They reached Cloud Drift Town as the last sliver of the sun vanished.

  The town was a border settlement. It was a chaotic mix of low-level rogue cultivators, merchants and mercenaries. The inn they chose, The Drunken Crane, was a riot of noise.

  The common room was packed. Smoke from cheap tobacco like herbs hung in a blue haze near the ceiling. The smell of roasted boar, spilled ale and sweat assaulted them the moment they walked in.

  Tables were crowded with men boasting about hunting demonic beasts, merchants haggling over the price of spirit herbs and serving girls and boys weaving through the chaos with trays of food.

  It was loud. It was dirty. It was alive.

  Li Yu secured a table in the corner. He ordered a spread of dishes—braised pork, grilled fish, spicy tofu and three jars of the local wine. When the food arrived, Li Yu stared at it. The pork was greasy. The fish was a bit burnt. The tofu was too salty. The wine smelled like vinegar. The food was quite low quality.

  But as he looked around the room, his gaze settled on a table near the hearth.

  There was a group of mercenaries. Rough men with scars and missing teeth. They were loud. Every now and again they would be slamming their cups down and laughing at crude jokes. But in the center of their group sat a young boy. He was maybe twelve years old, looking terrified and out of place. He was clearly a new recruit or perhaps the son of one of the men.

  "Drink up, boy!" a burly man with an eyepatch roared while slapping the kid on the back hard enough to make him wince. "If you're going to hunt with the Iron Tusks, you need to put hair on your chest!"

  The boy coughed out loud and his face was turning red. "Father... it burns."

  "It's supposed to burn!" The father laughed but then his hand lingered on the boy's shoulder. It secretly was giving it a gentle squeeze. He picked up a choice piece of meat from his own bowl and dropped it into the boy's. "Eat. You're too skinny. Your mother would kill me if I brought you back looking like a skeleton."

  Li Yu froze at the interaction with his chopsticks hovering over his spicy tofu.

  “You look like a skeleton! A man needs a belly to have authority! Eat!”

  Uncle Liu’s voice echoed in his memory. The words were almost identical. The intent—the rough, aggressive care—was exactly the same. The parallels seemed to be everywhere. The love was the same. It was just buried under layers of grime and struggle. The village had made a massive impact on Li Yu.

  "Li Yu?" Bai Ruo nudged his arm. "You've been staring at that meat for a long time now. Is it poisoned?"

  Li Yu lowered his chopsticks. "No. I was just thinking. I’ve been doing a lot of that recently."

  He poured a cup of the vinegary wine and downed it in one gulp.

  "Why the sudden existential dread?" Si Luo leaned forward and rested her chin on her hand. "Did the old lady in the village tell you you're going to die soon or something?"

  "No," Li Yu shook his head. A faint bitter smile touching his lips. "She just listened. She actually didn’t talk much."

  Suddenly, a commotion broke out near the mercenary table. A drunk cultivator wearing the robes of a local small sect had stumbled into the young boy. It had knocked his bowl of soup onto his lap.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  "Watch it, brat!" the cultivator snarled while swaying on his feet. He was only at the late stages of Qi Condensing but in this town he was a king. "You ruined my boots!"

  The boy’s father stood up but his face was pale. He was only in Body Refinement and clearly not a match for the cultivator. "My lord, he is just a child. It was an accident. We will pay for the cleaning."

  "Pay?" The cultivator sneered. His hand reached for the sword at his hip. "I want his hand for the insult."

  The tavern went silent. No one moved. To interfere with a sect disciple was a death sentence for these commoners. Li Yu stood up.

  He didn't flare his aura. He didn't summon his avatar. He simply picked up his bamboo staff and walked across the silent room. The cultivator had drawn his sword. He had raised it above the trembling boy. The father had thrown himself over his son, eyes squeezed shut, waiting for the blow.

  Tap.

  The bamboo staff gently rested on the cultivator’s wrist. It was a light touch. It looked like a feather landing. But the cultivator froze. He found that he couldn't move his arm down. It was as if a mountain had been placed there.

  "Who dares—" The cultivator whipped his head around. He saw a young man in a grey robe.

  "You're disrupting my meal," Li Yu said softly. "The wine here is already sour enough without the smell of blood."

  "You seek death!" The cultivator tried to circulate his Qi to blast the stranger away out of frustration. He had always gotten his way around here before. No one had ever to dare stop him. No one was able to stop him.

  Li Yu's staff blurred. Thwack.

  It wasn't a lethal blow. It was a sharp, stinging rap on the knuckles, exactly like a teacher scolding a student. The sword clattered to the floor and the cultivator howled while clutching his hand.

  "Get out," Li Yu said. He just spoke with the absolute certainty of a landslide.

  The cultivator looked into Li Yu’s eyes. He saw something there that made his drunk mind sober up instantly. He saw an abyss. He saw a monster that had just walked out of a cage and was deciding whether or not to eat.

  "I... I..." The cultivator stumbled back. He quickly grabbed his sword with his good hand and fled the inn. He even knocked over a chair in his haste. The silence in the inn held for a second longer and then broke into hushed whispers.

  The mercenary father looked at Li Yu. "Young Master... thank you. You saved my son."

  Li Yu looked at the father and then at the boy who was wiping soup off his pants.

  "No problem. I will pay that sect a visit tomorrow. You don’t need to worry about revenge." Li Yu said to them. He turned and walked back to his table and completely ignored the stares of the room.

  When he sat down, Si Luo was grinning. "A hero saves the beauty? No, a hero saves the scrawny kid. How noble."

  Li Yu didn’t say much but he took a bite of the spicy tofu. Strangely, it didn't taste as salty anymore. Later that night, Li Yu sat on the roof of the inn. The moon was high and was casting a silver glow over the sleepy town. Tekton, the small beast, was curled up on his shoulder, snoring softly.

  Li Yu held the small wooden box the Matriarch had given him. The Amber of Timelessness. He traced the grain of the wood with his thumb.

  For half a day he had felt a sense of loss that threatened to swallow him. He had felt like an orphan cast out of heaven. But as he watched the smoke rise from the chimneys of the town, as he heard the distant, muffled laughter of the mercenary group downstairs, the feeling began to shift.

  He didn't know who those elders were. He didn't know why they helped him. But he knew how they made him feel. They made him feel like he was home with loved ones. Somehow, in that short time, it felt like he was surrounded by those that truly cared for him.

  ‘How did they make me feel that way in such a short amount of time? I had just met them and the feeling lingers. Could it have been some sort of illusion technique? No, that makes no sense. They were stronger than me. They wouldn’t need to go through that kind of trouble. So why? Why can’t I seem to shake this feeling?’ Li Yu pondered without an answer.

  Li Yu put the box away. He stood up on the roof tiles, the night wind blowing through his hair. The hollow feeling in his chest lessened slightly and filled with a new burning resolve.

  "I don't know who you all are," Li Yu whispered to the moon and thought of the elders he had met. "But I won't waste the gifts, advice, teachings or tea."

  He turned and jumped down from the roof, landing silently on the balcony of his room. The sense of loss had transmuted somewhat. It was no longer a weight dragging him down. It was fuel. Determination to reach the same stage as them. To perhaps meet them again and get a few answers.