The Damned Family

After some time on the road Tang Mei started:

"He'er what are you helping Chief Su with. He never told me but did say it were very important."

Stopping his hopping Tang He replied excitedly:

"Help him count!"

After hearing that his mother was very amused and didn't delve deeper into it. It didn't matter what exactly Tang He was helping him with. Sometimes already having someone next to you can aid you a lot with thinking.

Instead of dismissing it, Frank was instead intrigued by that answer.

< You count? Like what? >

'Mostly money. Often Elder Su has some problem and I help him with it. He gives me sweets for it!'

< Ohhh?! >

< So what comes after 999? >

'A thousand!'

< And after 999.999? >

'A kjsfd&!dv!'

Startled by the sudden new word Tang He was very confused whereas Frank got an answer he had half expected. It was very strange that he woke up suddenly and could understand everything people around him said. Normally one wouldn't have to go too far to reach a region with a totally different language. And If you think about the years that had gone by since this country probably had its last contact to civilization it wouldn't be strange for the spoken word to change fully.

The interesting part came when the boy used a new word for this new concept 'million'. Frank had no trouble conceptualizing it on his own but when he heard Tang He say it, it was as if someone had spoken to him in a totally alien language. Testing this Frank asked:

< What did you say? >

'A kjsfd&!dv! … Errrr…..'

Tang He had a very strange look on his face. Something didn't seem right as the word didn't feel good when he said it.

< A million? >

'Yes, that is what I meant! How did you know?'

< This old man knows a lot about some things, you know, hehe… >

< So, do you sometimes say strange words like this one when you speak? >

Frank had a feeling that this line of thought could bring him somewhere. Maybe even unravel bigger mysteries about his situation.

'Errr…. I don't know. Sometimes, when I say something to Elder Su he looks at me strangely and I try to say it in another way'

It seemed Tang He would try and access Frank's memories for some words automatically but some kind of translation error would occur at that point.

< I was able to manually translate the words I was looking for though. Even very foreign words like 'electricity' or 'atom' have an analogue… >

A very curious expression started surface on Tang He's face and just as he wanted to start asking away, his mother interrupted his thoughts:

"What are you thinking about, my dear?"

"Don't worry your father won't tell you to do too much work, he knows of your weak body."

Seeing the mix of changing emotions on her son's face, Tang Mei was very intrigued about the things happening in that head of his. As a grounded woman, work seemed the most probable cause so she tried to console him.

Immediately wanting to clarify her misunderstanding about his weak body Tang He wanted to tell her the exciting news. He wasn't weak anymore! Even after carrying a whole bucket of water home he felt perfectly fine. Just as he opened his mouth, Frank stopped him:

< Are you sure you will be strong tomorrow as well? >

< If you tell your parents that you are suddenly strong today and work accordingly, nobody is going to believe you when you have to tell them you are weak again! >

< You should wait a week to see if the changes are permanent and start to slowly increase the work you do! >

Frank didn't tell him the other major concern he had: Nobody is going to believe him if he says he has suddenly gotten stronger. Everyone will think that he just was a slacking off before. If you couple that with the sudden increasing intellect Tang He is going to show for everyone to see it will be very suspicious and who knows what all those superstitious people would say.

Convinced about Frank's point Tang He closed his mouth again.

Following his own agenda Frank continued:

< You should ask her about her past. Or why the others don't like your family. >

As this had interested Tang He for a long time he too felt that that would be something good to find out, so he asked:

"Mommy, wwwhy are ttthhhe othhers mmmmean to us?"

When Tang Mei heard his question, a slight frown appeared on her beautiful face. She never thought her son would understand that much about the situation their family was in. This was no simple question – the others were not his brothers or fellow children the same as 'us' was not only her son but her whole family. Wondering about her son Tang Mei tried to explain:

"My dear, things are not easy sometimes…"

"You know, when your elder brother Fang was born I had only just married your father. Only a couple of months had gone by and most of our neighbours were not very content about that. You see I had birthed earlier than other wives here and they didn't like that."

