My mother had died a few weeks earlier and I didn't know what to do. She had been my only family. So, I just lived. Day to day. In our hut. Our ridiculously dilapidated hut with a thatch roof that needed patching, and a bed that smelled like death. But it and the items within it were all I had left.

If not for a kind neighbor who brought me his leftovers every morning, I would have starved. Still, it wasn't enough. I was alone, and tired and depressed. What was the point of living even? Maybe I could find the truth about the people who forced my mother and me to flee for our lives? Maybe get revenge? I cou—

I heard a knock, interrupting my dark spiraling thoughts.

In our village, there was a very pretty girl who had always been a little off and not entirely there. When I saw her at the door, with dirt on her face, a bruise on her temple, and a leaf stuck in her hair, I was dumbfounded. When she said insane words to me about a past life, I was certain the rumors were true. Then she told me to come with her, do what she said and she would become my family.

I slammed the door shut. Not believing her. I waited. She didn't leave. And eventually, I realized that she may be crazy, but did that matter? Maybe I could stay at her place and take care of her so she didn’t go around doing too many things that could get her in trouble and in exchange her family could feed and house me.

So, I grabbed my mother’s keepsakes and all of my things, shoved them into our worn travel bag then left. I did not look back.

She still had that leaf in her hair when I reached her so I pulled it out. Her cheeks turned slightly red from embarrassment but then she acted as if nothing happened and continued to walk along the path. She began picking up flat stones. Why was she picking up stones? Exactly what was going on in that weird head of hers?

Eventually, we made it back to her place, both of our arms filled. She stilled for a long while before entering and walking up to her parents. Somehow, looking as wild as she did, she still managed to convince them to let me stay. I don’t know if they believed her lies about an immortal but they seemed pretty used to her nonsense.

When we reached her room with all the rocks she picked up, she started writing nonsense on them with a piece of charcoal and set them down in a weird pattern that made my eyes hurt a little, probably from how ugly it looked.

Satisfied over her ridiculous rocks, she sat me down and gave me a new name, Spring of the Universe. Or Little Spring. But I already had a name, Wang Mingren.

Well, I’d let her call me what she wanted since she seemed like the type of person who wouldn’t listen anyway.

After a little while, she started spouting nonsense about, breathing in and out in a weird pattern to help sense the “spiritual energy” around me. I was too exhausted so I just fell asleep.

The next day I realized that she had no idea how to do any of her chores. I mean, she tried at first but made everything worse so I just took over since I’d been helping my mother do things like this for a while now, though, due to being too depressed, I hadn’t done them in weeks. She pretended to supervise me off to the side and said that I did a good job. Even though I knew she wasn’t all there in the head, her words made me happy.

Sometimes, I’d hear her humming strange songs and saying random nonsensical, barbaric sounding words in exclamation. When I stared at her, she’d turn her head and act like she hadn’t done anything.

At night, she taught me characters and words in the sand. At least, that’s what she said they were. I learned them anyway since if they weren’t real, then at the very least, we could share a written language. When she was done teaching, she would tell me to cultivate but I mostly just fell asleep while sitting down.

Sometimes at night, when I dreamed about my mother dying and felt that everything in this world could burn, I would feel a hand running through my hair, telling me that it was okay to be sad. It was healthy to be sad. It reminded me that I was not alone. And the pain would ease.

***

After two months of living together, a real cultivator came to our little village. Of all things that could happen, my cheap older sister said that she’d stop him.

Stop him? She wasn’t a real cultivator but an insane little girl, so how could she stop him? I tried everything I could to get her to not go and even followed after her, but she somehow managed to lose me.

When I reached the area people gathered and saw the bodies lying around, I threw up. I knew those people. Some of them were even kind to me. And now they were gone. Terror ran through every part of my body. And then I saw her. A little girl half of the evil cultivator’s size, hands on her hips, and spouting nonsense. If I didn’t do anything, she was going to get herself killed.

I didn’t know what possessed me but I ran up to attack him and everything went black.

In a haze, I heard her saying that I no longer owed her. But isn’t the reason I was with her today because I owed her from our past lives? Does that mean she’s going to throw me away? No! After losing everyone, I finally caught this cheap sister. There was no way I would let her leave me alone!

I wasn’t sure what happened but strange hot energy flowed through me and my broken body healed. I woke up, spoke my mind and she hugged me. It was embarrassing.

Then I saw the man who hurt me lying on the ground, headless. Had — had my sister done that?

The blood that splattered her clothes told me it was her. She still might be crazy, but she hadn’t been lying about immortal cultivation!

Wait. If all of the nonsense she spoke about cultivation was real then hadn’t I’d wasted two months by not gaining strength? If I had listened I could have been strong enough to protect her instead of being protected by her.

Embarrassed, and not wanting to deal with my older sister while she was angry, I ran back to our house. Then I realized that I left her there to deal with the aftermath and tried to return. We met at the door to the courtyard. After washing up she walked to our room and collapsed into the position she always cultivated in.

I sat beside her and this time when I practiced the technique to sense for the spiritual energy I let go of my misgivings and reached for the crazy unknown.