Chapter 12: Family Time
Morning in the Courtyard
The morning passed slowly, the sun climbing higher into a sky still streaked with smoke from the distant town. The light was pale and thin, as if the fires in Qinghe had eaten something vital from the air itself, leaving behind only this watery gold that barely warmed the skin. Wei stood in the courtyard, watching his mother hang laundry on the line.
The sheets were white and clean, snapping in the breeze like sails, and the smell of damp cotton mixed with the woodsmoke drifting from the kitchen chimney—that particular blend of soap and ash that had been the scent of home for as long as he could remember.
His mother pinned a pillowcase with a sharp, practiced motion, her fingers moving with the economy of someone who had done this ten thousand times.
"If you're going to stand there, you might as well make yourself useful. Hand me the small pins."
Wei passed her the tin of clothespins. The metal was cool against his palm. "Hao used to help you with this."
"Hao used to eat the starch." She took a pin and clamped it over the pillowcase with more force than necessary.
"I'd turn my back and he'd have his whole face in the bowl. Your father said it was a phase.
"Well, it lasted for three years. Three years of finding my starch bowl licked clean. I still don't know how he fit his whole head in there."
"I remember. He smelled like laundry for a week."
"He still does, if he stands close enough to the line." She shook out a damp sheet and held it up, her arms straining slightly against the weight of the wet fabric.
"Take that end. You're tall enough now. Might as well use it for something other than looming over people."
Wei took the corner and stretched the sheet flat between them. The fabric billowed in the breeze like a ghost, cold and damp against his fingers.
They worked without speaking for a moment, the rhythm of pins and cloth filling the silence—a rhythm his mother had been keeping since before he was born, through droughts and floods and now the end of the world.
"You've been quiet," his mother said, not looking at him. "Not your usual quiet. Your brooding quiet. I can always tell. Your father gets the same way—goes silent but his eyebrows do all the talking."
"I'm not brooding."
"You're definitely brooding. You've got that line between your eyebrows." She reached across and smoothed the fabric with her palm.
"The same one you had when you were six and a kid broke your fishing rod. You stood in the kitchen for an hour looking exactly like that, and then you went out and pushed him into the pond."
"I didn't push him. He fell."
"You pushed him. I watched from the kitchen window. His mother didn't speak to me for a month. I had to send your father over with a basket of fruits to make peace."
She pinned her corner with a decisive jab. "So. Out with it. What are you brooding about this time?"
Wei handed her another clothespin. The wood was worn smooth from years of use. "The rice fields."
"Ah." She smoothed a wrinkle from the damp cotton with the flat of her hand, her palm making a soft hissing sound against the fabric. "Your father's been muttering about the rice fields in his sleep. Did you know that? He talks in his sleep now.
'The water's gone. The soil's dead. Three months.' Over and over, like a prayer. He never used to talk in his sleep. Thirty years of marriage and he was silent as a stone, and now suddenly he's giving speeches to the ceiling."
"I didn't know."
"He doesn't know either. He'd be mortified if I told him. Your father, the stoic farmer, reciting crop reports in his dreams." She reached across and took the corner from him, pinning it neatly.
"What else? You've got more than rice fields on your face. I can see it in the way you're holding your shoulders."
"Lin Tao. The goblins. Old Lin. All of it." Wei rubbed the back of his neck, a gesture he'd picked up from his father without realizing it. "I keep seeing that smirk. The way he looked at the house. Like he knew something we didn't."
"Old Lin has been smirking at this family since before you were born. He smirked when our well ran dry in '92. He smirked when the typhoon took our roof. He's still smirking. But we're still here. And we will still be."
She bent and picked up the empty laundry basket, tucking it under her arm with the ease of long practice.
"Your grandmother once told me that worry is like a rocking chair. It gives you something to do, but it doesn't get you anywhere."
"You tell me that every week."
"Because every week you need to hear it." She shifted the basket on her hip.
"Now go do something useful. The orchard won't harvest itself, and if you stand here brooding any longer I'll put you to work scrubbing the wok. And I mean it this time—last time I said that, you actually stood there for another hour, and I had to scrub it myself."
"I was thinking."
"You were brooding. There's a difference. Thinking produces results. Brooding produces creases." She headed toward the house, then paused and looked back, her grey-streaked hair coming loose from its bun.
"And Wei? Whatever happens—with the rice, with the neighbors, with all of it—just remember to eat something before you face it. You're no good to anyone on an empty stomach. You get that from your father. He once tried to fix a fence before breakfast and nailed his own thumb to a post."
