Polluted Jianghu: 新年少鹏

"Fuck man," you say, not even turning around, "don't you know I got amnesia?"

Lighter, lighter. You don't have it. "Oh, you do?" The twin- fucked if you can tell which one is which, "that's odd. Isn't it the thing, it's where you want to get your memories back?"

You mean, you kinda do. It's just that you'd be fucked if you ask them to help you. It'd be embarrassing and you don't want that in your life. "Eh, it's whatever. Do you have a light?" They, in fact, do. You light the incense sticks, just about to finish your business, before Lei Jingjiao grabs your shoulder again. "What d'ya want?" You brush it off.

"Are you a snakehead?" the monk asks. Direct. Straight to the point.

"Who knows?"

"You."

"Well, I don't," you declare. "In fact I don't much of anything at all, so fuck off."

He does not, in fact, fuck off. "Brother-" the term of familiarity rankles you. You aren't his brother, you would accede to comrade, but you're not of Shaolin and he's not one of your relation, so he's got no right, in summation, to give you such a term. "The name of the Mingzhu Snakeheads is fucking perfidy throughout the jianghu and normal society."

Se Huishou leans across the counter, equally intent. What's with the interrogation? Did a snakehead piss in their cereal this morning? "Drug dealing. Terrorism. And Xi'an! Do you-"

"I fucking know," you bite out.

"Well, you're an amnesiac," the twins add in unison. "I'm surprised you know what money is."

You're not sure what to call Lei Jingjiao. Annoyed, yeah, angry? Definitely. But he's been angry ever since you met him and he probably won't stop. What really gets your goat is that beneath it he seems almost concerned for you. "If you are," he presses, "you have to stop. It's bad karma and it's a bad life."

"Lei Jingjiao, I like you and all, but if you keep this up we really can't be friends."

You hope this gets you in a fight. Goody two shoes junior cadre horseshit pisses you off when it's directed at you. No one gets to tell you what to do, especially in your heart of hearts. And even if you go along with him, you're not getting a giant grocery bag full of cash out of it. So he, big dumb psycho ox he is, sputters while the brains of the pair cogitates a response. Before it leaves her mouth you turn to the twins. "Can we take it somewhere private? If you're gonna try to sell me shit, I'd like somewhere confidential."

"Sure, thats-" "-not a problem. Follow me."

Like that, you left. The twins lead you to… an office? What's the nomenclature? Either way, it's a little shed clamped onto the main building that was once where the proprietors stored all their files, so it's an office. You're an overthinker. The walls are still stuffed with papers and more than one little statuette.

"So!" one of the twins declares, "we do, in fact, know who you are."

"Yay," you mumble, sinking into the chair, shoving your hands into the pockets of the pilfered bomber. "How much?"

One of the twins sits behind the chair. The other goes around the office, whistling some old song as they dust the shelves. "How much?" the kid, half their hair dyed a shoddy grey, "I like you, Mr. Between Names. But I think a history is a very expensive thing to buy back. I think we need to start at multiple millions."

"The history was mine to fucking start with. I'm askin' you to return something like a dog, not steal the Constitution of the United States here."

"Stealing that shit starts at half a million. It's not the moon, here." You all laughed. "In any case, this is a-" "-supply and demand issue," the other twin continued. "You want it so, so bad. I know this."

"Horse piss," you reply immediately. "You don't know me. Maybe I'm satisfied with how I am right now." You're not, not really.

The twin leans back in a torn up office chair, a smirk playing across his face. You recognize it, the cocky, incousiant motherfucker reflected off of him. "Motherfucker," he says in your voice, "I am the only one that can lead you through the big empty." That was you. You were saying this. You blink, and you are talking to that demon in the bathroom again, morphine smoke perfuming the room. Cold sweat runs down your back. "How long can you stand on quicksand? Be rootless? Not for long."

You blink again. It's just the punk. "What the fuck did you do to me?" you ask softly.

"You should be familiar with hallucinogens."

"I haven't eaten a thing. What the fuck." He ripped… something out. You hate it. Kill him. Kill him now. Nothing-

If you wanna kill me," the twins say in a single voice, "you're not going to have a good time."

"I never did," you croak out of a dry mouth.

