108 Volume 5: Family Planning

Mei Hua relaxed the week following the wedding. Every morning, just as the sun peeked over the horizon, she woke up and practiced her Blue Flower Mountain Arts, slowly going through each familiar move. As someone who'd not gotten very far in this Art, she was intimately versed in all the beginner moves.

Once, this had irritated her, but now she was thankful. If she'd been at an intermediate level and had to drop back to a beginner, it would have been extremely frustrating. But she'd never got past beginner moves, so the only irritating part was building back her muscle strength, which had deteriorated due to lack of use and the poison.

As she went through her moves and circulated her inner energy evenly throughout her body, she reminisced about how "experts" had criticized her Arts for lacking a 'core foundation' and chuckled. If she went by the Jianghu logic, she should pull all her cultivation out of her Core World and try to merge it with that "core foundation". But doing it that way was extremely dangerous, putting an enormous stress on even a healthy body and spirit, much less one that only recently recovered.

While the Blue Flower Mountain Art method was slower, it was much safer and, in her opinion, more holistic. It integrated her World's cultivation through-out her entire body, strengthening every part evenly. While her Arts lacked flashy qi-based moves due to not having a core foundation, it made up for it with impenetrable defenses at the Master levels.

Having suffered a surprise attack and only barely survived, she was very keen on strengthening her body's defenses. She hoped that her Core World would allow her to finally reach the Master levels she'd always dreamed of reaching when she was younger.

Jin practiced with her. Even though it was all beginner moves and far below his current strength level. When she moved on to practicing with her sword, he'd watch for a while before begrudgingly leaving to do his own exercises. He'd always come back absolutely soaked in sweat and hobble to the bathhouse like an old man.

When Mei Hua asked why he was pushing himself so hard, he sighed heavily and said in a morose voice, "I neglected my body too much, this is my penance."

This made no sense to her, since even if he'd been lazy for years, it's not like it would do anything to his cultivation. His base had always been ridiculously strong, and he'd spent years refining his physical body, there was no real reason to push himself. She said as much and advised he take it easy.

Of course, what she didn't know was that as Jin's body hardened and bulked, her modest interest in his body turned into wolfish stares and wandering hands. Jin knew his wife very well, so instantly understood the connection. Whatever her mouth said, her body was always very honest about his appearance. He could only sigh with a sense of helplessness and then enjoy the reward for his diligence when his tofu got eaten by his wife.

Every two or three days, Mei Hua was forced to absorb the clingy yang that stealthily stuck itself to her body. While she was doing this, she used the opportunity to take some excess heat from her husband's spirit. Because her body was already trying to absorb the Core World's cultivation, she was somewhat limited on what she could do with the refined yang energy. After thinking about it, she passed on the purified energy back to the Tree Spirits who were contracted with her.

To the Tree Spirits, the youngest of which was just over five hundred years old, the energy she was giving them didn't even count as a snack. Without putting any thought into it, they simply dumped the excess back into the ground through either their roots or via the falling leaves and flower petals.

When ever Mei Hua helped Jin "cool down" he'd sleep in late the next morning. On those mornings, she'd take a quick visit to Pei Zhi before he woke up. But she never stayed too long, least he chase after and act like a chair again and thoroughly embarrass her in front of her friend.

It had always been a tradition in their family to share at least one meal together when everyone was home. This became particularly important to Mei Hua when her sons grew older and began taking long trips away from the Palace. As was common for their age, they were often thoughtless and would sometimes come home and heartlessly forget to eat a meal with their Mother. To stop them from neglecting her, she'd made this "share a meal a day" an iron clad family rule.

While she'd been a coma, the "family meal" tradition had been lost, much to her dismay. She insisted on starting it up again when she woke up. Which meal they shared together, she didn't really care, but it somehow ended up being dinner instead of lunch (as it had been when they were younger).