Just as Tang He wanted to ask his why's, Frank interjected as he explained he would tell him later and that he shouldn't ask her about that, not for now at least.

Tang Mei knew her lie would not hold on for long but she still didn't want to burden her young son too much with it. She continued:

"You see traditionally it takes a whole year for the first child to be born and in this village people love to hold on to traditions. It was only because of your grandfather that I was not driven out from here. Your grandfather had a great heart and when he heard what I had experienced when I ran from my home village… Oh I started talking too much, hehe"

She stopped herself as topics like the outside world where frowned upon here. Everything and everyone stayed in the village. People were born here, married here and died here. Only recently this changed when two new ones arrived: Doctor Shu and her. Doctor Shu helped everyone in the village so they couldn't find any fault with that. His miraculous healing pastes could even sometimes save someone who had taken half a step into his grave.

Only Tang Mei the foreign girl was left to pick on. What made it even worse, was that shortly after she gave birth to Fang'er and Guo'er nobody – nobody in the entire village was able birth any more children.

For ten years she had been the woman, who damned the whole village. Only because of the strong support of her father-in-law she was able to live through that period at all. And then she had birthed He'er.

Only after that normal child-birthing restored itself in the village. But that was not all. It was discovered very soon that Tang He wasn't like the normal kids and now people were saying that 'the damned woman gave birth to a damned child'. Luckily there was another - 'blessed' child: Elder Su's Su Liling.

She started walking early, was smart and beautiful and everyone adored her. This was both a blessing and a curse for her son. All of the attention was on Chief Su' daughter so nobody bullied him and only the elders would sometimes talk under themselves about the 'damned mother and child'.

That was until her father-in-law died…

Alive he held a lot of respect in the village. As one of the oldest others would need to listen to your opinions and orders, even if they didn't like them too much. The marriage between Tang Mei and Tang Rong was frowned upon but he gave his approval to it. When the birth-rate sank to zero nobody dared to openly oppose them because of him, but when he was gone that all changed.

The 'damned mother and child' became the 'damned family' and even in the open - people would talk about them. Trading became rather difficult as the recent milk-problem illustrated really well. Luckily Bai Chen wasn't as superstitious as the others and still traded with them regularly.

Sadly, because of that the others restricted him as well after they realized he would trade their milk and cheese with the Tangs. Now he would only get enough for his own family and not a single coppers-worth more.

In the past everyone would get grain and straw from them but now only those who really absolutely needed it traded with them and not with the best prices either.

Building the new storage shed for example had depleted almost all their savings in money. Tang Mei was extremely upset that even though nobody wanted to trade with them for goods, when they discovered about their savings in money they didn't care about their past grievances anymore and even the Ma family came running for it. Charging a whole 20 silvers they built the new storage. All the money that father-in-law had saved over the years went down the drain just like that.

All those thoughts and memories were buzzing around in Tang Mei's head and seeing his mother in reminiscence Tang He didn't disturb her.

Time flew by and soon they entered the village and arrived at chief Su's house and knocked on the door.

As the chief he had one of the bigger houses in the village. In it many rooms were situated, sometimes the occasional traveller would even reside in them. When a merchant caravan stopped for a longer period of time they would also request many rooms in his house and other families would help out as well.

Even though most hated outside people, wealth and might would change their minds. Tang Mei despised this kind of hypocritical behaviour and even though she understood that one needed to bend away from ones believes sometimes, doing this too often would result in nothing good.

A short while later a small girl opened the door. This child of 9 years was exactly Su Liling the 'blessed' daughter of chief Su Xuefeng. Her pure pearl-like eyes stared at them for a moment and after recognizing the Tangs she spoke with an adorable light voice.

"Good morning, aunt Mei and brother He. My father was expecting you already. Please come in."

