Polluted Jianghu: 新年少鹏

[Laplace]

You breathe in. "Okay." You look down into the marble tiles, lick your lips, and then back up. "Let's uh, start with the basics. Who am I?"

Si Fei leans back and sips from the cup. "Why don't you tell me? Sorry, I'm habitually addicted to this. You couldn't get a straight answer out of me even if you tried."

"What if I tried to beat it out of you?"

"Good old Li Peng!" Si Fei laughs, croaking to the sky. "That's just like you! Nothing could change you, kid!"

You nod, gathering your memories. "I'm… some kind of top gun. There's no fucking way that I was born with all of this-" your hands curl into the peng claw- "out of the womb. So someone trained me. My uncle.

Like this, like this, and this and this, a voice chanted in your mind. You ignored it and pressed on. "I think- no, I don't think. I tried to forget something, didn't I? Fire. An apartment block. How warm am I?"

"As hot as the fire you set."

Bile surges. You flip him the bird, which just makes him laugh. "Seriously," you complain, guts pressing against the skin, wanting to fly away from your body, "just give it to me straight. Who am I? I'll fuckin… I'll wait a twenty years and keep asking this stupid fucking question. You'll grow old and slow someday."

"Don't bet on it," Si Fei advises.

"Choke on your own dick and die."

He takes his time, the fuck. He has nothing but, but you are living fast forward. In the film of your life you have a hand on the skip forward five second button. He enjoys the tea. It tastes like bilgewater in your mouth. Slowly, with all the care in the world, ceremony out the ass while you stew in impotent, directionless anger.

"Li Peng, Li Peng," the old toad mused to himself. The words stick to his mouth like flies. "You're right. You're a top gun. The Bright Lord Snakehead's psycho muscle."

Is that relief you feel, crawling down your spine?

"I don't suppose I'm a poor boy that fell into some bad company."

He slaps a hand on the sumptuous table. The lights reflected a hundred hundred times dizzy you so. The room might as well not be real. "Where'd you find a wit, Li Peng?" Si Fei roars. "I don't remember your tongue being that sharp. No, you were not. Li E'kun raised you, boy, even though you called him uncle. From orphanage to the road. Oh, you tried to leave, you even managed to test into a university, except you always came back. Always. Because you were too clever for your own good. Did you know why you got kicked out of your university?"

"Why?"

"Because," Si Fei continued, full of glee, like he was remembering just the funniest joke, the funniest goddamn shit to grace the earth, "they caught you selling Adderall and over the counter neurostims by the bucketful and fighting all the other- in your words- shitbrain dog bastards cutting in on your turf. And you even turned a tidy profit! After you got expelled you spent a week drinking your grief out with three semesters of drug money."

You let your head fall to the table. Wood thuds against your forehead. "How did I lose my memory?" you hear your voice say.

"After the thing in Gansu you came to J3 with a load of product for Kirisaki," Si Fei replied. "And you came to me, asking for something that would make you forget. And I did, one of my finer elixirs. Except… you must have overdosed. I could taste the compounds in your sweat. How much did you pump?"

You squeeze your eyes shut. "I don't remember. But I snorted a shitload of my own stuff. You're giving me antecedotes, you old fuck. I still don't have an… identity. A history."

"Do you need one? You're already Ming Jian! Metalhead's equaller! Any moment, you can just walk out of Jing-Jin-Ji, empty and clear!"

"But I stayed."

"But you stayed," Si Fei nodded. "And it's a shame your history will dog you, because you're on the spotlight now. After that stunt with the Yakuza, people will talk and everyone with a grudge will come and try to settle it. It's amazing how Ma Yuyue hasn't twigged it. And she came so close. So, so close. I-"

Iron Tower Hua Li hurried back in the room and whispered something. "What? He set more?"

"Y-yes, and a lot of them are rigged to explode if we try to deactivate them and fail. We should call in a sp. Specialty team."

The tower shook slightly. Si Fei looked annoyed. You're not sure if you should curse Lei Beihong for having cut off the line of discussion, or thank him for getting you out of the same. "Well, you should leave. I'll have to declare an evacuation, damn that Lei Beihong." There's a sour note that you're pleased to hear in his voice.

