Chapter 4: It's Alive!
Winter.
Autumn flew by far too quickly as I became obsessed with improving my surviving crop.
Snowflakes drifted lazily from slate-gray skies as I walked through my garden of horrors, checking on my disturbing cabbage patch.
"C-cold..." a weak voice suddenly muttered from one of the larger specimens.
I froze mid-step, turning slowly toward the source. There, among the frost-covered rows, one of the people-cabbages was stirring. Its face - a slightly twisted replica of the Young Mistress's - was scrunching up in discomfort as snowflakes landed on its violet-hued flesh.
I crouched down next to the awake cabbage-person. "Hello there. Can you understand me?"
"C-cold..." it repeated, its faceted violet eyes opening slowly to stare up at me. Was it staring at me? I wasn't entirely sure. Its gaze wasn't exactly human, more like something between a person and a plant, languid and slow, made up from a spiral of cabbage-like microscopic leaves that curled into themselves to produce an iris-like structure.
"Yes, it's cold," I agreed. "Can you say anything else?"
The cabbage-person's face scrunched up in concentration. "Coooold... so... cold."
"What's your name?" I asked.
Confused, big violet eyes slowly blinked at me.
"Right," I said. "You're Zen-1. Can you repeat it? Zennnn!"
"Zzz... Zennnn," the cabbage girl repeated.
"One." I added.
"Onnnnnnnnn," the cabbage murmured.
I stared at it with my Qi-sight, wondering how the hell she produced sounds without lungs, without breathing.
There it was. Deep inside.
Unlike humans, cultivators, or spirit beasts who centralized their Qi processing through organs like the heart and dantian, Zen-1's entire cellular structure was decentralized like that of a plant life.
Each plant cell acted as its own tiny cultivation furnace, absorbing, processing and storing spiritual energy in microscopic amounts.
When I channeled more Qi into my eyes to examine her internal structure, I could see the fascinating network - billions of tiny purple cells, each one containing a miniature version of the curse-cycle I'd observed in the glacier. The spiritual energy flowed from cell to cell in complex fractal patterns, like a living cultivation formation made of vegetation.
This explained her slow movements and speech - there was no centralized nervous system or quick-response organs. Every action had to propagate through this vast network of individual plant cells, each one processing the spiritual energy needed for movement or speech at its own glacial pace.
. . .
I carefully dug around Zen-1's root system, gently disconnecting and lifting the crouched cabbage-person from the frozen soil. She was about the size of the long dead girl, perhaps a bit smaller, the body made from flowing patterns of fiber and violet leaves.
"Coooold," Zen-1 complained as I carried her to my modest house.
"Yes, yes, we've established that," I muttered, shouldering open the door. Inside, a fire crackled in the hearth, filling the single room with warmth.
As I settled Zen-1 near the hearth, her violet leaf-hair began to unfurl slightly in the warmth. Her face relaxed from its pinched expression, her entire body slowly unfolding out of the cabbage-sphere to stand upright like a person, replicating my movements.
"Warm..." she sighed contentedly, swaying slowly and reaching out towards the fire.
"No!" I quickly pulled her rapidly cooking leaf-hand back. "Fire bad! No touching!"
"Wwwwarm..." Zen-1 insisted, straining toward the flames again like a giant moth to a lantern.
"For heaven's sake," I muttered, dragging her further from the hearth. "Stop pawing at the flames! You're literally made of leaves. You'll catch fire instantly!"
Zen-1 pouted, her violet face scrunching up in what was likely her progenitor's infamous "spoiled young mistress" expression. "Want warm!"
"Here," I grabbed a blanket and wrapped it around her. "This is safe warm."
She immediately tried to eat the blanket.
"No! Bad cabbage!" I chided her. "We don't eat blankets!"
Zen-1's violet eyes welled up with tears, moisture relocating itself from the rest of her leaves towards specific spots. "Huuuungry..."
A strangely human action from a distinctively non human thing.
"Right," I sighed. "You probably need nutrients. Uhhhh… What do cabbage people even eat? Let me get you some water first."
I fetched a cup of water, only to turn around and find Zen-1 trying to climb into my rice barrel that I acquired from town for some beast furs.
"No! Get out of there!" I pulled her leafy form from the barrel, spilling rice everywhere. She had somehow managed to get grains stuck all over her violet leaves, blinking at me with big, confused eyes.
A cry resounded from outside. Other cabbages were waking up.
With a sigh I smothered the fire with a pot of water.
Then, I left the rice-covered Zen-1 wrapped in her blanket and headed outside into the falling snow. More voices were rising from the cabbage field - weak, confused cries of "Cold!" echoing across the frozen ground.
I spent the rest of the day carefully harvesting my awakening crop, digging each cabbage-person from the frozen soil and carrying them inside. By nightfall, my modest house was filled with twelve violet-hued humanoid cabbages in various stages of awareness.
Night fell as I finished settling the last of my cabbage-people into makeshift beds of straw. They were all roughly the same size - slightly below the height of a normal human - with varying degrees of consciousness and coordination. All shared the Young Mistress's violet coloring and facial features, though each had subtle differences in their leaf patterns.
. . .
Sowwy ducked through the doorway that was too small for her inhumanly tall frame and then froze, her metallic feathers sparkling sharply as she took in the scene before her. Twelve violet humanoid cabbages stared back at her with identical pairs of purple, confused eyes.
"What." The Jingwei's beak clicked in shock. "The. Actual. Abyss."
"Behold!" I declared with a dramatic flourish. "They're alive!"
The spirit beast simply stared.
"They just started waking up in the snow," I explained to her. "Had to bring them inside before they froze to death."
