The Fate of my Soul.

Part 7

After a good rest, I awoke the next morning feeling refreshed and hungry.  Rising, I thought I would assist the boys with breakfast preparations only to find, my breakfast already prepared and waiting for me.  Making my way to the kitchen I find only the one disciple up, and as it was still very early in the morning,  I wondered why.

Chang Shan was pleasantly surprised to see me in the kitchen. A place I had rarely visited in the past.  "The kitchen is my domain, and all meals are prepared by me." he informs me as he sets about his kitchen preparing his disciple brothers breakfast.  I also notice, the boy is the most quietest of my disciples.  He rarely speaks and when he does, it is only to say what needs to be said.  He also rarely smiles, though his manner is pleasant, there is an air of sadness around the boy.

"Your breakfast is always first, and in the past you preferred to eat alone, hence why yours is already prepared." he goes on to tell me as I watch him expertly prepare a large pot of porridge, before quickly moving to the large oven to remove a freshly baked loaf of bread.  It is steaming hot, and the smell is divine as it wafts about the kitchen filling it with an aroma I remember from long ago.

Impressed with his skills, I ask him where he had learned to cook, and he promptly tells me, I had taught him.   This is a skill I also remember, so I decide this is the perfect time to interview my second disciple.   Setting my tray up on the low bench beside him to eat, I begin to question him about his upbringing and how he came to be my disciple.

Chang Shan begins his story by telling me of his earliest memories of a child of the Earth Clan. 

 A small clan of the Northern Territories, his upbringing was one of love and happiness. There were many children in his clan and his friends had been many.  His father was a hunter and his mother was the clans seamstress, who made all the clothing for the clans children, including himself.

"It was a simple life, but my memories were one of family and love." he tells me with a faint smile.  And though their faces had long left his memory, their love forever stayed with him.

Then the Demon War took over the whole world, all Clans had no choice but to enter their men to secure the peace of all the people.  And even though his clan was small, they too were dragged into it.  All of their men lost their lives which saw the demon clan rampage though the mountains and completely wipe out the remainder.

  It was only the foresight of his mother that kept him alive.  She had hidden him in a cave that was only known to his tribe before she too lost her life.  Her screams of terror still rang in his ears to this day.  And as he is telling me his story, I come to understand the sadness that surrounds him.

It is only a couple of weeks later that I stumble upon him, he tells me.  Though having the skills to feed himself, the Demon Clan had destroyed much of the lush surroundings including the roots and wild edible plants that he could have eaten to sustain himself, though he was given food from passing travelers on occasion. 

 When I found him, he was weak and severely malnourished.  He tells me, I was there to find a rare bloom for an elixir I needed to save a life that had suffered in the Demon wars, and I had taken him with me and raised him as my own son, by officially adopting him.  I had called him the rare bloom I had been searching for, and my pet name for him when he was little was Xīyǒu (rarity).

Much of what he tells me, I remember in fragments.  The Demon war especially brings back several memories of death and decay, which I quickly wipe from my mind.  And as I sit there watching him ladle the porridge into bowls, I also get another memory of him serving loquats to Seventeenth, it was his birthday and the fruit was his favorite.  And as I am remembering, Bai Empress also enters the memory as being the one who delivers them.