“And what, pray tell, has been happening to the mighty and righteous Master Cabbagy all this time? Well, let me tell you about the adventure of this vegetable, and how the true principle of the Daoist masters is that by doing nothing, you do everything, thus a king in tune with his kingdom need never make a decree, and a fighter in tune with the world need never raise his fists, yet both achieve prosperity.”
Cabbagy let his wisdom float out into the glade, and waited for the accolades, but none came. He sighed. This was a terrible audience.
He’d been talking to the rocks and the ground, because, dim as they were, they would actually pay attention. The grass, plants, and trees never listened, and he would know as a former plant himself, but they were always too busy being anxious: finding nutrients, avoiding pests, growing, and the like.
Their minds were overwhelmed with such concerns, but it was a sign they were alive.
Which he was not.
Not really.
He might look fresh and green as any plant with deep roots, but once someone’s head is cut off, it’s only a matter of time before their eyes close forever. He wished the kid would accept that fact, but if there was anyone out there who wouldn’t believe in the inevitability of death, it would be someone who was literally born incapable of death. Cabbagy wouldn’t mind meeting the people who did what they did to make the kid who he was, and giving them a piece of his mind. Nobody deserved that.
Not just the people who became him, but the kid as well: nobody deserved to be born with such an intense weight of expectation. How could any one person live up to the weight of three lives tragically cut short? And now there was a fourth thrown into the mix? A weapon that wished to kill and devour and destroy… no wonder the kid was so directionless. It was an impossible situation for someone to try to be their own person, and Cabbagy was proud of the deepening complexity he saw in those drab brown eyes. The kid was becoming a man with every passing day, and soon, soon…
He might not need Cabbagy anymore.
As sad as it was to admit, students were supposed to outgrow their masters. Cabbagy believed that to be an inarguable truth, though he wouldn’t mind right now if someone tried to argue with him.
He was bored.
“I’m so incredibly sober,” he said aloud to the glade that was ignoring him. “No drinks, no women, no parties, no nothing! What kinds of expedition is this, anyway?”
A wind whispered through the trees, but even if it was talking about him, it was too quiet for Cabbagy to listen in and know exactly what was being said. From the tree’s expression, though, he doubted it was anything positive.
“It’s all lies!” he shouted. “All of it! Except for the part about how I brought about the downfall of the carrots from the vegetable patch on the other side of the yard. Those dirty bastards didn’t know what hit them!”
His grandiose words faded, and he sighed.
“Where are you, kid? I understand that cow headed woman leaving me behind, but why haven’t you come back for me? Surely you’re not dead…. No, I know you’re not. I refuse to accept that.”
If he waited long enough, the kid would return. He had to believe that was true.
"Gosh, I sure hope you're still alive, you little undying freak."
The wind blew through the trees.
“Alive!” came a voice.
“And who said that?”
Cabbagy turned around.
A short, plump creature sat on the ground with her legs splayed out and a goofy grin on her face. She resembled a plucked chicken and was about the same size, with a tiny, delicately featured woman’s head balanced atop her spindly neck. She had porcelain skin, dark eyes, and matching hair, with long, pendulous breasts and a pair of membraneous wings in place of arms.
“Who… what… are you?” Cabbagy asked.
“Cabbage.”
He frowned.
“No, you’re not. I happen to be an authority on the matter.”
“Of course I’m not a cabbage, you silly. You are!”
Cabbagy turned back around.
Sometimes, you could just tell within seconds that no company was better than certain company. To reinforce his abrupt judgment, the plump creature waddled back around and sat down in front of him with a huff.
“Rude!” she said with a wide grin. “Cabbage. Rude cabbage.”
“I’m sorry,” Cabbagy said through a forced smile. “I’m cultivating right now…”
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
“Lies. No cultivating. Cabbage.”
“Yes, that is true,” he said, slightly more interested now. “How could you tell?”
She blinked one dark eye at a time.
“Cabbage…” she said with a frown. “I remember. Cabbage. Pork. Spice.”
A thin strand of drool slipped from her thin lips, and her eyes widened ever so slightly. Deep in her dark orbs, Cabbagy saw his own glowing green reflection. He looked good — of course, Cabbajoe had been a handsome bastard if nothing else — but he didn’t like being looked at in such a way.
It stirred the memories of his wife on their wedding day, and he knew how such things turned out.
“Thank you,” he said gently. “I’m flattered, but I’m not interested. My heart is set on another.”
She cocked her head.
“But you’re delicious.”
“Yes, I know, I know. But, you see, there is a beautiful, large-breasted woman with dark hair like a midnight waterfall, and she waits for me even now…”
“No!”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Hungry.”
Cabbagy rolled his eyes.
“I know you hunger for my curves, but I am saying that you cannot have them. Now, have some damned self-respect and leave me alone!”
Her teeth glinted wetly.
“You will be mine.”
“No, I don’t think —”
“Hungry!”
She lunged forward, her teeth extending from her jaws like a cat's claws. Cabbagy tried to roll back, but she was as fast as a demon. Her teeth sank into his tightly coiled green leaves, and her eyes flashed with triumph like knives in the dark.
Cabbagy barely suppressed his grin.