You stand up in haste. The floor shudders again. "What do you mean? Yuexia, I mean."

"Why, you killed her kinsfolk."

It was so casual the way he said it. Like it didn't even mean a thing. He could have said you skipped repaying them a hundred or something. Chump change instead of their lives. Then he waved you away. "We must meet again, sometime," he suggests. You take the elevator down, out into the street. They were panicking, all the rich folk, nervously wondering what was going on.

Yuexia was nowhere. You walk out into the spill of bodies and you couldn't find her in the press. Whatever. It's whatever. As you leave you snatch a carton of cigarettes from someone's hand- some rich fuck, you're not sure, and light one up with his lighter. You swear it's whatever.

The air is cold against your hot skin.

You're standing on the steps of the Pagoda, thinking, inhaling the carcinogenic smoke. Still don't feel any different. What did you expect? All you know now is that you're definitely the guy that killed her cousins or aunts or uncles or whatever. Might not have been you. Could have been Li E'kun, your supposed uncle.

Hot smoke fills your lungs.

[1.2] {Wrathful Manifestation} Face Up: Yuexia's Yuexia. There's no way she'll just let this go, when she finds out. Might as well cut out the middleman and meet her straight.
[1.4] {Harmonious Society} Double Check: You still have a tie to the Iron Guanyin, and you can't trust Si Fei all the way. Maybe they'll contradict him. You hope they'll contradict him.
[]- Get Out of the City: There's nothing here anymore. Get your money and bounce. You will find Li E'kun and the Snakeheads and you will get everything straight, and leave it all behind.

 

[Laplace]

Trust is a thing you don't have. You mean, Si Fei is the last thing you can trust. Yeah, just let me rock up to the local cyst of capital and pus and trust everything that drops out of his mouth. Something hot and red blooms above you. An overpressure wave. Flakes of glass fall down with the snow. The Pagoda is crumbling. Go Lei Beihong, you've done it.

Hey, this means that you've technically did the job the Iron Guanyin wanted you to, you thought as you watched the tower slowly crumble. The facade exploded, chips of LCD display flaking off into the street as the patrons screamed and ran faster. They wanted the tower gone. Hey, presto, tower's gone. Si Fei's probably still alive, no one of your calibre, let alone his, dies when the building they're in blows up.

Smoke trails you as you amble over to the garage, an island of uncanny relaxation in a sea of chaos. Mercedes and BMWs whip by you as you whistle a tune. Target one sleek black coffin of wealth, one oily trust fund kid yelling at the driver to scroll up the windows, get him out of there. "Yo, bro." You reach out and grab the rim of the window, which strains to press upward. Spiderwebs stretch out from where your fingers touch the glass. The smell of rich leather is palpable, and so is the sight of abject terror in the rich second-gen's face. "Take a walk, eh?"

Taxi's driver all too happy to comply, and after a brief staring contest the trust fund in the back grudgingly clambers out. You speed off in the night, the slow destruction of the Pagoda lighting up the rear view mirrors, to the junkyard, one thumb skipping through the driver's playlist. Nothing good, all cantopop.

The drive's too short. You expected to get in a jam, but you shut the door in the junkyard's driveway, smoothing out your suit vest as you march into the shrine, where the two twins are drinking tea. The monks are nowhere to be gone. "I've come to bargain," you say grandly, spirits absurdly lifted. "Tower's boomed. Now, gimmie my deets."

Twin No.1 takes a long, long sip, while Twin No.2 takes you in. Jasmine tea again. Those little fucks are definetly doing this to screw with you. "Well?" you ask.

"Is Si Fei dead?" One or the other. There is an air of coolness around them, the milk of human kindness curdled into the sort of irritation you got when the delivery guy shows up thirty minutes behind schedule.

"The Pagoda's gone," you say, dragging a chair to sit at their table, in the empty space that their congregation once prayed to. "So, them's the breaks. My end? Done."

