The forest of the Whispering Pines was known for its treacherous beasts and confusing, shifting paths. Most cultivators flew over it to avoid the hassle. Li Yu, however, was walking. He found that flying over a forest meant you missed the mushrooms growing on the roots and the way the light dappled through the canopy.

But on this particular afternoon, Li Yu wasn't looking at mushrooms. He was following his nose.

It started as a faint drift on the wind—a scent so complex and savory it practically grabbed Li Yu by the nostrils and dragged him off the main path. It smelled of star-anise, crushed garlic, rendering fat and a spicy sweetness that promised to warm the soul.

He walked for three miles, ignoring the growls of spirit beasts until he pushed through a thicket of thorns and found a clearing.

In the center of the clearing stood a temple. It was a humble run-down structure made of red clay and rotting wood. The roof had holes in it and the statue of the deity out front, a laughing figure holding a bowl, was missing an ear.

But the fire pit in front of the temple was pristine.

The stones were scrubbed clean. The fire was a smokeless, magical flame that maintained a perfect consistent heat. And suspended over that fire on a rotating spit was a creature Li Yu had only read about in bestiaries.

A Sky-Swine.

It was a rotund beast, roughly the size of a cow with small feathery wings and scales that shimmered like copper coins. Currently, those scales were crackling and popping as they roasted. They were dripping hot golden fat onto the coals below, sending up plumes of that intoxicating aroma.

Sitting on the temple steps, meticulously turning the spit was a monk. He was vast—a mountain of a man in greasy, saffron-colored robes that were strained to their limit. His head was shaved and shiny and his face looked like a happy dumpling that had been pinched into a smile.

Li Yu stepped into the clearing, his stomach letting out a roar that rivaled a tiger’s.

The monk didn't look up. He didn't reach for a weapon. He simply kept turning the spit with a rhythmic, hypnotic motion.

"The timing is impeccable," the monk boomed, his voice warm and rich like gravy. "The skin has just achieved the Golden Crackle stage. Another minute and it would have been burnt. You have the luck of the Heavens, traveler."

"I have the nose of a starving man," Li Yu corrected, walking closer. He leaned on his bamboo staff, eyeing the meat with undisguised lust. "Is that... truly a Sky-Swine?"

"It is," the monk nodded lovingly. "Fell right out of the sky. Crash-landed on my altar this morning. Smashed my offering bowl." He chuckled, shaking his belly. "Clearly, the God of Gastronomy decided I was too thin. I am Brother Tub."

"I am Li Yu," Li Yu introduced himself. "Does the God of Gastronomy accept coins for a serving of his bounty?"

Brother Tub finally looked up. His eyes were small, dark and incredibly sharp. For a split second, Li Yu felt a gaze that dissected him, not like a healer looking for illness but like a butcher looking for the joint. Then, the look vanished and was replaced by joviality.

"Coin? Bah," Tub waved a hand, dismissing the concept. "Gold is cold and hard on the teeth. This is a temple of flavor, Li Yu. The price for a slice of the Divine Swine is a story."

"A story?" Li Yu sat down on a nearby log. Li Yu detected the evil bloodlust and killing intent on the man but his inner voice, the one that had been telling him when someone was truly bad was not reacting. This made Li Yu curious.

"Yes. A truth. A lie. A memory. Something to aid digestion," Tub said. He pulled a massive cleaver from behind his back. The blade was a dark non-reflective metal and chipped at the spine but the edge was honed to a terrifying mirror polish. "But be warned. If the story is boring, you get the tail."

Li Yu watched the monk handle the knife. The way he held it... loose grip, finger along the spine, absolute stillness in the wrist.

"Very well," Li Yu said, thinking back to his recent drunken escapades. "I have a story. It concerns a cloud, a mountain peak and the impact of rain."

Brother Tub raised an eyebrow. "Proceed."

"Some weeks ago," Li Yu began, "I consumed a wine made by monkeys. It was potent enough to make gravity a suggestion rather than a law. I found myself floating upside down high in the mountains. face-to-face with a cumulus cloud that looked remarkably like a cow."

Tub snorted, continuing to carve. Slice. Slice. The sound was crisp.

"I decided to engage the Cow-Cloud in debate," Li Yu continued, his face dead serious. "I argued that by hoarding the water vapor, it was artificially inflating the value of rain for the farmers below. Thus creating a monopoly on moisture. The Cloud, in its defense, rumbled quite aggressively. I took this to mean it believed in 'trickle-down' economics and the impact it was having."

Li Yu gestured with his hands. "We argued for three hours. I accused it of nepotism with the wind. It tried to strike me with lightning. In the end, we agreed to disagree and I fell asleep and drifted into a flock of geese."

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Brother Tub stared at Li Yu. The forest was silent for a moment.

Then, the monk threw his head back and laughed. It was a massive booming sound that shook the leaves off the trees.

"Hah! The Cloud Monopolist! I love it!" Tub wiped a tear from his eye. "A worthy tale. It has conflict, politics and stupidity. The perfect seasoning."

With a flick of his wrist that was too fast for a mortal eye to follow, Tub carved a massive slab of meat from the flank. He caught it on a wooden plate and tossed it to Li Yu.

"The Flank of the Sky-Swine. Juicy. Fatty. Crisp."

Li Yu caught the plate. The meat was glistening. He took a bite. His eyes widened.