“Mustard Oil Bomb,” he whispered as the foul mix of chemicals was deployed into the creature’s mouth.
She staggered back, sputtering and coughing as her eyes watered. Cabbagy took the moment of distraction to roll away. He headed for the trees, but even with Cabbajoe’s tight, young body, he was no match for something with legs — at least not on flat ground.
The plucked chicken creature quickly caught up to him, and she proved that for all her eyes were larger than her stomach, she truly could not see Mount Tai. She bit once more, and Cabbagy intensified his Mustard Oil Bomb.
Steam rose from her mouth, and blood dripped from her eyes, but he ignored her as he inspected his soft tissue damage. It wasn’t too bad, but he knew better than most how quickly scratches and scuffs could deteriorate a cabbage in the sun.
“Alright now, you bitch,” he said with a gruffness that surprised even him. “I’ve given you a bop on the nose, but don’t make me go any further. I might be a man, but I’ll hit anyone who brings it upon themselves.”
She coughed and spat.
“Icky! Icky cabbage!”
“That’s right, I’ve given you the ick, now get! Get on out of here!”
She glanced back at the trees before shaking her head.
“Hungry,” she muttered to herself. “Hungry, hungry, hungry!”
Her battle cry seemed to supercharge her, and she rushed towards Cabbagy with her head extended out on her long, thin neck and her jaws practically distended as her long teeth shone in the light.
“You asked for it,” Cabbagy said as he wound up his power.
The bird creature leaped into the air, her talons flashing as she blocked out the sun. Her wings outstretched as she dove down to slice at Cabbagy’s face.
His face was too pretty to allow such a travesty!
“Coiled Leaf Fist!”
His technique was flawless, and even a thousand layers barely contained his power. With one strike, the bird creature disintegrated into a cloud of blood. Fingernails struck the ground like shrapnel, and Cabbagy let out a deep breath.
He might be an old soul, but he had a young body, and a master never lost his touch.
“Did you see that?” he asked the pebbles and the dirt and the trees. “That’s what a real man can do.”
“Beat a child to death?”
“What? No! Who said that?”
He looked around, but there was nobody there.
Until there was.
A gigantic monster loomed over him. She had a body of sleek muscles and smooth skin like painted glass. Her eyes were deep holes, and her raven hair fell in straight lines as she stared down into Cabbagy. His reflection in that gaze was an insignificant green speck.
She stretched out vast leathery wings that cracked like a whip.
“You killed my child because she thought you might be tasty.”
“No… that wasn’t me.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah! It was another guy!”
Her throaty chuckle sent a shiver down his leaves. It reminded him far too much of his ex-wife.
“We shall see if my other children think you are tasty.”
Before Cabbagy could protest, the monster snatched him up with a talon and flew into the air, carrying him away from the safety of the ground and high into the sky above the valley.
###
Chen Ai stared at the treasure trove in disbelief. Around her, the expedition cultivators were animatedly discussing how much wealth they might have found while, in the background, Ran Qin focused on creating another antidote pill.
Gold bars, jewel-encrusted jewelry, and chests full of silver coins sparkled in the sun, all of them unearthed from a tomb sunken into the earth. Chen Ai fully expected the sight of such wealth to cause the cultivators to fight amongst themselves, but, to her surprise, everyone was giddy with relief. She supposed, after some thought, that it did make some sense. After the nightmarish ordeal of their first day in the valley, they’d finally found some tangible proof that this suicididal endeavour was actually worth their while.
Song Shuia climbed up the stone steps out of the crypt and smiled as bright as the sunshine. He had a chest over one shoulder spilling with gold, but that wasn’t the source of his joy.
“There’s another chamber.”
“What’s in it?” Chen Ai asked.
“Want to find out?”
Everyone was so excited it was as though they were on a sect field trip rather than an expedition into an Imperial Forbidden Zone, but Chen Ai blamed the sheltered lives of city cultivators more than anything else. She had to enforce some discipline, and only Ran Yalui and the old Shen swordsman descended, while the others remained above ground to stand on guard.
The chamber that contained the treasure was an oblong room with a stone sarcophagus in the center, and the fragments of the heavy lid shattered on the tiles. Song Shuai must have pushed it off to inspect the interior, and it was a good thing he did, since there was another set of stairs inside.
The three of them lit torches from Ran Yaliu’s storage ring and descended the stairs inside the sarcophagus. As they climbed down, the air quickly grew icy and dry despite the moisture leaking from the stone walls like a cold sweat, and Chen Ai felt something inside of her shrivelling — her grass qi’s natural aversion to this environment.
“We must be careful,” she said. “This is the perfect breeding ground for jiangshi.”
“My thoughts exactly,” said the old Shen swordsman as he slowly drew his sword.
They climbed down the last of the stairs in cautious silence, and when they reached the next chamber, they held their breaths, and their torches with extreme care. An even greater treasure than gold or gems lay before them.
Wooden shelves held ancient scrolls, and from the glimpses of open pages, it was obvious that this was a library for cultivation techniques. There were hundreds here. They could be common, or they could be completely unknown and unique. The value of what they saw was absolutely staggering, but one more thing dragged at Chen Ai’s attention.
An iron door set into the wall that promised a third chamber.
