Jian was staring intently at the large selection of buns in the stall, trying to figure out which flavor he wanted to explore today. This specific shop owner made a new flavored bun each week and Jian was his most loyal taste tester. If he liked the bun it would become a popular seller in the shop, if he did not most buyers would not buy it. This is not because Jian was someone of influence, but because his senses were so sharp that he knew something good on the first try.
As Jian was about to pick one of the bun, a sharp cry was heard from the middle of the crowd. A woman dressed in an expensive Hanfu, fell towards the ground as the child she was carrying was snatched from her by a man on horseback. The crowd scattered away avoiding being trampled by the horse as it flew by with the screaming child.
All of a sudden the horse gave a sharp cry raising its hoof from the ground staring around in panic. The man holding the struggling child yelled at the horse, hitting it with a whip.
" Move you fucking animal, what the fuck is wrong with you!" The horse was so panicked that it bucked the man and child on its back; they fell back and the crowd gasped.
Jian, who was already standing near the horse, caught the child as he was thrown from the horse and out of the man's grasp.
The child had fainted and the man fell onto the ground cursing " Get back here you derange beast!" The horse had galloped away the moment its hoof hit the ground leaving the man stranded.
The crowd of people surrounded the man and started yelling and throwing stones.
" You kidnapper, how dare you try and take the young master!" The crowd was in a panic, the palace guards finally arrived and secured the man. Jian turned with the child and handed him to the frantic caretaker, hiding his face beneath his straw hat.
"Oh, young master," she cried holding the sleeping child. She looked towards Jian. "Thank you so much for helping the young master" Jian simply nodded his head and walked away from the maid. She yelled frantically after him " Wait, please tell me your name!" But Jian had already disappeared into the crowd.
Walking back towards the woods Jian sighed he really wanted the bun, today was his last day in this town and he wanted to bring back a snack with him for the road. Ever since he woke alone in the middle of the woods a year ago, Jian had roamed around Middle Earth trying to figure out his origin with no success. He had spent about two months in this specific town and even though he found no leads on his origin he did find a lot of interesting information and food.
He sighed again and rubbed his belly. In the year he had roamed he found that he was currently in the Middle realm, it was inhabited by humans with no cultivating capacity, they lived normal lives and usually had a short lifespan.
There are three different realms, the middle realm, the heavenly realms, and ghost realm. The Heavenly and Ghost realm were currently at war and they had dragged the humans into it, there were not many peaceful towns in the middle realm and many were ravished by poverty and disease.
There were a few like the town that he had been to that were being protected by a Heavenly officer and thus the people were kept safe from poverty and disease as long as they paid their dues and followed the laws set by the officials.
Jian wasn't too fond of the Heavenly Officials, he believed them to be two faced and shallow. He slowly made his way out of the woods and into the stone covered road. His straw sandals barely make a sound. Suddenly, a gust of wind blew his straw hat from his head making it spin in an arc towards the stone road.
Jian walked towards his hat lowering his hand towards the ground, a pair of snow white hands came into view, the long fingers slim and long, the hands lifted his hat from the ground, Jian stretched his hand out towards the person, but as he touched the hat a flashing pain went through his scalp, Jian clutched his head as his vision turned black.
He breathed deeply struggling through the pain. When he opened his eye, the sky was still bright and his hat was laying on the ground. The person with the snow white hands was nowhere to be seen. Jian felt as though he had dreamt the whole ordeal.
He simply picked up his hat and continued down the stone road as though the pain had never occurred.
The scent of flowers filled the air with a sweet almost intoxicating haze. In the middle of the room surrounded by the wilting flowers, lay a figure, their skin paler than the light of the moon shining through the glass ceiling. The person looked to be sleeping, but no movement came from their chest, they appeared to be devoid of life. Near the figure, something seemed to move, a formless shadow drew near to the person laying in the wilting flower.
It slowly lowered its dark form and gently rubbed itself against the person's face. Even though it lacked shape the shadow looked devastated as it gently touched the person laying on the flowers. The shadow slowly drew away and simply vanished from the room.
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" Oh, for Fuck sake haven't I already told you not to sell this to the customers!" Yelled a balding man from the inside of a crumbling building. He was shaking from anger as he spitted at the poor youth trembling on the dirty wooden floor.
" I...I….I'm sorry Father…. I didn't mean to!" trembled the boy as he held his bleeding nose. He had accidently sold one of his father's most expensive books, his father was so enraged that he had punched him right in the nose.
" You didn't mean to! You useless scum, you and that useless mother of yours can't even follow the simplest rules, you made me lose a vast amount of money!" The man yelled at his son and kicked him.
Across the street sat Jian, slowly drinking his tea, as he read a very old and expensive looking book. He had walked to the broken down store and had looked around for some books to read, when he found this particular book, the boy had been eager to sell it to him at such a cheap price, Jian wasn't going to turn him down especially since he was interested in the content of the book. Jian put his tea cup down, paid for his food, stuffed the book into the bag he wore on his back and walked away from the crowded street.
