Transplanting rice seedlings really did not suit Mai Ake. At Yi Shuyuan's urging, she did not spend much more time there.
Soon, Mai Ake left the fields, briefly washed her hands and feet at the irrigation ditch, and departed.
The Yi family did not make much of a ceremony of seeing her off. Li, the only one who came out to send her off, returned to transplanting seedlings once Mai Ake rode away.
Though Yi Shuyuan had never left the paddy, his awareness of the rice seedling remained clear. At least Mai Ake should face no danger along the way.
Vast stretches of farmland gradually filled with rice seedlings, and the paddies came alive.
Yi Shuyuan stood on a field ridge, looking at a plot they had just finished planting, and felt a sense of accomplishment.
Elsewhere, the Yi father and son and his nephew's wife, Li, were still bent over their work. Long-beaked waterbirds landed at the edges of the fields from time to time, rummaging through the paddies for food.
Wisps of spring breeze swept past, making the seedlings sway gently.
Standing in the wind, Yi Shuyuan closed his eyes slightly and let himself feel it. He seemed to sense the seedlings taking root and growing, to "see" them flowering and forming ears, and the bountiful harvest that followed...
On the road back to Moon City, Mai Ake was galloping on horseback.
Of course, Mai Ake was not alone. Other martial artists rode beside her, all accomplished fighters from Azure Province.
But now that her elder brother had fallen victim to a covert attack, Mai Ake did not know whom she could trust besides her father. Even those who seemed close to them might have motives of their own.
Rivers and Lakes were treacherous, the title of greatest