A Quiet Moment to Think

Thar night, exhausted from the day's walking, and from not getting any sleep from the night before, Lee rolled out his sleeping cloths, and laid down in the branch of a particularly inviting tree.

It loomed taller than all the others, with several, protruding, gnarled notches which made it easy to climb up and reach the large, low lying branches which looped upwards and outwards. Lee laid down, watching the stars above, and revelling in the warm wind.

He was lucky that this had all come about as summer was fast approaching. If this was winter, then he would be desperately huddling around a small fire, on the forest floor.

The stars were bright tonight, the shining white pinpricks glittering up high above Lee's outstretched hand. The moon was beginning to wane, the full circle shortening into a crescent, slowly, but still shining bright.

Somewhere up there, in the sky, a palace made up of gold, marble, and jade flew above the world below, and dictated the lives of millions. Somewhere up there, in the sky, was a God, whose hair was the colour of blood, that held the scroll that had been stolen from his twin brother.

A scroll stolen by Lee's father, shackling his mother to the dead bastard, and forcing her from carrying out the dream that she had declared that she would fulfill.

He was now carrying out those dreams, even if against her wishes.

Lee didn't want to return home. If he returned home now, then everything that he had learned would be too painful to bear, gazing into his mother's cold, hard eyes, as well as the public beating he would receive for running away from his future bride and family, all slights against filial piety.

Lee paused for a moment and thought to himself.

Wouldn't running away technically count as filial piety?

He was, in a sense, fulfilling his mother's wishes, even if they were made and disregarded before he was even born. If he went back in time, and spoke to her, when she was still a child, his mother would have encouraged him to leave and head out for a life of adventure.

His father could rot in the underworld, forever being flayed by demons for all he cared.

There really weren't many paths open for Lee now, a mostly penniless nomad who had no home to go to, and a dwindling food reserve. And he needed to buy that pot to cook his rice.

He really didn't have any particular paths planned out for himself. Should he just wander aimlessly or should he travel to places that he heard were interesting, and avoid areas that were told to be dangerous.

Lee only had the most basic of self defense training, ultimately boiling down to run and hide, and struggle to get out of any bad situation you find yourself in by hitting the weak spots of the body: the groin, neck, fingers, and joints.

Lee had no real power in this world. There wasn't much he could do. The only real skills he had were farming and literacy, and those were so common place that they didn't really count.

However, Lee could never consider himself a normal human ever again, with what he had learned. He now had a glimpse of the cosmology that governed this universe, and information that he could never forget. He could never go back to his normal life now, not when he knew that whenever a God's name was invoked, they were listening.

Not when he knew where demons came from, and that all the Gods, were once, human beings who had ascended through cultivation practices.

The Gods could have children though, and Lee wondered whether those children were born special, and would have an easier time on earth, with special spiritual powers: super strength to help them lift the carts turned over by angry oxen with only one hand; the ability to make the rain fall through their dances, and the power to speak so well that those who listened acted as if they were in a trance and moved as such.

It must be an easy life for them all, living happily and venerated with all that they had.

Lee had nothing though.

He had no life anymore. He had no path anymore, and the entire life of the planet was soon to die out anyway.

There was no real point in Lee really pursuing something other than a comfortable and virtuous life for himself, in hopes that his next life would be more bearable and less painful.

He had already broken the laws of filial piety, stamped on them, and then dragged them through the mud. He would not be surprised if his mother prayed every night for calamities to strike him down. Knowing her, he would probably be cursed with starvation, violence from others, and, poverty.

It was unfortunate for her then, that he had already suffered those fates even when he still lived with her. Every harvest was not bountiful, and they always seemed to remain poor, despite their larger than average house, only there due to the Luo family demanding that the future mother of their next heirs be at least living comfortably for the sake of her body being adequate for child rearing.

The violence was a heavy threat that hung over Lee every, single day. Whether it be a kick, a punch, items thrown at him, or slaps to the face.

When knives were involved, Lee was guaranteed a week of pain.

He remembered only being fourteen when his mother first involved a sharp hunting knife, during one summer day when Lee was unexpectedly ill. His mother held her husband's hunting knife over her wrist, and broke down at Lee's bed, begging him if this was what he wanted.

She begged him if his actions were all in service of making her life hell. He was a young man, and not supposed to become sick. Was he making himself sick on purpose to torture her? He should be out in the fields with his father, she had sobbed out, her eyes swelling uncomfortably red and painful. He shouldn't be here at home, she had whispered, whimpering and hanging her head.

Was he doing this on purpose?

You hate me, don't you!

That's why you're still here!

That's why you keep doing this!

YOU NEVER DO AS I SAY!

THIS IS WHY!

DO YOU WANT ME TO DIE!

I'LL DO IT NOW!

I'LL GIVE YOU WHAT YOU WANT!

Lee never spent another day at home when he could.

He sprained his mother's wrists, and left the building with a large cut running down the middle of his palm. He washed it in the river, and found a few herbs to make into a paste for it. He bandaged it all up with long stretches of fabric, ripped off from the bottom of his robes.

When Little Mei came back that evening, after a long day with her friends in the school, she told mother how Lee had defaced his robes. And Lee got in trouble all over again, with more screams thrown down at him, and another horrible, wretched meal.

His father said nothing, sitting there as if he did not exist, quietly making progress through his bowl of congee, and gazing into some random space in the room, uncaring of the chaos around him.

Little Mei felt inordinately pleased at the situation, and completely naïve of what she was doing, and what she had done. She was not in trouble. Her fingers would not be pricked with needles. She would not be needing to hide bruises under her robes in school, and she had friends to sooth away any pains that she may have gained.

Lee couldn't even tell Shen about all of this. Shen would not understand it, and if anyone found out about what his mother had done to him, that afternoon. She most certainly be branded as insane and accused of committing murder.

Lee could not do that to her. He knew that what he was doing was wrong, but he could not do that to her. She was still his mother, and she still raised him. She cooked for him, cleaned, carried him around in her stomach for nine months, before giving birth to him in a long, painful process.

He could not condemn her, back then. He could not abandon her, back then.

But now, if another person's life was going to be damned, into the same hell, he could. Regardless of his mother's prior character, her actions towards him were inexcusable.

Little Mei was now safe enough from her, engaged to the richest family in the village and the area, owning enough schools and businesses that they need not send their son's to the fields to work. And making an extra penny of those workers by selling them new equipment, repairs, animals, and maps.

Lee knew now, older and hypothetically wiser, that he should have long reported his parents to the village elders. He should have done so long before Little Mei and himself suffered their nightmares, and their crushing guilt.

He should have done so long before his mother decided that her suicide was the only way she could manipulate him into doing as she said.