The pheasant was dead, lying flat on the snow with its neck twisted at an angle more awkward than before. It looked ghastlier than when Qui Tian had sent the pheasant slamming into the ground with her talisman.
Yun Jieshi couldn't have been prouder of his work. He was practically glowing with excitement.
Only one thing dampened his mood, though. Well, maybe two.
'Even this pheasant had a lot of Xun. How can I increase mine?' he thought. Was he going to have to find another ghost? 'And how come this thing could use powers like that without a talisman. I wish Qui Tian had warned me about that. But then again,' he spared the hag a look, "I should have expected it.'
Speaking of the hag, she was one of the reasons Yun Jieshi's joy was plummeting by the second. She had a very subtle way of giving praise, Yun Jieshi discovered.
For starters, he didn't know what the standard for learning new talismans and instructions was, but he considered himself a rather quick learner. The hag was far from being a cold individual, but she wasn't overly warm either. A short-lived touch to the shoulder was as much as the little monkey had gotten for learning talismans and instructions quickly.
He received the same, tired dose of congratulations even now, after killing the pheasant in as creative of a way as he could without wasting Xun.
But perhaps this treatment was warranted.
The pheasant had nearly killed Yun Jieshi after catching him off guard with its outrageously quick attack. That must have stolen from him a few points of excellence.
It was a learning experience though. The little monkey immediately reshaped his bias concerning the beasts here. He had been under the impression that unless they talked, or were Elite Jade Imps, or were the monster, they wouldn't be too much of a problem.
He had been wrong, of course. He recalled the turtle he'd seen back when he started towards the North. That rotation he'd noted around it made all the sense in the world now.
The turtle had been using its Xun. The creatures in Lower Southern Plateau were competent with their Xun; perhaps those that knew the art of Kuon existed as well. Yun Jieshi would have asked Qui Tian about this if he didn't know that her thoughts were elsewhere at the moment. She often ignored his endless questions whenever something related to food was afoot. In this case, the prospect of the cooked pheasant was likely drowning her judgment.
"Come…" Qui Tian urged the little monkey. Soon enough, they were leaving, the large dead bird hefted above them as they as they marched back home.
On the way, Yun Jieshi, ever burdened by questions – rightfully so – asked:
"Is this going to be enough?" he asked.
At once, the old woman got his meaning. This one large bird wasn't going to be able to last them a week if they kept up their present rate of food consumption. It went without saying that neither Yun Jieshi nor the hag intended to eat less, which was a shame for the surrounding wildlife.
"Tomorrow…" said the hag. Yun Jieshi's brows rose. They were going hunting again tomorrow? Well, he could hardly say he was against the idea.
They had crossed a few dozen meters when Yun Jieshi made another inquiry:
"That instruction you used to stop this bird earlier... What was it? Can you teach me?"
Qui Tian's reply was expected.
"Little Xun…"
"I know, but can you at least show me how you do it?" he asked, determined.
The hag gave a sigh and then nodded.
Yun Jieshi beamed.
Soon, the two were back at the cabin. Together, they prepared the pheasant, collecting its blood to feed the coals (part of the Dear Treasure Da Ya's Bleeding Hearth), and plucking the feathers.
As Yun Jieshi cast away the feathers outside the cabin, he remembered the frozen black feathers he dreaded so much. Did they belong to some evolved, more powerful pheasant? The one he'd killed was called the Greater Blight Wind Pheasant, after all. Was there a Greatest?
After cleaning and butchering the bird, the hag sat down by the grate and commanded Yun Jieshi to make them a succulent meal. However…
"No. I have to clean you first. We agreed to it, remember?" he said.
The hag grumbled.
Indeed, over the last few days, Yun Jieshi, in all good conscience had found that he couldn't Qui Tian to keep all the odours that clung to her hemp cloak, not to mention her skin. She was filthy – beyond just the smell – but not in the sort of way a typical human would be. Her eyes swelled, her skin grew strangely cold where it had been warm, and strange blobs of oils emerged on her skin, clumped up into ugly, dark balls.
As such, Yun Jieshi had taken up the task of cleaning the old woman. It was an odd experience for Yun Jieshi himself, and at first, he had been uncomfortable. The exercise only got less and less awkward for him because every time, Qui Tian didn't seem to be bothered by stripping to bathe.
She was only a rebel whenever Yun Jieshi declared that the time for a bath was upon her, and even then, she grew less and less mutinous as the benefits of hygiene made a stand. She always looked healthier afterwards, and would often grow more talkative than usual.
Yun Jieshi also cleaned her hemp cloak and the rough, black woollen dress she wore underneath. The little monkey had thought it to be the incarnation of tuberculosis when he first wrenched it off Qui Tian. The dust on it was so thick, he'd wondered if Qui Tian was secretly a wooden cupboard of old.
In the present, the hag decided that she didn't mind getting bathed before having some nice food. She stretched out her hand and Yun Jieshi helped her to her feet. As she went outside the cabin, he created a talisman using his blood to supply enough water for three large bowls. He placed three over the coals, and once the water within them had boiled, he took them outside.
Qui Tian had already stripped by then, her cloak and dress by her feet.
Yun Jieshi frowned when he noticed that she was rubbing the hunch in her back.
'Again? Why does it always look larger?' he thought as he set his bowls down.
This wasn't the first time he'd been vexed by Qui Tian's hunch, nor was it the first time he'd seen her rubbing it. She could treat this herself, however.
Drawing blood from her finger, she ripped a strip of hemp from her cloak and made a talisman. The characters on this particular talisman weren't something Yun Jieshi thought he could ever copy. It was bizarre how much the hag could write on the slip with a finger.
She strangled the talisman with her palm and it burst into a wild blue flame. No visible changes appeared. She simply revelled in some obscure form of relief, never scratching at her hunch again. This was the third time Yun Jieshi was seeing her use this talisman.
After cleansing Qui Tian, and drying her washed clothes over the coals, Yun Jieshi took advantage of her improved mood to ask her to demonstrate the talisman and instruction from earlier. She didn't have any qualms with that.
She produced a slip of hemp and wrote a complex series of characters on it using a scallion stem.
Once the talisman was ready, the hag placed in on the teapot with the chipped muzzle. The writing on the talisman was suffused with a faint blue glow and then the teapot started floating a few inches above the ground, spinning.
It clicked in Yun Jieshi's head right then.
"Oh, so that's how you did it!"
This instruction apparently lifted the target from the ground and had them spin. The pheasant had indeed been sprinting towards Yun Jieshi that time, aided by the wind. But as soon as its feet were lifted off the ground, its body, forced to spin forward, crashed into the ground neck first.
It was a marvel how Qui Tian was able to tag it when it was moving so fast.
"Can I really not use this, even if I use my own blood?" Yun Jieshi asked the hag, his little hands balled into fists.
While Qui Tian stressed again that he didn't have enough Xun, she still showed him the characters for the talisman:
Mystery sky Westward, mystery sky Eastward, commit my desire to a cycle. Churn when I desire; rise and abide.
It was a bit wordier than what Yun Jieshi was used to, but the little monkey welcomed the challenge. It took him until Zi Kun's descent to master the characters for the talisman, but that was by no means a slight to his potential.
Yun Jieshi was delighted. He decided then that he would press the hag for every instruction she used that was beyond him. It would be nice to know them all, even if he couldn't use them.
Perhaps this was how he escaped his fate as a discount Sage.