It happened so fast that I didn’t even have time to scream when they were unceremoniously dropped into the water. Fortunately, they all knew how to swim, and even if they didn’t, they could all fly. The royal guards swarmed over them to check if they were okay.
“We’re fine!” Shuye yelled in our direction.
“The Spirit of Orchid Island has rejected them,” said the Birdman. “They will not be harmed, but they are not allowed to stay here.”
“Do you mind if I summon my boat here for them?”
“We don’t mind.”
“Thanks. Excuse me.”
I quickly summoned my [Traditional Chinese Ship] for them to stay in while they waited.
"Don't worry about us! Enjoy yourselves!” Shuye yelled from the deck.
Prince Baiyu and Scholar Wu waved at us to show that they were fine.
I waved back and shouted, “See you later!”
Lari, Kharli, and Mo were huddled together, and it was strange how I could tell they were nervous based on their body language even though they were masked and covered from head to toe in robes.
“Teacher, what happened? Why were they rejected?” Kharli whispered. Her eyes, covered by transparent crystal disks, were wide with shock.
“They’re clan members,” said the Birdman. “They are not allowed to visit our island.”
I took out the required items from my inventory and hesitantly offered them to the Birdman. “These things seem to belong to Orchid Island. I’ve come to return them to their rightful place.”
The island on Adventure Incarnate could only be accessed after gathering a lot of items from all over the world map, but, thankfully, GodIAm had all of them in his character’s inventory.
He, or maybe she, took the amulet, lyre, map, astrolabe, ship-in-a-bottle, mask, cauldron, and sword fragment. “Thank you. What would you like to do on our island?”
“I heard you have rare spirit plant seeds for sale! And maybe we could explore…?” I let my sentence trail off since, in the game, the only thing of real note was the shop, but that might not be true in real life. I’d hate to miss something good just because I was too focused on information from Adventure Incarnate.
“You may visit one of our villages,” said the Birdman. “Come, I’ll show you where you can go. The islanders are shy people and won’t be showing themselves to you apart from myself.”
“Thank you again. That would be lovely.” I gestured to my apprentices and we all followed behind the Birdman's enigmatic figure.
The fact that he had made the items I gave him disappear meant that he had a large interspatial storage space, which was something only cultivators had. He was probably a high-ranking person, maybe even a noble leader or an elder of the Orchid Islands.
“Too bad we can’t Fish here,” said Lari. The bird-like costume gave him an air of mystery and menace. I was surprised to notice that he was now taller than the rest of us.
Mo, on the other hand, was having trouble with the mask and kept on adjusting it. “I bet we could Forage a ton of nice items, too.”
“Shhh. Don’t keep mentioning it; they might think it’s rude.” Kharli’s head swiveled from left to right as though she was looking for something. She lowered her voice and said, “I thought I saw people hiding behind the bushes there.”
I burst into laughter. “You and your imagination! Crouching behind the bushes? It was probably a monkey or a cat.”
“Maybe…” Kharli didn’t sound convinced.
“It’s hard to see things with this mask,” said Mo.
I looked around, but I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. “Oh well, even if there were people there, they were probably just curious. They don’t get visitors every day.”
“Mo, stop that. I’ll fix it for you.” Kharli helped Mo find a more comfortable position for her mask.
I made a mental note to ask Fengying to order a smaller one for Mo that would fit her better.
More palm trees shaded the dirt path we traveled from the beach to the village. As we walked further along it, I saw cultivated fields of rice, vegetables, and tea as well as bamboo groves. There were plenty of small banana, coconut, papaya, and mango orchards, though most farms seemed to have a variety of trees and crops, not one kind. On the edges of the cultivated lands were places that had obviously been left wild, where vibrantly colored orchids spilled down from the trees.
We didn’t see a single soul anywhere. My feet began to hurt from all the walking. Two hours later, we reached the village.
“Wow! Your village is awesome!” I said to the Birdman.
Their wooden houses were shaped like giant gourds, with circular doors and windows. The paths that wound through the houses were paved with flat white stones on white sand. In the middle of the village was a large tree with wooden platforms built on its largest branches. There was a large clock built into the tree. In front of the tree was an open area, the village square which had lots of gourd houses with signs in front which indicated they were shops of some sort. There were also stalls and lots of tables, chairs, and benches scattered here and there. I imagined that it would normally be full of people, but at the moment there was no one around. The lack of people gave the village an eerie feel.
The Birdman pointed to three houses which he said we could visit. The first one turned out to be a souvenir shop. We bought a bunch of cute coral hairpins, shell jewelry, bamboo flutes, woven mats, and some really beautifully woven hats made from the island’s palm tree leaves.
I paid for everything with the local currency, [Golden Woolnuts]. Luckily, I had 2,147,483,647 of them in my inventory, so we could splurge on buying all the items we wanted. There was no shopkeeper. The Birdman instructed us to write down all our purchases in a large notebook and put the cash in a small wooden box.
The next stop was the [Orchid Island Trader] in the game, though here they called it the general store. This was the same deal, we took what we wanted from the shelves, wrote it down in a notebook, and put the payment in a box.
“Do you mind if I take all the seeds? I mean, like literally all of them?” I rubbed my hands together in delight.
“Do as you please.”
