Chapter 3: Great Expectations

Xie Bian took the book with a puzzled expression. It was a thick volume, bound with thin thread and written on coarse paper. The front page had only a name: "Fu Shulin"

"What's this?"

"A book, you infernal creature," Yanluo spat, desperate to leave.

Xie Bian wasn't fazed, he flipped through the book leisurely. "Who is it about?"

"No one." Yanluo was ready to double down but then thought better of it. "Actually, it might be connected to the missing souls. Who knows. Read it well. Don't tell Fan Wujiu about it."

He cast Xie Bian one last meaningful look and then left.

Xie Bian examined the book more closely. What was Yanluo's goal with giving it to him? His relationship with Fan Wujiu was clearly strained, so could it be that he wanted to foster some kind of competition between Xie Bian and Fan Wujiu by giving him an advantage?

That seemed dishonest.

Then again, in their brief first meeting Fan Wujiu had been nothing but a bastard to him. What fault was it of Xie Bian's that he and Yanluo didn't get along?

Xie Bian wasn't interested in competing with him, but maybe he could use the book as some sort of peace token in the future. Maybe Fan Wujiu would be less hostile if he realised that Xie Bian wasn't interested in stealing his position from him.

He placed the book down on the low table and looked around at his new room. It was spacious, Xie Bian would give it that. He didn't want to clean up now, he truly felt tired, but neither could he sleep in those dusty sheets.

His compromise was stripping the bed, airing out the sheets and comforter out on the courtyard and sleeping on the bare mattress. The temperature was neither hot nor cold, whether inside or outside it all felt the same. He lit a single candle in the stand by the bed, casting the whole room in ghostly shades of yellow.

Xie Bian took out his plain black outer robes and draped them above himself like a sheet while he settled in bed with the book Yanluo had given him.

Whatever Yanluo's intentions, he might as well get started.

The book told the story of the titular "Fu Shulin", starting with his birth. Xie Bian assumed he was going to be a very important person, for there to be a book dedicated to his life's story, but his beginnings were rather humble...

Fu Shulin was born the fifth child in a family of farmers who worked the fields around the foot of the Jade Dragon mountain, the sect grounds of Jade Dragon Manor cultivation sect. The sect was in control of a large area of territory, and had expanded from their original grounds to control the entirety of Beishan, a northern mountainous region.

The Fu family was allowed to work on a small allotment of knotty terrain, and had to give 20% of all their crops to Jade Dragon Manor as payment for working their lands.

This amount seemed steep to Xie Bian, considering the family still had to use some of the crops to feed themselves, along with to barter and sell, in exchange for all the other food and supplies they couldn't produce.

And indeed, the Fu family struggled. But they weren't alone. The entire village outside the sprawling sect grounds was impoverished. Further out, things were slightly better in the capital city of Beishan, Longbei -- but it wasn't easy to find work there, as even more than in their ancestral sect grounds, it was where Jade Dragon Manor truly exerted its power.

Despite how much they struggled, the Fu family kept having children.

Like many others, they hoped that one of their children would finally be born with strong spiritual roots, which would allow them to become a cultivator and join a sect.

There were four major sects in Jianghu, and a few smaller offshoots which nonetheless were still affiliated with the larger 'parent' sect.

Even joining one of these minor sects would be an untold blessing, and a leg up and out of poverty. So it didn't matter that the Fu family had more children than they could comfortably feed, because if even one of them became a cultivator they would be able to provide for everyone else.

When Fu Shulin was one month old his parents scrapped up a few copper coins and took him to the old physician in Longbei who supposedly could tell after a single examination if a child had good spirit roots, and a future as a cultivator.

For all the other children, the man had taken one look at them with his rheumy eyes and shook his head.

But when Fu Shulin's mother, Tong Wen, walked in with the baby bundled in her arms, the old man got up from his chair at once. He walked up to her with great effort and examined the child more closely than he had any others.

Tong Wen's heart beat so loudly inside her chest that she feared the old man could hear it.

After a long while, the man hummed deeply, smoothed his grey beard and nodded at her. "Yes, I can see it. Feed him nourishing foods, meat whenever possible, it will strengthen his meridians."

Tong Wen could scarcely believe her ears. She ended up overpaying for the consultation but the would have gladly spent all her money on the old doctor -- no price was high enough for the greatest news of her life.

She returned to their village in a state of bliss, and shared the news with her husband who immediately fell to his knees in thanks to the heavens.

From that day onwards, the entire Fu family would ensure that Fu Shulin had all he needed to succeed and join a cultivation sect. All the best food was saved for Fu Shulin, and if they were going through a period of scarcity then everyone else would eat less so that he could have enough.

Fu Shulin was three years old when he realised his parents treated him differently from his brothers and sisters.

When he asked his mother about this, she patted his head of fine black hair and told him: "A-Lin shouldn't worry, your brothers and sisters aren't upset with you. They know that one day A-Lin will have enough money to buy them all the food they can eat."

For years afterwards when Fu Shulin thought about his first memory, this was the one that would come to mind.