Kun the Youngest was a good man. Everyone who had ever received his kindness said so. Kun the Youngest was als…
Kun the Youngest was a good man. Everyone who had ever received his kindness said so.
Kun the Youngest was also a strange man. And none who had known his kindness would deny that either.
Indeed, Kun the Youngest was both good and strange, but he hadn't been born that way.
Once, he had been a little beggar wandering the land, barely half the size of a grown man and with no skills to speak of. Anyone who took a dislike to him could kick him aside, and he never fought back. Against all odds, he survived, wind-battered, rain-drenched, and along the way, he learned a few tricks to keep himself alive.
For example, powders that made a man itch uncontrollably. Firecrackers that startled pursuers into stumbling. Trinkets others scoffed at, but for him, they were lifelines.
Yet even lifelines sometimes frayed.
When Ni Laoshan first found him, the boy was grievously wounded, blood mingling with rainwater as he curled inside a bamboo basket like a sewer rat.
So Ni Laoshan carried this little rat back to the underground Ghostlight Market, where even vermin could find shelter.
There, Kun the Youngest made his home.
Having known the drenching cold of rain, he always carried compassion. He crafted quirky gadgets and taught others to survive, earning his reputation as "good".
But the storms of his past ran deep. He hid his true heart behind pranks and laughter, earning the label "strange".
Kun the Youngest was good and strange, because life had left him no other choice.