“Kharli, write it down for me. Lari, calculate the price for everything. Mo, check for errors.”
Sure enough, the moment I set foot in the store, the seeds in my inventory that had been grayed out lit up and became usable for the first time.
“We’ll be taking all of this,” I said to my apprentices as I pulled off boxes of pineapple, banana, papaya, coconut, mango, melon, avocado, macadamia, and pili nut seeds from the shelves. There were also hibiscus, bougainvillea, and jasmine flower seeds, which I snapped up. No orchid seeds were offered.
The rest of the stock was made of trade goods like pearl and coral items, fine furniture, and home decorations, which I wasn’t interested in. I did grab a few boxes of tea.
The third house was a museum full of treasures from the sea where I donated a ton of fossils and artifacts. They were useless to me anyway since they were meant to be kept in a museum. Players donated them for reputation points, which made store items cheaper, presumably because the storekeepers discounted their wares for people they liked.
“Please stay here and I will return with your reward,” said the Birdman. For the first time, he seemed flustered.
“No, there’s no need for a reward…” I didn’t get to finish what I was saying because the Birdman ignored me and left.
While we waited, we browsed the museum’s small but interesting collection. According to the note cards beside the displays, most of them had been salvaged from sunken ships. There was a ship’s mermaid figurehead, a rusted cannon, silver and gold coins, and quite a lot of jars and other pottery that had contained wine, olive oil, grains, etc.
Birdman returned with a surprise.
“This is great! Thank you very much,” I said with a huge smile as I took the [Nebula Sword] from the Birdman’s hands.
[Nebula Sword:
Said to have been condensed from the very essence of a celestial cloud, the Nebula Sword hums with the silent power of creation and destruction. Light and easy to use, this will come in handy when fighting enemies with low defense.]
The sword was one of the best in the game for grinding on low to mid-level mobs because of its speed. I had lots of copies of this exact same sword in my inventory, of course, but it was super nice to get it as a reward from the people of Orchid Island.
With this, I thought we were done exploring, but, to my surprise, the Birdman then led us to the big tree. The space inside it was small, and the walls were the natural, gnarled wood of the tree itself, smoothed in places but still bearing the distinct patterns of growth rings and knots. There were only three tables inside and a wooden counter across from the door. Each table held an orchid in a small white vase. Sunlight filtered in through the round windows above us. Behind the counter, shelves held rows of ceramic mugs and bags of tea.
“It’s a teahouse! Nice.” I sat down on a middle table with my apprentices.
The Birdman went behind the counter and brought us the menu.
“Do you mind if we order every food item on the menu? I’d like to bring it back to the boat for my companions.” I didn’t want to order too much and annoy the islanders.
“You may order as much as you like.”
“Then we’ll drink the tea here and…” I turned to the others and we ordered our favorite teas, infused with tropical flavors like mango and hibiscus, and snack food.
The Birdman left through the kitchen door and returned half an hour later with our tea and snacks. “You may take off your masks to eat. I will stay in the kitchen. Knock on the kitchen door when you’ve finished and have put your masks back on.”
He left, and we started eating.
There were the usual steamed buns and such, but also fresh fruit slices, fruit salads, mango sticky rice, coconut balls, and toast with pineapple jam. I noted that we were given table knives and forks instead of the usual chopsticks that I was used to.
“It’s so delicious. I can’t stop eating these melon and mango slices,” said Mo.
“It’s so fresh and juicy,” Kharli said with a sigh of contentment.
Lari playfully tried to take a slice from Mo’s plate, and they did a little mock-fencing match with their forks.
“This is the life!” I said as I lifted a piece of toast to my mouth. I bit down and felt the satisfying crunch give way to the soft bread beneath. The jam burst with tangy-sweet flavor, little chunks of pineapple adding texture against my tongue. I chewed slowly, savoring how the buttery toast balanced the bright acidity of the fruit.
I reached for my cup of hibiscus tea, the deep ruby liquid still steaming gently. The flavor was bright and clean, cutting through the lingering sweetness from the pineapple jam perfectly.
We finished our tea and snacks, paid for them, and knocked on the kitchen door. Birdman returned with the stuff we had ordered for takeout. The cooked food came wrapped in banana leaves while the jams were in ceramic jars. I had also ordered whole fruits. I put everything in my inventory and we left for the long walk back to the beach.
The Birdman coolly nodded in return to our goodbyes and bows, and the four of us returned to the [Traditional Chinese Ship] where the kids took off their costumes and we showed off our haul to an appreciative audience.
“We’ll plant these seeds tomorrow at the desert farm. It’s warmer there, and I think they will grow better than at the Emberstone Farm.” I leaned back on a chair, content with the day’s adventure. “The village was so cute. It’s too bad you guys didn’t see it. Next time, I’ll take everyone somewhere less isolated and secretive.”
“I look forward to it,” said Prince Baiyu.
I set the ship to full speed and we returned to Emberstone Farm where I gave the takeout packages to Fengying and asked her to serve tea to our guests. My apprentices and I spent a lovely afternoon regaling the others with our tales of what we had seen on Orchid Island.
When Shuye said he was leaving, I reminded him that he was bringing me home with him to finally see his offspring.
“Of course, I remember! The flying carriage driver is waiting for us in front of the house.” Shuye offered me his arm, and we went to where the vehicle was.