She Is Not a Witch

In the sunset, Pullman stood silently on a hill. Dried blood could still be seen on his armor. A great sword was planted beside him, its blade notched in many places, the cloth wrapped around its hilt badly worn and stained dark red in many spots.

On the wilderness near dusk, scattered weapons, broken spear shafts, burning flags, and twisted corpses formed a desolate tableau.

Rebels with white headbands searched the battlefield, quickly lifting any survivors they found onto stretchers and carrying them to the medical stations in the rear, regardless of whether they were comrades or former enemies. Every life was precious.

“Brother Pullman, did we win?” a young man lying on a stretcher asked weakly. His upper body was covered in bandages, one arm hanging limp.

“Yes, we won,” Pullman grasped his other intact hand, his voice full of emotion.

“Good… that’s good,” the young man muttered, gazing at the blue-purple sky.

“We’re one step closer to our dream.”

⊰⋆⋅⭑⋅⋆⊱⊰⋆⋅⭑⋅⋆⊱⊰⋆⋅⭑⋅⋆⊱⊰⋆⋅⭑⋅⋆⊱⊰⋆⋅⭑⋅⋆⊱⊰⋆⋅⭑⋅⋆⊱⊰⋆⋅⭑⋅⋆⊱⊰⋆⋅⭑⋅⋆⊱⊰⋆⋅⭑⋅⋆⊱⊰⋆⋅⭑⋅⋆⊱

Southern continent, Vegar Commercial Alliance, Hopland.

Having finished dealing with merchant association matters, Loranhil recently welcomed a rare moment of respite.

She now sat alone in a small courtyard behind the mansion. The yard wasn’t large, with a short pear tree in the center.

The small courtyard was very quiet. Birdsong could be heard, with birds occasionally flying down from the eaves to land on the grass, taking a few steps, pecking about, then flying away again.

The girl wore a white dress, sitting in a wooden chair with a backrest under the eaves of the courtyard. Beside her were several stone pillars, with green moss creeping from the lawn into the cracks of the steps.

She held a small bamboo basket in her lap, containing half a basket of green pea pods. Her fingernails pressed against the edge of a pod, snapping it open and pulling apart the green fibers to reveal several glistening, moist peas inside, accompanied by a faint fresh plant fragrance.

Gently nudging with her fingers, a few bright green peas rolled into her pale palm. She placed the peas into a porcelain bowl on her right, while the opened pods went into another bamboo basket on the ground to her left.

Loranhil quietly shelled the peas, a few strands of her golden hair falling across her chest. Occasionally a breeze would blow by, birds chirping as they flew into the wind, and the shadows of the pear tree’s branches swayed gently in the courtyard.

These days, she had been living a life attended to by maids. At first, it felt novel, but as time passed, she wanted to do some things herself again.

As she sat in the wooden chair shelling peas, Loranhil slowly recalled some past events. As a child, she would visit her grandparents’ home during winter and summer breaks. Unlike the oppressive atmosphere of her family home in the city, her grandparents lived in the mountains.

Whenever it rained, she could clearly hear the sound of raindrops hitting the green tiles. She loved staying at her grandparents’ house. There, no one would urge her to study, nor would anyone watch her sternly every day. Her grandparents loved her and didn’t impose many restrictions; she could do what she wanted.

Whether reading novels under trees on the hillside, fishing by the river, roasting corn in the drying yard, digging for peanuts in the fields, or hiding inside to play games all day, her grandparents never scolded her. They only asked that she eat meals on time.

On summer nights, she would lie on a bamboo lounge chair, gazing at the Milky Way, stars, and moon. Her grandmother would tell fascinating stories, like tales of wild men in the mountains who ate children.

Oh, and she had seen fireflies too. That was when she was six years old—fireflies dancing across the mountains, blinking on and off. She had wanted to catch a few fireflies like the ancients did and put them in a clear plastic bag to use for reading at night.

But stories are often deceptive; the light from fireflies was too weak to read by, unless perhaps you gathered a hundred of them together.

As she grew older, for some unknown reason, the mountain fireflies became fewer and fewer. After she turned ten, she never saw them again.

As time passed, she began to enjoy cooking for herself.

At first, it was just roasting sweet potatoes, peanuts, corn, and potatoes.

Later, she learned to make soup with crucian carp caught from the pond. Back then, she wasn’t very good at cutting vegetables, and her grandmother, fearing she might cut herself, wouldn’t let her handle knives. So her grandfather would prepare the fish first, while she watched from the side, accompanied by the family’s calico cat.

If she couldn’t cut and stir-fry, she could at least boil things. Boiled corn was delicious, and potatoes were good too. Occasionally she’d boil beans, which she found quite nice as well.

As she finished shelling the peas, her thoughts gradually returned to the present.

The originally empty porcelain bowl slowly filled up, pea by pea, until it was full. Looking at it, the girl felt a gentle sense of satisfaction.

She lifted the bowl of peas with both hands and went to the small kitchen nearby. This was a small room that she had asked Chelsea to prepare specially, where only she would cook.

She poured the bright green peas into a clay basin, then ladled clear water from a water jar and poured it in. She gently rubbed the peas, then swirled her fingers in the basin, creating a small whirlpool. She stopped, then playfully swirled in the opposite direction, stirring up little waves.

After a few rounds of this, she tilted the basin, using one hand like a small dam to hold back the round peas while slowly draining the water.

With the strike of a flint, some dry grass was ignited. A deep clay pot was placed over the fire, filled with clear water, then the shelled peas. She covered the pot, added a few more sticks of firewood, and flames slowly rose from the dry branches, licking the bottom of the pot.

Loranhil brought over a chair and sat quietly by the stove. The crackling sound of burning wood filled the air, orange flames reflecting in her pupils as she fell into a slight daze.

When alone, one tends to think, pondering many things—present, past, and future.

She had been in this world for quite some time now, without her former family, friends, or familiar faces. Free from any constraints, what path would she take in the future?

Unlike the historical records and expert speculations of later generations, the Great Sage Loranhil—who would descend starlight ten times to save this world from the brink of destruction—in the Third Era, Year 1684 of the Iron Spear’s Advance, still had no grand ambitions. At this moment, she only wished to live a quiet, simple life—an ordinary human existence, nothing more.