She had looked forward to adding her daughter-in-law to this gathering, though what to do with all those children, she wasn't sure…. Her daughter-in-law surprised her by compromising: she and Yan Li would visit for dinner, while all the children would greet Mei Hua in the morning after breakfast.

Jia Ying was oddly traditional in ways Mei Hua didn't expect. For instance, the children greeting Mei Hua was a common practice for families outside of the mountains. It's just… "morning greetings" were done to the Matriarch, the Old Madam, of a family. Mei Hua was thrilled to be a Grandma, but had never thought of herself as an "Old Madam". Such thinking was very hierarchical and rather foreign to her.

But she wasn't offended. She knew Jia Ying was trying very hard to show her proper respect, and also trying to instill respect for elders into her own children along the way. Mei Hua, being a mother herself, agreed with this fundamentally. And anyway, it was a great excuse to see all her grandchildren!

So rather than being offended, she was amused. Yes, she was now an Old Madam! Just like Pei Zhi! The more she thought about it, the more she laughed.

When Jia Ying brought her adopted children along with her during the morning greetings, Mei Hua finally got a proper look at them. She'd caught glimpses of them during the wedding, even heard and saw some talk, but sadly she didn't know how many there were or even their names. Even before the wedding, though she knew about them, Jia Ying absolutely would not let Mei Hua meet them.

In fact, don't even talk about the adopted ones, Jia Ying had heartlessly planned on waiting to introduce Mei's blood-related grandson Wei Sheng. Originally, Jia Ying was going to slowly introduce herself, then Wei Sheng, then her various other children. This was to take several weeks, and the reason it was going to take so long was to give Mei Hua time to adjust.

After being in a coma so long, no one knew what her mental state would be when she came out of it. Jia Ying was a Doctor and taught by the best. Too much mental and emotional stress with a weakened body was a terrible combination. There would already be a lot of upheaval for Mei Hua finding out nineteen years had passed! Jia Ying didn't want to add additional burdens too quickly, so she'd had everything meticulously planned out.

But that mischievous grandson, Wei Sheng, took too strongly after his paternal side and had ruined his Mother's plans completely!

Still, Jia Ying persevered! Though the timing and order had been messed up, she insisted on Mei Hua at least wait until after the wedding to meet all the children she'd adopted and even then taking it slow. Thus, despite everyone being officially family, Jia Ying didn't introduce her children all at once, but in small groups.

Mei Hua had to admit, Jia Ying might look soft and delicate on the outside, but inside she was firm and resolute. Because no matter how much Mei Hua begged, pleaded, harassed, and nagged to see all those other children sooner, Jia Ying would not give in to her.

As the Mother-in-Law, Mei Hua could have forced her, but she wasn't a tyrant. She wanted their relationship to be harmonious. And besides that, having that kind of inner resolve was actually a good thing. Yan Li was impulsive by nature and needed someone who was not to balance him out. If Jia Ying had been too accommodating, Mei Hua would have worried.

Thus, Mei Hua was extremely excited when she finally got to meet her new grandchildren. Her daughter-in-law brought the children in different groups by age every morning. This gave Mei Hua and the children a chance to properly know one another.

Jia Ying started with the oldest, who were in their mid-teens, to the youngest. Wei Sheng, despite being the only grandchild by blood, was actually the youngest so didn't appear until the very last day. Mei Hua could have insisted on having Wei Sheng appear every day, but she understood what Jia Ying was doing by not allowing him to come. It was to prevent bitterness and rivalry between the children and to show that Jia Ying didn't play favorites. Mei Hua approved of this mindset whole-heartedly and greeted each new child affectionately.

There were a total of fifteen of them.

FIFTEEN!

She was filled with awe and amazement. How had Jia Ying managed to hide fifteen children from her?! No, before that, how had she RAISED fifteen children?!?! The woman even admitted that she frequently left the Palace and worked as a traveling physician.

