During dinner, we finally learned everyone’s names and that the woman was indeed his wife but was older than she looked. It was a relief to both me and Amber and she definitely seemed a little more at ease with the information. He was Tang Shun, and she was Tang Jian and their son was Hai. They were all very friendly and welcoming and overly thankful for my part with the bandits.
Dinner was as good as I had hoped. There was miso soup, white rice, and the duck was as great as I thought it’d be. There was also a dish of snap peas and fried Bok choy in a sauce I thought was oyster sauce. After eating way too much at dinner, I felt like I had to waddle up the stairs. The innkeeper didn’t have anyone else in the inn, so the three of us had our own rooms.
As good as the food was, the bed wasn’t. It was lumpy and flat and the pillow was as flat as I had ever seen. I mostly just tossed and turned in the bed and let my mind wander. My thoughts mostly centered on that day’s bandit encounter. I thought about everything I knew about cultivation in this world. I’d have to speak more about Hisai, but I knew following a person’s path was important. It almost seemed like this world used ‘path’ to talk about a person’s dao in the way.
My eyes went wide, and I sat up with the realization. Different terms didn’t mean things didn’t work the same. The only thing that didn’t make sense was that I didn’t have an element. Me and Betsy were linked though, I felt that. My dao was moving though? I sat there on the edge of my bed and held the side. I guess it made sense. All through my life, I had never really been happy until I found trucking. This would mean I moved the bandit with my power.
“Holy shit,” I breathed out.
I closed my eyes and felt inside my channels. I knew aura and mana all had different colors and mine didn’t look like any of the colors that I learned were the different colors. Mine was a deep dark grey that looked almost colorless unless you really focused on it. With Betsy being electricity, did this mean I couldn’t have an element if we were linked? She held the spiritual power and obviously the body cultivation side of it. So then, how did I factor into it? Could I work electricity and lightning like she did, and I just needed to learn how?
I shook my head and laid back down, happy I could figure something out. There were more mysteries, and maybe Hisai or someone else who knew all this worked could help.
“The dao of moving,” I said and gave a little snort. It sounded ridiculous, but the knowledge helped me fall asleep.
It didn’t seem like I slept for long when I heard knocking on my door and Norimoro shout. “Come on, we have to get going.”
I groaned loudly and struggled to get my eyes open. “Yeah, alright. I’ll meet you downstairs,” I called to him.
He gave a sort of grunt that I couldn’t tell whether he was happy with this or upset. I shook my head and rolled out of bed, rubbing at my eyes. I gave myself a quick wash in a basin of water in the room's corner. There were also some towels so I could dry off. Other than the table and basin and bed, the room only had a large standing wardrobe in it. There wasn’t even any sort of decoration in the room. All you could look at were the wooden walls. I opened the wardrobe and grabbed my robes, got dressed, and headed downstairs.
The family knew we were in a hurry and made little to-go dishes of breakfast for us. Just some rice and egg with some fried meat. Surprisingly, Norimoro was trying to politely argue with the innkeeper and his wife about taking money for the rooms and food.
“No sir, I’m sorry, you helped us enough last night,” the innkeeper said with a soft bow towards the official.
“Nonsense. Just take the money, we ate and slept in your beds. You will have to clean and buy more food,” Norimoro said and tried to force the money into the man’s hand.
Slept might have been an overstatement, I thought as I took a bite of the rice. I swallowed it down and backed Norimoro. “Take it. He’s loaded. He has the Empire paying for everything. It’s not his own personal money.”
The innkeeper looked at me and cocked his brow. “The Empire’s money?”
Norimoro nodded his head. This seemed to make the man change his mind, and he took the gold pieces from Norimoro’s hand.
“Very well, thank you,” he said and gave another soft bow.
“Hai got your wagons and animals ready. They’re waiting for you outside,” he said with an outstretched hand towards the front door.
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The three of us gave our thanks and bowed in return to the man and his small family before we left. We filed out, and I grinned when I looked down from the porch and saw Betsy waiting in her yoke. I realized she didn’t look happy, and I grimaced.
“What’s wrong, girl?” I asked her as I moved over and rubbed at her sides before I patted her head softly.
In response, the ox gave a shimmy, and a shake and she seemed irritated. I narrowed my gaze at her and then looked up at the inn. “They didn’t let go of your harness?”
She bellowed angrily and shook her head.
“Ah, I’m sorry girl. That new wagon will be better for you. Hopefully, it’s not too much longer to the drop off and you’ll be able to roam around without the wagon for a bit, alright?”
