Chapter 3: Ch.1: The good old times

Xie Yi stumbled unto his feet, balancing himself. It felt weird to be so tiny again and his body was so thin, he could hardly keep himself upright. And his stomach still hurt so terribly-

Oh, no, that was hunger. It was hunger. He was hungry. Very much so.

The tiny, dirty hands patted the stomach that had already turned inward from not eating so long, cramping in pain.

He was tiny, he was weak, everything seemed familiar. This… wasn’t this his childhood? From before he had been picked up by the elders?
Well now, how could that be possible? And yet, here he stood, hungry and tiny and weak.

Dazed, Xie Yi stared out into the street. People were running around, talking joyfully and shopping. The stalls selling food smelled terribly delicious, something that he could never have as a child.

...Right, now that he thought about it, he had destroyed them all as an adult, as punishment for ignoring him when he was little. The elders had said that they deserved it, but thinking about it now, that must have been a terrible thing.

Shi Yue said that killing is bad. So it certainly must be.

Hmm, not that he could do anything to them right now, anyway. All his power had vanished, all his painfully trained cultivation.

He was back to being tiny and weak and dirty, also hungry. But… He wasn’t bloody. And that kinda felt nice. Maybe it wasn’t bad like that.

Anyway, his first priority would be to find food. If he didn’t have food, he couldn’t grow up and find Shi Yue. Also, he would need clean clothes, because Shi Yue likes clean people. So, basically, he’d need ‘work’, right?

...And probably someone who would actually tell him how everything worked. But maybe they would be liars again, which would be bad, but he couldn’t find Shi Yue right now…

What a vicious circle. He’d have to take the risk.

With wobbly steps, Xie Yi walked forward, wrapping his arms around his cramping stomach and gazing around from under his fringe.

What kind of work could a little thing like him do?
And who would take him?

The ragged child stared out unto the street, thinking. Stealing was no good, because that had made Shi Yue mad.

The food stalls would probably dislike having him around, since he was too dirty. Work that wasn’t overly clean would be better for the moment. It couldn’t be too heavy either, with how weak he was. Cleaning, maybe…?

Quiet, keeping himself to corners and sides, Xie Yi made his way through the market, avoiding annoyed adults that would trample him down and the occasional carriage. It was slow and exhausting, but he had no time pressuring him. As long as he was alive, he could work on things. There was no reason to think too much about it.

With perked ears, he listened to the words of the stall and store owners while doing his best not to stand out.

Finally, he stopped at a smithy with a cursing owner. A large bear, so to speak, with broad shoulders and a rough looking face, sporting a number of smaller burn scars on his muscular arms.

The man was on his knees, trying to clean the furnace.

Xie Yi recognized it; its weird form was common for creating low-level spiritual weapons. Common because, while it made forging them easier, it was a huge hassle to deal with. Not only was it bulky, but it also had a number of twists and turns, making it look more like an artwork than a furnace. It was also quite picky when not cleaned regularly and would easily damage the product if remnant materials got stuck in the numerous tubes.

Xie Yi’s eyes lit up. 

“Excuse me?”, he called carefully, trying to keep his voice soft and childish. He had heard from the commoners that his voice was scary, and the last thing he wanted was to appear like a bad child. “Can I help you?”

The man looked up with dark brown, stern eyes, mustering the child that had appeared in the entry of his smithy, glancing around the corner at him. He was familiar with youths coming by for a job, though they usually were a good lot older than the little brat.

He stood up, towering over the child who fearlessly glanced up at him. His eyes were reddish and empty, like the boy couldn’t care less about the fact that there was someone standing in front of him.
At the same time, he felt that this was satisfactory. If the child got scared, then it would be annoying.

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He pointed at the furnace. “Can you crawl inside and clean it?”

The boy nodded with determination. “It’s no problem at all. I will clean it well.”

He then tilted his head, staring at the man who broke out into an amused grin that made him look like a butcher. “Good. You’ll get your payment after I’m sure you did a good job.”

Since hoping that the man would keep his word was his best chance, Xie Yi nodded once more and immediately went over to crawl through the opening of the furnace into the inside. It was dark and stuffy, the thick walls of the furnace feeling like a coffin. 

Xie Yi blinked once. Hm, there were worse things than that.

Grabbing the brush that was still lying on the floor before the furnace, he got to work.

First, you needed to scrape off the thicker layers of the pulverized beast cores. That was still usable, Xie Yi knew, so he cleanly put the broken off parts outside, earning himself a surprised but appreciating sound from the man who hadn’t expected there to still be any left inside the furnace after he had roughly begun to clean it.

Next, you needed to use the brush to get rid of the sticky, dried substance that would be pushed against the walls after the small explosion a finished weapon would cause. The mud that was left over after finishing would be repelled by the weapon, being a sign of a successful forging but also quite annoying to deal with.

For over two hours, Xie Yi crawled through the furnace and reached into the tubes with his thin arms, forcing the brush over the surface until his arms ached. He needed to do the job well, just like when cleaning his own furnace at home. That was important.

Wheezing, he began to sweep the dirt outside before dragging himself into the fresh air, sitting on the ground like an exhausted puppy.

Seeing him emerge, the burly man came over and bent down to glance into the furnace, making a satisfied noise.

“Good”, he praised with a calm nod. “Kid, I imagine you’re looking for a permanent job?”

“Un”, Xie Yi replied between two gasps, rubbing his arm over his face. The dust burned in his eyes, but his arm wasn’t really any cleaner and he just smeared everything.

Looking at the doll-like boy on the ground, the man just shook his head to himself. He wasn’t a charity, but he didn’t mind paying for a work well done. If he could help a street-rat without loosing out himself, then even better.

A large, rough hand grabbed Xie Yi by the collar, lifting him up. Surprised, Xie Yi held still, allowing himself to be carried as he felt no hostility from the man.

“Let’s get you some better clothes and something to eat. You won’t mind that being your pay, do you?”, the man asked, bringing Xie Yi to a smaller room in the back area.
There was some furniture and a basket full of water where the worker could clean themselves up a bit.

Xie Yi didn’t answer. The man wouldn’t have listened to his words, anyway.

“You can sleep in a corner. I’ll give you food, and in return, you keep the furnaces clean for me and do whatever else I can think of. If you’ve got a good reason to refuse a task then you can tell me, but I won’t allow you to slack off. You hear me?”

“Un.” Another quiet sound of assent. The smith was a good person by most people’s standards. Xie Yi couldn’t quite understand, but he felt that the man wasn’t hostile and the rough head pat was a gesture he often saw adults do to children they liked, so he was probably not too bad.

The boy felt a bit worried.
Auuuu… He wasn’t getting cheated again, was he? He couldn’t even get rid of the man if he was. So troublesome. Although he could slit the man’s throat in his sleep, if it came down to it. There were a lot of weapons around, after all.

Unknowing as to what kind of devil he had let into his own home, the burly owner looked at his new worker with satisfaction.

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