Dinner & Learning Language II

With the slate, M taught Jean the basics of their alphabets, of which there were multiple, each with different uses, and phonetics before dinner, which he picked up very quickly. Within the hour, though, a voice came through the house. M's ears perked up when he heard it, though Jean didn't understand what was said.

Switching the spell back on, M translated, "Dinner's ready." As they began to rise from their seats, M continued, "Oh, I forgot that you probably don't know, but it's customary here for a guest to eat first. So, after we sit down and I make introductions, you'll go first. We'll begin eating as soon as you do, okay?"

Jean nodded his assent and awkwardly followed M to the spacious dining room, where he saw ten or more steaming dishes laid out, with a few that were obviously meant to be served cold. M motioned for Jean to sit at one end of the table before walking around the oblique wooden masterpiece to the other end.

As they sat, Jean noticed that each seat had a bowl and a plate each, with everybody's place having a spoon and a fork. But only Jean's place and the two to the right of M had a knife. The bowls were each half full of a kind of soup. It was a creamy color and appeared viscous, like cream of chicken from his past life, but all of the plates were empty.

M turned off his translating spell and began to order and communicate with the rest of the household as a few others came to sit at the table, four male and two female, one of whom was presumably M's wife.

As a servant set the final dish on the table, M's voice echoed again, "Jean, this is my family. To my right is Yun, my wife. I love her, so anything you do to her is something you do to me." She blushed and smiled gently before turning away, slightly embarrassed. M smiled, too, obviously a fan of teasing and embarrassing her.

"Going counterclockwise from her is my daughter, Lin, and my four sons, Huang, Gao, Li, and Zhang. Everybody else, this is Jean. Jean will be our guest for some time, so treat him with respect. He's a valuable source of information for me and a potential student of mine." Zhang, Li, and Lin looked at him as if to ask him to explain himself, but they didn't voice their thoughts regardless of how turbulent their emotions might have been.

M continued, "Now, let's eat." Recognizing the cue, Jean raised his spoon to sip the soup in his bowl in front of him and ate. It was creamy and tasted very slightly sweet but also salty and savory. It was thick, viscous, hearty, and delicious.

The family and servants cringed slightly, though Jean seemed to take no notice. "Thank you for this dinner, Yun. It looks amazing," M said before taking the bowl and draining it entirely by lifting it to his mouth to drink before the rest of the family did the same, and Jean took the hint to do the same. It had chunks of various types of meat, some like beef, some like chicken, and some unrecognizable but still filling and wonderfully cooked.

After the soup was gone, the second part of the meal commenced, and people began handing dishes to M, while M took a bit of each before passing it to his left so that it could make its way around the table. Everybody took a bit of each, and Jean followed suit. He felt as if he was starving, so the size of the portions was no problem to him, and the plate was more than large enough to hold it all.

Nobody ate while the food was being passed around, so Jean followed their example and only lined his plate. After all the dishes were passed around, M asked them all to eat again, and everybody began to attack their solid food with unrelenting appetites.

Every single one of the ten foods were delicious, and Jean quickly cleaned off his entire plate before anyone else, which made relief apparent in Yun's eyes. While he was doing so, he realized why only some of the plates had knives beside them. The five males had no use for them.

Their bodies held such strength and vigor that their forks were enough to split apart the large steaks into bite-sized pieces without the use of a knife at all. Only the women required one, but they must have given Jean one out of consideration because making him ask for one if he needed one would have been demeaning in their eyes.

When M realized that Jean could split the steaks with his fork alone, albeit with more effort than the other men, he barked at one of the servants to remove Jean's knife before pretending to berate her for insulting Jean. In reality, M ordered the servant to give Jean a knife in case he needed one, though he didn't think he did, so that he could try to give his family the impression that Jean wasn't a weak individual to be looked down on as much as he could.

As they all finished their plates, the final part of the meal commenced, and the empty dishes were brought away as another three were brought out. The same spectacle of the dishes being handed to M before being passed around played out again, though everybody took less food this time.

In this part of the meal, conversation finally opened up, not that Jean could participate with the rest of them. M's voice echoed across the table, "Hey, Jean," he said to get his attention. "I've already told them that I'll have to act as translator between you and everybody else, so although conversation is normal now, little of it may be directed at you. Also, I've been told off for using the translator when I don't have to, so I'm going to have it turned off when I don't need it, ok? You may excuse yourself when you are ready after you are finished eating, or you can remain here. It's up to you."

Yun protested at the blame being shifted to her, to which M replied sarcastically, to which Yun just rolled her eyes and didn't say anything else. Jean only nodded his silent understanding, slightly intimidated by the people here and the strange culture.

Soon after they were finished taking their food, it seemed as if the room came alive. The five boys all joked with one another, bragged, and told wild stories about what's happened recently. They all teased one another, but it didn't seem like it was directed at any one person. They were all treated equally, with an odd jab from or at one of the girls. Even the servants by the sides of the room smiled silently.

Lin and Yun each had light laughs that punctuated many of the boys' sentences and some of their own. The guys all had wide smiles that stretched so wide that it seemed almost painful. The laughter and joy was so infectious that even Jean, despite not understanding anything, couldn't control the grin sneaking across his face, and when Zhang tried to demonstrate something by making a slashing motion and accidentally fell out of his chair, even Jean laughed.

After Jean finished his food, he stayed at the table. He managed to pick up a word or two of their language by watching their body language and reactions to one another, so he decided to stay. Eventually, every one of the dishes had been picked clean, and when everybody had finished, M had the servants take away the dishes and plates and clean the table while they still sat. 

After another joke or two, Gao was teasing Zhang about falling out of his chair earlier, and after enough of it, Zhang poked back at him, teasingly. After enough of the back and forth between them, Gao eventually goaded Zhang into getting up from the table and moving into the living room to prove himself despite Yun's protests at the thought of them fighting around her furniture.

After realizing that they were going to fight inside, M took Yun's side and told them off and ordered them to fight outside. They begrudgingly accepted, and although Jean only understood the gist of what was going on, he followed the family outside to watch. Outside the large entryway, a clearing in the midst of a forest appeared in front of Jean. 

The clearing was tens of acres across and obviously artificial. The trees were extremely dense nearest the house, like the heart of a forest, and the remains of a massive number of trees were stacked some distance away, like firewood would be. 

The house behind Jean was extremely large, perhaps 6,000-7,000+ square feet, but it wasn't quite a noble's mansion. The luxury and commodities that a noble might have were absent, and much of the clearing nearby was occupied by farm animals, agriculture, and those responsible for it, like a plantation would be.