She disappeared into the kitchen, and Wei walked toward the Tree of Life.
***
The Tree of Life
The leaves rustled as he approached, a soft whispering sound that seemed to greet him by name. The great trunk rose before him, gnarled and silver-grey, its bark warm even in the early light—warmer than the air, as if the tree carried its own private summer.
The white flowers that clustered at the base had multiplied overnight, spilling down the gentle slope of the roots in a carpet of pale petals that glowed like captured moonlight. Bees from the Gilded Thread hive were already working among them, their amber bodies dusted with gold.
He laid his hand on the trunk, and the warmth spread through his palm like water finding its level. The daily chime sounded at the edge of his awareness, soft as a distant bell.
```
Tree of Life: Ambient mana absorbed.
Credits: +20
Total: 287 → 307
```
He stood there a moment longer, letting the tree's pulse settle into his bones—that slow, steady rhythm that had become as familiar as his own heartbeat. Somewhere beyond the wall, the world was still burning.
Goblins still prowled the hills. The so called neighbours still nursed his anger in the dark. But here, at the center of the farm, there was still light. There was still growth. There was still life.
He pulled his hand away and went to find his father.
The cow shed was warm and dim, thick with the sweet smell of fresh straw and the clean, faintly glowing scent of the Meadowheart heifer.
Dust motes drifted in the shafts of light that fell through the gaps in the wooden walls, and somewhere in the rafters, a swallow had built a nest. His father was already there, perched on a low wooden stool with a pail gripped between his knees.
His sleeves were rolled to the elbow, and his forearms—corded with muscle from fifty years of farm work—moved in the steady, practiced rhythm Wei had watched since he was old enough to stand. The milk hissed into the pail, thick and white, carrying that faint pearlescent shimmer that hadn't been there before the tree.
The heifer stood placidly, her great brown eyes half-closed. The gold mark on her forehead pulsed gently, like a slow heartbeat.
She was larger than she had been even yesterday—the ridge of fur along her spine thicker, her hooves darker, her horns curving like polished ivory with faint golden rings near the base.
"You're up early," Wei said, leaning against the stall. The wood was smooth and warm under his shoulder.
"Someone has to be." His father didn't look up. His hands kept moving, automatic and sure.
"She's been restless. Pacing. I came out here around midnight—couldn't sleep anyway, your mother was right about that—and she was just standing at the door. Staring at the hills like she was waiting for something. Didn't even look at me when I came in."
"The goblins?"
"Maybe. Or something else. She's not afraid—I've seen her afraid, when the fox got into the yard last spring. This was different. She looked... watchful. Like a soldier before a battle."
He finished the last draw and set the pail aside with a grunt of satisfaction. Two full pails stood against the wall, their contents swirling with that faint, liquid light.
"Two pails this morning. More than yesterday. She's giving more every day now. Whatever's got her spooked, it's good for the milk."
Wei moved to take one of the pails. The handle was cool against his fingers. "I'll carry these to the kitchen. Mother wanted to set some aside for—"
"I know what your mother wanted." His father straightened up, pressing a hand to his lower back with a wince that he tried to hide.
"She told me. Twice. Once at dinner and once before I came out here. She's been very clear about the special milk situation."
He studied Wei for a moment, his eyes narrowing in that particular way that made Wei feel like he was being inspected for cracks. "You look like you haven't slept."
"I slept."
"No, you didn't. I know that face. That's the face of someone who lay in the dark thinking about everything that could go wrong instead of sleeping. Your eyes are doing that thing where they look at something and don't see it."
He wiped his hands on the rag tucked into his belt, the cloth leaving faint white streaks on his fingers.
"I used to do the same thing. When we first built the wall. When the rice field burned. I'd lie there for hours, staring at the ceiling, planning things I couldn't control. Your mother cured me of it."
"Wait, what, How?"
"She told me if I was going to be awake anyway, I might as well milk the cows. So I did. For three months."
"Every night. Two in the morning, out here in the cold, milking cows that didn't need milking. Eventually I learned to sleep just to avoid the extra work."
He almost smiled—that faint, reluctant twitch at the corner of his mouth that was as close to laughter as he ever got.
"Breakfast in ten minutes. Your mother made youtiao. Don't let Hao eat all of them before you sit down. I mean it. Last time he ate six. Six. Before anyone else even sat down."
"I'll guard them with my life."
