Chapter 16: The Rice Thief

That earlier man hadn’t acted like a thug. Seemed like someone with decent character. Liu Xiaolou watched him disappear into the woods and, full of respect, gave him a polite bow from behind. But by dusk, as the sky darkened, the less honorable types began to show up. Out of nowhere, someone burst from the forest, rushed to the edge of the field, swung their sickle to snatch a few stalks, then bolted before Liu Xiaolou could even react. He wasn’t fast enough to give chase; his cultivation was only at the third layer of Qi Refinement, not nearly enough to control a flying sword at range. All he could do was shout angrily at the thief’s back and stomp his feet, cursing out loud, “You damn punk!” That last field was a miserable experience. He got raided more than ten times. The worst one came at the end: the man clearly had a much higher cultivation level and just wouldn’t leave. Liu Xiaolou charged him again and again, but couldn't land a single hit. He couldn’t win the fight, and yelling was pointless. The man just kept his face covered with a black scarf, head down, focused on harvesting. He helped himself to nearly two fen of the field, packed it up at his leisure, and walked off like nothing had happened. There was nothing Liu Xiaolou could do. Luckily, it was his final assigned plot, and the total losses came to just around twenty jin of spirit rice. It didn’t affect the big picture too much; he told himself to just think of it as feeding the dogs. That night, after turning in what he had harvested, he was still about a hundred jin short of his full quota. He had four hidden sacks of spirit rice buried away, totaling a bit over three hundred jin. Of course, he couldn’t turn all of it in at once; he planned to hand over another thirty or fifty jin the following night during the final delivery. As for the rest? He’d make up the shortfall in silver. One jin of spirit rice went for two taels of silver. Pricey, yes, but not something you could even buy whenever you wanted. Back in the field, Liu Xiaolou meditated for half an hour to steady his breath. Then, under the cover of night, with the wind howling and the moon hidden behind clouds, he wrapped a black scarf around his face and put on a wide-brimmed bamboo hat. If others could do it.... so could he. He’d already picked his target. It was near the southeastern end of the valley. Every night when he went to deliver his harvest, he passed through the mountains and had a clear view of which plots were still untouched. That one field stood out; it was big, over four mu, and the spirit rice still stood there, tall and untouched, rows perfectly neat. You couldn’t miss it. From halfway up the mountain slope, Liu Xiaolou had been watching for a while under the moonlight. The spirit field below was quiet, not a soul in sight. It wasn’t clear whether the Zang clan hadn’t assigned any workers here, or if whoever was responsible just hadn’t gotten around to harvesting it yet. Either way, this was the one! He forced himself to wait a bit longer. Finally, a thick cloud drifted across the sky, blocking out the bright moonlight. Instantly, the night grew darker, and the valley below was cloaked in pitch black; he could barely see his own hand in front of him. “Let’s go!” Liu Xiaolou whispered to himself, psyching up. Then he leapt forward, his body swift and fierce like a tiger. In just a few bounds, he reached the base of the mountain. He crouched low and dashed forward, light and fast, reaching the edge of the field in no time. Sure enough, it was so dark you couldn’t see a thing. A perfect night for stealing spiritual grain. He crept into the field, moving cautiously. In the darkness, he couldn’t even tell where exactly he was standing, but he endured the pricks of the grain tips as he worked. He flung out the fragrant tendon, got right to harvesting. With each bunch he uprooted, he tossed it over his shoulder into the basket behind him. Before long, it was packed full. Backing out of the field, he nearly tripped over the rice stalks behind him. He stumbled awkwardly, but didn’t stop to worry about it. He dumped out the basket, bundled the stalks up with a single stalk, and stacked them neatly by the edge of the field. Then he headed back in and kept going, back and forth several times. He had already pulled five or six bundles. As he worked, he kept an eye on the sky. That cloud was about to drift away; once the moon came back out, he’d need to retreat to the mountainside and wait for another good moment to come down. He was just thinking about that when he flicked the fragrant tendon forward