It turns out the fairies really had been treating Jia Ying well despite Yan Li's ridiculous behavior. The Fairy Nanny Xiao Ting helped watch over the children that were brought in by Jia Ying, but the other Fairy Nannies would also do rotations to help when needed. Even Palace fairies kept an eye on the children in the times and places when the Nannies were absent, reporting any good or bad behavior to the Nannies. Later the Nannies would report everything to Jia Ying.

If something particularly bad happened, the Nannies waited for Jia Ying to come home and deal with it. Being punished by Jia Ying was, to the children, worse than death. As the only human adult who cared about them, they wanted to please her and make her happy. When she came home and was told they'd been bad, don't even talk about the actual punishment, the disappointed look on her face was enough to make the troublemaker in question burst into tears and immediately repent.

In this kind of environment, it was impossible to be truly naughty. At best some children were particularly mischievous, a trait no fairy bothered to correct. But they were never mean-spirited, not even when they teased each other. If anyone was truly hurt, physically or emotionally, it was usually accidental. Generally older children dotted on the younger ones, the Fairy Nannies kept them all in line, and the Palace fairies snuck them treats and played with them.

Even though Wei Sheng was obviously the only one blood-related to Jia Ying, none of the children were jealous of him. There were a few reasons for this. One, Jia Ying was impartial with her affection, so no one felt threatened. There was honest, wholehearted love between the adopted children and Jia Ying. When she got pregnant, they rejoiced with her. Two, most were old enough to understand Wei Sheng was essentially fatherless because Yan Li wouldn't acknowledge him. This made the little boy pitiful in their eyes. Three, he was the youngest. The young ones always got spoiled. Wei Sheng was no exception.

The children's view of Yan Li was humorously harsh and completely understandable. They'd been in a cold, one-sided war with him since Wei Sheng had been born. He hadn't married their Mother after getting her pregnant, how could they think well of him? Whatever their view of him as a warrior and a Prince, when he refused to take responsibility, they couldn't help feeling at least a little bit hostile.As such this lead to him being the primary target for the children's pranks. One of the older ones even went and tried to apprentice himself to Ye, the grandmaster of pranks. Unfortunately, instead of learning the art of pranking, Ye treated him like an assistant-in-training for government work.It wasn't until the wedding that they finally forgave him and started thinking better of him again.

However, the most important point of finding out she had fifteen extra grandchildren was when she realized ten of them were girls. Mei Hua was beside herself with excitement when she realized how many granddaughters she'd inherited just from having her son marry Jia Ying.

Mei Hua went to find Pei Zhi and boasted shameless about how she had more granddaughters. Pei Zhi took this all in good humor, sending her friend back home with gifts to give her friend's grandchildren. This included the boys, who Pei Zhi was beginning to feel a little sorry for. Their Grandmother would never dote on them the way she would with the girls, after all.

In fact, Pei Zhi was aware that Jia Ying had adopted ten girls and five boys. But frankly, she hadn't cared. Pei Zhi was much more concerned with Mei Hua's sons than she was a stranger like Jia Ying. When she looked at Jia Ying, she saw a pitiful child being raised by fairies and that was all. She considered the woman, and thus any children she took in, unrelated to her friend's family. Thus she paid absolutely no mind to Jia Ying until right after Wei Sheng was born. When Pei Zhi saw the telltale glowing blue eyes on the boy, she realized she'd made a terrible mistake.

But it was too late by then for her to do anything. Jia Ying had already adopted so many children, and Pei Zhi hadn't formed more than a passing relationship with the woman. Yan Li's refusal to take responsibility made any possible interactions between them incredibly awkward. Without Yan Li making formal his relationship with Jia Ying… Pei Zhi didn't have the right to criticize Jia Ying's behavior.

In fact, how Mei Hua and Pei Zhi viewed adoption was fundamentally different. Pei Zhi came from a place where adopting children without any blood-relationship was rare and looked down upon. An adopted child from outside the family was said to have "weak roots" to the family and was a disaster waiting to happen.