"See that you do. And if Hao tries anything, remind him that I know where he sleeps."
Wei carried the milk to the kitchen, the pails bumping gently against his legs. Then he went to the chicken coop.
His mother was scattering feed in wide, sweeping arcs, the grain catching the morning light like tiny fragments of gold. The speckled Bronzeflame Hen strutted at her feet like a bronze-feathered empress, clucking imperiously at the other birds.
Her comb was bright red—almost luminous—and her feathers gleamed with that deep metallic sheen that seemed to shift colors as she moved.
Her golden eyes tracked Wei's approach with the regal suspicion of a queen who had not granted an audience but was willing to tolerate his presence.
"She laid ten this morning," his mother said, not looking at him. Her voice was carefully flat, the way it got when she was working through something in her mind.
"Every one of them gold. I had to shoo her off the nest or she'd have stayed there all day admiring her own work. She puffs up her chest and does this little strut. I didn't know chickens could be vain."
"They couldn't before. She's evolving."
"Evolving." His mother scattered another handful of feed with more force than necessary, the grains skittering across the packed earth. "That's what you call it."
Wei crouched and began gathering the eggs from the nesting boxes. Each shell was warm in his palm, heavier than yesterday—noticeably heavier, like holding a small stone instead of an egg.
The golden shimmer was deeper, more pronounced, swirling through the cream-colored shell in delicate veins that caught the light like threads of precious metal. He held one up, turning it in his fingers.
"These are different. Look at the color—it's stronger than before. And the weight. They feel denser. Like there's more inside."
His mother stopped scattering feed. She set down the bucket with a deliberate motion and turned to face him. Her expression was hard to read—something between worry and frustration and the particular exhaustion of a woman who had been asked to accept too many impossible things before breakfast.
"Wei. I need to say something, and I need you to actually listen. Not nod and wait for me to finish. Listen."
He set the egg in the basket with careful precision. "I'm listening."
"I don't understand any of this." She gestured vaguely—at the coop, at the hen, at the eggs, at everything.
"Not the tree. Not the magic. Not the way you talk about credits and experience and evolving like it's all some kind of... some kind of game you're playing. The world we knew ended, Wei."
"Our neighbors tried to take our home. There are monsters in the hills. And you walk, building things from nothing and telling me the chickens are 'evolving' like that's a normal thing to say at breakfast."
She wiped her hands on her apron, a sharp, frustrated gesture that left streaks of grain dust on the fabric.
"I believe you. That's the worst part. I believe everything you say, because I've seen it with my own eyes—I've seen the tree, I've seen what you can do, I've seen the eggs."
"But I don't understand it, and I don't think I ever will, and sometimes I look at you and I don't recognize the person you've become."
Wei didn't answer right away. He finished gathering the last egg—warm, golden, impossibly perfect—and placed it in the basket with the others. The hen clucked softly at his feet. "I'm still me."
"Are you?" She took a step toward him, her worn shoes scuffing against the dirt floor.
"Because the boy who left for the city two years ago—the one who couldn't even kill a chicken for dinner—wouldn't have stood up to Lin Tao like that. Wouldn't have faced down Wang Feng with a scythe in his hand. Wouldn't have killed goblins."
Her voice dropped. "Wouldn't be able to make water come out of the ground. I'm not saying any of that is bad. I'm saying I don't know how to be your mother when I don't understand what you're becoming."
"Mother—"
"Let me finish." She held up her hand. The palm was calloused, the fingers rough from decades of work.
"I've been thinking about this for weeks. Ever since the shimmer. Ever since you grew that tree. And I realized something, lying awake last night while your father muttered about rice in his sleep. I don't need to understand. I just need to know that you're still in there somewhere."
"That my son—the one who used to bring me peach blossoms in a cup of water because he wanted to make the house pretty—is still here."
She reached up and touched his cheek. Her palm was rough and warm, and it smelled faintly of chicken feed and woodsmoke. "Are you?"
He covered her hand with his. Her knuckles were knotted from years of farm work, but her touch was gentle.
"I'm here. I'm still here. I promise."
She held his gaze for a long moment, her eyes searching his face. Then she nodded—a short, decisive motion, as if she had settled something in her own mind—and picked up the basket of eggs.
"Good. Then these are going into breakfast. Your father's been complaining that we don't eat enough eggs."
"Father complains about everything."