A few hours later, as he walked past the different crumbling and run down shops, he felt someone following him. Jian slowed down his steps and became even more alert. One of the things that he has learned after roaming around for a year, was about Cultivation, most people were born with a core in their souls that could absorb the pure energy from the living creatures around them.
He knew most humans were not able to fully utilize this and most never activated their sleeping potential, but as he learned more about this he realized that he was able to fully utilize his core. Because of this his senses become sharper and he is able to detect the smallest changes around him.
The footsteps were loud and hurried behind him, confirming that it was someone with no experience following him. He slowly relaxed and continued making his way to a small pub. This pub, like all the other stores, was runned down and barely hanging on. He sat at the empty table near the door. Once he sat down he placed the book that he was previously reading on top of the table. The pub master came back with a cup of hot tea and placed it on the table. Jian took a sip of the tea and grimace, this tasted awful, but what could he expect from this place.
While doing this Jian had his attention fully on the person that had been following him. The moment he had sat down, the other person was right behind him and sat near the furthest window in the pub. He couldn't make out who this individual was as they had long dirty matted hair covering their face and were fully clothed in dirty rags. The moment Jian took out the book, the other person twitched their finger.
Jian guessed correctly that the person following him was interested in the book he had purchased. Jian was laughing internally. It seemed he got something interesting. Jian got up from the table and went to look for the facilities, he had barely walked away from the book, when a shadow passed by him quickly. Jian's whole face brightened as the person snatched the book from the table and tried to make a break for it.
Jian's arm shot out and grabbed the other person by the back of their dirty collar. Jian's mouth twitched, one of the things that he disliked deeply ever since he woke up in the middle of the woods was being dirty, especially touching anything that had filth. He lifted the person from the ground, they were kicking and screaming.
" Let me go, let me go!" the person screeched. Jian was surprised he thought it was a beggar trying to use the book as a ticket for food, but the way they spoke sounded refined.
" I'll let you go the moment you return what you tried to steal from me." Jian said in a light voice.
" No, this book belongs to my family, I won't give it back!" the dirty rags screamed back, clutching the book tighter as they tried to kick Jian.
Jian noticed that the person's voice was very young, as he held the person in his grasp he realized that it was a child, barely 12-13 years old. Their little face was covered in dirt but they had bright gray eyes that were staring daggers at him.
" Little kid, I bought that book so it belongs to me now, if you want to get it back then you have to pay double the price I paid to buy it." Jian told the child, he still held the kid by the scruff of their neck, because he knew the moment he put the child down the little brat would run away and honestly Jian didn't feel like chasing after the kid.
The kid started crying " No, it's mine, it belongs to my family" While standing in the doorway of the pub, they gathered a few spectators, one of them being the master of the pub.
" Li Fang, stop making trouble you little rat, you are disturbing my establishment!" The fat old man screamed at the kid still squirming in Jian hand, refusing to let the book go.
" Shut up, old man, if my father was around he would put you in your place" The little child wailed as he stared dagger at the pub master, tears dripping from his eyes.
The fat pub master snorted at Li Fang " Sure, your whole family is dead, there is no way for them to do anything to me unless they crawl out of their grave!" The pub master said while laughing, the spectators also joined in on bullying the little boy.
" Yeah, you rat, you're all alone!"
" Why haven't you gone and joined your clan, a bunch of useless fools!" Someone else shouted, every person was making snide remarks towards the kid.
Jian looked down at the child still clutching the book, with tears running down his dirty cheeks. He sighed and put the kid down. The kid instead of running tried to wipe away his tears and looked at Jian with determined eyes.
The people were still snickering and making nasty remarks. Jian never took his eyes off the crying child with his determine eyes, he moved his hand up high in the air and drew sharply down, the moment he did a sudden sharp blast of wind flew from his hand and blew the people around him upwards, there were shouts and screams as the were lifted in air and dropped down one by one towards the hard ground, they looked up scared and scurry away without making a sound.
The kid's eyes grew as big as saucers and looked all around him in disbelief. He then turned around and stared at Jian, with admiring eyes.
Li Fang's little face drew into a big smile " Did you do that!" he shouted
Li Fang was so excited he had heard of people that had amazing abilities, but he had never met anyone else besides his father that was able to do something like this.
Jian just looked at the kid " Li Fang right? Why don't we find a place where we can talk and you can explain to me why this book is so important to you."
Li Fang nodded seriously, maybe he found the person that could help him find his family. Li Fang thought ' Maybe I can finally get some answers.' He tried not to get too excited, but his heart was beating a little faster.
Jian looked at the kid thinking maybe he had found something interesting to do besides roaming around the land with no real purpose. Even though he wanted some clues as to find who he really was, he didn't have any real hope or true interest in his past, but he also realized that living as a wanderer gave him no real joy. Jian gave a small grin 'Maybe I just found something fun to do.'