"As long as Si Fei-"

"Yes, yes, it's all very sad, I tried my best but it didn't work, but look, no more Pagoda."

God damn the first to drink tea on social occasions. They're dragging it out, taking your measure. Your leg jitters like hell. The mirrored face of the Iron Guanyin, beyond mortal worries and yet so enmeshed in it that she stayed in this hell, reflects you three. "So," Twin No.2 asks, "did Si Fei tell you everything?"

You rub your lips. Need a cig. "Why?"

"We think-" "-You know."

You shrug. "Yeah, more or less. I don't trust him. Not at all. It's feels almost too neat. I'm not-"

"-Maybe it feels like it fits because it does," Twin No.1 points out. "There's no trick, sometimes. Just the truth."

"Yeah, yeah. I am a Snakehead, aren't I?"

They shrug as one. "Yep. Off and on, though."

"What was the thing in Gansu?" Your mouth is dry.

The twins look at each other. "We'll give you that. You burned down an apartment block to get at this family that was holed inside."

You lean back. "Wow. I bet they were named Ma, right?" When they nodded, you heaved a sigh. Guess there's no weaselling out of this one. You stand up and look over yourself. No, you're not going to walk to this shit looking like an escort. "Well, thanks. I don't suppose you know where Yuexia or Ma Yuyue is?"

"The Beijing Palace Museum," Twin No2 says. "Do you really need to do this?"

You shrugged and left, feeling the cold night air on your skin. Half hour later you stopped by a roadside street vendor and got a tracksuit. Then it was the Forbidden City. This late in the night it was empty, washed out in moonlight and halogen lamps.

Face up, Li Shao Peng. This is your dance.

You parked the car outside of the city and hopped over the walls. The thump of your feet draws attention, thirty Zhenyan sec troopers and there, in her white jacket and a sword at her waist, Yuexia.

They rush forward to surround you, a ring of black. You walk forward. "Well?" you ask. "Let's get this over with."

"Li Peng," Yuexia says. And it is says. There is no emotion in her voice, she doesn't growl or choke. Her thumb flicks an inch of swordblade out in the chilly night, the white courtyard covered with the last snowfalls, then flicks it back into the scabbard again. "I didn't expect you."

"Can't say anyone does. Look, I killed your family. My surname is the Li of jasmine's flower. Let's get this show on the road."

"I guess." She scratches her head, looks at the ground, the walls, the floor. "You don't have a weapon."

That's fair. You're pretty confident in your empty hand skills but there's a limit. One of the Zhenyan goons has a spear. "Gimmie that." You march over and snatch it from his hands before he can protest. It's around six feet, the spearpoint's a little tacticool, but it works. Good balance, solid carbon fibre construction. You try out some moves with it. Smooth as butter. This thing won't break.

"Spear's up to the task?"

You point at Yuexia. "Yo this kid just called your armorers shit." This gets no reaction from anyone. "I feel like you don't want to fight." You begin pacing a circle around her. "What gives? That's not the Yuexia I know. Why do I get the special treatment? You should have that sword out and calling me an incomparable villain amongst villains."

"Yeah, well, today's an off day."

"We-" she flinches, is that it?- "just stormed the Colored Wolf Pagoda. Call off these goobers and let's have a proper fight. Think of this as payback for all the times I called you a rich kid. Besides, hey, these guys are gonna take me in anyway, ain't that right?"

There's that Zhenyan captain, fry face from weeks before. "Yes," comes the electronic buzzsaw growl from the voice box.

"See? Look, come on, take me in. It'll look good on your resume. She is your intern, right? Why's she even here?"

"Just leave, Grand Abbot Tut," Yuexia cuts in. "I don't want to fight you. Just… just get arrested, break out, I don't even care."

She's wavering. It must be hard for her. You were, sort of, comrades for a while. You got tortured together. (You did and she watched). You defeated the Japanese imperialists together. Yeah, that's why. So maybe…

No. You couldn't, you realize. It's not fair to her, watching her family's killer leave. No child could live under the same heaven as their father's murderer. She needs this more than you. There just needs to be one push.

