Chapter 3: you even look at me differently

Lin Tian had spent the morning sitting by the window and watching the villagers walk by on the dirt path, testing his own limits.

Of course, he was doing well today, managing to reach the door before his knees started to shake. It was a significant improvement compared to a few days ago. He could barely move beyond the front door without gasping for air but his legs held steady.

The Chaos Dual Core is still spinning lazily inside me, pumping energy into my meridians but my body is still too weak to make use of it. Heh heh.... It dissipated like water poured down a drain.

Su Qingxue had gone to the market this morning. Before leaving she had prepared a bowl of medicine and warned him three times not to leave the house.

Lin Tian had managed to hear only half of it. By noon the wooden door slid open. A broad shouldered middle-aged man stood there with a displeased look on his face, and his clothes were significantly nicer than the average villager’s.

He stared at Lin Tian, taking in his skinny arms and legs and his pale face.

"So you are still alive, stubborn little bastard," the man muttered.

Lin Tian did not move for a second, his mind racing. One of the Lin clan’s elders? The same man Qingxue mentioned. The uncle that had ordered the village head to stop providing grain to this home.’"Uncle?"

"Tsk.... Don’t ’uncle’ me you bastard." His uncle stepped inside.

"I came to inform you that the free food is discontinued from now on. If you are well enough to sit by the window all morning, you are well enough to work. The clan needs manpower in the herb fields, and you will start tomorrow."

Lin Tian was quiet for a moment. "I am still too weak to work in the herb fields, I can’t....."

His uncle scoffed. "Same words like last month and the month before. Do you think your father’s death and your mother’s abandonment have not been enough of a burden for me? I will no longer waste my resources on you!"

He took another step forward....

"You either start working tomorrow or leave this house and don’t think Qingxue will save you this time."

"Tsk... Tsk... Do you even know what the villagers are saying? That an 18-year-old girl wastes her time and resources on a sickly boy who cannot even support himself."

"They say she’s acting like your little wife, like your little concubine."

Lin Tian narrowed his eyes; no words were coming out of his mouth.

"You think I don’t know Qingxue has been paying for your medicine with her own money?" his uncle continued.

"Bastard you have no shame at all! If you had any decency left you would not waste her time anymore!"

"If you don’t show up tomorrow I will go to her parents and tell them to lock their daughter at home! And then I will come here and throw you out onto the street myself, let’s see how long you survive without her porridge."

"I will be able to pay you back," said Lin Tian.

"Pay me back? Bastard.... pay me back with your pretty little face?" His uncle sneered.

"Listen to me boy, tomorrow at dawn. If you are not in the fields, you will no longer have a house. Do you understand?"

Before Lin Tian could respond, the sliding door opened and Su Qingxue walked inside, holding a small bag.

Her expression changed completely when she saw her uncle; the worried look she normally wore around him was gone. Her brows furrowed as her mouth set in a straight line.

"Uncle Lin," said Su Qingxue. "I already told you that he needs more time."

"And I already told you that I will no longer feed him," replied his uncle.

"Qingxue, you are a sensible girl but this is madness. This bastard is not your responsibility and people are starting to talk about you spending too much time with him alone."

Su Qingxue’s fingers tightened around the fabric bag. "So what, just let them talk."

Her voice was quiet but there was no room for argument. "I will not leave him!"

Her uncle was clearly dumbfounded, but it did not last long.

"You little brat, I will have your spine broken for this."

"I will not leave him," Su Qingxue repeated, looking straight at his uncle.

"If the clan will not give us grain I will buy it myself and if you want me to leave, I will find another place to stay. However, you will no longer dictate terms to me about him."

For a moment the two stared each other down in silence, until her uncle let out a short, unpleasant laugh.

"Very well, sure.... have it your way, just remember to stop behaving like his concubine when the village starts treating you as such."

"And you bastard," he pointed at Lin Tian, "dawn tomorrow. Don’t make me come looking for you, otherwise you’re dead meat!!"

With that he turned around and left, slamming the door behind him although it did not close properly.

His footsteps echoed in the street for a moment before fading away, and then the sliding door opened and Su Qingxue stepped back inside, closing it shut behind her.

She stood by the front door for a moment before finally sliding down the wall to sit on the floor, placing the small bag on the table between them.

"You know, you should not have said that," Tian murmured.

"Someone had to say it, don’t you think?"

Su Qingxue replied, already opening the small bag and taking the goods inside out, placing them on the table. There was not much; a small bag of rice, two eggs and a piece of dried meat wrapped in paper.

"He has been like this for too long... and every time I say nothing it only encourages him."

Lin Tian watched her as she moved around the room, his Chaos Dual Core rotating slowly, feeling the familiar pulse of her Yin energy. Now it was stronger than before.

"You know people will talk about it, especially after today," Lin Tian said. "Does it not bother you at all?"

Su Qingxue paused with the egg in her hands, before looking up at him.

"It bothers me that they think you are worthless. The rest does not bother me in the slightest. I’m really telling you, it doesn’t."

With that she returned to putting the food on the table and Lin Tian didn’t say anything.

After a while, Su Qingxue prepared another bowl of porridge, adding a couple of the pieces of dried meat to it, before sliding it to him.

"Eat first and then rest,Tomorrow we will see if you can manage to walk a bit further."

Lin Tian looked at the bowl before looking up at her. "Well, so you’re planning my entire day again."

She sat across from him with her own bowl of porridge in front of her. "You take really bad care of yourself, and if I am not here to force you, you will most likely decide on your own that, you are strong enough to walk all the way to the Lin clan’s gates. Faint there on the road and make me come and drag you back."

Lin Tian could not help a small smile at that. "You... have a very high opinion of me."

He shook his head but there was no real anger in his voice as he resumed eating. They ate in silence for a moment, and Lin Tian realized that the porridge actually tasted good today, perhaps because of the addition of the dried meat. Outside, the sun was already starting to set...

After a while, Su Qingxue looked up from her bowl and spoke.

"When you get better,"

"Are you really going to try to enter the Azure Cloud Sect? Even if your body stays like this?"she said.

Look at her eyes, so caring. "’It will not stay like this forever."

She studied his face for a moment, before looking away. Lin Tian raised an eyebrow at that.

She continued, "I keep telling myself it is because you were close to dying, but it does not seem to be the case."

"Your attitude has changed; you speak and act differently and sometimes... sometimes you even look at me differently."

Lin Tian looked at her across the small room, feeling his Chaos Dual Core speed up slightly.

"What do you mean differently? And does it bother you?" he asked her. Su Qingxue didn’t say anything for a moment.

"Your gaze... it’s not like before, and it does bother me... a little." She did not look away this time.

"But it’s not enough for me to stop coming here every day."

"Good, because I do not plan on letting you stop anytime soon."

A faint redness appeared on Su Qingxue’s cheeks as she looked away down at her bowl, her fingers tightening around it.

"Hmph! You have started talking ridiculous things again.. "Eat your porridge before it gets cold."

She took the spoon in her hand and pointed it at him.

Lin Tian obediently turned his attention to the bowl but something deep inside him felt different. Outside, it was already evening and the sun was slowly setting behind the hills. In the small house, the two of them sat in silence.

For now, at least, Lin Tian was weak and useless, his body wasting away and barely able to contain the power that burned within him.

However, already tomorrow he would be able to walk a little further and the day after that he would walk even further.

The road was long but it had only just begun and, for now, it stretched before him and Su Qingxue, who refused to leave his side. Just a sick young man and a stubborn girl.

Suddenly, he felt the invisible thread between them a little tighter than before.