"That's false. I think you and Remora are cute together."

You correct your posture. "What," you delay, thinking about what you could possibly do. Nothing. "Not me and Metalhead?"

"That's not a relationship. That's a fetish."

You rub your face. "Whatever. Get to the point. What's the sitch?"

They lean in across the table, mismatched eyes staring at you. "I want you to tear down the Colored Wolf Pagoda."

"Aight, sure."

The twins squint at you. The other moved behind the desk in a show of solidarity. "No fuckery?"

"No fuckery," you stretch. "What do you mean by tear down? Like, do you mean literally? Where'd ya get explosives?"

"Uh, if you're gonna blow it up we honestly don't care," they admit. Cute seeing them flustered. "But preferably we'd like something a lot less…"

"Cool. I understand."

One of the twins- can't tell which is which, lets their head thump against the flimsy table. "Argh. Well," one of them breathed out, "just get the casino no longer functional. Blown up, the owner dead, whatever. We don't want to see that fucking cancer anymore."

"Cool beans."

You left, mind a whirl. Nothing quite makes sense.

[1.4] {Harmonious Society} Visit Remora: Just to be friendly.
[1.2] {Wrathful Manifestation} Stake out a Zhenyuan Office: End run the creepy kids by seeing what the cops have on you.
[1.1] {Chase the Red Sun} Hit up the Neo-Maoists again: Proletariat solidarity > creepy cult bullshit.
[]- Go Back: You're tired and your ribcage is acting up again.

By the time the shitty little garage receded into another grey building, and not one containing some cult bullshit, you felt safe enough from the Iron Guanyin's gaze to shittalk the honored bodhistivatta. Well, idol of one. It's so heterodox you're surprised the Shaolin hasn't burned it out of sheer principle. They really must have good blackmail, you consider as J3 rolls past your window. You wonder which grandmaster was fingered. The total number of grandmasters were.. Hell, you can't remember. That bit's still foggy.

The driver gives you a look of general suspicion when she reaches the gated off villa. You promptly prove her more or less right when you wait for the car to round the bend to vault over the side walls. As heaven would have it, one of your virtues appears to be a mind for directions. After a little bit of aimless wandering, whistling some pop Russian song that's trying really hard at folksiness because of the snowy landscape, you're back where you started, under the brownstone skyscraper Yuexia lives.

She's probably furious. You scratch your chin. She wouldn't beat up a cripple, would she? Nah, hell. She's seen you. She'd kick your shit in just on general principle no matter what state you were in.

The elevator doors opened to Yuexia's flat and you were quite prepared to meet your doom when you saw two girls, about Yuexia's age. They had no internal strength to speak of and you really want to run off with their purses. Your fingers itch.

"Omigod it's him," the girl with the ponytail squeals, rushing forward to shake your hand. "Mr. Han Baobei, I'm a huge fan!"

"You know she's just fucking with you, right?" Who's Han Baobei? Such a stupid name. You shake it anyway. "You're her friend?"

"Yeah, lil' Yuyue," the other girl, glasses, proper haircut on the dowdy side, "c'mon, you coming in?" So she has the combination. Huh. "You ever get told you look like Han Baobei?"

"I don't know who the fuck Han Baobei is," you say. They shuck off their boots and hit the couch while you hang up the black bomber. Something stings in your side.

"You should!" Cheery says. "He's so hot, my god. Don't you watch Murder the Fifth?"

"It's okay, I guess. He's the lead?" Poor guy. Their eyes follow you as you step into the bathroom clutching your side. Metalhead bashed your ribs in with the steel strut, and the cut just popped open. It didn't hurt that much, but it was your only shirt, so you stuffed a wad of two ply toilet paper against it after cleaning it again.

"He's definitely a gangster."

"Yeah. You wanna ditch?"

"What? No. Yuyue's family friends are all gangsters and we partied with them."

"Fuck me, you are dumb."

You imagine that they thought you couldn't hear them, with the walls and the running water between you and them. Course, you did anyway. All you can do is hope they don't call the cops. "Heeeey," Cheery grins, Glasses reclining against the sofa. "You okay?"