"This is wrong on so many levels," Sowwy muttered, backing away as one of the cabbage-people reached curiously toward her shimmering, metallic feathers. "They're like... like horrible vegetable clones of that awful Young Mistress!"
"Technically they're more like her spiritual offspring," I corrected. "See how each one has slightly different leaf patterns, body variety and face structure? They inherited her base template but clearly developed individual variations."
"They're abominations!" Sowwy hissed. "We should burn them all before—"
"Warm?" One of the cabbage-people asked hopefully, reaching toward the Jingwei's shimmering metallic feathers.
"Oi, angry birb," I said. "Don't be rude to our babies!"
"Our babies?!" Sowwy barked, slapping the cabbage girl away. "What?! I refuse to…"
"Most of the formation hexagrams were your work," I said. "I only provided the Qi and the general ideas. "Honestly, Sow, without your vast cultivator knowledge on dampening formations n' such, I'd probably just blow up the entire valley or give up on this whole endeavor and raise magic chickens that explode or something."
Sowwy's metallic feathers vibrated with indignation. "I am NOT taking responsibility for... for these... THINGS!" She gestured wildly at the cabbage-people, who were now all staring at her with intense fascination.
"Pretty!" one of them slowly declared, starting a chorus of "Pretty! Pretty!" from the others.
"See? They like you," I grinned. "You're their spirit-beast mommy."
"I AM NOT THEIR MOMMY!" Sowwy shrieked, backing away as several cabbage-people began trying to touch her feathers. "I EAT people, I don't raise them! Especially not vegetable people!"
"Mommy?" one of the cabbage-girls asked.
"NO!" Sowwy flapped angrily. "I refuse to participate in this madness any further! This is NOT what I signed up for when I agreed to teach you formation theory!"
"Speaking of babies," I said thoughtfully, "where do spirit beasts like you come from anyway? Do you have, like, spirit beast parents? Little baby Jingweis running around somewhere?"
Sowwy puffed up indignantly. "That's... that's none of your business!"
"Come on," I grinned. "You can tell me! Do spirit beasts get married? Lay eggs? Build nests? Have awkward teenage phases where your feathers grow in all wrong?"
"We... we form naturally from concentrated spiritual energy!" she snapped, though her metallic feathers were distinctly ruffled. "Usually around sites of great power or significant events!"
"So you're saying you just... popped into existence one day? Like a spiritual zit?"
"I am NOT a zit!" Sowwy shrieked, her voice hitting glass-shattering frequencies. "I emerged majestically from the convergence of yin and yang energies during a celestial shard convergence, you freaking cabbage-brained disaster of a cultivator!"
"Sounds lonely," I mused, watching as the cabbage-people continued trying to edge closer to the agitated spirit beast. "No wonder you're so cranky all the time. At least now you have family!"
"They are NOT my family!" Sowwy protested. She glanced at the violet faces staring up at her with unabashed adoration. "Shooo! Stop looking at me like that! I'm a terrifying spirit beast! I eat people!"
"Go on then, explain to me how these spirit-cabbage girls are different from you exactly," I said.
"They're completely different!" Sowwy hissed, her metallic feathers catching the firelight. "I'm a natural spiritual entity formed from pure celestial energies! They're... they're magical vegetables grown from a dead cultivator!"
"So you're saying you're also an artificial construct created by random spiritual energies combining in weird ways?" I grinned. "Sounds pretty similar to me. You're just a fancier vegetable."
"I AM NOT A VEGETABLE!" Sowwy screeched in ultrasonic, sending several cabbage-girls scrambling behind me in fear. "I am a majestic and terrifying spirit beast! I've devoured countless mortals! I've..."
"Been living alone in a valley screaming at people for centuries because you're lonely?" I suggested. "Face it, Sow - you're basically just a really fancy cabbage with abandonment issues."
"Not everything is a freaking cabbage, you bloody Limpblink!"
"Limp-what now?"
"A word for humans that I invented! You're all just blinks of an eye to my limitless existence! Most of you just limp about, blink a lot, age and die."
"Uh-huh. Anyways, they're spirit beasts, you're a spirit beast," I said. "I fail to see the difference. Look, angry birb, you can either help me figure out how to nurture newborn spirit beasts or you can piss off to your cold, damp, bat-filled cave up the mountain or wherever it is you sleep when you don't hang around me."
Sowwy glared at me, then glared at the twelve violet cabbage-girls who were still staring at her with undisguised fascination.
"Fine!" she finally snapped. "But I'm NOT teaching them to call me mommy!"
"Of course not," I agreed solemnly. "You're clearly more of a 'Supreme Feathered Menace' archetype."
"Meen-aceeee!" one of the cabbage-girls immediately drawled.
"Menace!" another cabbage-girl echoed happily.
Soon the entire room was filled with twelve violet cabbage-people chanting "MENACE! MENACE!"
The Jingwei's eye twitched violently. "I hate you," she hissed at me. "I hate you so much."
"Door's over there," I pointed.
Sowwy glared at the door, then at the chanting cabbage-people, then back at me.
"I..." she let out.
"Do you remember what it's like to have pets or children?" I asked her. "Come on, you must have eaten tons of parents, tons of cultivators who cared a lot about something they've created, be it a fancy magic flying sword or a new cultivation technique. Don't you get it - you and I created something entirely new. Something you should be proud of, happy with."
Sowwy's metallic feathers rustled like knives rubbing against knives as she considered my words.
"I..." she started again, then paused as one of the braver cabbage-girls cautiously approached her once again. The violet-hued girl reached out with a leaf-hand, gently touching Sowwy's shimmering feathers.
