Book 3: Chapter 17: Robotic Plays |
Yin Hu sighed as he kept his head down and refused to talk to anyone or entertain their looks.
Walking back to their home was an exercise in patience and commitment to the knowledge that his brief anonymity had been shattered. At least around the storefront and for the foreseeable future. It didn’t help that the word of his place within the hierarchy of the store and above a figure they likely learned to be near the top in Zhong Da had spread quicker than a wildfire in that area as well.
He could only hope it did not reach to his neighboring dojos, clans, sects, and master-disciple tandems that moved throughout the area.
Yin Hu did not have much hope on that front.
It took a while as he wound through the roads, people whispering in hushed conversations around him.
A young man, presumably another arrogant young master that needed a life lesson, was pointing at him with his chin raised and asking who he was. Their protector, another old man as it always seemed to be the case with protectors and arrogant young master guardians, quickly shut the conversation down and dragged their charge away with haste and wide eyes.
This is going to be such a headache…
Yin Hu made sure to ignore all the attention he was getting and made a promise to hole himself up in their home for as long as it would take for this to calm down.
However long it took for cultivators to forget important pieces of information…
Yin Hu reached the courtyard's gateway moments later. His mood had been irreversibly ruined and prospects of anonymity shattered like glass. He stepped past the entrance, closed it, made his way back to the table, tree, and lounging chair set, and then plopped down without preamble. Ta Rae seemed to have noticed the cloud that was over his head and reached over with its leaves. Patting his shoulder.
“I appreciate it, Ta Rae. Not much I can do about it now… I can already see it. A gathering mob outside of the courtyard walls. Shouting, begging, bootlicking, and trying to sneak into the compound. No silence. No peace.” Yin Hu said.
Ta Rae’s branches shivered and wiggled.
“No,” Yin Hu shook his head. “That is most definitely not a good thing. Attention is never a good thing. I want to relax and enjoy my retirement. Not gathering attention. Soon enough I’m going to have people trying to challenge me. It’ll start easy… and then it's going to escalate, and then escalate even more. Until…” Yin Hu cleared his throat and slid back into his persona without hesitation. His vanishing privacy was affecting him more than he expected. “Not that it matters. The sun will continue upon its heavenly course whether the ants try to reach for it or not. Its just… bothersome thats all–”
Yin Hu blinked as Shui jumped over the courtyard, landing lightly on the ground.
I need to teach them to follow basic decency! Use the door! That’s what it’s there for! No wall hopping unless absolutely necessary.
Shui ran up to him with a massive, bright smile. Very much unlike the sullen look she usually carried around these last few weeks, especially without the hatchlings around to keep her busy with their endless game of ball and beating each other like wooden sparring figures.
That was… good.
The reprimand he had ready and loaded froze and lodged in his throat. He couldn’t find it in him to say anything to her now, so he filed it away for some time later. “You seem excited–”
A knock sounded at the courtyard.
Yin Hu blinked as he slowly turned to look at Shui’s innocent expression.
She didn’t notice his look and instead, ran up to the doorway, huffing the whole way and shaking her head. “Hurry up! Why are you so slow?”
The courtyard gateway swung open and the old man that had been chasing Shui when she zoomed past him earlier in the morning stumbled in. His chest heaved, shoulders rose and fell like tidal waves. Sweat covered his robes and hair was stuck to his face. “S-Sorry, Lady Shui. Forgive me for my insolence.”
“You’re forgiven! Aren’t I so magnanimous?”
“The most magnanimous in the world, I suspect. No one more magnanimous has ever–”
“Don’t bootlick,” Shui huffed again. “My Ancestor is sitting right there. Don’t embarrass me when he is so much more magnanimous, generous, kind, amazing, and far stronger than me and everyone else too. You should go bow before him.”
“Yes, Lady Shui…”
The old man ran up to him. Only to freeze as he tried to clearly remember the lines he had been fed.
Shui cleared her throat and grumbled. “It is my greatest honor…” She whispered to him.
The old man jumped. “Yes! Err…” He bowed low, not kowtowing like most people that were about to bootlick him were going to do. Shui knew well enough that he didn’t like it when people smashed their foreheads on the ground like chicken pecking at seeds, insects, greens, and everything else chicken pecked at. “It is my greatest honor to stand here before the great, awesome, wise, and clearly the most magnanimous and generous person to ever exist. I am so blind to have not seen it before.”
Yin Hu had nothing but a blank look that was his practiced shocked face.
The man had spoken with the emotional weight of a corpse. Monotone and without a single change in his voice.
He looked back at Shui, who was currently beaming like the sun, massive smile on her face and hands behind her back. She was clearly happy with herself.
“Umm… Thank you?” Yin Hu wasn’t sure what he was supposed to say.
“See!” Shui said with a chipper voice. “We aren’t causing problems or bothering anyone at all!”
“T-That’s good?”
What the hell is going on? What has Shui done? What crimes has she committed already and who the hell is this poor old man?
“Say… Ancestor,” Shui blinked at him with the innocent look of someone that had been charged with ten murders in broad daylight. Yin Hu was waiting to hear about a catastrophe that had caused the death of thousands. “Can I have a couple Qi Stones? Just a couple! No more and no less than a couple… Whatever you think is a good amount. A hundred maybe? Seventy is fine too.”
T-That’s it? All that for a few Qi stones?
Yin Hu rubbed his beard, keeping his face stoic and just stared hard at her.
It only took a few seconds before her and the old man next to her began to sweat and refuse to look him straight in the eyes.
“Sure,” he finally said.
Yin Hu waved his hand and three Qi Stones, all the trash in his rice bag, appeared on the table before them. He was not about to fund a criminal enterprise so he only gave her the worst he could find quickly that couldn’t be sold for anything around these parts anyways. Just enough to buy her a few trinkets and play items.
What he missed was the choking that Long Ti hid and the shining of Shui’s eyes.
The two gave each other a look that Yin Hu interpreted as a look of disappointment and shattered expectations.
Yin Hu frowned.
At the end of the day, he couldn’t have Shui look bad in front of her friends. Whoever they were. So he gave her three more. That earned him a massive smile and an old man that dropped unconscious from the heat and anxiety of trying to work a very badly thought out play before what was likely an ancient being and ancestor of an entire clan.
Yin Hu couldn’t blame him after being dragged around by Shui, though he was curious how the hell he had gotten in this type of mixup.
“Listen here and listen well,” Yin Hu stood up. Shui froze and her smile drew itself back into hiding. “Don’t cause trouble. You hear me?”
Shui nodded like the innocent hurricane that she was.
“No fighting–”
“But what if–”
Yin Hu’s frown deepened and that quickly made her lose her voice. “I said no fighting and no beating people up.”
Shui mimed words for a few seconds before she finally lost the ability to argue back. Her shoulders sagged and head fell limp on her neck. “Yes, Ancestor,” she whispered.
“I couldn’t hear you.”
Yin Hu needed to make sure it got through her head.
“Yes, Ancestor,” she repeated a bit louder.
“Good. Now take the Qi Stones and go. I expect you back here before sunset.”
Shui nodded. She made the Qi Stones disappear, fireman carried the old man, and then ran and jumped over the wall. Vanishing just as quickly as she had arrived.
I really need to talk to her about vaulting over walls like that… But maybe next time. Seems like she’s keeping herself busy and out of bigger trouble.