again. This time, it missed. It didn’t catch on anything. Without giving it much thought, he threw it a bit farther. It snagged something. Liu Xiaolou channeled his true qi into the fragrant tendon and gave it a hard pull... And suddenly, from right below, a soft voice let out a startled cry: “Ow...” Liu Xiaolou froze for a moment. When he looked closely, he realized.... what he’d reeled in wasn’t a bundle of rice stalks, but a person! The cloud drifted past, and moonlight spilled back over the valley. Now he could see clearly; it was definitely a person, with his ankle tangled in Liu Xiaolou’s fragrant tendon. He glanced back toward the field. Under the sudden illumination, figures clad in black headscarves scattered in every direction; moonlight had exposed a whole swarm of rice thieves, now panicking like headless flies, dashing around aimlessly. The one who’d been caught by the ankle sat up halfway and grabbed at the fragrant tendon. “You blind bastard! Don’t you have eyes?!” he shouted at Liu Xiaolou in shock and anger. Liu Xiaolou was just as startled and had no time to argue. He yanked the fragrant tendon back, dashed to the edge of the field, and scooped up the rice bundles he had harvested, most went into his basket, and the rest he grabbed in both hands, then sprinted into the forest without looking back. By the time he reached halfway up the mountain, he paused to catch his breath and looked down. The once-neat field below was now a mess. The spiritual rice, once standing in tidy rows, had been hacked down in chaotic patches, barely half of it remaining. It looked like dogs had torn through it. “Damn these rice-stealing bastards, there’s so damn many of them!” Liu Xiaolou spat bitterly, heart aching at the sight of the ruined spiritual field. He hesitated briefly, then finally turned and left. Too many eyes had been on that field. It was likely the headman would soon be alerted. If he showed up and caught him with stolen grain, it’d be impossible to talk his way out of it. He found a quiet spot to take stock of his haul. Five bundles in the basket, three in each hand; eleven in total. Not bad! Wait… eleven bundles? If I’m not mistaken, I only harvested about five or six myself. Looking closer, sure enough, six of them were pulled up by the roots. Those were definitely his work. The remaining five had been sliced off halfway up the stalk.... obviously shorter, and obviously not his doing. Someone else’s handiwork? The unexpected bonus soothed his nerves. His mood lifted considerably. He immediately got to work shaking off the husks and ash from the rice heads. After a while, he’d collected around seven or eight jin, which he happily stuffed into his basket before heading toward the next target. This next spiritual field was a bit more out of the way, tucked into a corner of the mountain; just over a mu in size, and rather narrow and long. From above, it was hidden beneath a stand of tall trees, making it hard to spot. If Liu Xiaolou hadn’t passed by two days earlier to take a pee, he never would’ve found it. Reaching the hillside above the spiritual field, he leapt down lightly, landing on a tree branch. He gently parted the leaves to scope out the situation. What he saw made his heart sink. Someone was already here. The harvesting had just begun; only about a tenth of the field had been cleared. Liu Xiaolou felt a stab of frustration, mixed with reluctance to give up. Under the moonlight, he peered closely and saw that the person was a female cultivator. He couldn’t tell her age, but her figure was graceful enough. More importantly, she wasn’t wearing a black scarf to conceal her face. She was calmly harvesting the rice with a longsword. Not wearing a mask likely meant that this plot was officially assigned to her. Her sword wasn’t flying or slashing from a distance, which meant she hadn’t reached high-level Qi Refinement.... probably below the eighth layer. Of course, cultivators at the eighth layer rarely deigned to take on field work like this anyway. Watching for a bit longer, he noticed her sword never emitted a blade light or aura; if it had, the harvesting wouldn’t have looked so clumsy. That meant she probably hadn’t reached mid-level Qi Refinement either. Likely still below the fifth layer. If that was the case… Wasn’t this another golden opportunity? Liu Xiaolou pulled the black scarf over his face again and quietly dropped from the tree trunk. Moving as stealthily as a cat, he crept up to the spiritual field’s edge. When he was still several yards from the embankment, he crouched down low, then dropped to all fours and began crawling forward.