Last Push:
[1.4] {Harmonious Society} "Do you want to know how they died?"
[1.2] {Wrathful Manifestation} "I hated you. I've always hated you since the moment we met."
[1.1] {Chase the Red Sun} "You're an idiot. You won't solve anything. You'll never be Batman."
[1.1] {Pain is a Teacher} "If you don't, then who'll stop me? Murdering and killing. You want that?"

 

[Laplace]

The moon is brighter than it should be. The albedo from the marble tiles of the Forbidden City and the snow reflects light into your eyes. The sky is alit with the soft, diffuse smog of light pollution, ten thousand city lights smearing the stars from the sky. "You're an idiot, you know." Your tone is light, conversational. You could be discussing the weather with a neighbor you pass on the street. Yuexia starts. You walk three steps forward, she walks three steps back and to the side. The Zhenyan cops- no, here and now they are witnesses- give space. "You are not Batman, you will never be Batman."

"Now I definitely know you're insane." Tired venom drips from her lips. "You should be in an insane asylum."

Probably. "That crusade of your's, killing Yakuza? Do you really think that's going to solve anything? You're just tallying up bodies. Respectable, Tower-killer Ma Yuyue."

"Your point?" Frost on those words. It'd kill flowers.

"You're a thug, like me. You like killing, fighting, because your life- cram school, boba tea, the entrance exams- just don't have that pep, doesn't it? Ragie ragie. All you want is to swing a sword. How fucked up and hopless. But it's all alright, isn't it? All those bodies. It's alright because they're bad people anyway."

Yuexia's face is covered by her white hood. You're close enough for you to see every button on her coat. "Coming from you, this lands off." You hypocrite. How dare you come at me like this. That's what she's thinking. So why isn't her sword out yet?

"No. Coming from me, this should hit hard. The devil knows his own." You are walking together to the center of the grand courtyard of the last dynasty, the semi-sacred heart of state turned tourist trap. The temple where the Emperor made rites and observances overlooks two idiots preparing to kill each other. "What do you expect to do with your life? Nothing. You can do nothing. You will do nothing."

Yuexia laughs high and sharp. "You know what, Grand Abbot? I think you're projecting."

"Huh?"

"You're a fucking boomer. One of those washed up beef jerky has-beens sitting in the street, wondering where the world went wrong. Except you'd have to have been someone, and you broke down before you even touched the starting line. All that communist stuff? Nostalgia. Ostalgie. You don't even mean it, half the time." Your fingers clench into your palm hard enough to draw blood. Teeth grind against each other so hard that they might split down the middle. "See? Hit a nerve, didn't I? Li Peng-" this is the first time she used your name and she's not even mad, just sort of calm and waveless- "I really don't want to kill you, even after all of this."

"You want it one way, but it's the other." You are also calm. The anger passed, it's just a memory now. "Sorry. There's only one way you're leaving this place, and it's with a coffin."

The wind howled in the Forbidden City. You don't know who made the first move. All you remember was the sound of stone cracking and the hiss of steel on leather. One moment they studied each other, and the next, your spear was extended in a full killing thrust, nothing but air and Yuexia was behind you.

You turn and see her in the moonlight and move like dancers.

To an outside observer, your fight is two shapes darting around the courtyard like oversized flies. The moth in white landed on a railing, and the buzzing beast in black crashed into it and turned it into rubble. There was a brief exchange, a cry of steel on steel, and then they would part, again and again. Every time you pursued her the local head of whateverthefuck historical preservation committee probably wept blood. She's… fast, and light. You dug trenches and furrows, stabbed holes into the famous walls, stomped with the force of cannons and chased after her, but it's like trying to catch a silk thread tossed about in the wind, waving and bending without resistance.

It's so fun! You're smiling,

You're sure you can get her. You're more conditioned, even with your heart pounding so hard the ventricles feel thin. She'll tire out eventually, you know. You're breathing slow and steady, but she's running ragged. Every time you clash and duel for a round, her hot vital breath is just that much more uneven.