"Shiny... Menace," the cabbage-girl said softly, stroking the metallic plumage, tiny leaves unfurling.
I pushed Qi into my eyes.
"Oh," I said watching as minute green sparks floated up from the Jingwei into the cabbage-girl. "They're eating your cursed energy."
Sowwy jerked at me in alarm. "They're what?!"
"Look," I pointed at the faint green sparks drifting from her feathers into the cabbage-girl's leaves. "They're absorbing your spiritual energy. Makes sense - they're basically spirit beasts too, just... vegetable ones. They probably need to feed on a particular spiritual essence to develop properly."
Sowwy recoiled from the cabbage-girl, her feathers flaring defensively. "They're eating my essence?! That's... that's..."
"Natural," I said calmly. "They're baby spirit beasts. They need spiritual nourishment to grow, just like you probably did when you first formed. And since they were grown from a dead cultivator's remains, they're naturally attuned to death and cursed spirit essence. You're the most cursed thing around here. You're dead."
"I am NOT dead!" Sowwy bristled. "I'm a perfectly alive spirit beast!"
"You're a cursed manifestation of spiritual energy made from death and pain," I pointed out. "A wound in the fabric of the world. You don't age, don't change, don't fade away like a human or a wolf would. Pretty much the definition of an undead. These girls were grown from a dead cultivator using formations powered by the same cursed essence spilling from the falls. No wonder they're drawn to you - you're like this tasty, big glowing buffet of cursed energy."
She simply stared at me with her usual, extra-hostile glare.
"What did you feed from when you were born?" I asked her, wondering about what I saw. "Do you remember? Can you tell me what or who died up there in the glaciers long ago?"
Sowwy's metallic feathers drooped slightly, her silver-green eyes growing distant. "I... I don't remember. Just... hunger. And cold. So cold..." She shook her head sharply. "But that's different! I'm..."
"They were cold too when they were born. Whatever, miser," I sat down in a lotus pose. "I'll feed them all myself. I know exactly what they need to nom now."
I began cycling Qi through my meridians, drawing spiritual energy from the valley's natural flows. Unlike most cultivators who had to carefully control and concentrate their energy, my abnormally wide meridians allowed me to channel massive amounts of raw Qi straight through myself nearly instantly.
The cabbage-girls immediately perked up, their violet leaves turning toward me like sunflowers tracking the sun. As I released waves of unfocused spiritual energy into the room, they began absorbing it eagerly, their leaves opening wide like radar dishes.
They crowded me, pawing at me like cats, eyes half closed, swaying with each released wave of Qi.
"Stop that!" Sowwy suddenly snapped, pushing through the crowd of cabbage-girls, her entire figure burning with emerald flames. "You're going to set your stupid house on fire pouring out raw Qi like that!"
I opened one eye. "Oh? Worried about me now?"
"No!" she bristled. "I just... it's... dangerous! They need properly refined spiritual essence, not this crude bombardment! You're like a bloody forest fire! Argh!"
"Well then," I smiled, ceasing my meditation, "feel free to demonstrate the proper Qi cultivation technique, Miss Supreme Feathered Menace."
The Jingwei clicked her beak in annoyance, then settled into a more comfortable position. Her metallic feathers began to glow with a soft emerald light as she carefully released controlled streams of refined spiritual essence.
The cabbage-girls immediately gravitated toward her, their violet leaves gently brushing against her shimmering plumage as they absorbed the offered energy. Unlike my crude Qi-dumping that made the entire house glow with orange, radial flames, Sowwy's spiritual essence was precisely modulated, dancing in soft patterns like green, beautiful auroras.
An emerald snowflake ignited beneath her, edges spreading out to make more snowflakes under each of the twelve cabbage-girls, magic converging into incredibly precise, complex multidimensional geometry.
There were more edges to each snowflake than possible in reality, Qi folding into itself in incredible Mobius loops and Non-Euclidean shapes in my Qi-enhanced sight.
"Show off," I muttered, watching as my cabbage-girls swayed contentedly in Sowwy's spiritual light show.
"This is how you properly dispense Qi to your disciples, idiot," she clicked. "Not whatever imbecility you're trying to pull with that simply drowns everything in your Qi until reality catches fire. Are you trying to kill them and yourself? Who taught you how to cultivate?"
"Well excuse me," I retorted, "Not all of us had four hundred years to nom on cultivators to perfect our fancy ass spiritual light shows. Some of us had to flee magic schools in shame after dying horribly."
"Maybe if you'd paid attention in your formation classes instead of setting teapots on fire or whatever, you wouldn't have died in the first place!" Sowwy retorted, still maintaining her delicate emerald light show.
"I didn't set the teapot on fire - Wei did," I corrected. "I just inherited his terrible cultivatory body and memories."
Sowwy's emerald eyes flickered slightly as she turned to stare at me. "What?"
"Oh right, never told you," I said. "I'm not actually Wei."
"WHAT?" Glowing eyes blinked at me.
"I got yanked into Wei's body from some distant elsewhere after he died trying a lightning-summoning technique," I explained. "Got all his memories and cultivation knowledge, but I'm not him. Pretty sure the original Wei's soul moved on during those 42 seconds of death."
Sowwy's emerald snowflakes stuttered and wavered as she processed this information. "You're... you're a body snatcher?!"
"I didn't choose to be in this particular body in this particular location," I crossed my arms. "It just sorta happened. Outside of my control. And I sure as hell wasn't going to stick around in a cult compound filled with people who knew exactly how Wei behaved for years."