When Pei Zhi saw her friend so excited about all of Jia Ying's children, she had mixed feelings. She strongly felt that Jia Ying was wrong but at the same time, she couldn't begrudge her friend. After all, Mei Hua had only had one blood-related grandson after so many years. So if her friend felt better by counting the Jia Ying's adopted children, she didn't have the heart to refute her.

It's not like this would be the first time they'd differed on such matters anyway. Mei Hua had always had very peculiar views of marriage and family. Even if Pei Zhi might disagree with these views on occasion, if such differences had really bothered her, how would they have remained friends all these years?

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In the end, whatever made Mei Hua happy, Pei Zhi would be happy about too.

After Mei Hua met all her grandchildren and boasted outrageously to her friend, she went to bed feeling contemplative. When she originally saw Pei Zhi's family and heard how much it'd grown while she was absent, she couldn't help feeling jealous. Now she realized she'd acquired fifteen extra grandchildren, despite her sons behavior and not because of it.

Even if they weren't related to her by blood, they were still her very own grandchildren. She'd gone from a family of her and Ye, to three with Jin, seven with her sons. She now had a family of twenty two. And that wasn't even counting Shuya and all her relations.

She really felt, in that moment, that whatever gods out there that existed hadn't abandoned her. Early on in her life she'd lost her family, reduced to nothing and almost sold as a slave. Now she had so much family she didn't know what to do with it all.

Vague images of parents and a family long gone mixed with new faces flushed with youth in her mind. Her eyes started to water the more she thought about it, until she couldn't stop herself and silent tears began to roll down her cheeks.

Jin, who'd only just taken off his shoes, sensed her crying and rushed over, "What's wrong?"

"Jin," She sniffled, "Thank you."

"Eh? Eh? For what?"

"For everything. Thank you."

Confused, he traced a thumb under her eye to get rid of the tears. "If you're so thankful, why are you crying?"

"Because… because I'm happy."

Jin gave her a searching stare, as if he didn't quite believe her. He could see the melancholy and bittersweetness she was feeling, as clear as if those feelings were paint on a canvas. There was joy and happiness there too, but the other emotions were heavily mixed in enough that he wouldn't describe was she appeared to be feeling as "happy".

Seeing he didn't believe her, she couldn't help but chuckle, "What? Not all happiness is like sunshine. Sometimes it's rain after a long drought. Hm… if it helps, think of it as me being sentimental. This is what happens when you get old I guess."

As she talked, he saw her emotions stabilize so he stood up from the bed and poked her forehead.

"Who's old?" He began taking off his robs to change into his sleepwear as he teased her. "You're barely older than a toddler! Hn. Toddlers cry all the time. So if you need to cry, go right ahead."

"If I'm a toddler," She covered her forehead where he'd poked and teased back, "Doesn't that make you a very bad man for marrying me?"

He stiffened slightly and then cleared his throat while trying to sound casual, "Then how about a Young Miss?"

"At your age, even if I was an Old Madam you'd still be a cradle robber!" She threw a soft pillow at him and then laughed uproariously when it hit him square in the face.

Without missing a beat, he walked over while threateningly wiggling his fingers and started tickling her. There was a half-hour war of tickling and hitting with soft-pillows. Each side suffering losses and gains. Somewhere near the end, the tickling turned to caressing, the laughter to moans.

After that, they spent the night enjoying a battle that only adults could understand and where everyone was the winner.

When the week had passed, Mei Hua began to seriously plan how to make a functional government for Lanhua. When Jin asked what she was thinking so hard about, to the point of forgetting to eat the breakfast in front of her in a daze, she sheepishly realized she'd forgotten to tell the most important person what she was planning on doing.

When she explained it, he'd looked thoughtful and only commented, "If you want to do that, go right ahead. It's not like I let people live here for my own sake. They are yours, allowed to live here at your pleasure, do what you want with them. But as to these rules and traditions and whatnot, I'm warning you right now: if I find them bothersome or annoying, I won't do them."