Last one! She's leaping off of the balustrade after you chased her up the ritual pavilion, but she trips and you're on her, stabbing down like a falcon on terminal descent. She twists and your spear passes through her side.

Victory!

A hot line describes itself over your eye. Blood obscures your vision and you hit the stones face first. "Ow," you complain. You roll up and into a spearman's stance again. "Nice trick," you salute her. It really is. She's standing there, idly turning in circles, without a drop of blood on her. She must have planned it out. That thick coat of her's makes it hard to tell where her body is.

"Thank you," Yuexia smiles, and it's on again. With an eye gone, she's more confident in pressing the attack. With an eye gone, you have to play more defensively. She's in your reach, beyond the spearpoint, and you swear you saw it go through her like she's a ghost. Now she's just an inch away from you. The spear haft intercepts a light strike that would have opened up the aorta in your throat. Now it's stuck in the fiber construction of the spear, struggling to get out. You let go and deliver a strong straight into her gut. She flies away, skidding like a rock over the ruined tiles.

You wipe away the blood in your eyes as Yuexia leaps back up like it was nothing. A trickle of blood crawls down the corner of her mouth. She doesn't look hurt at all. She's pretty good at this light body skill thing, so that force that could punch through steel just… doesn't matter to her.

Plan:
[1.4] {Harmonious Society} Limb Maiming Evil: You have your peng claw. Catch her, a limb, a joint, and never let go. You'd like to see her slip that.
[1.2] {Wrathful Manifestation} Force Like Cannons: You don't believe she can soak up all the damage. Be faster than her and keep hitting her until something breaks.
[1.1] {Chase the Red Sun} Great Peng's Flight: Harry her. Press her constantly, use your reach to keep her at a distance until she makes an error.
[1.1] {Pain is a Teacher} Never-be-Hurt: If she wants to cut at you, she needs to get to you. Let her cut your flesh so you can return the favor tenfold.

 

[Laplace]

Evil schemes boil in your head. Your heart beats a rhythm in your ribcage as you slowly meet Yuexia under the Palace Museum staircase. She rolls her shoulders and picks up her sword. Closer. Closer. You don't walk. That's too much of a tell. Instead, two sets of feet slide to each other, circling like planets caught in orbit. The Zhenyan guards are standing far away. Good. You're abstractly worried that one of them might get ideas. You have to drop the spear, use it as a distraction. Yes. That's the trick, feint, let go, and shoot for a grapple.

But Yuexia gets a vote too. A snowflake landed in your eye. You blink it away, and then she's gone, to the left. You follow, twisting your foot and exploding out in a burst of force. Too linear. You misjudged the timing, because she hooked a finger on your sleeve and flipped you to the ground like she was rotating a street kebab.

Her sword jabs downwards. You grab it, thrumming against your palm with real energy. You bunch up and kick her to the sky. Enough time to rise. She lands full of grace on the roof of the Palace Museum.

"You're slow, Li Peng!" She shouts.

"I had some to drink today! Not my best form, I know." You start on the stairs. Neither of you break the stare. "You're lucky I'm not proper drunk. Otherwise it wouldn't be a fight."

"That's not how it works, bro."

Now you are under the eaves of the museum, and Yuexia hops of, coat fluttering in the wind. "Yeah? How'd you know? Got drunk lately?"

Her lips twitch. Win. "Well?" Her sword catches the moonlight in a flash of light, raised to her eye level as she sinks low. You follow suit.

You execute your scheme when you meet her in front of the doors, charging once again. Your hand on her collar. Her hand on yours. Sword and spear clattering on the ground, trapped in your legs. You know where this is going.

The door is heavy wood reinforced with steel panels but that does not stop Yuexia and you from simply smashing it off the hinges when you half-threw, half staggered each other into it. Alarms wail, the dark interior, replicas of poetry prints stretching from ceiling to floor colored in flashing lights. Elbows and hands smash the ground, half on reflex, as you dance a punch drunk waltz. You think that's her heel she just brought down on your nose, and you had to almost break your shoulder to get out of a hold. But it's alright. You're pretty sure you almost broke her collarbone with an elbow.

