4 - Start of a journey
Jiushu has her power now, which makes travelling easier. Thus, she decided it is the perfect time to make it clear in front of villagers she is not one of the greedy-family. Laborers are all gathered in one place in the evening after rice is out for sunning. They pay money to group leaders, aka, family heads of laborers.
Thus, she stood up along with her fake mother.
"Jiushu, you ungrateful bitch! Sit down right now! " Her fake mother scolded her.
"You are not my mother. Don't speak to me like that." Jiushu answered back as coldly as possible.
The villagers started to butt in. Yet, Jiushu held on. Soon, the village head has come around, asking what's happening.
"She is not my mother. I work for myself. My wages are mine. If I need to pay gratuitous money, I will pay it later, but I will not give my wages to her." Jiushu screamed.
"What's going on here?" the village head shouted.
They explained it to him.
The village head tried coaxing her to sit down, and take wages as part of the family. It will give Jiushu's contribution a little more wage than taking wage by herself as a little girl. Jiushu did not agree.
"No. Even if I were to receive less, I am willing. She is not my mother. It's an insult to my dead mother for me to call her as one. I will not insult my ancestors." Jiushu screamed eventually.
When the ancestors and filial piety came into picture, all of the crowd quieted down.
Even the village head softened up.
'Ah! That's right. They picked up Jiushu from the river. She did not even burn paper money for her parents.' Villager A said to B.
'Yes yes, this woman.. She pretends to take care of strangers, but how much does a work man's house have to feed one more mouth? She just wants one more pair of hands to serve herself' Villager B sniped.
Her fake mother has gone around recently boasting about her daughter being a lady, thus some of the women are a little angry with her.
Jiushu is not very good at stoking flames of jealousy or even basic manipulation, thus she could only win this with stubborn-ness.
"You white eyed-wolf! We gave you a roof over your head and food for months.. Is this how you repay?" her Fake mother screamed.
She is desperately trying to hold on to Jiushu. Jiushu has a feeling her human trafficker idea is more and more correct as the quarrel progresses.
"What is there in your house to eat ? Mud pies? Even the village dog eats better than I did in your house. If I am a white eyed wolf, it is definitely not at your place." Jiushu retorted.
The villagers agreed. It's common sense, after all.
"Stop it. Jiushu will receive wages as head of the house. Half of these wages she will give up as gratuity." Village head dictated.
He glared at both parties, daring them to speak again.
They did not. Wages are paid in grains, Jiushu gave up half her wages to the fake family.
"You better not come back." her fake mother threatened her.
Jiushu made her way to the large ginkgo tree at upwards end of the village. She touched the grains in her shirt fold.
Store [ yes ] [ no ] ?
She chose yes decisively. The grains disappeared. She entered the two meter hollow in the tree, then entered her space. her jade bangle dropped on the ground.
She walked out of the hut in space to outside. There are only two structures here, a rickety square construction which had words granary above it and the field.
Jiushu went to the field. there is a scare crow standing at the beginning of the field. Jiushu caressed rag scarf of the scare crow. As soon as she touched it, the words popped up.
Plant [ Yes ] [ No ] ?
Jiushu chose yes again. Then the seeds image displayed, which is the grain she has received just now. Jiushu rushed in and touched the seeds indicating they should be used.
Now, she is dirt poor again, with clothes on her back, a system, nothing else to her name...
She would have to either go without dinner, or collect wild vegetables on her own. She has worked far too hard to day to go with out dinner. If she slept with out dinner, her body aches will have her unable to move day after. Then she will simply die of starvation in her own space.
Even if she collected wild vegetables, she has no firewood to burn. Hell, she doesn't even have enough water to drink. Thus, Jiushu dragged herself to the drinking water collecting station. A parapet is constructed in half circle shape, around the mountain spring. The mountain spring water flows out in a bowl, then excess water flows out, forming a stream that twists through the village.
The stream flows into a rock bowl the size of her hut. As soon as she touched the water in the rock bowl, the message appeared again.
Store [ Yes ] [ No ] ?
Jiushu is overjoyed. If there is one task that's mind-blowingly troublesome, it's drawing water. She chose 'yes' decisively. Then she stored more bowls of water. She stopped it just as she heard voices behind her.
Her purpose here is done. She drank water with her hands, left before the women tried to engage her in talking about village trivia.
She moved upwards on the mountain. She collected wild vegetables with the village women the past two days, so she did know a few which are edible. Then, as if by a miracle, she found a gold thread plant. If not for the documentary she has seen, she would never have recognized the plant at all. All the more, it is growing in the wild.. She rushed to the plant excitedly, pulled it out to check the roots. It is indeed a gold thread, it has plenty of tubers.
The moment she held it up to the sun, the setting sun glinted off the tree leaves, a single golden ray lit up the background of the root system, making all the tubers glow a light golden, as if they had become transparent glass. Jiushu stood arrested for a moment. This .. this has happened in the morning too. The light shone off the water she disposed of after the daily prayer. Don't tell me.. She thought..
Immediately, she put her hands together and prayed.