"Peachy keen," you grunt, settling into a spare loveseat. Ow your ribs sting. And your shin splints. "I still dunno why you're here. Is it because of me? It's because of me, isn't it."

"Don't get too inflated," Glasses is opening the cabinet under the TV. "Brawl?"

"Brawl," you confirm. Your fingers are a little numb but they're warming up. "You break into her house often?"

"Pssh. Yeah. Final Destination?"

"That's such a yer dad choice," you remark.

"He called you an old woman, Jing," Cheery points.

"I'll beat him later."

"You got good odds." The game starts. You can catch them whispering, as long as you ignore the sounds coming from the TV.

"What do you do?" The question comes suddenly. Jing is trying to hush up Cheery, scared that you're gonna go apeshit and throw them out of the window. You're insulted. You're not that kind of psycho. You have some measure of control. Some.

"Pro sports," you lie. Kinda true. They accept it, hopefully not for real real, but because if you told them what you actually did (the smoke was unbearable and when you left you lept into an open sewer) you probably have to throw them out of the window.

"Aaaah." the game continues. Cheery asks, "hey, what teams do you follow? Shanghai Sharks?"

"Fuck Shanghai," you reply on instinct. "Bunch of millionaire second gens. Nah, I'm a huge fan of Jilin."

"Jeeze, and you call me a boomer. They keep on losing. Every season they finish fourth." You grunt. Don't have anything more to say. "How's Yuyue these days? She's gone radio silent until she posted your face. Left us on read and everything." You turn and face them.

"She's pretty happy," you guess. It's not like you know her that well. "If she was spacy I hadn't noticed. Something come up?"

They're uncomfortable. Jing finds that the rolling clouds are of paramount interest and Cheery hems and haws before she finally comes to a decision. "Family tragedy," she finally settles. You nod. Coincidentally they're also not watching the screen so you had the perfect chance to line up for a smash and-

"Where the fuck were you!"

"Oh, shit, it's you. Welcome back," you say, after turfing Cheery and Jing off the screen to the general despair of all. "I- hey, I was winning!"

"You're a goddamn invalid!" she screams into your ear. "How the fuck are you moving, that's what I wanna know. And- and- oh, no."

Yuexia's, or Ma Yuyue's, friends are smiling. "It's good to see you have friends other than us," Cheery says cheerfully.

"He- I-" You begin laughing. Yuexia looks red as a tomato, and it's funny as fuck to see, even with your ribs poking your lungs with each hearty guffaw. "Aaah, just shut up! Leave!" She hauls Jing and Cheery (and isn't it fucked that you only know one of their names) out the door, and they wave goodbye to you before Yuexia shuts the door with a slam.

"You mad?" you ask.

"Yes, I'm mad. What the-" she paces a circle around you. You wonder what you're gonna do with the controller. "Where the hell were you?"

"I was praying. At a temple," you say, giving the cord a little more slack for her to walk over.

"Fuck you," she tosses her hair over her shoulder, "you'd never pray. You'd be in a bottle somewhere."

"Harsh but accurate. I'd never convince you, anyways. Hey, how's that thing with the booklet? Got a list yet, Batwoman?"

She pauses from letting her head thump against the wall. "No," she says. "There's one guy I'm missing. And… urgh, fuck." You nod. She must be aiming for like, some super big hit. Real cowboy cop shit. Hey, maybe that's why the Zhenyuan don't care about her escalating antics. Kill a tiger, you mean, several tigers, and the flies will all look busy. "You wanna say something. Out."

"Colored Wolf Pagoda," you raise.

"Oh, that thing," she spits out. "God. Where are we, Macau?"

"I'm detecting some hostility there." Kinda has to be. "Anyway, apparently the guy in charge knows just about everything." Thank you, Fei Dao. "And, coincidentally-"

"Your memories are there." You nod. She nods. "Oh, shit. You have a dumbass plan lined up, don't you."

Make A Dumbass Plan
[]- You're going to walk in there, totally legit, and move up the Pagoda disguised as high rollers. Pros: less fighting. Also, parties. Cons: Same as the above.
[]- Who cares about the security? Knock some guys out and steal their shapeless jumpsuits and hop onto a service elevator.
[]- Go ask Cho and Han if they can get you in. They owe you, and all, right?