"He complains because he loves us. It's his only flaw." She headed for the kitchen, the basket balanced on her hip. Then she paused at the door, her silhouette framed against the warm light from inside. "And Wei? Whatever you're doing out there at night—whatever numbers you're counting—just... be careful. I can't lose you to something I can't even see. I won't."
She walked away before he could answer.
```
Blessed Eggs collected (10).
Credits: +5 → 317
Experience: +2 each → +20 → 271
```
He stood there for a moment, the hen clucking at his feet, and felt the weight of his mother's words settle into his chest like a stone dropped into still water.
The orchard stretched before him, vast and green and humming with life. Sunlight fell through the canopy in shifting gold coins, dappling the grass in patterns that changed with every breath of wind.
Bees from the Gilded Thread hive drifted among the blossoms, their amber bodies heavy with pollen, their wings catching the light like fragments of stained glass. The air smelled of ripe fruit and warm earth and the faint, sweet perfume of the white flowers that grew at the base of every blessed tree.
Somewhere overhead, a bird sang the same seven-note melody it had been singing for weeks, stubborn and repetitive, like a musician who refused to learn a new song.
His grandfather was settled on a wooden crate beneath the old persimmon tree, his cane across his knees. The wood of the crate was dark with age, smoothed by decades of use. Xiao Hei, the dark brown puppy with one white paw, was sprawled at his feet, gnawing on a fallen twig with the intense concentration of a creature who had found the most important stick in the world. His tail wagged in slow, contented sweeps across the grass.
"Took you long enough," the old man said without opening his eyes. His face was tilted toward the sun, the lines around his mouth deep as river valleys.
"I had chores."
"Everyone has chores. That's what a farm is." He cracked one eye open, pale and sharp as a winter sky.
"Sit down. You've been running since dawn. I could hear you pacing last night—your footsteps, then silence, then footsteps again.
"A man who doesn't rest breaks. I broke twice—once in the famine, once when your grandmother was sick. Took me years to put myself back together. Don't make the same mistake."
Wei sat on the grass beside the crate. The ground was cool beneath him, the grass soft and slightly damp. Xiao Hei immediately abandoned his stick and climbed into Wei's lap, his tail wagging furiously, his small body warm and wriggling. "I'm not broken."
"Not yet." His grandfather reached up, plucked a peach from the branch above, and handed it down without looking. His gnarled fingers left faint impressions in the fruit's fuzzy skin.
"Eat. You think too much on an empty stomach. Your father was the same at your age—he'd pace around the fields for hours, working himself into a state over some imagined disaster, and your grandmother would have to drag him inside and force-feed him congee.
"He once convinced himself the wheat had a blight. Turned out it was just morning dew catching the light."
Wei bit into the peach. It was warm from the sun, the juice sweet and sticky, running down his chin in a thin golden trail. He wiped it away with the back of his hand. "Father's been walking the property line every morning. Looking for a spring. For the rice fields."
"I know. He told me. Came by yesterday evening, stood right where you're sitting, and asked me the same questions you're about to ask." The old man selected a peach for himself, turning it over in his fingers with the care of a jeweler examining a gem.
"He's worried about the rice. Always has been. When he was a boy, he used to measure the water in the paddies with a stick. Every morning. Same stick, every day. Had it for years. Called it his 'rice gauge.' Your grandmother thought it was adorable. I thought it was obsessive."
"Did it help?"
"It helped him feel like he was doing something." He bit into the peach and chewed slowly, juice glistening on his chin.
"Sometimes that's enough. Sometimes feeling like you're doing something is the only thing that keeps you going."
He gestured at the orchard with the remains of his peach.
"The canal's dying. The shimmer changed it—the flow is weaker now, and what's left isn't enough to flood even a single mu. We need a new source."
"Do you think there really is a spring? Near the eastern line?"
"There was. A long time ago." Grandfather's eyes went distant, looking at something beyond the orchard, beyond the wall, beyond the present moment entirely.
"Before the land reform. Before the old irrigation system. I was a boy—younger than Li. My father used to take me out there at dawn, when the mist was still on the fields.
The water came right out of the rocks. Cold. Clean. Never stopped flowing, even in the driest summers when everything else turned to dust. We'd cup our hands and drink it straight from the stone. Tasted like winter. Like something that had been underground since the world was made."
He shook his head. "When they built the canal, they diverted it. The spring got buried. Silt, mostly. And time. But it's still there. Somewhere. Water doesn't die. It just finds a new path."
"And if you can't find it?"
