20 1.20: Cultivate (2/2)
At least with this labor, whatever that was sown would produce results within a week or two depending on the types of vegetables grown.
(So back to the topic of me catching up with my daily meditation and fortnight spiritual cleansing of the keris.)
Fast forward...
After close to a month, I was close to completing my first phase of Skills from Losing Self and would be waiting to upgrade to Gathering Chi soon. After checking with the brothers on their next trip with me to the old Master's home at New Hope Village, we readied ourselves for another trip there.
Dawn was breaking. We made our usual preparations and head out towards the path that leads to Stone Village, where Gao was putting up. Upon reaching there, Gao as the great-grandson of the Chief Village in Stone Village held a feast for us as well as the villagers of the settlement.
Soon some of the residents of the settlements prepared a roast portion of a bison that they had caught earlier in the day after they had skinned it and given the hide to the one in charge of drying the skin. We learned that they were going to improvise the hide to make a component of a composite hunting bow.
Cheng made a mental note to trade some composite bows for the residents in Bamboo Village in the days to come so that the lives of the villages would improve by adding one or two hunters to their trade.
Because Bamboo Village was a small settlement with not more than 50 residents, future expansion of the settlement may be in place soon once the trade and resources there had signs of thriving in the near future.
Bamboo liquor was distributed once again and the feast soon turned into a fiesta. I am pretty sure that all of us would not be able to hold our liquor and would most probably end up sprawling on the ground instead.
I advised the brothers to control the limit of consumption as we realized that the bamboo liquor would definitely kick in a tremendous hangover the next day and would impair our judgment especially when we meeting the old Master.
After a few rounds of bamboo cups filled with the liquor that had passed around between us, we excused ourselves to rest instead. Promising to Gao that we would be returning back to the settlement after coming back from New Hope Village, Gao relentlessly allowed us to leave and we headed to the same platform to rest our weary bodies yet full with food and drink.
The next day we woke up early as the rooster crowed to wake up the whole village. We washed up, shook our heavy heads to clear the hangover. As usual, Gao was already up and with his servants trailing behind; served several cups of hot tea and some steamed sweet potatoes.
(A tradition of these people: if they serve you with a jug, they expect you to stay around after breakfast such as in this case. However, if they served your drinks in cups, they would likely be happy to see you continue your journey after you emptied the cup)
So after exchanging some words with Gao, we continued our journey towards New Hope Village.
... Mid-morning...