The journey back to town went as well as Liu had expected; no predators, no bandits, and, best of all, no annoying insects trying to get at the game. Coming through the back entrance of Mingdu, Liu's first course of action was to head over to the man that had lent him the bow and arrows in the first place; an old guard, one who had long since been relieved of the burden to protect and had instead passed it on to the next generation. On occasion, he would come by the school and watch the youths train; Liu assumed that it had something to do with nostalgia. Luckily, the man's house was quite close to the outskirts of the town, which meant he could get a place to skin this thing faster.

"Excuse me? Mr. Xu?" Liu asked, knocking on the door with his free hand. It took a few moments, but the soft sound of footsteps and the slow creak of the door followed by the old man revealing himself with a smile was reassuring. Good, he hadn't kicked the bucket yet.

"Ah! Little Fengxian! Come in, come in! My wife's currently out at the market, but I know she'd love some meat! I know I certainly would!"

The somewhat hearty laugh that followed only seemed to exemplify that, even if he was aging and his hair was turning grey, old Mr. Xu still had that fire burning inside of him. In a way, he was like a grandfather to Liu; his own, sadly enough, had passed away before he was born. As to why, well... Even his parents weren't quite sure.

"Pardon for the intrusion." Liu said, bowing to the old soldier as he carefully made his way into his home. "Do you mind if I skin and divide the deer right now? It's starting to..."

"No problem, no problem! You do this all the time, so there's really no reason to ask!"

"Thank you."

With that small bit of banter out of the way, Liu moved to the kitchen and, after carefully clearing the table in the center of any dishes or the like, went to work. Taking a knife hanging from one of the racks, Liu meticulously and rapidly began to dissect the deer. The head came first, then the stomach, and so on and so forth; he had done this countless times, and in about twenty minutes, his job had been completed. The skin was put to the side, carefully folded to deliver to the tanner later. Bu the meat, though...

"Just leave a leg here and I'll be fine!" the old soldier stated, standing from the side as Liu silently removed one of the legs and placed it to the side for him. "I really can't thank you enough, helping my wife and I with this. Really, I can't!"

"Well, your bow's certainly made my job easier, and most of the other bows are owned as heirlooms..."

"That doesn't mean mine isn't! You see, when I was younger-"

Before the old man could go off on one of his stories about his youth, Liu swiftly placed the bow back on the wall where it was displayed before moving to clean the blood off of the arrow he had shot to kill.

"...And then! When the flags of the enemy started waving in the wind-"

"Thanks, Mr. Xu, but I have to deliver this before it starts to get stale and begins to rot. Sorry!"

And with that, Liu took the remaining meat and skin left the house.

"Okay, let's see here... I would sell it on the marketplace, but in this sun it'll go bad too quickly there... The 'Blue Dragon', perhaps?"

The town's biggest restaurant had always been a reliable place to sell off whatever his haul was for the day, so it was only logical for him to check there first. With that in mind, Liu quickly walked off to the center of the town, where the restaurant was firmly situated for all to see and visit. The rumors of a challenger back at his old school interested him, but first... Money.

The restaurant was a lot quieter than it usually was, which piqued his interest. Everyone seemed to be focus on a pair of young women chatting casually in the center. But why them, though? Usually, such a sight was fairly common...

"Oh! Liu, you're here! What a miracle!" one of the waitresses exclaimed, running over to the young man as he entered the restaurant. "Our regular hunter couldn't obtain the deer that we ne-"

The waitress' gaze turned down towards the mostly-intact deer meat at his side before turning back to him.

"Well, guess I came at a good time, huh? Missing a leg, though, but..."

"It's fine, it's fine!" the girl returned, shaking her head. "One deer is good enough, especially with how big that one is. With that, we can-"

"You can make the house special, right? Don't you only sell, like, thirty dishes of that a week?"

"Yes, exactly! I was saying that our regular hunter got hurt on the job, and couldn't bring any in. Can we buy that off of you right now?"

"Name your price."

"One gold piece and twenty sil-"

"One gold and a serving. Just tell me where to bring it."

Quickly hurrying Liu to the kitchen in the back, the head chef had Liu bring the meat to a hook hanging from the ceiling. Taking the opportunity to wash his hands, Liu took the money and slipped it into his pocket before starting to head back out to the main dining area. Before he could make it out the exit, though, the waitress from earlier grabbed his sleeve and pulled him back.

"Why are you so relaxed? The famous Tiger Lily is out there right now!" she whispered, the panic clear in her voice.

"The... What now?" Liu asked, looking between the waitress and the table before shaking his head. "Well, whatever; it's the only table left with an open seat, anyhow."

Breaking the girl's grasp on his clothes, Liu walked over to the table at the center of everyone's attention and, to the shock of everyone (as if the first girl to do so wasn't enough), casually took a seat and smiled.

"Sorry for the intrusion; nowhere else to sit. You two liking the place so far? From what I know, you two aren't from here, and it doesn't look like anyone's giving you the usual courtesy... Which sucks, to be honest."