"What if I ask you to do them?" She paused. "Very nicely?"

He squinted at her, "Even if you ask nicely, I'll only do it on a case-by-case basis, if I feel like it."

"But— but— if you don't follow them willingly, how will I convince anyone else to follow them?!"

"Mountain Flower, if anyone dares tell you no, even if it's one of our sons, let me know. I will make sure they only disagree with you once."

Mei Hua covered her face with her hands in exasperation, "What am I? Some scheming power-mad woman, turning the Emperor into a tyrant? Ugh, I don't need that kind of help!"

His eyes narrowed slightly and chuckled darkly, "It's unlikely anyone will think you're turning me into a tyrant."

"Eh, what's that supposed to mean?"

"Hm…" He twirled his tea thoughtfully before taking a sip. "…it's not in my nature to be gentle and compassionate to outsiders Mei. It's not that I'm uncaring, but what I care about is very specific. You know how I am with humans--"

"Jin, you DO realize I am a human?"

"--you have always been the exception. It's through you that I find the will to be gentle, the desire to be compassionate, and find the ability to trust humans. Without you, I just… have no connection with them."

"But our sons are human, don't you… can't you have a connection through them too?"

"Half-human." He tilted his head and put his cup down. "And that isn't some small thing, being half. They suffer from a disassociation with humanity like I do, though to a lesser degree. You've seen the result of this disassociation yourself. Even when we've got nothing against humans, maybe even like them a bit, we don't know how to rule over them properly. But in my case, my nature…" He suddenly paused, sighed, and shrugged. "...this is nothing you don't already know. My point was, I have been called worse things than a tyrant. Especially in those Eastern countries who offended me. When they see what you're trying to do, they will be relieved."

Mei Hua pursed her lips, frowning. It's true that this was nothing new. She'd had to spend all this time thinking about a government and culture specifically BECAUSE of her husband's and sons' apathy towards humanity.

It's just she hadn't considered others would view Jin as a tyrant. Though now that he brought it up, she felt a bit foolish for not making the connection. He'd always been on the tyrannical side of things, and it wasn't until they met that he'd softened up.

She just never knew how to feel about being that link between him and everyone else. It only sounded romantic on the surface, underneath it was actually a bit frightening. If she'd died from that poison, what would Jin have done? What would her sons have done? If she died in the future, exactly how catastrophic would the fallout be?

It was scary thinking about it.

But she didn't know how to change this part of her husband or her sons. In fact, she wasn't sure if it was even possible. It seemed to her that, functionally, Yang Spirits couldn't be alone. They weren't… designed that way. They needed Yin to balance them out. Jin would always be out of balance by himself. She was there to balance him out, even if as a poor substitute for his Sister.

It wouldn't be so bad, her being a substitute, it's just… well… she was mortal. Unless she became a god, she'd definitely die some day, no matter what Jin insisted on.

This train of thought always left her feeling very uncomfortable and discouraged. There was no real answer to any of these problems. Realizing she was worrying about something she couldn't fix, she gave a slight shake of her head and set her worries aside.

Instead she focused on something small he'd said earlier and asked curiously, "…did you really make a nation for my sake?"

"En."

"But why?" There was never a time that she even hinted at wanting such a thing.

"Even though you never said so, weren't you lonely for company of your own kind? I could see it in your eyes when you interacted with Pei Zhi. Even when you read her letters, there was always this look of intense longing in your eyes. Even if I'm not totally human, I'm not blind to human emotions. I know you wanted more than just family, you wanted community too."

Mei Hua was taken completely off guard by his accurate observation and could only stupidly say, "Ah?"

"Was I wrong? Did you like it with just us?" He raised an eyebrow, the corner of his mouth lifting. "I'll chase everyone out if that's the case—"

"Wah, no, no! Don't do that! I was just surprised!" She sputtered a bit, blushing intensely, then hastily cleared her throat, "Enough talking, let's just eat!"