'Dear Angel! Thank you. Thank you. And Thank you. I will use this system well. I promise you, I will remain your most polite, obedient and diligent worshipper ever..' Jiushu finished her prayers.
When she opened her eyes, there were letters floating off the plant she held in her hands.
You have identified a wild plant correctly.
Skill Identify will activate.
You can now recognize all the edible plants in the wild.
You can now recognize all the medicinal plants in the wild.
Chinese Goldthread - Edible plant..
She stored the plant, moved forward.
Hollyhock one of the plants said. Another edible plant.
Wild fern - Edible when cooked.
Jiushu looked around, and collected only nuts and mushrooms, and few of the salad leaves. She collected as much firewood as she could manage, including a ridiculously large fallen tree. She returned to the water collecting station soon, and selected three large stones to make a stove. Soon, she returned to the ginkgo tree, crawling into the hollow. She touched her bracelet as soon as she was in, choosing to sleep in her space rather than outside.
She made the stove outside the hut, rather than inside. The mushrooms are not great, but they did sate the hunger somewhat. The goldthread, she left for later, for her cooking skill stopped at making congee. She wrapped mushroom and grilled vegetables in the salad leaves, shoved it down her throat telling herself she's fine dining with rarest of mountain treasures. The day turned into night, Jiushu started her day with a prayer once more.
Only, when she tried to remove water from storage, almost a ton of water fell on the earth, washing her away to the field along with muddying all her surroundings. She resisted the urge to swear at unknown and unseen gods. This is, after all, her own stupidity. She went to the rock bowl again, filled a small leaf bowl, and said her prayers.
The angel watching over her smiled. This is but the first test, and the little girl has a long way to go before she could be proclaimed a champion. She looked at the little leaf bowl of water in front of her, and gave it to the bright blood red rose blooming besides peony. Now, the journey has truly begun.
The first order of business after completing morning prayer is to check her inventory. Rather than go back to the hollow, Jiushu walked up and up the mountain, collecting firewood, wild vegetables and berries. When she got very hungry, she selected a tree hollow, entered her space.
The field was empty. The spilled water vanished who knows where, while the damage caused by the water remained. She checked granary first. She had five hundred catties of rice grain. She grinned at that. When she first saw the field, she thought of the farm game she played. To imagine that it worked exactly the same..
She went to the field and touched it. She chose to plant. Yesterday, the rice was only planted sparsely, not even exceeding a quarter of the field. Today it was dense and fully planted. It has taken thirty two catties of grain. When she saw the remaining grain, Jiushu couldn't stop smiling. She will never lack for food.. Yay..
Her enthusiasm fizzed out when she realized though she has grain, she has no rice. She needs to go to a mill or private house to get it shelled. Even if she is an urban kid, she has lived long enough in the village to know she needs a stone mill for shelling rice. She looked longingly at the downward slope. While foraging, she walked too high up the mountain. Looking at the position she is at, it takes just as much time to go down as it takes to go up.
She could get rice if she goes down, she could only eat wild berries or some random wild vegetables if she keeps moving up. Jiushu sent a longing glance down the mountain. However, she is sure her fake family is waiting there to catch her.
'Forget it' she thought as she turned and trod upwards to mountain peak decisively.
She wanted to go up the mountain from the day she arrived, however, she did not have time or leisure. She may be a little hungry. Anyhow, there seems to be enough berries enroute to keep her going. Soon, she could see the smoke going up the chimneys and hear the sound of water. Mountain villages can never be established without a good water source.
Jiushu moved towards the sound of water, and soon she came upon the water collecting station. Unlike her first village, this village's water station is more naturally formed. There is a jutting rock extending towards the waterfall. The water fell on jutting rock, curved along the rock, then fell back into the river at the base of the rock. It's like a sideways 'v' pointing towards the village. A small hole exists at the pin bend, which is closed with a wooden cap. If the cap is removed, water flows down, if it's closed, it continues on to the river. It's a good mechanism. She drank some water and continued on to the village.
Jiushu hoped to find a rice mill in the village. She planned to process her rice grain and cook her rice at one of the villager's places but every rice mill in the village is occupied. On top of that, there are only three rice mills, there are at least four people waiting on each house's mill. She just loitered around the village, looking towards the people milling rice.
'Mom, I am so sorry I was too lazy to eat the rice cooked for me' she internally offered an apology to her mother.
The rice mills stayed busy. Finally, one of the villagers noticed her. She told her to go up the mountain, where there's another rice mill. She wondered why everyone else was not going.
"Aya! You don't know. Those Fa house people, their house is half the way up the mountain. It's not like we are starving without rice. We can wait half a day." the village woman told her easily.
It's at least half as much distance as the distance between the first village and this village, but Jiushu has no choice. Thus, she dragged her tired ass up the mountain, again.
A little ways off, a man appeared suddenly in front of her, and started walking. Had she been a girl of faint heart, she would have fainted or ran down the mountain screaming her head off. But it's Jiushu, so she only ran directly towards the young man.
"Master, Please stop" she shouted as she ran towards the figure.