The old man was quiet for a moment, his pale eyes still fixed on something only he could see. Then he said,
"When I was thirty, the irrigation pump seized up. Hadn't been used in years. Your father wanted to dig a new channel by hand—he was young, full of energy, thought everything could be solved with a shovel. I told him that was stupid. Took me an afternoon to fix the pump with a piece of wire and a bent nail, and it ran for another five years."
Wei paused mid-bite. "Wait. Mother said Father fixed that pump."
"Your mother wasn't there." A sly, mischievous glint crept into the old man's eyes, transforming his weathered face.
"She was in the village buying seed. Your father likes to take credit because I made him hold the wrench. He stood there for three hours, holding that wrench, complaining the whole time. 'Is it fixed yet? Is it fixed yet?'
"Like a cricket in my ear. So when it was done, I let him tell the story. Made him feel important."
"Well…..He told it at dinner for years."
"Does he know you let him?"
"Of course not." Grandfather pointed the remains of his peach at Wei like a weapon.
"And you're not going to tell him. He's still proud of that pump. Talks about it every few years. 'Remember when I fixed the irrigation pump?' And I just nod and say, 'Yes, son, you did a fine job.' Because that's what fathers do."
"That's lying."
"That's kindness. There's a difference. When you have children of your own, you'll understand."
He tossed the pit into the grass, where Xiao Hei immediately pounced on it, sniffed it with great suspicion, and then sneezed.
"Your father's a good man. The best I know. But he's got his pride. We all do. It's what keeps us going when things get hard. Now." He shifted on his crate.
"Are you going to harvest these trees, or are we going to sit here discussing my parenting choices until the fruit rots on the branch?"
Wei stood, brushing the grass from his pants. "I'm going. I'm going."
"Good. I'll supervise. Someone has to make sure you do it right."
He began with the peaches. The common peach trees were the oldest in the orchard, their bark dark and gnarled like the hands of old farmers, their branches bent low with the weight of fruit.
The peaches were warm from the sun, their skins blushing from pale gold to deep rose—each one a slightly different shade, as if the tree had painted each fruit individually. He reached up, twisted one gently until the stem snapped with a soft crack, and felt it settle into his palm like a gift.
He worked tree by tree, row by row. The rhythm took over—pick, twist, place. The notifications flickered at the edge of his awareness, a quiet pulse of small rewards. One credit. Half a point of experience. Over and over, like a heartbeat. His mind emptied of everything except the work and the sun and the bees humming among the blossoms.
After the first dozen trees, he paused to stretch his arms. His shoulders ached pleasantly. His grandfather was still on his crate, eyes half-closed, a half-eaten peach in his hand. Xiao Hei had abandoned the peach pit and was now trying to climb onto the old man's lap, his tail wagging so hard his entire back end swayed.
"You're slower than your father," the old man observed, absently scratching the puppy behind the ears.
"My father isn't harvesting four hundred trees by himself."
"He used to. When he was your age. Complained the whole time, but he did it. Your grandmother said he sounded like a dying duck—all this honking and wheezing. She'd stand at the kitchen window and laugh." Grandfather took another bite of peach. "You missed one. Third branch, left side. Just above the knot."
Wei looked up. A single peach hung just out of reach, perfectly ripe, its skin blushing deep rose. He climbed the branch, the bark rough under his palms, and plucked it.
"Good. Now the pears."
The pears came next—younger trees, their bark smooth and silver-grey, their fruit hanging in clusters of three and four like golden bells.
The common pears were firm and sweet, their skins blushing gold where the sun touched them. He worked through them steadily, the basket filling, his arms moving in the same rhythm they had been moving all morning.
Midway through the third row, he stopped. A cluster of pears glowed with a soft amber light, deeper and richer than the pale gold of the common fruit—like honey held up to the sun, like captured autumn.
He picked one and held it in his palm. The skin was warm, almost hot, and it pulsed faintly against his fingers, a rhythm that matched his own heartbeat.
```
┌─────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ AMBER PEAR (Tier 2, Uncommon Low) │
├─────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Effect: Temporary stamina boost │
│ (+0.15 for 2 hours) │
│ Harvest credit: 12 │
│ Harvest experience: +6 │
└─────────────────────────────────────────┘
```
"Another one?" his grandfather called, leaning forward on his crate.
"Three of them. Amber Pears."
"Good." The old man nodded slowly. "Save them. You'll need them when the goblins come back. Stamina's what wins fights—not strength. Strength runs out. Stamina keeps going."
Wei picked all three and moved on.