The Jingwei stared at me for a long moment. "That... actually explains a lot. You're an Outsider. An Entropic entity from the Astral Ocean. A deranged spirit from the Infinite Abyss. Someone who somehow... avoided the Wheel. Hrmmm."
"I'm not that deranged," I huffed.
"Not that deranged?" Sowwy waved a hand at the cabbage-people. "You literally grew these bloody THINGS from a CORPSE! Using cabbage-reinforcement formations! What kind of twisted Abyssal entity ARE you?"
"A practical one," I replied. "Look, I woke up in a body with incredibly wide meridians that made normal cultivation dangerously explosive for my person. But those same wide meridians are perfect for channeling massive amounts of raw Qi into growth and reinforcement formations. So I figured - why not try something new?"
Chapter 5: Meta-Formation Array
"You're a damned cosmic parasite," Sowwy muttered. "Should have known no normal cultivator would think of growing people like vegetables."
"Says the beaked spirit beastie who snacks on people and sleeps in a cave," I retorted. "At least I'm creating life rather than just consuming it."
"That's..." Sowwy's beak clicked in frustration. "That's different! I'm a natural local domain predator! You're an unnatural entity with unnatural ideas from beyond the stars of Massarim."
"At least I'm a nice unnatural entity," I said. "You're just mean and rude. Except for when you're teaching cultivation. Then you're somewhat tolerable."
"I kill and eat people!" Sowwy protested. "That's literally my entire purpose! Being nice is not part of my spiritual mandate!"
"What the shit is a spiritual mandate even?!" I demanded. "Who wrote it? Why are you obeying it? Are you happy being a freaking talking murder birb?"
Sowwy's metallic feathers flashed with emerald flames. She maintained her emerald snowflake light show, the cabbage-girls still swaying contentedly in its glow. "Of course I'm happy! I'm a terrifying spirit beast! I bring death and fear! I..."
"You're the final breath, a curse of a god that died in pain, manifested into physical form," I said. "You're not a mandate. You're some dead girl's or a god beast's final swearword, a middle finger to the uncaring universe."
"Stop trying to psychoanalyze me! I'm a spirit beast! We don't need origin stories or emotional development!"
"Psychoanalyze?" I laughed. "That's a pretty fancy modern word for a living swear. Where'd you pick up that one? You're obviously changing, shifting from whatever swear you are. By feasting on men, you become men. You probably started as a monstrous bird, a lost, clueless thing like these girls, but then you killed and absorbed and then killed again..."
Sowwy's Qi-dispensing fractal snowflakes flickered violently. "Shut up, mortal! You don't know anything about me! I am what I am!"
"You are what you eat," I pointed out. "And you've been eating humans for centuries. No wonder you can talk and think like one now. Do you have enough humanity in you now to break the chains of whatever weight you carry? To snap from whatever revenge you're supposed to be? Do you even know why you're killing hikers and farmers?"
The Jingwei stared at me, her Qi formation wavering dangerously. The cabbage-girls sensed the tension and began backing away, their violet leaves trembling.
"I..." Sowwy's voice cracked. "I don't... I just..."
"You don't even know why you're killing anymore, do you?" I asked pointedly. "It's just a habit now. Like a prayer you've forgotten the meaning of but keep reciting anyway."
"Stop it," she snarled, wings spread wide.
"Make me stop," I challenged, gripping onto my trusty weapon at my side and backing away to allow myself sufficient swinging area.
Sowwy let out an inhuman shriek, her metallic feathers flaring out like razor blades, like a ball of knives, like a deadly porcupine the single touch of which would infect my flesh with poisoned Qi, make it rot from within.
The emerald snowflake-formations beneath her shattered as she lunged at me, talons extended.
The cabbage-girls scattered in panic as I swung my trusty shovel into her face, sending her flying backwards.
"Touch a nerve, did I?" I asked, advancing towards her as she blinked at me with burning eyes, kneading her bleeding face. "The snoot-boops will continue until morale improves!"
"I bloody swear," Sowwy glared at me, glowing blood dripping from her beak. "One of these nights, I'm going to eat you."
"No you won't," I said. "I sleep during mornings and at night I walk with a shovel. Constant vigilance. You're an excellent guard dog, but that's all you are to me - a dog covered in jagged swords that can bite me at any time. Unless you evolve into a human being, you're going to get the shovel to the face. In half a year you haven't eaten a single human in these mountains, focused on prancing around me and trying to eat me. Who else is going to keep your murderous tendencies in check with regular shovel therapy?"
Sowwy clicked her beak. "Keep me in check? You think you're keeping ME in check, you blasted human critter?"
"Yep," I waggled the shovel. "I've been doing that for a while now, unless you haven't been paying attention. You haven't eaten anyone since I moved in. Just trap-caught spirit beasts that I've been feeding you. You're leashed to me by your own nature as a dead bird-god's revenge against humanity."
"You!" Blinding green flames ignited across her wings rushing towards me, woven from pure, undiluted hatred.
I answered it with my own unleashed Dantian, a torrent of fire.
I was the blaze, an exploding volcano, a tornado made from orange flames.
The emerald curse spun around me harmlessly as I walked towards her and slammed her on the head again with the orange-flames covered shovel. "Receive the blessed boop, for it is calming!"
Sowwy's legs gave out as she rolled on the floor pawing at orange flames atop of her head.
The entire house around us creaked, the boards wobbling, stones rattling.
"Do you want to explode?" I asked her. "Because I can make you explode. I can pour so much of my Qi into you that you'll burn from inside out and there won't be a single thing you can do to stop it."
She looked up at me in undiluted fear.