She promptly grabbed a breakfast bun, split it in half, stuffed one side in his mouth and the other in her own. He was looking at her amused while she was pretending not to notice and concentrating on eating.

Other women's husbands spoiled their wives with jewelry and fancy clothes, servants and big houses. What did her husband do? Make a nation while she wasn't looking!

She thought while chewing on her bun, 'With this kind of extreme gift-giving, I better be careful in the future. Who knows what he'll think of next… hm… what could top gifting a nation? World domination? Wait, didn't he already take over the East? Arg, he's halfway there!'

After talking to Jin, she called Shuya and Ye over to help. Honestly, outside of what she'd learned in the Traveler's Cave and bits from Pei Zhi, she was really ignorant about governments and leadership. She needed someone who knew a lot about different governments and someone who was current on the situation within Lanhua. Shuya and Ye fit these roles perfectly.

She had a long discussion with both of them, only to discover having information didn't help with making decisions. Shuya knew all about world governments, but which were better or worse, she had a hard time saying. It's not that there weren't clearly awful leaders and governments, but once you got outside of the obviously bad ones, the "good" ones were just about preference and opinion.

Rather than help Mei Hua narrow things down, Shuya actually added to her options. She almost cried after that conversation. She was worse off then when she started!

As for Ye, he caused a different kind of frustration. Besides a basic education on what had happened while she was comatose, she needed to know how the Palace was interacting with the people of Lanhua and beyond. Since he did most of the work, which of course he complained bitterly about, he was well informed.

He even took her into a large room filled with scrolls and books. These were the national records. When she asked what he meant by 'national records', he just nodded while holding his chin and squinting, saying, "I'd like to know that too."

Apparently all the paperwork sent to the Palace got stored in this room. Fairies weren't, by nature, very organized. What's more, they tended to think in the moment. So they hadn't thought that the initial trickle of paperwork would ever turn into the current deluge. If someone had given them a sorting system early on, since they were perfectly capable of following directions, maybe things would have been different but…

…no one had.

And once the paperwork piled up, they didn't know what to do with it all. They couldn't even tell what was important and needed to be prioritized. Since they didn't know, but they understood they couldn't just throw it away either, they stuffed it all in the same room and hoped someone else would deal with it.

That was years ago. Now it was a disaster she saw before her.

When she was done talking to Ye, she went to the Palace kitchen and decided to ask for a strong drink to help recover her failing spirits. By chance, Xui Shi the Bloodstone Seal was there as well. He was chatting with the Kitchen staff just like he belonged there.

Even though she'd never admit it, Mei Hua had completely forgotten to ask what Xui Shi had been up to all this time. After their initial meeting, she hadn't seen him again. What he was doing, she had no idea. Despite not having a firm grasp of him as a person she was still surprised at seeing him in the kitchen laughing and mooching food off the kitchen fairies.

"Master!" He greeted, red eyes shining happily. Because he had sharp facial features, his happy face looked slightly threatening. "What brings you here?"

"Me? What about you? I hope you don't mind me saying so, but I'm surprised to even see you eating. Does your body even need food..?"

He popped a small dessert into his mouth, "It doesn't, but the food here is better than pure spirit stones so it's worth eating."

"Spirit stones..?"

"Stones that absorb the elemental essence of the world. It might be that such stones are unique to Jianghu, since I've not seen any here and no one seems to have heard of them. Of course, I much prefer the mountain's system over how it was done in Jianghu."

"The mountain has a system?"

He looked at Mei Hua curiously, "Have you not noticed? In Jianghu, there are points of concentrated elemental energy, which flow out and drench the land. Over time, the land produces the spirit stones. I can absorb the energy from the points and from the stones they produce. But here… the energy comes from the core of the mountains and then slowly rises to the surface. Anything or one that's been on the mountain for any length of time will eventually, naturally, have the mountain's energy in them too."

