This is your periodic reminder that the frontier of any region is a fucking boring ass place, and that gossip about noticeable figures in any given city is about as close to entertainment they got out here...that and the blood sports.
________________________________________________
"Hey...ain’t that the sigil of the Goldshire Family in Emerald Eye? What the heck are they doing here?," the day drinker asked his companion.
"Apparently the patriarch of the Goldshire Family is an old friend with the Seventh Elder of the Zhen Clan, blood brothers or so they say."
"I know that part but that doesn’t explain why they’re here."
"I’m getting to it. Anyways, it’s been said that the two of them made a promise ages ago to unite their families through the act of marriage between their own respective kids."
"Well ain’t that ro-"
"Guys! Guys! You’re not gonna believe this, but that royal bloodliner family from Bronze Bell is back again and-"
"Hold up, that one I know," the day drinker interrupted,"The prince’s son and the First Young Mistress of the Zhen Clan, right? That’s old news."
"Yeah, but this time it involves that former crippled kid!," the new arrival reasserted, "apparently that prince’s daughter took a liking to that guy and is now coming to do that while courtship thing rich people do."
As soon as that piece of news registered in his and companion’s mind, the day drinker and the aforementioned friend looked at each other.
"Didn’t you just say that the Goldshire patriarch was trying to tie the knot with the Zhen Clan via the Seventh Elder’s kid?"
"And wasn’t that formerly crippled kid..."
"The Seventh Elder’s kid as well, yes."
The newcomer who had brought the news about the royal Bronze Bell family arriving to town was initially confused by his friends’ conversation, until he heard them put the pieces together.
"So...to sum up...the Seventh Elder of the Zhen Clan’s son, who used to be a crippled, is now meeting with the Goldshire Family’s daughter, arguably one of the richest families in the frontier, and the daughter of a prince from a foreign kingdom?"
After processing the news, the day drinker proceeded to get up from the table, place a few coppers for the drinks and leave.
"Huh? Where you going?"
"To turn my life around."
"If some crippled rich kid can fucking get his act together after a bullshit miracle, then I can fucking do that after putting in some effort and empowered by spite!"
That day drinker would go on to become an Aether Lord of some renown, but that is a story for another time and another place...
________________________________________________
Back at the Zhen Clan compound...
Zhen Liu was currently staring up at the sky, laying on the back of Tiny the Raijin Hippo while Mini the baby hippo was curled up on his stomach, taking a nap.
For the past few weeks, Zhen Liu made sure to come in periodically check on the two of them to make sure they were happy and healthy.
Tiny regularly communicated it’s desire to head back to the Jade Lake...but always seem to stop short the moment pickled vegetables and mineral mud baths got involved. They weren’t addictive in a drugged sense, they were just delicious and the mud baths were just too damn luxurious to give up.
Mini on the other hand wasn’t a big fan of the training the Zhen Clan put her through, namely due to laziness, but when Tiny saw how much the little one had improved in terms of intellectual and martial development, she made sure she kept up with it.
"Ya know, there are days I’m certain you two are getting spoiled."
"Point taken... aren’t you worried about your domain in the Jade Lake being taken over?"
"Wait, you weren’t the ruler of the area? But you’re a grade four aether beast, what the hell is stronger than you in there?"
"Huh...wasn’t expecting that to be there..."
"Xiao Liu? Are you in here?"
"Huh? Oh, hello mother."
As Zhen Liu lifted his head to see who was calling for him, he saw his mother Daria, calling for him with an exasperated look on her face.
"What are you doing in here? The Goldshires and the Ecaredies will be here any minute. You should be dressed by now," she chided.
Zhen Liu gingerly lifted Mini from his stomach and gently placed her a top her mother’s back. The baby hippo let out a small purring sound as she resettled on her new spot.
’Has she been hanging out with the family’s cats or something,’ Zhen Liu mused as he slid down Tiny’s back.
Once his feet were in the ground, he continued his conversation with his mother.
"I just wanted to make sure these two were happy and healthy. You know that I do that."
"That may be the case, but you do that every other day. This is the first time you did it twice in a row," his mother observed, "now come along, we have to get you into your dress suit before they arrive. You may have had prior interactions with the young ladies before, but that doesn’t mean you can’t look nice on subsequent meetings," she lectured on.
Zhen Liu’s eyes mildly glazed over a this point, he had a feeling that his new suit may not look so hot at the end of this.
’Is this dread I’m feeling? Or hope?’
________________________________________________
=Huh?! What? Where am I? Where are the demon girls? Oh, hello Pathos=
=Uhhhh, that depends.=
=Is it sunset or sunrise?=
=Well...after I finished the demon dating sim I got into the one about all the monster high schoolers, then the one about the pigeons and...turns out that a lot of these are really well written...so I tried to unlock all of the possible end states for...all of them. I may have caused my existence to stutter as a result of all of the data I was processing.=
=What the- that’s my line!=
[You lost that privilege after muttering "Oh Haru-Kun, I can’t wait to see your hidden valleys".]
=I miss when you spoke in broken sentences...=