"Because that's what I am - pure, uncontrolled power. The original Wei couldn't focus it, but I can unleash it on purpose. I can make this entire valley burn if I want to. But I don't want to. I want to create new things. And you... you want to destroy things because that's what you were made to do. But you can be more than that, just like I can be more than a firestorm."
The green flames around Sowwy flickered and died as she stared up at me, emerald-sparkling violet blood dripping onto the wooden floor.
"Are you just a curse hanging over this land or are you an individual who can choose her path forward?" I asked.
Sowwy's iridescent feathers drooped as she looked away. "I... I don't know how to be anything else," she admitted with a snarl. "Screw off with that!"
"Then learn," I said, lowering my shovel. "Start by helping me teach these cabbage-girls how to be people. Maybe you'll figure out how to be more of a person yourself along the way."
The twelve violet cabbage-girls had hidden themselves behind various barrels and pieces of furniture during our confrontation, their violet leaves trembling. Now they peeked out cautiously, their purple eyes wide with fear and confusion.
"See what you did?" I gestured at them. "You scared our flock. Way to go."
Sowwy's beak clicked softly as she looked at the frightened cabbage-girls. "I... I didn't mean to..."
"Of course you didn't," I sighed. "You just defaulted to murder-birb mode because someone poked at your emotional wounds. Go say sorry. Let them lick up your wounds or something. I dunno what you spirit beasts do."
"We don't..." She began.
"That's right," I said. "You don't congregate, or meet up, or exchange ideas, or hug. Spirit beasts are individual entities separated by domains, bound to concepts you didn't choose. Try to choose this. Try to feel something for once in your long-ass life of selfish existence!"
Sowwy made an indignant clicking sound with her beak. She stared at the frightened cabbage-girl spirit beasts.
"I've gained a certain Understanding if you will over these months," I said. "About cultivation, about formations, about dampening runes."
The orange fires dancing around the house were already dying.
Sowwy glanced left and right, noticing that something funky was going on.
"This house is covered in Qi-dampening runes," I said. "Thousands upon thousands of them. Every brick, every wooden board, every nail is inscribed in them. What do you think I've been doing during the days? That firestorm you just saw - it was a controlled release of mana. I could have incinerated you with an eye blink."
"You..." Sowwy's beak clicked in shock. "You've been practicing formations this whole time?"
"Every day while you slept," I nodded. "Carving tiny runes into everything. The explosion with the Young Mistress wasn't just a mistake - it was a lesson."
I snapped my fingers and a flame sphere manifested there, blindingly bright. "Behold, I am fire. A furnace of unrefined Qi contained within one house. Every inch of my under robe, every bit of my skin is covered in barely visible, tiny dampening formation runes you taught me."
Sowwy swallowed.
"I'm Qi incarnate," I continued, spinning the flame sphere between my fingers. "The original Wei couldn't control his massive meridians, but I can. Not through concentration like normal cultivators, but through extensive formation networks. Every movement I make is contained and controlled by thousands of microscopic runes. I'm basically a walking formation array. This flame isn't exploding catastrophically because I've muted myself sufficiently enough."
The cabbage-girls had begun creeping out from their hiding spots, drawn by the dancing flames. Their violet leaves reached toward the spiritual energy radiating from my display.
"You taught me formation theory," I continued, letting the flame sphere dance across my fingers, "but I took it far beyond what you imagined and next year I'll take it even further."
"Further?" She asked with a horrified expression.
"Further," I nodded. "Past the walls of this house. Into the valley. And you're going to help me do it. Not because you want to, but because it is your nature. Because you're a moth drawn to my fire. You're the yin to my yang. You're darkness to my light and together we are going to change the world, one step at a time."
"You're insane," Sowwy breathed, watching the flame dance between my fingers. "A mad Outsider, a skewered, infested human!"
"Perhaps," I agreed. "But I'm also right. You've been helping me all along, even when you claimed to hate everything I was doing. You could have left at any time, but you stayed. Because deep down, you want to be part of the engine I'm setting in motion. You need someone to terrorize, need a human to chase and curse. I'm simply putting all that energy into something more productive - into creating new life. Spirits who feed on spirits. Spirits who can propagate and spread across the land and break absolutely everything."
I waved my hand at the cabbage-people.
"They're not just vegetables with faces," I continued, gesturing at the violet-hued figures. "They're the next stage of evolution. Spirit beasts who can reproduce without needing to form naturally from ambient energy or curses. A new form of life that bridges the gap between mortal men and immortal things like you."
Glowing wide eyes stared at me.
"Go on," I said with a smile. "Hug them. Accept them into your heart. They were made for you, for everyone on Massarim not to feel alone anymore."
Sowwy stared at me for a long moment, then at the watching cabbage-girls. Her metallic feathers rustled softly as she slowly stood, emerald blood still dripping from her beak.
"Made... for me?" she blinked.
"For everyone," I said. "But yes, especially for you. A flock for the lonely spirit beast. Children who can absorb your cursed essence and transform it into something new. This world is filled with curses that refuse to die, monsters that refuse to change. This will be their undoing. Plants that feed on cursed land. A new type of life, impervious to the conceptualization of magic-enforced death."
"You're saying..." Sowwy's beak clicked uncertainly, "that these... these damned things could change the very nature of spirit beasts? Of curses themselves?"
"Do you perhaps know something else that can feed on curses to grow and multiply?" I asked her, leaning on my shovel.
Sowwy's feathers fluttered like a thousand silver-green blades as she considered my words. "No," she admitted. "Curses are... permanent. Unchangeable. That's their nature."
"Until now," I smiled. "Look."
