Aki woke up in the alley between a doctor’s office and the town’s inn. The place was so dry that the dirt was nowhere near as comfortable as it was back home. This was hard-packed sand with no water, no give, nothing. He grunted as the bright sun shone down from the cloudless sky and shot into his eyes.

  “Fuck.”

  His body hurt, and his sinuses were dried out from this shithole of a continent. He hadn’t even been here that long. He got up enough so that he was sitting up and leaned against the inn and looked out onto the road of the town. The alley he slept in opened up so it looked right in on a general store. A general store that, until a few weeks ago, was just an empty building.

  The pair that ran this new pop-up store was interesting. One smelled like a woman, but was considered male by everyone that had gone into the shop. They called the person the other man’s son. The other man was older and was clearly very confused about everything. The son seemed to have a better grip on everything.

  Aki sighed and shook his head. “Of all the people he could have sent here.”

  He reached out and grabbed his cane and put it across his lap, his hand near the top of it, the hilt of the sword that was within. The man needed to cultivate. He made gains on his journey from the empire to this continent of Illian, and something told him he needed to consolidate those gains. There was a looming presence of fate over him that made him feel like he was going to be tested greatly in his mission.

  He closed his eyes and unfurled his spirit. The savages that lived here weren’t cultivators, and the pair that owned the store had no idea what they were doing spiritually speaking, so Aki considered himself safe. He lowered his head and breathed deeply, bringing the aura of the world into his body and cycling it through his channels.

  The fact that he was an ice cultivator on a dry desert continent was another reason he hated his job. It took him forever to dig through the aura and convert it to what he could actually use. The only upside was that the pair had set up their store in a town on the ocean, so there was at least water aura. That was easier to convert.

  He was well into his cultivating session, or he might have fallen back asleep. Which was how the woman could sneak up on him and throw a bucket of ocean water on him.

  “What?! Dammit!” He shouted as he jumped to his feet. He didn’t pull his sword, not yet. When he was awakened, his spirit instantly activated, and he threw it out to sense what was happening. The beggar glared in the direction of the innkeeper.

  “You’re stinking up my entire inn, and there’s a ship due in with people who might be paying customers,” the woman spat at him.

  Aki grinned. “Innkeeper, how are you doing? Sorry I haven’t been able to-”

  “Come on, you fool. Take a bath inside, and you might be able to make some money tonight as well. These sailors are always looking for some relaxation when they get off the ships. While the crew might look at the working girls in the tavern, the officers like what you can give them,” she cut him off and explained why she woke him up.

  With a grin, he pushed up the dark glasses he wore and nodded and followed the innkeeper. “Well, if you insist.”

  “I still don’t understand how the hell you’re able to give massages if you’re blind,” she said but wasn’t really asking him. The woman was speaking more to herself than to him.

  Aki just shrugged. “You don’t need to see in order to feel a person’s pressure and how to relieve it. I just need to feel them.”

  He couldn’t exactly see what her reaction was, but the woman stopped short before walking up the few steps to her inn’s front porch, and she stared at him. There was a glare there though, and a disgusted sneer. The blind man heard it in the tone of her voice. “I hope you’re not doing what the tavern girls are doing.”

  “Ha. They couldn’t be that lucky,” he answered and walked past her. He moved the cane here and there and tapped along, finding his way up to the stairs, and found her son waiting for them in the doorway. He smiled behind his beard at the boy and gave him a nod.

  “Good morning, Mr. Aki. My mom says you’re going to be working tonight and I’m supposed to help you,” Lee told him.

  “Excellent, my boy, excellent!” Aki answered. The beggar may have been a bit of a crotchety dick, but the children were so innocent. There was also something about this one that he liked.

  “Don’t call him that,” Lee’s mother scolded, which made Aki frown back at her. She ignored him and directed Lee to take him upstairs and help him get situated in the bathing room.

  He happily followed the boy and left the mother downstairs in the inn’s lobby, where she sounded like she was cleaning and organizing before whatever ship was due in made it. The promise of some coins was good. He needed something to eat, and that general store had surprisingly good food. Food that reminded him of home.

  It didn’t take long before Aki was leaning back in a hot bath and a soft, comforting groan escaped his mouth. He was barely able to truly start to enjoy the bath before Lina knocked on the door and made him jump in excitement.

  “Your clothing is fit to be burned, but I’ll do what I can before tonight,” she yelled through the door.

  He raised his eyebrows and looked towards the doorway. “Don’t you dare!”

  “Settle down, settle down. I said I wouldn’t. We do need to look into getting you something to wear while you work here, though. A uniform or something,” she was talking while she walked away from the door.

