Cultivating Civilization - Chapter 66

Jack sat on a large rock near the camp of the Immortals’ Lament and studied the map. His eyes kept returning to the two characters that read “Raging Ox”. Every time they did, he would see a face of an eight-year-old boy looking at him with confusion and betrayal in his eyes and a pile of burning bodies.

He shook the memory from his head and looked around the bustling camp.

Xu Weifa fussed over today’s dinner and Zhu Lielei helped her from the side. Kuang Bindun held a language lesson for the new recruits, while some of the old members rested for the night’s march. Shi Furui kept walking from one end of the camp to the other with old Long while going over their preparations.

Everyone pretended that they didn’t notice Jack’s mood, or that they didn’t care about him leaving, but he could feel their eyes lock onto his body every time they thought that he wasn’t looking.

It took Jack almost an hour to convince his men not to follow him back to Raging Ox village. He even suspected that a few of them planned to follow him, but he felt certain that he could lose them in the forest. With a shake of his head, he chuckled and looked back down at his map.

Fifteen minutes later, Shi Furui came to stand next to Jack’s rock and whispered “I don’t know if I can do this. The few days while we fled from the Sect was one thing, this might take over a month.”

Jack rolled up the map and stored it in his robes. He had already given the light blue Star Bag over to Yin Ping for safekeeping and so he could continue his work. The only things he took with him were his cylinder, a pouch with metal balls, a few Spirit Capturing knives, and a sack with things he would need for the trip like food and new clothes.

He looked at Shi Furui from the corner of his eyes and told him the truth “I don’t know if you can do this either.” When Shi Furui turned towards him with slight shock in his eyes he smiled and continued “I believe that you can, but a lot of things can go wrong and ruin everything.”

Jack sighed as he looked up at the darkening sky and added “I know that I’m doing a selfish thing, but I couldn’t forgive myself if I didn’t go to check if my relative managed to stay alive.”

Shi Furui turned to study the camp for a few seconds before he asked “What if something happens on the road?”

Jack looked back down at him and shrugged as he said “Then you adapt, like we always have.”

Shi Furui looked at him, and Jack thought that he might ask another question for a second, but Xu Weifa announced that dinner was ready and they both went to line up for their food.

After dinner, the camp fell into a strange hush as everyone followed Jack with their eyes as he packed the last few things into his sack and looped it over one shoulder and across his chest.

He held his camouflaged cylinder in his left hand, as he gesticulated to his friends with his right while saying “Keep to the forest and travel by night. Speed isn’t as important as safety but go as fast as possible. This shouldn’t take longer than a month, but if I don’t show up in the White River Outpost for two months, go on without me.”

Kuang Bindun jumped in with “Don’t say that, you’ll be fine.”

Jack gave him a sad smile as he said “We take the world as it is, not how we’d like it to be. Just stay safe and look after each other. I’ll see you in a month, my friends.”

With that, Jack gave them a wave and turned to leave. A few people shouted goodbyes, but most just stood in solemn silence.

All of the people that fled from the Sect with Jack had a lost look in their eyes, even old Long. They felt like the barrier that protected them from the rest of the world disappeared and left them vulnerable.

‘This might be good for them; they need to learn how to survive on their own.’ Jack consoled himself as a dull pain throbbed in his chest.

Jack only allowed it to torture him for a few minutes as he walked down the dirt path back towards Cloverleaf. After that, he straightened his shoulders and turned into the forest through which he had to pass to reach the road that leads towards the Raging Ox village in the South.

Traveling during the night didn’t pose any problems to him, especially after reaching grade five and having his body improved. His injuries slowed him down for the first couple of days, but after using the Beast Recovery Method without stop whenever he could they healed up.

Along the way, he would follow the road at a distance where he could still see it, but where the people couldn’t notice him. He didn’t need tales of a rogue cultivator reaching the squad of the Slaughtering Sword School in the nearby Southern town.

Whenever he reached a village he would introduce himself as a traveler in search of his family. In every village, he would ask if they knew of a survivor from the Raging Ox village named Song Farong while he restocked on supplies and checked if he stayed on the correct path.