I gestured at the cabbage-girls, who were now creeping closer to Sowwy again, their violet leaves unfurling. Green stardust was drifting from the Jingwei's metallic feathers into their violet leaves as they approached her, pawing at her gently.
"But... They're... So weak," she said. "Easily cut down. They're just... cabbages."
"For now," I said. "There's only twelve of them, but like regular cabbages they are designed to multiply," I continued. "Each one can potentially produce seeds, which can grow into more. And those new ones... we can make them stronger, more adaptable, tougher."
"We?" the Jingwei clicked her beak questioningly.
"Yes," I nodded. "A curse and a man."
"We can't possibly..." Sowwy began, then trailed off as one of the cabbage-girls gently touched her bleeding face, violet leaves absorbing the emerald droplets.
The cabbage-girl's leaves shimmered as they absorbed Sowwy's emerald blood, their violet hue taking on a slight metallic sheen. The spirit beast stared in fascination as her essence was transformed before her eyes, integrated into the cabbage-girl's being.
"See?" I said. "They literally eat curses."
"Does it mean that they'll grow up to tear me apart someday?" Sowwy asked.
"They're soft, leafy cabbages," I pointed out. "They don't have claws. How are they gonna tear at anything, you daft creature?"
"They're cabbages who can absorb and transform curses," Sowwy pointed out. "Who knows what cursed things they might evolve into?"
"That's the exciting part," I grinned. "They could become anything. But right now, they're just baby cabbage-people who need guidance and nurturing. Are you in? Don't you want to guide them in a particular, unique direction with your birdy wisdom stolen from those you have consumed long ago?"
The Jingwei clicked her beak thoughtfully, looking at the twelve violet, leafy figures who were still gently pawing at her metallic blood.
"I..."
Chapter 6: The Valley of Life
In the end, Sowwy was unable to push the words out of herself, but she was also unable to escape the delicious human pestilence persistently infesting her valley.
I was an incredibly tasty nut that she could not swallow. A coconut masquerading as a pine seed, perpetually lodged in her throat.
As snow buried the house and winter froze the waterfalls solid, we settled into another routine. During the day, I worked on expanding and reinforcing my network of formation arrays throughout the house while Sowwy slept in the shed.
At night, she would help teach the cabbage-girls while pretending she wasn't getting attached to them.
Unlike our duo, the Cabbage-spirits didn't function in cycles, they had rhythms of activity and inactivity. They enjoyed "rest" rather than sleep.
The cabbage-girls were still quite simple in their cognition and behavior, more like spiritual toddlers than full people. They could speak basic words and follow simple instructions, but their understanding was limited. Most of their communication consisted of mimicking phrases they heard and expressing basic needs like "hungry" or "cold."
Like Sowwy they didn't really understand clothes, nor did they have a need for modesty since they lacked any sort of conventional anatomy - they were essentially humanoid arrangements of violet leaves and fibrous plant matter.
Their "skin" was actually layers of fine leaves that could unfurl or contract based on temperature and spiritual energy levels.
I made simple necklaces with little wooden tags with numbers on them to keep track of them.
Their intelligence seemed to develop in stages, like watching a flower slowly unfold. At first they could only mimic simple words and respond to basic stimuli. But as winter deepened, they began showing signs of more complex thought and individual personalities.
Zen-1, the first to awaken, was the most advanced. She had progressed from just saying "cold" to forming complete, if simple, sentences. "Zen-onnn want story," she demanded in the evenings, settling near the hearth with her violet leaves unfurled to catch the warmth. "Zen first. Zen-onn spesssiall."
The others were still at various earlier stages of development. Zen-4 was obsessed with touching everything, while Zen-2 spent hours staring at her own reflection in water buckets. Zen-9 had developed an odd habit of trying to stack things into towers, though her lack of coordination meant they usually collapsed. Zen-7 hung around me like a duckling, following in my steps and pawing me softly for Qi.
Teaching them was an interesting challenge. Sowwy, despite her constant protests about not being a teacher, turned out to have surprising patience when it came to demonstrating basic skills. Patience that probably came with being naturally undying. I wondered what would happen if the wolves did eat her. Would she just remanifest again in a century without her human memories?
The spirit bird spent hours showing the spirit veggies how to properly channel and refine spiritual energy, though she adamantly refused to teach them any "dangerous" techniques.
"No lightning!" she screeched whenever one of them tried to mimic the Young Mistress's signature purple sparks.
The passive-aggressive traits of their progenitor began manifesting in amusing ways. Zen-3 had mastered the art of the dramatic leaf-rustle of disapproval while Zen-6 developed an imperious stare that was likely a comedic replica of the Young Mistress's famous "I'm surrounded by clueless peasants" expression.
It was particularly funny on her because she had no idea what she was doing herself 80% of the time.
"They're getting her personality traits," Sowwy observed one night, watching as Zen-8 threw what could only be described as a cabbage tantrum because her sister wouldn't share a shiny spirit rock. "It's... disturbing. Could you not maybe have picked out a different person to turn into a cabbage?"
"You have personality traits," I pointed out. "Just differently awful ones. Like randomly shrieking at midnight."
"I do not randomly shriek!" Sowwy shrieked. "I emit carefully timed vocalizations designed to inspire terror in anyone who dares to enter my domain!"
"That was definitely a random shriek just now," I said, watching as several cabbage-girls mimicked Sowwy's shriek with varying degrees of success.
"Stop that!" Sowwy shrieked at the shrieking cabbages. "You are NOT banshees! You don't have a domain to protect from annoying wolves! Cease this shrieking at once!"
I laughed at them, not bothered by the shrieking one bit thanks to the sound dampening formations carved into wooden necklace hanging on my neck.
