fields. It was after harvest, so you wouldn’t expect to see anything growing. Even so, he could tell something was wrong with the fields. The color was off, grey earth that should have been a rich black. Not many ducks and chickens running around, and the ones that were looked thin and mean. Not many kids were running around either, though there were some. Stick thin limbs on men and women, pinched mouths and narrow eyes. Not mean, exhausted.

He scooped up a bit of dirt and sniffed it. Tasted it. Spat it out. “The roots were cut away here. I suppose they really were heretics. Or whatever they did, it does what the heretics are trying to do.” Tian muttered. “Hasn’t gotten better in ten years either. That’s not good.”

It was easy to slide between the gaps in the peasants’ perception. They were looking down a lot. Tian was wondering why, until he saw a boy lifting up a rotting log and with a yell of triumph, grabbing a big bug. Then he directly ate it, afraid that someone would steal it from him.

Tian stared at the boy for a long minute, then strolled on.