The persimmon trees stood at the eastern edge of the orchard, their fruit hanging like orange lanterns from branches that were still too young to be gnarled. Most were common, soft and heavy, their skins beginning to wrinkle with ripeness.
But near the top of the oldest tree—the one his grandfather called First Daughter, planted the year Wei's father was born—he saw a familiar glow. Three fruits, larger than the rest, their skins shimmering like molten metal, like small suns caught in the branches.
He climbed carefully, the branches groaning under his weight. The bark was rough against his palms, the leaves brushing his face.
The tree was old, but it held—it had been holding for decades, and it would hold for this. He reached up, his fingers brushing the warm skin of the first fruit. It was almost too hot to touch, like picking up a cup of fresh tea.
```
┌─────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ SUNSTONE PERSIMMON (Tier 1, Common High) │
├─────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Effect: Temporary strength boost │
│ (+0.2 for 2 hours) │
│ Harvest credit: 8 │
│ Harvest experience: +4 │
└─────────────────────────────────────────┘
```
He picked all three and climbed down, his feet finding the ground with a soft thud. His grandfather was watching him with pale, knowing eyes. "Those are the last of them, aren't they? The special ones."
"For now. The special fruits take time to grow back. The tree needs to recover."
"Everything takes time." The old man shifted on his crate, his cane tapping once against the ground. "That's what farming is. Waiting. Working. Waiting some more. When I planted the first trees, I didn't see a harvest for five years.
Five years of watering, pruning, watching for frost. Your great-grandfather said I was wasting my time. 'Plant vegetables,' he said. 'At least you can eat those in a season.' But I wanted something that would last. Something my children's children would eat."
He gestured at the thousands of trees spreading in all directions. "Looks like I was right."
Wei looked at the orchard—the fruit-heavy branches, the bees drifting through the sun, the leaves rustling in the breeze. "I think it worked out."
"It worked out." Grandfather almost smiled. "Now finish the harvest before the sun sets. I want my tea. Your grandmother's been promising me tea for sixty years, and she's never once been late. I'm not about to test her patience."
Wei continued through the plum trees, the fig trees, the pomegranate bushes. The common fruits came in a steady stream—thirty-five plums with their dark, glossy skins, twenty-eight figs soft and warm, twenty pomegranates whose leathery shells cracked open to reveal clusters of ruby seeds.
The credits added up in the corner of his vision. The experience crept higher. The sun climbed to its peak and began its slow descent toward the western mountains, the shadows lengthening across the grass.
By the time he finished, his arms ached and his fingers were sticky with juice. He sat down at the base of the oldest apple tree—the one where he had found the Heartstone Apple, what felt like a lifetime ago—and his grandfather settled beside him with a grunt. Xiao Hei flopped down between them with a dramatic sigh, as if the effort of supervising had exhausted him entirely.
"Long morning," the old man said.
"Worth it."
Grandfather nodded. "You've got a good eye. You didn't bruise a single peach. Your father can't say the same—he used to come in from harvest looking like he'd been in a fistfight with the fruit." He paused. "Of course, he'd say that's because you're slow and careful, and he's fast and efficient."
"Is that true?"
"It's what he'd say. Doesn't make it true." Grandfather leaned on his cane. "You've been staring at nothing for a full minute. Either you're counting your invisible coins or you've fallen asleep with your eyes open."
"Just resting."
"Hmph. When I was your age, resting meant napping under the mulberry tree. Not staring at the air like a carp waiting for food."
He stood slowly, his knees cracking like dry twigs, and scooped up Xiao Hei, who wagged his tail furiously and tried to lick the old man's chin.
"I'm going inside. Your grandmother promised me tea. Try not to harvest the whole orchard while I'm gone—leave something for tomorrow."
Wei watched him go, the cane tapping its familiar rhythm against the packed earth—tap, tap, pause, tap. The puppy's tail wagged over his shoulder like a small, furry flag.
He pulled up the harvest summary silently. The golden text shimmered into view, for his eyes only.
