A Lewd Cultivator in Brockton Bay 58

A Lewd Cultivator in Brockton Bay

Chapter 58

-VB-

“Why do men fight?”

“For prosperity.”

“Why do women scheme?”

“For prosperity.”

“Why do children fight?”

“For prosperity.”

“Why do elders die?”

“Because they cannot fight.”

“Then what must you do to defy the heavens?”

“Fight.”

“Why should you fight?”

“For our prosperity!”

“How will you fight?”

“With all we have!”

“And what do you have!”

“OUR MIGHT!”

-VB-

I opened my eyes.

Another dream.

It’s been a while since I had one of those.

I took a deep breath in and pulled myself off of the bed, only to stop halfway through when I noticed that both of my girls were clinging to me in their sleep. Pregnant Vicky held my arm rather tightly to my left, and no longer pregnant Amelia was glomping me from my right.

I snorted and looked at the wall clock.

5:31 a.m.

Nowhere close to anything or when we had to do for the day. So why did I have this indescribable urge to cultivate?

… But then again, my cultivation involved dunking myself in medicinal bath and “breathing” it in.

I pried Amelia off of me and got off the bed. Then I pushed the sisters together so that they would stay warm and pulled the quilt over them. Once I did that, I made my way down to the basement. Once there, I turned on the hot water and poured it into the tub I used for my bath.

Once it filled up, I loaded the herbs. These days, I needed more than I used at the start of my journey. It was … around quadruple? Yes, almost four times as when I first began. I needed more time as well within the medicinal bath.

It was actually becoming an issue, which was also the reason why I have been doing less of it. I couldn’t spend four hours a day just sitting in a tub now, could I?

But if I woke up a little earlier like I did today, then I could.

I looked at this basement floor’s wall clock. 5:49 a.m. So I would be done with it all by around 10:00 a.m.

I stripped and dipped myself into the medicine bath. I took a deep breath in, dunked my head into the waters, and allowed my body to breath.

-VB-

Amy placed her hands on Alan at lunch.

He’s gotten even tougher than before. At this point, she wasn’t sure how a human body could become so tough, resilient, and flexible, but Alan’s body had.

‘But then again, my own “arts” is becoming weirder and weirder,’ she thought to herself as she glanced over at her house guard spirit jaguars. These were smaller than the “outdoor” variant she liked to show off once in a while, because their primary purpose was to remain unobtrusive while also serving as guard “dog.”

It was also tougher than the showpiece variant. Each house guard variant might be smaller than the outdoor variant, but was stronger, faster, and tougher in general on top of the plant-specific tools of war like irritants, poison, powders, and more that it could deploy.

“Auuu…”

Her attention snapped down to where she held Olenna with her left arm, and bounced her baby. Olenna cooed a bit more before falling asleep again.

Olenna was a quiet baby. Oh, when she had her fit, she would scream like it was nobody’s business but hers, but when she wasn’t, she wasn’t.

Thankfully, Alan took care of her during the night, so she wasn’t a sleepless zombie whenever she got up in the morning.

Amy shivered as she, once again, saw evidence to her motherhood and could not help herself. She felt like tearing up for some reason. She just … felt it.

She sniffed once before going back to her breakfast.

Breakfast was also something that was changing. When Alan made breakfast for everyone, it leaned towards Asiatic style and foods. This generally meant that there was a larger fare than usual. Aside from taking a lot of time, there was around half a dozen side dishes with a bowl of rice.

This was different from how she and Vicky prepped their breakfast. Theirs was … lacking in comparison. It was why Alan ended up with more and more roles in the house, because - as much as it hurt her pride as a woman - he was better at housework than the women of the house.

(She was secretly taking cooking classes to surprise everyone, but that’s neither here nor there yet.)

“Something wrong?” Alan asked her. “You’re touching me longer than usual for a check-up.”

She blinked and looked back at him. Ah, she was still touching him.

“It’s nothing,” she dismissed the question. “Well… Aside from the fact that you got a bit tougher than yesterday. Did you take a herb bath?”

“I did,” he hummed as he went back to his breakfast. He had the largest bowl in the family and the largest serving of brown rice.

(She could never eat that, no matter how good it was supposed to be for her. It was just too rough.)

“Exactly how much herb did you use this time?” she asked with a raised eyebrow.

“... About four bag’s worth.”

She nearly did a spittake. “Four bags?! That’s a whole week’s worth!”

“Sorry. Less than that and it wouldn’t have worked optimally.”

She huffed.

Considering that he no longer had to worry about any kind of bullets except maybe high end tinkertech ones, she wasn’t going to complain, even if it meant having to stay around her wonderful garden for a bit longer.

Vicky, as always, was a grouch, insensate, and slow zombie in the morning.

“Ugh.”

Case in point.

It didn’t help that her pregnancy also made her sluggish.

“Amy…” Vicky whined after already finishing her bowl of rice. “I wanna a boost…”

“No. Drink coffee.”

Vicky whined.

Alan snorted.

Amy giggled.

This was her life and she loved it.

“So what are you two doing today?” Amy asked her husband and sister.

“Sleeping,” Vicky moaned out.

“Hunting down Neo-Nazi remnants.”

Vicky blinked awake at Alan’s bland statement.

“Uh. They were still around?”

“Some,” he hummed. “But actual Nazis want to take over them, so I’m going to put them all down before they become a threat again.”

And now she was worried.

This was her life, and it wasn’t all good.