Chapter 115 - Hand Delivered

In the Moon Viewing garden of the City Lord's estate, several ladies had gathered for tea. Wan Yue had set the tone for the gathering, encouraging her guests to set station aside and come prepared to root around in the earth and plant bulbs in one section of the garden for a second gathering in spring. She'd even gone so far as enlisting the aid of Ye Kexin to prepare for the garden party, just to ensure that the women gathered today would be able to have an excellent result when the weather began to warm. 

In truth, everyone would have come at her invitation whether she'd gone to the effort or not. The real target of this effort, however, still sat stiffly, not having touched her tea since the first sip. "Sister Jia," Wan Yue said gently from beside the mortal woman. "Is the tea not to your liking?"

"Tea? Oh!" Hou Jia said, startled back into the moment and nearly spilling her tea when she realized she'd been caught being inattentive. "I'm so sorry, I…"

"It's okay," Ye Kexin said softly. "It's my fault. I bet Sister Jia was still trying to decide which bulbs she wanted to plant wasn't she?" Feng Xi's mother slid smoothly into the conversation, attempting to cover for the awkwardness. She knew that wasn't the case. Hou Jia's bakery in Turning Leaf catered to the needs of the common person, she very rarely came into cultivators aside from the Feng family, and even then, she'd never lost that sense of stiff formality many mortals held toward cultivators. Being invited to a garden party by the City Lord's second concubine just wasn't the sort of thing she knew how to handle. 

"I wish I knew if these little ones were boys or girls," Tu Zi, chimed in, stroking her heavily pregnant belly. "I'd plant Yellow Roar for boys or Jade Dew for girls, just for good luck." 

"Aren't you due soon though Sister Zi?" Wan Yue said, noting just how heavily pregnant the young mother appeared recently. "Certainly they'll be born before the flowers bloom."

"That's hardly the point," the expectant mother said, fluttering a hand as though to shoo away the thought. "The flowers will bloom in time to hang over their cribs and I want them to soak up the scents of their future early. My young boys should become roaring brave men and my young girls had best become delicate jade flowers. Sister Kexin," she continued, turning to Feng Xi's mother. "What did you do to encourage your daughter's perfect temperament? I've tried calligraphy, tried flower arrangement, tried zither, tried tea, tried poetry, tried, tried, tried, I can't get them to take up any passion appropriate for a lady."

"You won't believe me if I tell you," Ye Kexin said with a smile. "The secret is, I let her go hunting in the woods with her father when she was little. Well, with her father and Wen'er tagging along. She got into just as much trouble as your girls do. If your girls are like my Xi'er was, they'll grow out of it when the time comes, you just have to wait till they start to bloom and they'll be just like these bulbs, popping up out of the dirt like beautiful refined flowers," she said with a smile. 

"What about Ao Wen," Wan Yue asked, trying to draw Hou Jia back into the conversation. "What was she like growing up?"

"When did she ever grow up?" Hou Jia said with a blink. "It seems like yesterday she was still getting up early in the morning with me to help with the baking then rushing over to Yang's shop to help with the dusting and the tidying so she could scamper off with Xi'er to read stories about cultivators and play in the woods. "Outside of the days where she hadn't woken up yet from the Awakening Incense, I don't think she's spent more nights at home than I have fingers on my hand since then. One day I had a dutiful young daughter who just wanted to help all the time, then poof!" 

"Well, I don't think that's changed so much," Ye Kexin tried to inject diplomatically. "I know we've all been looking to your daughter for help lately. If she hadn't found what that black-hearted beast was doing to my Lieren…" For a moment, power surged around Ye Kexin and one of the nearby bulbs sprouted a pair of vines that began to make grasping motions before she realized what she'd let slip and released the plants back to dormancy. 

"I'm sorry for imposing," Tu Zi added, reaching out and giving Hou Jia a reassuring squeeze. "I asked Sister Yue to introduce me to you because I was hoping to find out what kinds of things your daughter might need or appreciate if I were to ask her to concoct for me after these little ones are born. All I ever wanted to be was a great mother so I never thought much about what other sorts of cultivators might need when they're getting started but if I can help, I'd very much like to do something more meaningful for her than just presenting a bag full of spirit crystals."

"Don't underestimate the value of a bag full of spirit crystals to young ones who are setting out on long journeys," Wan Yue offered. "Husband has promised to secure a spacial treasure for her, Tang Jin, and Feng Xi before they depart in the spring but it isn't the things you think to pack that you miss on a long journey, it's the things you didn't know you'd need that you desperately have to buy that can become critical. She won't turn her nose up at funding for a trip of that length." 

"Wen'er's leaving in the spring?" Hou Jia said, the shock on her face as surprising to the assembled mothers as the news itself had been to Hou Jia. 

"I'm sorry, I thought she'd have already told you," Wan Yue said, horrified that she'd been the one to break the news. 

"Excuse me, Ladies," a member of the house staff said, stepping into the garden and bowing deeply while carrying a package wrapped in rich blue brocade and tied with a silk cord. "A messenger brought this to the front gate asking that it be delivered to Madame Hou."

"A gift for me?" Hou Jia said, taking the package from the servant and returning to her seat. After the banquet, several people had sent minor tokens and gestures to her and Ao Yang, hoping to earn the favor of the town's new alchemist through her parents but no one had sent something so extravagantly wrapped. 

"Ohh, oooh, I love surprise gifts," Tu Zi tittered eagerly. "Open it, open it, let us see!" 

Moving slowly, Hou Jia untied the silk cord and unfolded the layers of brocade fabric to reveal a delicately carved Thundercloud Plumwood box about the size and shape of a long cabbage. The gathered mothers leaned in suspensefully as Hou Jia lifted up the small wax-sealed square of parchment and unfolded it, reading the message aloud to the group. 

"All dragons have their pride, even Flood Dragons. All parents have a hand in the actions of their children," she continued to read, a sense of foreboding beginning to creep into her voice. "So I return this one to you now. The rest may be returned in whole or in part, at your daughter's convenience to visit Four Sunken Corners. For each person who accompanies her, expect another box," she finished, the parchment falling from trembling fingers.

"That isn't…" Ye Kexin said, her own voice unsteady, her eyes resting on the box as though it contained a nest of vipers. 

Stiffly, moving as though she'd become a puppet on strings, Hou Jia opened the box to reveal a pale, bloodless hand resting on a small silk cushion. The hand was worn, callused from long hours holding tools, and still had ground stone dust under the fingernails. On the thumb, a carved jade ring stood as a stark thing of beauty in a macabre setting, conjuring instantly to mind the equally well-worn hand, dusted with flour, dough remnants under the nails, and a matching jade ring adorning its thumb, trembling as Hou Jia pressed it to her mouth.