The Garden

My house is not very big. It consists of three rooms, a bathroom and a kitchen. There are two doors leading into my house, one at the front and another at the back. The front door is the main entrance, while the back door leads to my field.

Right outside of the entrance, there is my personal garden. Every adult has a hobby, and this old man's hobby is cooking. It cleanses my mind, eases my body and makes me feel relaxed. Because this is a rather out of the way village, I can't really get fresh ingredients to cook with.

Luckily, this old man is good with only one thing, and that is farming. So of course, I took this matter into my own hands and cultivated a herbs garden. Whenever I needed anything for cooking, I'd just walk into my garden, pick it up, and immediately get to cooking it. It's as fresh as you can get.

That's why, the seeds I went to buy a couple of days ago from the city were all for herbs I wanted to cultivate in my garden. Lately my body has been aching, and my stomach was complaining, so I was thinking of making myself a medical stew with the herbs that I'll cultivate.

I expect that the herbs are going to mature in two or three weeks, so I'll just have to power through it until then. I usually take care of my garden in the afternoon, right after I finish working on the field after lunch.

After finishing with another day's hard work, I went and picked up a couple of vegetables from the garden and made my way to the kitchen to make lunch. After eating my lunch, I took a small break to digest it before heading out to water my garden.

As I was watering my garden, I heard a voice calling out to me.

"Senior, senior!"

It was a familiar voice, but I couldn't really put my finger on it. It was too young to be any of the old folk in the village. I turned around to take a look at who was calling out to me, and I still couldn't put my finger on it. Can it be one of those that left the village?

It was a young man smiling brightly. He was outside the small fence I erected for my garden, and he bowed slightly in greeting. I nodded my head and said, "Oh...you are?"

The young man laughed slightly and said, "You don't remember me senior? You gave me advice three days ago about cultivating."

Aha! Now I remember, so he was that youngster who had trouble with farming? No wonder he seemed familiar.

"Hoohoo, in that case, how is it going? Is it all better now?"

Nodding his head as he said, "Yes senior, thanks to your advice I'm finally starting to feel it. Although it's still too early to comment on the growth, but now at the very least it feels alive."

"That's good."

After that, I returned to watering the garden. After I was done, I started to bend down and take out the harmful weeds. As I pulled one and another, the young man asked, "Senior, may I help you?"

I straightened my back and asked, "Do you know how to pull weeds?"

The young man energetically motioned the actions of pulling weeds as he said, "I grew up as a farmer's son, so I helped out a lot."

With that, I gestured for him to enter the garden. Because there were twice the hands, we'll probably be done in half the time. As we were pulling the weeds, there was nothing but silence between us.

The young man probably couldn't stay silent, as he lightly coughed and said, "Senior, it took me a while to find you. I tirelessly searched without food and sleep until I found you, just so that I can thank you for the advice you gave me."

I immediately realized that this was the type of youngster I hated the most. The ones with the tongue made of fake gold, as they tried to paint everyone they knew with their color. The young man is probably trying to con some tips out of me.

"Is that so."

Unless he was straightforward with it, I won't tell him anything. Hmph. I'm too old to play with words, being straightforward is so much better. I took a look at the youngster's movements, as he pulled the weeds. I can see that his movement were slightly awkward, but he was steady. He used a bit of too much strength as he pulled on the weeds, which would damage the soil and move the roots of the plants in the ground. However, it didn't seem to be a lie that he tried this before. He's probably one of those that moved out from their villages to the city life.

We sunk back into silence. Two minutes later, I heard another cough.

"Senior, on my way here, I stopped by a few villages to ask for directions. Everyone complimented the crops you grow, being the most delicious and the largest in the surrounding villages."

"It's all thanks to hard work."

What is he trying to get at? With that question in mind, we resumed working in silence again. Finally, just as we were finishing, the young man coughed for the third time.

"Senior," But before he could say any further, I interrupted him.

"Before you say anything further, how about you pay attention to the garden first? Concentrate on pulling the weed correctly—just because you want to get rid of the weed, it doesn't mean you can be violent when doing so. Gently pulling would result in leaving the roots, violently pulling would disrupt the soil. Just be in the middle, not too gently, not too strongly, and don't ruin my herbs and vegetables."

The young man smile's froze as he seemed to be in shock. He pulled the weed he was holding a bit gently, and it only tore the grass apart from the root. He then pulled like he usually did, and he disrupted the soil.

I sighed, but kept to myself as I focused on my part of the work. It seems that the youngster is listening to my advice, and is trying to find the middle ground between both gently and strongly pulling the weeds.

I just hope that he won't ruin my garden. After I finished with my work, I turned to look at the youngster. It seems that he grasped the amount of strength he needed to pull the weeds, as he pulled them with the root without actually damaging the soil much.

I nodded to myself. I guess he's willing to take criticism and learn, and he seems decently talented to be a farmer. He soon finished as well, and stood up. Afterwards, he bowed to me and said, "Thank you senior for your advice!"

As he said that, his stomach rumbled. The youngster blushed, "I beg your pardon, senior."

It seems he's hungry. Seeing that he came from afar, and he helped me out with the garden as well, the least I can do is to make him lunch.

"Come inside. I have some leftovers from lunch so you can have them."

"There's no need to trouble yourself, senior, I'm too embarrassed to steal your food!"

The young man raised his head in shame. I think that except for his opportunistic tongue, I'm starting to like this kid. He seems to be the humble and hardworking type.

"Are you saying that my cooking isn't up to your taste? Just come inside and eat."

After that I turned around and walked into the house. I set up the table in the kitchen, and I grabbed the pot that was sitting on top of a low fire and poured the meat soup that was inside into a bowl. After that, I grabbed another bowl that had rice in it and a plate of vegetables.

"Although it's not much, but please eat as much as you want."

The youngster seemed a bit flustered, but under my eyes, he still grabbed his utensils and said, "Thank you for your generosity." Before starting to eat.

He took a sip of the soup before his eyes went wide. After that, he grabbed some vegetables and ate it with the white rice. After trying each and every dish, he stopped to appreciate the taste. After he snapped out of it, he dipped the rice in the soup—it seems that this youngster and I have the same eating habits, as he started wolfing down his food.

After he finished with eating, the young man raised his head at last and thanked me again for the food. Hur hur, there hasn't been anyone that has told me that my food was bad ever. It seems I've yet another stomach.

"So young man, you've never really told me your name?"

The youngster's eyes sparkled, as he stood up and said, "Senior, this one's name is Lei Kang from the Odyssey Cult."

"Od- Ody- the O cult?"