"Oh, that's what you mean… I know about that." Mei Hua nodded. "What you're talking about causes things that live on the mountain to change fundamentally. Originally it was the animals, the deer being the most obvious. But even the trees changed eventually…. Hm, humans will change too, if they live on the mountains long enough."

"Will they really?" Xui Shi asked with interest.

"Yes, there used to be a village here with families that had lived on the mountains for generations. They changed with the blessing of the Mountain Spirit."

This really interested the Bloodstone Seal, so they spent the next hour just talking about how the mountain's energy fundamentally altered living creatures. After Xui Shi had thoroughly sated his curiosity, he realized Mei Hua had come here for a reason.

"Have I, by some chance, interrupted what you were doing?" He looked apologetic. "You don't need to be polite, if I distracted you from some task—"

"No, no, it was a relief to be distracted from my problems."

"Problems?"

"Yes, well…" Mei Hua began explaining what she'd been doing the last few days. Xui Shi listened patiently to her woes, even asking some questions to clarify some things.

"I see." The fan he'd kept at his side lifted as he tapped his chin with it. "You want to unify the nation and create a government to take care of the people?"

"En."

"This may sound like a presumptuous question but… who do you think of as "People"?"

Mei Hua eyebrows knitted together. "…I don't understand the question."

"Well, do you count only humans as people?"

"Oh!" She suddenly understood what he was asking, "Beasties, fairies, and… uhm… whatever exactly your sort of person would be classified as—"

Xui Shi was a bit flustered to get included on the list and snapped open his fan to cover his embarrassment. "My 'sort of person' is called a Spirit Craft Item. We are not usually considered people in the classical sense of the word."

"In Jianghu I take it?" She sighed and shook her head. "That doesn't seem right. If you're a spirit type person, you can't be that different from a fairy. So… hm… yes. Humans, beasties, and spirits would all be people. So I want a government for all those kinds of people."

Xui Shi stiffened, his fan lowering without him realizing. She'd guessed correctly. In Jiangu, Spirit Craft Items weren't counted as people, no matter how much like a human they looked or acted. This made sense when one considered the fact that Spirit Crafts were the accumulation of their Creator's knowledge and spiritual energy. If they had a soul, which was debatable, it was counted as a 'borrowed' piece of their creator's soul.

This was the first time Xui Shi had been counted as a person. What's more, this was just an assumed thing, treated like an afterthought.

He glanced at the fairies around him almost instinctively, expecting them to object at being lumped together with a 'thing'. But they didn't care at all, with one putting a new plate of sweets in front of him, even smiling at him as they did. His fan lowered all the way down to his lap in a daze at their continued friendliness.

After contracting with his new Master, he'd realized she didn't have anything for him to do. With no work to do, he'd gone around exploring Lanhua. All she had to do was desire his presence and he'd instantly come back to her side, so he wasn't worried about troubling her by leaving. Lanhua was a place highly recommended by the World Tree after all, so naturally he'd wanted to know more about it.

It didn't take him long to realize that people in this little nation were extremely open minded. Not only did Spirit Beasts—what they humorously called Beasties—live openly with humans, they were all very friendly with each other. Some humans and Spirit Beasts even treated each other like genuine family. While this occasionally happened in Jianghu, it was rare. But it was a common sight in Lanhua.

What's more, even though Xui Shi was obviously not human, he wasn't treated suspiciously. Most people, when seeing his true form with narrow red eyes, sharp features, and black-green hair at least did a double-take. But here no one treated him as anything more than an ordinary visitor. Any questions he had, they answered willingly. Sometimes even enthusiastically if they were interested in the subject.

It was only now, as he listened to his Master talk about the future and what she wanted, did it occur to him that the behavior of the citizens wasn't accidental.

"Xui Shi?" Mei Hua asked when he didn't respond. "Did you have something else in mind?"

"No, ah." He blinked a bit before collecting himself and raising his fan again to cover his face. "What you said is good, very good. You must definitely let me help you to the fullest of my abilities."