```
┌──────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ HARVEST SUMMARY │
├──────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Common Peach ×47 1 cr / 0.5 XP │
│ Common Pear ×35 1 cr / 0.5 XP │
│ Common Persimmon ×29 1 cr / 0.5 XP │
│ Common Plum ×35 1 cr / 0.5 XP │
│ Common Fig ×28 1 cr / 0.5 XP │
│ Common Pomegranate ×20 1 cr / 0.5 XP │
│ Amber Pear ×3 12 cr / 6 XP │
│ Sunstone Persimmon ×3 8 cr / 4 XP │
│ │
│ Credits earned: 254 │
│ Experience earned: 127 │
│ │
│ Credits: 317 → 571 │
│ Experience: 271 → 398 │
└──────────────────────────────────────────┘
```
Five hundred and seventy-one credits. The wall upgrade was five hundred. He was there. He could afford it now—and more besides, if he was patient. The numbers settled into his mind, quiet and solid, like stones falling into place.
He closed the panel and leaned back against the apple tree, listening to the bees hum.
***
Li in the Orchard
Li found him there half an hour later, when the shadows had begun to lengthen across the grass and the light had turned golden and soft. She dropped down beside him with the boneless grace of someone who'd spent her whole life outdoors, folding her legs beneath her.
There was hay in her hair—a few pale strands caught in her braid—and a fresh scratch on her arm from the rabbit pen. Her blue jacket, the one with the torn left sleeve she refused to let their mother mend, was streaked with dirt.
She didn't say anything at first. Just sat there, pulling up blades of grass and shredding them into thin green ribbons with her fingernails.
"Grandfather came inside," she said eventually. "Announced to the whole kitchen that you didn't drop a single fruit. He said it like it was the most impressive thing he'd seen all week.
Then he told Grandmother her tea was cold and she told him his eyes were broken. He said she was disrespectful. She said he was blind. It was very romantic."
"He was being generous."
"Grandfather's never generous. He's honest. Once he told me my dumplings were 'adequate' and I cried for an hour in the rabbit pen. Mouse was the only one who comforted me."
She shredded another blade of grass, the fragments scattering in the breeze. "Wei? Do you really think they're coming back? The neighbors?"
He considered the question, watching a bee drift past his shoulder. "Old Lin didn't smirk at us for nothing. And Lin Tao... I've known him my whole life. He's been angry since we were children—angry at us, angry at the world, angry at anyone who had more than he did. A bag of rice won't fix that. Nothing fixes that."
"So we just wait for them?"
"We will prepare. Uncle Jianguo's training everyone. Hao's making arrows. Father's watching the gate. The wall is stronger than the neighbours could think."
He paused. "But yes. Part of preparing is waiting. That's the hardest part—the part where you can't do anything except be ready."
She was quiet for a moment, her fingers working through the grass. "I keep thinking about what would happen if they got in. If the wall fell. I know it's strong. I know you did something to it. But I can't stop thinking about it. At night, mostly. When everything's quiet and there's nothing to distract me."
"That's when everyone thinks about it. Three in the morning is when the world feels most dangerous."
"I'm scared, Wei." Her voice was very small. "I'm scared all the time. I pretend I'm not—for Mother, for Hao, for the rabbits—but I am. Every time I hear a sound from the hills, every time the dogs bark at nothing, I think this is it. They're coming."
He put his arm around her. She leaned into him, her head fitting into the curve of his shoulder the way it had when she was small and afraid of thunderstorms, when he would sit with her on the kang and tell her stories until the thunder passed.
"So am I," he said. "Everyone is. Hao covers it with jokes. Mother covers it with work. Father covers it with silence. But they're all scared too. I hear Father pacing at night. I hear Mother lying awake. Nobody's fine. Nobody's supposed to be fine."
He looked out at the orchard, at the bees drifting through the golden light. "Grandfather told me about Great-grandfather—how he was afraid every single day of his life. Afraid of the landlord, afraid of the soldiers, afraid of the weather, afraid of famine. "
"But he still planted his trees. He still got up in the morning and did the work. Being scared isn't the problem. Letting it stop you is."
She was quiet for a long time, her head still resting against his shoulder. Then she said, "That's supposed to make me feel better?"
"Does it?"
"A little." She wiped her nose on her sleeve—the torn blue fabric that she refused to let anyone mend because it was lucky.
"The part about everyone being scared. It helps. Knowing I'm not the only one. That I'm not weak for feeling it."
"You're definitely not the only one. Hao screamed like a little girl when the goblin threw that rock at him."
"I know. I heard him. It was very high-pitched. Like a tea kettle."
"He denies it."
"He would. He told me it was a war cry." She almost smiled—a small, fragile expression that flickered at the corner of her mouth. "We should go inside. Mother's going to yell if we're late for lunch, and Hao's probably already eaten everything. He's been circling the kitchen like a vulture all morning."