< Pretty cute girl she is indeed. So unlucky I never had a daughter… >

Frank had still been trying to analyse Tang Mei. Very likely in this village tradition was very fundamental to everyone's lives. Conceiving a child shortly after marriage didn't shine a good light on her in their opinions. And then there was this 'here' she slipped out. She did not seem to come from this village. Maybe he could even get more information on the outside world from her on their way back. Now though he needed to concentrate on this most influential man in town – village chief Su.

His daughter seemed rather well behaved and calm as she didn't run around in the house when the guests came. After leading them straight into the study she excused herself and vanished through the hallways.

The room Tang He entered – of course after his mother – had a very high ceiling with big wooden beams holding it. A window with actual glass could be seen in the back. Left and right to it stood big closets with scrolls inside, some of which looked very old with tears on them, some were only a bit dusty. In the rightmost closet a stack of maybe 30 sheets of paper could be seen.

All of them were secured behind some kind of wooden mesh. Frank surmised that that paper probably needed a lot of drying time after writing on it and without getting good air circulation it could probably become mouldy very soon.

"Welcome Mrs. Tang Mei! I haven't seen you for a long time. How is your husband doing?"

A tall man with greyish black hair greeted them. He had been sitting at the desk in front of the closets writing on one of the sheets of paper with a feather in his right hand. Next to him stood a small vase eligibly filled with ink and a lid was lying close to it. After finishing the column which he started writing before, he put down the pen and closed the lid of the vase.

"Thank you, Elder Su. We are doing considerably fine. My husband is working on the fields right now, doing some repair-works on the irrigation-channels together with the children."

"I see…" seeing Tang He, he asked:

"Is something with He'er that you brought him with you? Did he get ill?"

Concerned Su Xuefeng inspected Tang He with his eyes. To avoid all the awkwardness, Tang He replied:

"Nno Thankyu, E-Elder SSu. I amm f-fine!"

"Oh then its fine... Wait you just spoke more something unrelated to numbers …."

Stopping himself Chief Su looked at Tang Mei, but luckily, she had not noticed his slip up as she had listened to her son in her happiness. Relieved he repeated himself:

"You spoke He'er?! Since when?"

This time Tang Mei heard him and answered:

"Yes, I am so glad he is finally talking. In the morning He'er asked to come with me and visit you today."

Surprised Elder Su looked at Tang He again but this time he didn't look concerned. He was frowning as he thought:

'Is he coming because of the stone?'

'He works with me often, so he has a deep understanding on value. But still, he doesn't know how priceless this thing is, hmmm, what do I do?'

Even though Tang He didn't notice the frown - Frank did. He had heard about the business with the stone already. In his opinion it was very unlikely that anyone here could guess its value correctly. Best case, it would be some kind of sapphire or other valuable gemstone. It could be an ordinary blue stone as well. Either way only an expert could really tell. Though it seemed as if village chief Su did know something about it.

Now with a cheerful expression the chief announced:

"We need to celebrate this occasion then. Let me get some rice-wine from the storage…"

Tang Mei was shocked about this sudden over-the-top treatment. She was really wondering what her son was helping that man with. She declined the offer and replied:

"Nono, Chief Su I can't and He'er is too young for wine. Let's rather talk about the stone my son brought you yesterday. How valuable is it? And if it is, how would I even trade it?"

A bad harvest could always reduce her family to nothing so filling up her family's savings has always been Tang Mei's dream.

Hearing this, Elder Su smiled and put the stone in question on the desk.

When Frank saw the stone, he was slightly surprised. It had a round shape and was as big as child's fist, deep blue in colour and slightly transparent. In the chemistry lab you sometimes could see crystals of that colour – It was copper-sulfate.

As they were extremely solvable in water you would normally only find them in the wild if you looked for them in deserts. He was wondering how this one came to be in this rather humid region without dissolving.

"This is a water crystal.", explained Elder Su "I found some old records of crystals like these and they are extremely valuable."

"You see, even Immortals are interested in them."