On the eleventh day, as he stopped in a village that lay on the road just before the burned down villages of Fallen Crow and Raging Ox, Jack talked to an old woman that finally gave him a clue when he asked his questions.

“I don’t know about the boy, but we did have a girl from the Raging Ox here for some days after the bandits burned the two villages down.” The wrinkled old woman said as she shook her head in sadness while she added “What a tragedy, if the Immortals didn’t come to scare them off they might have burned us on the pyre next.”

Jack frowned a little at the story that got sold to these people, but he decided to ignore it as he grabbed on to the more important piece of news “You said that a girl stayed here? Do you know where she went or remember her name?”

The old woman’s eyes went distant as she thought for a few seconds before the light of remembrance shone on her face “I think that some family of hers came to look for survivors of the Raging Ox. When they found only her, they took her back to the Green Wood village. I can’t remember her name, though.”

Jack smiled and gave the old woman a whole gold coin as thanks for the information. She looked like she didn’t know what to do with it, but she still thanked him as he said goodbye and left the village.

When Jack neared the previous location of the Fallen Crow village, he didn’t see any buildings still standing in the wide empty stretch of land. The whole area looked more like a patch of desert in the middle of a forest.

When he entered the village proper he saw numerous shallow and wide pits all around him. Only small paths between the pits that held a few blades of grass hinted that once houses existed in their place.

‘I never expected that those slow burning flames could do this. No wonder no one resettled the place after the fires.’ Jack thought as he studied the landscape with a dark look on his face.

A few minutes later, he stopped his ruminations and hurried along the road towards his old home.

It didn’t take him long to start seeing places that he recognized, but soon his nostalgia turned into dull throbbing pain as the desert-like blank spots replaced houses of his former friends and acquaintances.

Jack kept on walking in a haze of dull pain until he found himself standing in front of the empty shallow pit where his childhood house used to stand.

He blinked his eyes a few times, causing a couple of tears to run down his face, and stared at the place he once called home.

All the pain that Jack suppressed for over a year and a half hit him at once and he started to sob. Ever since he found his dead family he didn’t have any time to process the loss. First Mai Younu took him to the Endless Cycle Sect, then he had to fight for survival there, and then flee from it while taking care of his new friends.

During that entire time, he never allowed himself to grieve for his lost family. At first, the tide of emotions surprised him since he always treated them like an adoptive family in the logical part of his mind. However, once the pain came he realized that he just kept fooling himself so that he wouldn’t lean on his family members as much as he did in his previous life.

After letting it all out, the Sun started to set so he decided to make camp in the spot where his home used to stand. He collected branches from the forest to burn and gave thanks to all of his late ancestors and family members in the way that his father, Song Fengtian, taught him. As an afterthought, he also decided to add headstones with his family’s names carved into them to the ceremony,

The next day, he burned a few more branches for his family and considered his options.

‘I spent twelve days on the road; it should take at least as much to get to the White River Outpost if I go cross-country. I’ll get to Green Wood village today to see if that girl from Raging Ox knows anything about Song Farong, otherwise, I’ll have to go back.’ Jack thought as he packed up his things.

On the way to Green Wood village, Jack passed by two other villages, but they didn’t hear about anyone else from Raging Ox village surviving so he kept going.

Once he reached Green Wood at midday, he walked to the small village square and asked around for the directions to the survivor of Raging Ox. After he explained that he came from there too, the suspicious villagers relaxed and pointed him towards a new little house on the outskirts of the village.

Just as he rounded the back of the house, a young woman picked up a wooden water pail from a well and started walking towards the barn that stood to the side in the yard.

Jack froze for a second as his world crashed around him. ‘Fenlan?’ He thought instantly, but after studying the young woman’s profile for a while his eyes widened as a grin spread over his face and he shouted “Yuening!” while he used Moon Step to rush towards the young woman.

He covered the distance in an instant and picked up his fourth sister in a bear hug. While twirling her around in his arms, Jack kept repeating “You’re alive, you’re alive”

The young woman first allowed him to do what he wanted from shock, but after a second it passed and she dropped the pail of water from her hand as she screamed “Husband, help!” and started to pound Jack’s head with her rough fists.