  Aki frowned and turned up his lip at the thought. A uniform? No, thank you. It’d probably be those slacks and one of those tight-fitting shirts they all seemed to wear here. Or, by the gods, one of those leather vests. Ugh, and those boots. How the hell could people wear such clothing? There was no room to breathe, no room to move. What if Aki got in a fight with one of those Red Scarf idiots?

  He sighed a relaxing sigh and once more leaned back in the tub. Gods, this was so much nicer than trying to wash in the ocean. The innkeepers left him alone for a little while until he heard a knock coming from lower on the door.

  “Yes, Lee?” Aki called out. His hair and beard were full of soap.

  “Mom says you need to get out of there. The runes will need to recharge before the sailors come,” the boy of about twelve called uncertainly.

  Aki groaned.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Aki but Mom said.”

  The boy did sound sorry about kicking the man from the bath, but Aki understood. He was getting a free bath. Well, not entirely free. Innkeeper Chao did have ulterior motives. She was able to up charge people if they wanted a massage, and Aki got a free night in the inn when she wasn’t fully booked and free baths.

  “Yes, yes, alright. I’m almost done,” Aki called through the door. He was mostly done; he had scrubbed as well as he could and got rid of most of the smells and muck. The man was mostly just relaxing now and, truth be told, playing in the water.

  A few minutes later, he reached through the doorway where Lee stood waiting with his robes. They were quite a bit cleaner than they used to be and, thanks to having higher quality fabric, another gift from his master, they were easy to clean. He should be good for quite a while again. He put his robes on and put his various items away, the needles, the spirit stones he used as cultivation aids and the loose papers that made up his paltry path manual. Finally, he grabbed his cane and opened the door.

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  “Well, hello Ms. Chao,” Aki said with a smile behind his beard.

  She frowned at him.

  He frowned back. “Why are you so hostile? We have a good working relationship. We should be friends.”

  Now she frowned, and he heard her nod. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be. There’s a lot of, well, there’s a lot of history with me and people from the east.”

  “Oh?” Aki raised his eyebrows. The beggar knew she had roots in the Sasuke Empire, but he had never been able to parse out the details.

  “Come on, I have you set up in the room at the end of the hall for massages and everything.”

  He followed her down the hall as she explained the story he had been trying to get out of her since he met her.

  “My mother was from the East. So am I, originally, but we moved here when I was very young, still a baby. She never told me the full story, but it always seemed like she was running and hiding from something, someone. The name Chao doesn’t mean anything to you, does it?” She asked as she opened the door to the room.

  It was the same room Aki usually used. It used to be a full room with a bed and everything, but when they first made their arrangement, she cleaned it out. There was now a simple table with some cushions on it and a pillow in the middle. A cabinet for things Aki could use and a table for things like incense and just whatever he might need.

  He pulled on his beard in thought and looked towards the woman. “I’ve never heard the name Chao.”

  She sighed. “I always got the feeling she was someone important and had to run. I don’t know, maybe I’m crazy.”

  Aki gave a shrug. He didn’t tell her his suspicions about the origin of her name. While he didn’t know the name Chao, he did of course know the name Zhao. Aki couldn’t be sure, but there were old imperial rumors of the advisor. The name Chao was too familiar without really being familiar.

  Some yelling and cursing from outside brought both of their attention to the window. Aki cocked a brow and extended his spirit in an attempt to figure out what was going on. Lina sighed.

  “Those new shopkeepers,” she said shortly without even having to look.

  “What about them?” Aki asked. He saw the aura of the Wong senior, and he was working on opening something from the sounds of it.

  Lina seemed uncomfortable. “I don’t know. There’s something about them. They seem so odd. So different and they definitely do not belong here.”

  Aki smirked. If she only knew. “Yeah, but I think everyone from the East gets treated that way here.”

  “Yeah, but they’re different. I don’t know, it’s odd. They seem not to know anything.”

  The beggar nodded and then went back to look in her direction. “I have time, right? I’m gonna go see what’s going on.”

  Lina shifted and then shrugged. “Yeah. The ship just docked, so they’ll be a while unloading and everything before anyone comes in here.”

  Without another word, Aki made his way down the stairs from the second floor of the inn and outside. He approached the man and stopped at the bottom of the few steps outside the inn and just kind of took in the scene before him as best as he could.

  “Damn strange world and its weird wood or nails or what the fuck ever. Ugh,” David fought to open a crate with a crowbar and swore some more under his breath as he fought.

  Aki stepped closer slowly. He didn’t want to startle the man and have him swing at him. “You think I can try to help?”

  David turned to the blind man and frowned. “Not sure, a blind guy,” he paused though as if he realized what he was going to say. “No, no, I’m alright. I appreciate it. Sorry.”

  People were walking by, people wearing denim and boots and vests. No one really paid any attention to either of them. Aki heard a few whispers of hatred coming for both the eastern beggar and the eastern shopkeeper. The locals were not overly friendly to people who didn’t come from this continent.