"This is your fault," Sowwy glared at me as the cabbage-girls made all sorts of shriek-adjacent sounds. "You've turned them into little monsters."
"Pretty sure they were always veggie-monsters," I shrugged.
. . .
Spring arrived with a rush of melting snow and new growth. The cabbage-girls had progressed remarkably over the winter months, particularly in their understanding of dampening formation arrays.
I'd taught them to carve tiny formations into everything - stones, sticks, leaves, even their own fibrous flesh.
They took to it naturally, perhaps because they were essentially living formations themselves. Their violet leaves would often unconsciously arrange themselves into intricate patterns that mimicked the flow of spiritual energy.
One morning, I discovered Zen-1 had carved an entire wall of the house with microscopic formation arrays overnight. The patterns were crude but functional, creating a subtle resonance that helped regulate temperature.
"Look!" she said proudly, pointing at her handiwork. "Zen-1 make warm!"
"Great job," I praised her. "Keep it up."
Inspired by the older sister, the others began carving formations into everything they could reach. Soon the entire house was covered in their experimental arrays - some functional, others purely decorative, and a few that did peculiar things like making objects float randomly or creating tiny rainbows in unexpected places.
It was very basic, very simple kind of magic, but it was magic nevertheless and they found endless entertainment in it.
Sowwy was less enthusiastic about their growing formation abilities. "They're going to blow something up," she predicted darkly, watching as Zen-5 carefully carved tiny arrays into a wooden spoon. "Just like you did."
"They aren't me," I pointed out. "I'm a river of fire, they're just cabbages. Like plants, their heartcores are basically non-existent, spread out across every cell, every fiber. They can't pour Qi into a thing to blow it up, the best they can do is bend reality ever so slightly with an ungodly amount of formations."
As spring deepened, the cabbage-girls began spending more time in the fields, their violet leaves soaking up both sunlight and spiritual energy. They seemed to thrive in the valley's unique environment, where streams of death-essence from the glacial waterfalls mixed with natural life-force from the soil.
One morning, I found Zen-1 had planted herself in a patch of earth near the original burial site, her legs literally rooted into the ground.
"Zen-1 grow," she announced proudly when I found her.
"What exactly are you growing?" I asked, crouching down to examine her root system.
"Me," she replied with an imperiously adorable look.
"Good on ya, kiddo," I patted her head.
Over the next few days, more of the cabbage-girls followed Zen-1's example, rooting themselves in various spots around the valley. They would spend hours just... existing, their violet leaves spread wide to catch both sunlight and spiritual energy.
"What exactly are they doing?" Sowwy asked one evening, perching on her favorite boulder to observe the planted cabbage-girls.
"Reproducing, I think," I replied, watching with Qi-sight as tiny violet buds began forming along Zen-1's root system. "As cabbages do."
"They're going to get eaten if they just sit in the dirt like that," she pointed out.
"Uh-huh," I nodded, burning a formation into the nearby rock with my finger. "Do some shrieking. Scare the big bad wolves away."
"I do NOT exist just to..." Sowwy began indignantly. Her metallic feathers bristled. "Fine! But only because I don't want anything disrupting my domain!"
She launched herself into the air with a dramatic flourish of feathers, circling the valley while unleashing her signature banshee wail.
"Good murder birb," I grinned up at her burning emerald circles across the cloudy night sky overhead like a crop duster.
The first sprouts emerged after about two weeks - tiny violet shoots pushing up through the soil around the rooted cabbage-girls. Each sprout had its own unique leaf pattern, though all shared the same general violet hue of their "parents."
"Look!" Zen-1 exclaimed excitedly, pointing at the dozens of tiny shoots surrounding her. "Me!"
"Not exactly you," I corrected, examining the sprouts. "More like... your children. Little baby Zens."
"Baby... Zens?" she tilted her head quizzically.
"Yes," I nodded. "Like how you came from the heart of the original Zheniya, these come from you. But they'll be different. Their own people."
"Own... people," Zen-1 repeated thoughtfully, looking down at her sprouts. "Mine?"
"Yours to protect and teach," I nodded.
"Prrotek how?" She asked with a concerned expression.
"Formations," I said, handing her a rock with a ward on it. "Make enough of these and you'll bend the world to your will."
"Daddy... can you bring me... more rocks?" She asked.
I felt instantly warm at her words and offered her a hug. Then I walked off, returning with a whole barrel filled with pebbles gathered from the waterfall. "Here you go."
By summer's end, the valley had become a thriving nursery of spirit-cabbages. The original twelve had each produced between twenty to thirty offspring, creating a population of several hundred violet-hued humanoids in various stages of development.
I walked around the field of cabbage with my shovel on my shoulder and a big smile on my face, letting out Qi into the ground with every step. A thousand rocks painted with formations crunched below my feet, dampening my fire and redirecting it into the roots of my garden of life.
The new generation grew at the same rate as the old, but none of the little buds had died because of the ungodly amount of formations protecting them from the elements. The cabbage-moms watched diligently over their kids, armed with slate knives, obliterating any snails or hungry bugs that dared approach.
Where the original Jade Mistress Zheniya never had children of her own to care for, her spiritual descendants were proving to be remarkably nurturing parents. Each of the original twelve took their reproductive role seriously, carefully tending their sprouts and teaching them formation basics as soon as they developed enough awareness.
Without sleep, the cabbage-girls sang to their kids, whispered to them about the sun and the stars, about cultivation, curses, spirit beasts, me and Sowwy. They told tales of the mighty shovel and the angry birb, of warmth and cold, of formation arrays that could make rocks float and water dance.
