As autumn began, above the northernmost plains of Qing Kingdom’s capital, the clouds boiled and swelled. The field workers didn’t raise their heads, for they had no interest in God’s play with the sky, its clouds and the sun - they merely wanted to harvest their crops before the rainclouds would arrive.
The volume of rain in this particular year had been high. The people spoke of the big river in the south breaching its banks and overflowing. For those that lived within the northern territories, however, this did not greatly concern them. Instead, it was the worrying prospect of the heavy rainfall delaying their annual harvests.
Occasionally, large, fearless muskrats came to scour the fields for grain, weaving between the farmers’ legs as they went. Uncaring for their presence, though, the farmers would continue to go about their harvesting duties, scythes in hand.