"He's been eyeing the noodles since breakfast."
"He's always eyeing something. It's his defining characteristic."
They walked back toward the house together, the afternoon sun warm on their shoulders.
***
Lunch
Lunch was a loud, sprawling affair. Wei's mother had made noodles—thick, hand-pulled strands swimming in a broth flavored with ginger and the last of the dried mushrooms from the cellar. Steam rose from the bowls in soft white curls, and the kitchen was warm and full of the sound of chopsticks clicking against ceramic and voices overlapping.
Hao had already consumed two bowls before anyone else sat down and was reaching for a third with the single-minded determination of a man who believed every meal might be his last. His chopsticks hovered over the serving bowl like a hawk over a field mouse.
"Don't even think about it," his mother said, appearing behind him with the uncanny silence of a woman who had spent twenty years anticipating her son's food-related crimes.
"I'm still growing."
"You stopped growing three years ago. You're just expanding sideways now."
"That's muscle. From archery." He flexed his arm, which remained resolutely unimpressive. "Jianguo said my draw strength has improved."
"Jianguo said you pulled a muscle last week and complained for three days," Jianguo said from his seat by the door, not looking up from his own bowl.
"That was a different muscle."
"All your muscles are different muscles when they hurt," Li said, sliding into her seat beside Wei.
Xiao Hei, stationed hopefully at Hao's feet, caught a stray bit of noodle that slipped from Hao's chopsticks and swallowed it whole without chewing. His tail wagged once in profound satisfaction. No one commented. By now, the puppy's thievery was simply part of the meal.
"The dog eats better than we do," Jianguo observed.
"The dog works harder than Hao," Wei said.
"The dog hasn't finished forty-three arrows," Hao shot back. "I have. Forty-three. I counted."
"I said they were adequate," Jianguo said.
"That's basically a compliment. From you, 'adequate' is like a parade. A very small parade, but still."
Grandfather snorted into his tea, the steam curling around his weathered face. "When I was your age, I was digging irrigation ditches from dawn to dusk. You know what my father said when I complained? He said, 'Good. Pain means you're still alive.' That was the only praise I got for a decade."
"Your father sounds terrifying," Hao said.
"He was. Best man I ever knew." Grandfather took a deliberate sip of tea. "He also said I talked too much. Some things skip a generation."
Li looked up from her bowl. "The rabbits are doing well. The new warren is warm—the moss is spreading. Mouse had another litter. Six babies. They're very small and very loud. You can hear them squeaking from outside the pen."
"Mouse is the one that bit me yesterday," Wei said.
"She was protecting her babies. She looked very sorry afterward. Her ears went all flat."
"That's what you said when the goose bit Hao," their mother observed, refilling the teapot.
"The goose wasn't sorry," Hao muttered, rubbing his thigh in memory.
"The goose has never been sorry for anything in its life. That goose came out of the egg looking for someone to attack. I was just the first person it saw. Wrong place, wrong time, wrong species."
"The goose is dedicated to his work," Li said primly. "He patrols the pond. He keeps the ducks in line. You have to respect that kind of commitment."
"I don't have to respect anything. The goose is a terrorist. A feathered terrorist with a vendetta."
"The goose has been on this farm longer than any of you," Grandfather said. "It's earned the right to be chaos. I remember when it hatched. Meanest little thing I ever saw. Bit your grandmother's finger the first day."
Their mother set down the teapot with a decisive clink. "If you two are going to argue about the goose, you can do it outside. Some of us are trying to digest in peace."
"There's nothing to digest," Hao said, looking mournfully at his empty bowl. "I've been deprived of sustenance."
"You've had two bowls," Li said.
"Three," Wei corrected.
"Three bowls is nothing. Three bowls is an appetizer. I'm a growing warrior."
"Go make more arrows," Jianguo said. "You can digest while you work. That's what I always did."
"That's not how digestion works."
"It's how it works on this farm. Always has been."
The meal wound down slowly, plates cleared and tea poured, until the family drifted back to their tasks. Wei helped his mother carry the dishes to the wash basin, and she swatted his hand when he tried to steal a leftover noodle from the serving bowl.
"You're as bad as your brother," she said, but her voice was warm.
"I learned from the best."
"The best is currently outside, arguing with a goose."
"I meant you."
She almost smiled—that small, private expression she gave when her children had done something right. "Go check on the barn. Liu Wei's son was looking better this morning. He had color in his cheeks for the first time since they arrived."
End Of Chapter 12