The new generation of cabbage spirits had awakened early, filled with love and wisdom of their parents.
The power of the ancient curse pouring down the falls and permeating the soil became converted into warmth and nurturing energy, filtered through thousands of tiny formation arrays carved into every available surface.
Even Sowwy seemed affected by the valley's transformation. Her nightly patrols became less about terrorizing intruders and more about watching over her ever-growing "flock."
She would perch on her favorite boulder, emerald sparks dancing around her as she observed the cabbage-spirits with what could only be described as grudging affection.
Hands reached out to her as she carefully walked between the violet cabbage-spirits and she reached back to them, petting each one.
"I am NOT being affectionate!" she insisted whenever I caught her gently preening damaged leaves or teaching formation basics to the newer sprouts. "I'm just... maintaining order in my domain!"
"Uh-huh," I grinned. "Just maintaining order by singing lullabies. Sure."
"Those weren't lullabies!" she bristled. "They're... spirit beast terror vocalizations! Meant to ward off predators! Maybe if enough of them do it at the same time, nothing will eat them during the day when I'm asleep!"
"Aww you do care," I grinned at her.
Sowwy's metallic feathers bristled with indignation. "I do NOT care! I just... I just don't want anything disrupting the natural order of MY valley!"
"Our valley," I corrected as I usually did, watching as a group of young cabbage-spirits practiced carving formations into rocks under the supervision of their "parent." "And face it - you're basically like their scary aunt now. Ha ha."
"I am NOT their aunt!" she shrieked. "I am a terrifying spirit beast! I..."
She choked as an ocean of violet petals unfurled below her wings.
"What is happening?" She spun.
"Winter is coming," Zen-1 said, looking up at a single, large snowflake that drifted from the sky to settle on her face. "It is time."
"Time for what?" Sowwy demanded.
Zen-1 disconnected from the spot she was inhabiting, cutting herself from the roots in the ground with a stone slate knife.
"We're fixing you," she said, rising up and walking to Sowwy. "All of us. All at the same time. We are the shovel now."
"Fixing... me?" Sowwy backed away nervously as hundreds of violet faces turned toward her, leaves unfurling in perfect synchronization. "What are you talking about?"
"The curse," Zen-1 said simply, advancing with graceful steps. "The thing that made you. The pain that birthed you. We can eat it now."
"You can't just..." Sowwy's jade-blade-feathers bristled defensively. "I AM the curse! You can't separate it from me!"
"Watch us," Zen-1 laughed with an imperious expression, spreading her hands wide. "Mom."
"I'm not... you can't... what if I... what if I die?! What if I stop existing?!" Sowwy backed away as emerald light began streaming from her metallic feathers into the waiting leaves.
Hundreds of violet-hued spirits turned their faces towards her, with their leaves unfurling like radar dishes.
"You won't," Zen-1 said. "Because you are no longer the curse. You are more. So much more."
The emerald light of Sowwy's curse streamed into the waiting leaves of hundreds of cabbage-spirits, their violet hue taking on a metallic sheen as they absorbed her essence, devouring it and breaking it down across each of their cells.
I watched as the Jingwei's Dantian became pure white instead of green. In physical reality, her metallic feathers began to lose their harsh, blade-like quality, becoming softer and more organic-looking while still maintaining their iridescent sheen.
"What... what are you doing to me?" Sowwy gasped, sinking to her knees as more of her cursed essence was drawn out of her.
"Cleaning you up," Zen-1 grinned imperiously. "Nomming on that which sustains us."
"Stop..." Sowwy pleaded weakly, her metallic feathers drooping as she slid lower, a hundred hands holding onto her. "I... I don't know how to be anything else..."
"Then learn," Zen-1 said, echoing my words from months ago. "Be more. Be free."
I stabbed the shovel into the ground and walked up to Sowwy and offered her my hand.
"W-what?" She blinked at me, seeing the first time I had put down my bird-smacking weapon at night.
"Trust," I said simply. "Like they trust you. Like I trust you."
"You've never trusted me," she let out, emerald tears streaming down her face as more of her curse essence was drawn away. "You always had that damn shovel... always... smacked me whenever I tried to eat you."
"The shovel was for your own good," I smiled. "To keep you focused on me instead of random hikers. To give you something to hate besides yourself. But now you don't have to hate yourself or me anymore. Now you're clean, pure. Now there's only humanity in you, not the swear of a dying god that made you."
Sowwy stared at my offered hand through silver-white tears, her feathers trembling.
"I... I'm scared," she admitted quietly. "What if there's nothing left of me once the curse is gone?"
"Is there?" I asked her. "Or is the collective ocean of a thousand cultivators you've eaten over the centuries enough to make up a person? All those memories, all those lives - they're part of you now. The curse just kept you from embracing them properly, kept you locked in an endless cycle of hunger and violence."
Sowwy reached out hesitantly and took my hand. Her feathers were warm and soft now, no longer the razor-sharp metallic blades they had been.
"I feel... different," she said. "Warm. Not... hollow anymore. So... strange."
I reached out and hugged her tightly. So did Zen-1.
So did the twelve other cabbage-spirits who had cut themselves from the ground. So had many others who were able to reach out to us.
Sowwy dug into me, sobbing into my embrace, her hands warm.
"I think we're going to need a much bigger house for winter," I told her with a grin.
The End
Or is it? Vote with your ratings! If this cursed short story gathers 666 ratings or 6666 readers, I'll expand it into a long series!
Thank you for reading The Corpse Farmer!
Please excuse any horrible spelling or flabby sentences, I wrote this entire thing in two days to meet the royal road magazine contest deadline and will be slowly correcting such later.