He never had a plan, he just went with the flow

Chapter Seven

Wei Ying rode into Lotus Pier on the back of a horse he created. She can become invisible and make anything on her invisible too, a great tool for when you don't want to get stopped while traveling. He decided to name her MingFu since he believes everything has been going well for him since he created her. He no longer needed to waste energy by walking everywhere once he left the water.

Plus as a bonus, she could walk on water and could teleport to him when he called her. She just hopped out of his shadow, which is a very light thing since he is water.

He slid off her back and rubbed her muzzle, "Good job, MingFu. Stay here and rest while I go see the children." MingFu trotted away as he walked through the doors of the orphanage. He's gotten to test his new abilities in this form over the last two months. He knows that he can make himself intangible and in that state, he's unable to be seen by the living. Ghosts and sprites –as he's taken to calling them– can still see him, animals can sense his presence though so, he tries to be careful around them.

"MA! You're back." Xiao-Ning hugged his legs when he spotted him. "Yes, I just came back, Xiao-Ning, how are you?"

"Playing drums!" He laughed as he carried him into the room the sprites had decided was their room. Nobody stayed in this room so, maybe the other children somewhat knew of the sprites living here. "I hope you haven't been disturbing the other children when they're sleeping."

"Ning only plays at lunch." Xiao-Ning laid his head on his shoulder as they phased into the room. "Wow! Mama looks like a fairy!"

"Fairy!"

"Mama looks like a mama now." The children swarmed them, causing him to laugh. He was in his female form and had been wearing a blue and white heziqun with a daxiushan that went from a darker blue to a lighter one. He also paired it with a long white and blue mili, he didn't put any accessories in his gift this time but, might later.

He played with the children for the rest of the day before stopping to visit Jiang Cheng before he headed out again. He had stopped by since he was passing by to get to his next destination in his conquest to purify Yunmeng. He already cleared about a quarter of Yunmeng territory and would occasionally stop to take children back to Lotus Pier until he could find a place for them to remain permanently.

"Come on girl, it's time to go." And so began their long journey west.

~.~

Lan Huan was staring blankly at the scroll before him, apparently there was some issue near the border of Yunmeng. All he could get was that the merchants wanted to charge more to transport the goods since the farmers weren't lowering their prices despite their sudden influx of crops. The situation between the merchants and farmers is getting so bad that they seem to be on the verge of cutting all ties.

He rubbed his head feeling his migraine get worse as he tried to think of a solution. Yunmeng and Qishan were the places most sects normally imported their food from because they were the places that had the best land for farming. But, after the war most of those farms had been either tainted by resentment or burned to the ground and a lot of the farmers either went missing after the war or were killed during it. So, there was a bit of a food shortage as the farms couldn't produce a lot of food and they charged more for it too. But, it seems that Yunmeng and the territory it gained following the Wen Sect's defeat has finally begun to heal as the farms are now producing more crops.

"Bobo! Bobo!"

Lan Huan looked up as his nephew excitedly ran holding a guqin. "Running in forbiddened, Sizhui." The child stopped and looked down guiltily causing him to smile down at the bunny-like boy. "It's okay since only I was here to see it, what had you so excited?" Sizhui perked and attempted to put the guqin on his desk but, wasn't quite tall or strong enough for the task. He grabbed onto the instrument before it could fall while Sizhui climbed into the chair.