  Aki, though soured by what Wong had initially started to say, moved a little closer and mumbled. “And you’d think a cultivator would be able to open a crate, but here we are.”

  Wong stepped back in shock and stuttered. “I, uh, what? What’s a cul-”

  “Oh, knock it off,” Aki grumbled and knelt down by the crate. He narrowed his eyes and looked at it for a moment. He got a whiff of something now that he was closer to it. Just the faintest scent, almost a whisper of something, and he narrowed his brow and looked in the direction of the shop keeper. “What’s in this?”

  “Just some supplies we ordered from the Empire. Nothing major, just some things to sell,” David said a bit defensively.

  Aki nodded as if he expected that answer and leaned down and sniffed. It smelled like the stuff they’d use back in the empire to help close wounds. This had a stronger smell to it, though. More smoky and with more bite. There was a bitter smoke with a bite sharp enough to sting Aki’s nose. The beggar grunted and wondered what the hell he was getting into.

  He continued to smell it as he felt the crate. He worked the wood of the man-sized box like it was a man. His hands pressed and massaged as he looked for weaknesses the same way he did when he was giving a massage. Once he figured he knew what to do, he grabbed his cane from the ground and knocked a corner of the crate and listened to a dull cracking noise that came from it. “Well, here you go. Use your crowbar right here.”

  Then Aki stood and stepped away, still thinking about that smell. David moved forward and did as the beggar said, a bit confused at what he had just watched. He pushed the crowbar in, and the crate opened easily with a simple pry. David laughed and looked over at the blind man.

  “How’d you?” He shook his head and laughed a bit more. “Thank you. Come by for lunch sometime. My son makes some wonderful food that you might like.”

  Aki grinned. “Well, I will be there when I can. I have an engagement tonight, though at the inn.”

  David nodded. “Yeah, sure, sure. Whenever. I appreciate the help.”

  The beggar’s spirit reached in to sift around in the crate to see what was in it. As Aki suspected, there wasn’t much of importance in the crate. Some dried food that was popular in the Song region of the Empire, some basic talismans, and incense sticks. Nothing that would exactly explain the smell that was on the outside of the crate.

  He knew the Wong’s store was becoming a refuge for other immigrants from the empire, so it made sense they’d bring a lot of things over. Things that the newly arrived people would want to remind them of home. Things they knew. He continued to search until he found a small jade box that was sealed and covered in warding runes that he could sense.

  Aki furrowed his brow as his spirit tried to work its way into the jade box. He turned and looked at the elder Wong with a bit of distrust. It was quickly dismissed, though. No, this man wasn’t doing anything wrong. He didn’t even realize what he was or the power he had.

  “Oh, what’s this? I don’t think I ordered this?” David said more to himself as he picked up the very box Aki was inspecting.

  “It is an interesting box. You don’t see pure jade like that too much around here. It’s worth a lot back east,” Aki said and pulled at his beard.

  David nodded his head as his fingers drifted over the runes that were carved into it. “Yeah, some of the fancier shops back home had things like this.”

  Once more, he realized what he had said and gave a nervous chuckle. “I mean back in the empire, ha.. Haha.”

  Aki frowned and stared at the shopkeeper, or well, in his direction, and gave David a flat look. “You don’t have the key then?”

  “Key? No,” David’s finger ran over the latch that required a key to open it. “I’ll have to contact the seller and see about this. You don’t think it’s dangerous, do you?”

  Something about the box felt wrong to Aki, but he couldn’t quite place his finger on it. Why would such a box get shipped to a shopkeeper who didn’t know about it? Then there was that smell. All of this seemed weird, and he had a feeling there were much bigger people in play with all of it. Aki lowered his head and sighed. He was going to have to lie to the man and do some detective work.

  “No,” Aki said and lifted his head. He smiled at David. “Nothing dangerous at all, I’m sure. Just something that whoever owns it wants hidden.”

  “Good,” David said and sounded genuinely relieved. He gave a relieved chuckle and held the box under his arm. “I just want to help people coming over get some of the comforts from home.”

  Aki nodded once. He could feel the man’s honesty. He was just trying to help, but Aki couldn’t help but feel they were being used as pawns in something much bigger than the both of them. Then there was a hot, dry breeze that swept through the street, and Aki’s icy spirit recoiled, and he frowned. He pulled his spirit back and clapped David on the shoulder with a fake smile. “Have a good night. Be safe.”

  He had just started to walk away from David after the man gave him his thanks for helping once more when he heard Lee step on the porch of the inn and yell out. “Mr Aki! Mom said you’re probably going to have work to do in a few minutes.”

  A hand raised in understanding to the boy, and he nodded and made his way over as he pulled on his beard. “Damn continent. I just want to go home.”

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