Dark Goddess: Jiutian Xuannü - Mysterious Lady of the Nine Heavens

Chapter 1: The beginning

The green hills of Mazu village were illuminated by the sunrays of the summer sun and the blue sky was reflected in small water streams running throughout the plantages. A small bird landed on one of the many tea bushes, it folded its bright blue wings and turned its attention to the girl standing by the bush. It watched her as she examined a leaf with her fingers to see if it had ripened enough. She then grabbed a pair of scissors that lay in a basket dangling at her hip. She cut off the ripe leaves and avoided the unripe ones. This was necessary to preserve the quality of the tea.

As she was putting her loot into the basket, someone called her name:

"Lian!"

She looked up to see her older brother coming towards her. "You're still here." he said.

"Yes, I'm not done yet." she replied.

He smiled at her, "You can continue later, now it's time for lunch, come. Some shade will do you good and later I can help you, I've finished the east side," he added to cheer her up. It worked, Lian beamed at him, lifted her basket, adjusted her hat and together they walked back to the house.

The house of the Ming family was built from stones, sand and wood. It was a big house in which several generations could live comfortably. Presently it was home to Lian, her parents, three siblings, aunt and uncle, two cousins as well as their grandma and grandpa.

There were several houses in the village that belonged to the Ming family, and the tea fields were divided among them. It had been like this for several generations.

Growing and processing tea was a complex process and was different for each type of tea.

There were, generally speaking 6 kinds of tea: white, green, yellow, blue-green, black and double black. The Ming family produced the tea native to their Province. Oolong Tea. More precisely the kind of oolong tea that came from the Tieguanyin plant. A variety of oolong that came from this province.

Ming Lian was born and grew up in this village. She knew it and the area around - like the palm of her hand. She especially liked to visit the bamboo forest that bordered the village to the north. There were many kinds of animals living there. Lian and her siblings loved to feed them. The herbs that grew there were very useful for nourishment as well as healing.

And the mushrooms and young bamboo shoots that could be collected there were also very tasty.

They had a simple meal that day. Vegetable brew and rice noodles with soya sauce and a few slices of tofu. After lunch Lian and her three siblings went to finish the north side while their parents along with aunt and uncle finished the southern part.

Grandparents went to rest after for a while and their two cousins were tasked with...

When they were done they brought all of their baskets home and spread the leaves out on clothes to dry in the sun in their yard. When the sun was going down they moved these into an empty room inside the house reserved for this purpose.

The sunlight was fading and the family gathered in the common room using oil lamps for light. The evening was usually a time when the family would gather there to talk and play games.

Lian sighed as the black figurine was knocked over. She looked grumpily over at Kai who was grinning victoriously.

"Why don't you play for the Empress for a change?" she said, in an accusing tone.

"Nop, I'm not interested in losing," Kai replied.

He had managed to win against her again. His white Emperor figurine was standing triumphantly on the golden square in the middle of the board - which represented the mountain peak, the winner's location. Lian's black Empress figurine on the other hand, lay on the black-silver squares which surrounded it and were meant to represent the ravine around the mountain.