It wasn't just food. It was art. The skin shattered like glass, releasing a burst of salty, savory oil. The meat beneath was so tender it didn't need chewing; it simply dissolved into a wave of flavor—cumin, star anise, the natural sweetness of the beast and a hint of spiritual energy that rushed through his meridians like a warm bath.

"Oh," Li Yu whispered. "Oh, this is dangerous."

"Good?" Tub asked, grinning as he carved a piece for himself.

"I have eaten at the tables of sects at grand events," Li Yu said honestly. "I have eaten pills worth cities. This... this is better."

They ate in companionable silence for a while, demolishing the massive beast. The pile of bones grew next to the fire.

"You have good hands," Li Yu observed, watching Tub strip the meat from a rib with surgical precision. "Not the hands of a cook, initially."

Brother Tub paused. He looked at the dark cleaver in his hand. The reflection of the fire danced on the steel.

"You have good eyes, Li Yu," Tub said softly. The joviality dimmed, replaced by a calm, melancholic gravity. "No. Not a cook. Before I found the Great Gut, I was known as 'The Silent Dirge'."

Li Yu nodded, taking a sip of water from his gourd. "An assassin."

"One of the best across these lands here." Tub admitted. He took a bite of pork, chewing slowly. "I killed for forty years. Princes, sect leaders, merchants. I was a ghost. I could slip into a locked room, sever an artery and leave before the heart beat its last rhythm."

"Why stop?" Li Yu asked. "Did you grow a conscience?"

"No," Tub shook his head. "I grew bored. And... I grew hungry."

He gestured with the knife.

"Killing, Li Yu, is incredibly easy. People think it is hard. It is not. Entropy is the natural state of the universe. Things want to break. A body is just a bag of fluids waiting to leak. A sect is just a group of egos waiting to fracture. To destroy something takes no talent, only will. Any fool with a rock can break a vase."

Tub pointed the knife at the roasting Sky-Swine.

"But this?" His eyes lit up with genuine passion. "To take a dead beast, dead plants, fire and time... and create something that brings joy? To balance the heat so the skin crisps but the meat doesn't dry? To balance the salt so it enhances but doesn't overpower? That is creation. That is fighting against the world! That is hard."

He looked at Li Yu.

"I spent forty years subtracting people from the world. I decided I wanted to spend the rest of my years adding something to it. Even if it is just a really, really good roast pork."

Li Yu looked at the fat monk, seeing the layers of blood and shadow buried deep beneath the saffron robes and the smell of grease. He saw a man who had walked through the valley of death and decided to set up a barbecue pit on the other side.

"It is a noble Dao," Li Yu said, raising his water gourd in a toast. "The Dao of Addition."

"The Dao of the Full Belly," Tub corrected with a grin, clinking his own greasy cup against Li Yu's. "Now, eat up. The shoulder meat is about to reach perfection, and if you let it go cold, I will have to kill you."

Li Yu laughed. "I believe you."

They sat there until the sun went down, two monsters in their own right—one a walker of worlds, one a retired reaper—sharing the simple joy of a meal that tasted like life itself.

‘So that explains why I can sense such evil bloodlust and killing intent from him but my inner voice didn’t react. This is a person who had put away his weapon to kill and is now living his life in a different way. He didn’t harm me in any way, let those he hurt or harm come after him if there are any. I’ve probably killed more than him, who am I to judge him when he is like this now.’ Li Yu thought to himself.

He was never one trying to save the world or a righteous person. If anything, he was more on the path of revenge and killing than the man currently was or ever was.

‘Tub is now a person perfecting the craft of the Full Belly as he said. Hopefully I can find such peace once my journey is over as well. Hopefully I can find such peace on my journey as well.’ Li Yu took a big gulp of his drink.

“Here, try this wine, the very same wine I was just telling you about. Be careful not to drink too much or too quickly. It is extremely potent.” Li Yu said as he took out the monkey wine and poured it into a jade cup from his storage ring and handed it to Tub.

Tub took the cup and took a deep smell of the wine. “Amazing wine! You were not lying to me earlier boy. This smell could rival many of the finest wines I have been able to enjoy in my lifetime.”

Tub then took a small drink, savoring the taste of the wine. “Delicious! Amazing! Such a thing exists!” He then down the entire cup and started floating a bit off the ground. He started laughing to himself as he made swimming motions in the air to move around.

Here was a legendary assassin in his day, swimming in the air with the joy of a little boy. Next to him, Li Yu began floating after drinking as well, doing the very same thing. Both looked at each other and began laughing.

Li Yu woke up the next morning and looked around. Tub was sleeping a distance away and all that was left were the bones of the pig the day before. Li Yu took out some fine alcohol bottles that he had and left them where he slept. Wine, rum, ales and others. He also left behind the remaining half a container of the monkey wine that they drank through yesterday.

He also took out various jerkies and other foods that he was carrying on him. Since he enjoyed foods so much, he made sure he was well stocked. Li Yu then left a note carved into the ground, ‘May you find success in your pursue of the Fully Belly Dao.’

He packed up his things and turned to leave. Having paid for the delicious meal, he felt happy. Taking this trip was the right thing to do. He was getting so many experiences that he wouldn't have otherwise. he was also meeting so many people and beings he would never have before.

As Li Yu walked away, Tub was already up and watching him go. Being an assassin all his life he never truly slept well but yesterday was different. He was fast asleep and had just woken up. Tubs had a smile on his face, ‘See you again friend, I hope our paths cross once again.’