She nodded, but seemed grumpy about it. Great, so I was going to have to deal with that all day.
“Everything alright?” Norimoro asked, as he and Amber climbed into their little wagon. Amber seemed even less awake than I was and just laid her head against the side of the cushioned interior of the little two person wagon.
I nodded and climbed up onto my driver’s bench. “Everything’ll be alright. Betsy is just ready to be done with this load. Let’s roll out!”
Amber gave a soft growl at my yell and I laughed a little as Betsy plodded towards the exit of the town. They followed behind closely.
“Alright wait till we get a little way away from the town and let’s get moving. Were you able to recharge your batteries last night?” I called up and asked Betsy.
She grunted and didn’t answer me. I frowned and reached out towards her with my spirit. With our link, it could tell she had recovered quite well from the rest she got even though she was yoked up all night.
“Sorry about last night girl, I should have come out to check on you. We ate and then I was so full…” I trailed off and Betsy gave an indignant huff.
I sighed and shook my head. She may have been mad at me, but she did as I instructed. Once we were a little way out of the town, she lowered her head and readied herself. I could feel the aura of the world shift around us as she worked her spirit. The next thing I knew, she took off like a bat out of hell.
“Whoa, wait, don’t break the wagon!” I called as she took off. I saw the sparks of electricity spark as her hooves hit the ground. She was moving so fast you’d think she was barely touching the ground, but the hooves still hit heavy with loud thuds that shook the ground.
“WHAT THE HELL?!”
Was the last thing I heard from Norimoro and Amber for a while.
Betsy held no regard for the leather straps that held her in, or any of the wood that made up the wagon. She ran. Ran like the well, I’d say wind, but we weren’t wind cultivators. She ran like lightning and I wondered what we looked like to people as we passed them. The bumps and terrain didn’t seem to matter as we moved.
The world was a blur, and I wasn’t even able to eat my breakfast. The bowl sat there on the bench next to me. At one point, I watched the chopsticks fall off and fly off the wagon. I cringed and hoped they didn’t stab anyone. It’d probably hit like a crossbow bolt at the speed we were traveling at. No. It’d hit like a bullet, and I didn’t think this world was ready for that.
I grinned and looked up at Betsy. This all just reaffirmed my belief from last night. The path of moving, or maybe traveling, would be better. I’d have to think of a name for our path like the manuals had that were back in my bunk. For now, though, ‘The Dao of Traveling’ would have to work until I thought of something that worked more for this world.
“You know, one good thing about going this fast is that I can’t practice the shamisen,” I called up at Betsy.
I heard a noise from her that almost sounded like a laugh. Just some quick exhalations of air from her nose that sounded like I used to when I scrolled memes on my phone. Not a real laugh, just the little chuckle.
“HEY! That was your whole plan, wasn’t it?”
Another snout chuckle from the spirit beast.
“Well, hell,” I mumbled and tried to settle in.
As I settled in, I realized that even though the speed we were going, it didn’t really bother me. There was wind, sure, but it wasn’t like violently hitting me in the face. It just seemed like we were going at a brisk pace and not breaking the sound barrier. Though I was sure we couldn’t be going that fast. Wait, could Betsy go that fast? I cocked my brow and looked up at her. She pushed ahead with her head down and legs worked as fast as they could. I was even able to grab my bowl and start to eat. Luckily, I had my own chopsticks on my bunk.
We ran like this for about an hour until Betsy wavered. She slowed down to a normal ox pace and grunted. I frowned.
“Burned yourself out, didn’t you?”
She grunted again and still wouldn’t answer me, so I once more felt out with our link. She had. I cursed and shook my head.
“God dammit Betsy,” I scolded her. I got the impression of her just standing there with her arms crossed and glaring at me.
I told you that you would be able to rest once we arrived. Then we’ll offload this clay and the wagon will be that much lighter! Plus, you’ll be able to relax for a bit out of the yoke,” I said, trying to placate her.
I dug around and looked for my map to try to figure out where we were. When I unfolded it and laid it across my lap, I looked around and gave a whistle through my teeth.
“I think we did pretty good. I can’t be sure, but let’s stop off at the next town and see where we are. We might be close. Hey, then maybe we can find some of those pills for ya,” I said and tried to placate her and wondered what other sorts of pills or elixirs were in this world we might be able to take advantage of.
Well, take advantage of without abusing them and becoming pill junkies. Didn’t want that to happen.
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What will be the heart of Michael’s dao of traveling?
