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The boy can't be much younger than her, a-Qing thinks, even if he's crying like a baby. He's pudgy, too well-fed to be a street urchin. His clothes are well-made, though muddy, and one of his sleeves has torn. He's probably just being bullied by other boys in his school for being too uppity, and therefore none of her business.
"Qingqing," says Xiao-daozhang, materializing beside her, "is something amiss?"
"No," she says, hooking her arm with his. She doesn't look back as she guides him through the market toward the street back to their house on the outskirts of town.
*
She sees him again, grubbier today than last time, as if he hasn't washed in a week. He's attempting to beg steamed buns from Madam Feng. It's a lost cause; that old hag wouldn't budge on her price if you offered to buy her whole stock. It's five coins each or none at all.
She has pocket money from Xiao-daozhang, meant for buying sweets, but a-Qing finds herself pulling out ten copper coins and handing them to Madam Feng.
She shoves one of the buns in the boy's hands and takes off before he can do something like thank her.
*
Song-daozhang comes to visit as the weather turns. He goes to town to pick up the new axe blade Xiao-daozhang had commissioned and returns with the boy. His fine robes have been reduced to rags and he smells enough of grimy boy that a-Qing, inured to the worst of rotting vegetables and dank alleys, wrinkles her nose.
"And who is this?" Xiao-daozhang asks, leaning forward. He doesn't seem bothered by the smell.
"A-Song," the boy whispers. He taps his forefingers together, one-two-three, as he speaks.
Xiao-daozhang smiles warmly and bows to him. "Welcome, a-Song. Would you like something to eat?"
*
A-Song isn't so bad once he's had a bath and eaten his fill of Xiao-daozhang's rice and tofu. He's shy and soft-spoken at first, but after he gets past his reticence, he starts talking and doesn't stop.
He knows every kind of butterfly that flits through the garden as they weed and can identify all the birds just by their calls. He holds a wealth of knowledge about the pebbles they find along the bank of the stream where they wash their clothes.
He sounds like the merchants whose pockets a-Qing used to pick, overly formal and a little haughty, even while they scrub the wooden porch. A-Qing would laugh at him, but she doesn't mind being spoken to like a princess. And besides, a-Song knows so much about the gentry and the great clans, the parts of the cultivation world that Xiao-daozhang and Song-daozhang leave out of their stories.
She asks him how he knows so much about everything, and he clams up. He doesn't speak for the rest of the day and into the next. A-Qing brings him a bun from Madam Feng's, and he finally opens his mouth to accept the apology.
She doesn't ask him again.
*
Xiao-daozhang teaches them both cultivation along with how to grow chives and make tofu. They meditate in the mornings before gathering eggs from the hens and again just before bed. He shows them basic open-hand forms, turning the work into a game. Xiao-daozhang tells a-Qing that she will likely never be a strong cultivator since she started so late, but one does not have to have a strong golden core to do good in the world.
A-Song is further along than she is, the beginnings of his core a remnant of his life before he came to live with them. She would be jealous, but it means Xiao-daozhang makes him meditate more.
They both practice their characters for talismans, their progress handed to Song-daozhang for inspection when he visits. He corrects a-Song's work quickly and sighs at the sight of a-Qing's. Xiao-daozhang laughs while Song-daozhang despairs. He sits beside a-Qing and goes through the strokes of each character with her once again while Xiao-daozhang and a-Song prepare their dinner.
A-Qing watches Song-daozhang's gentle hands as he marks each stroke on the paper. She follows along, messing up occasionally just to keep his patient attention on her a little longer.
*
Song-daozhang brings them practice weapons the next time he visits: a sword for a-Song and a rattan staff for a-Qing. He takes them through the forms for each and teaches them how to defend against one another.
A-Qing's hands rub raw to blisters which slowly turn to calluses. She practices every day, until her arms no longer tire when she spins it over her head.
"Qing-jie," a-Song calls from the edges of the field where she spins and twirls through the forms. "It's time to eat!"
A-Qing thrusts her staff like a spear one last time before she turns to follow.
*
Gentry are rare in their part of the world, so it is notable when not one but three appear in the market while a-Qing buys rice from Wan-shu. They look more like merchants than Xiao-daozhang and Song-daozhang, but their swords mark them as cultivators. From one of the clans, judging by their finery.
"You're sure this is the place?" one of them is asking another when a-Qing gets within hearing range.
"Yes, Xue-gongzi. Jin Rusong was left here. He's certainly long gone by now."
Xue-gongzi scowls. "You were supposed to deal with him, Dong'er. He shouldn't have been left anywhere."
*
A-Qing ponders the cultivators' words as she makes the trek back to the little house she shares with Xiao-daozhang and a-Song. It doesn't seem very in tune with what she knows of cultivators for them to intentionally leave someone in a remote village like theirs. They certainly didn't match Xiao-daozhang's stories of noble gentry, or even a-Song's tales about palaces of gold. That Xue-gongzi especially seemed too cruel to be a cultivator.
A-Qing grips her staff a little tighter as she walks, glad to see the gate of the house and the smoke that means Xiao-daozhang and a-Song are home.