They separated and had each other's weapons in their hands. You struck first, with the same straight crushing lines of force, biomechanics delivering the maximal amount of force in direct jabs and great slashes. She retaliates, the spear whirling around her body like

You are equally incompotent. For this reason you both lost this bout. She caught a badly time thrust between her arm and chest, trapping it in her armpit. You twisted it and scraped a healthy chunk of flesh away. You didn't think she'd stab you in the foot as you lept away. The blade went between the bones and clicks against the tiles.

Ow.

You press on head high. Scraps of… you think silk, replica silk to make the palace look pretty, flutter around you like butterflies. She cuts a hole in the wall and flees, and when you follow you grab the spear and drop the sword.

"No," she got out before your hand clutched her wrist and began to squeeze. You can feel the bones grinding together, like walnuts in a bag. Squish and grind and twist.

You feel her take a sharp breath. Then she breaks her own wrist before you. It slips out of your hand like a limp fish.

All around you are the odds and ends of history. Mostly pottery. Emergency lights are on now, shining down on the history of the revolution. All good stuff. Red flags, smiling peasants, and the destruction of the foreign imperialists by the radiant light of the Communist Party. Yuexia stands up, shakily, and grabs her hand.

C'mon, you encourage her. You can do it.

With a sound like a gunshot she pops her wrist back in place. The fight's back on.

It's not pretty.

The heroes of the socialist era look down on you. Scrabbling in the dirt. Blood leaks out of you and her. Yuexia comes at you in profile. Her right's out of commission. But your pierced foot is hurts like hell, as if centipedes and scorpions were tunneling through the hole and up your femur.

Her fingers stab into your flesh like knives. Two knuckles, almost tickling your kidney. Good show! You spat the blood rising up in your throat at her eyes and grab her head when she reflexively backed away. The tips of your fingers begin to crush her occipital bone and Yuexia's hands rise to break away.

You fold her over with a punch to the gut. Mucus and spittle splatters over your eye.

"How you-"

She's doing pretty good, you decide when she hooks a finger into your open wound. Needless to say it hurts like hell. You fall like a sack of potatoes and she begins to choke you.

You can't do it, you want to tell her, you want to kill me with my own Peng Claw. But it's not a technique. Twenty years of conditioning. There's no trick to it. You should poke out my eyes.

I want to kill you slow, she wants to say. You bastard. You motherfucker.

Torture doesn't suit you, you grin, foam between your teeth. You stand up like it was nothing. It was not nothing. It hurt, the pain in your foot, your chest. Bruises you can't even count. They'll bloom tomorrow, you think. Then you punch Yuexia's floating ribs into her organs. Something squished in her side, and she pushed off of you.
There's a case with a rifle with bayonet attachment above her. She smashes it open, adding another alarm. Poor Zhenyan. They'll get yelled at. The tiles underneath you shatter as you test out your foot. It's just pain, you repeat yourself. Just pain.

Just Yuexia, stabbing dowards with the bayonet. It's a feint. She cracks your head with the rifle but and then again on your jaw, propelling you into dynastic history with a golf-club swing. Emperor Something or the other, you think Taizu, stares down at you with imperial disdain. "Pardon me, your worship," you say to the image, and punch a hole in the display case and greet Yuexia with a psychotic grin and a heavy three-headed spear in your hands.

The hero of the story leaps out of the wall and comes to a stop when she sees you. You pirroute on your unwounded foot, blood splattering in great circles. The great halberd smashed into the rifle and it broke. Yuexia bent backwards, one prong drawing a thin line of blood down her throat. You fall. It's too heavy, and you're too unbalanced. Time enough for her to smash a sword case and fend off the next two strikes.

The sound of steel on steel sounds through the hall. You and her duel your way through the museum, backwards through time. She's strong, to fend off your halberd, even if your left foot is unsteady. Cuts flick their way across your face and arms, while in every exchange the heavy spear makes her grit her teeth from the bone rattling force.

You danced your way through the Qing dynasty and into the Yuan, then the Song and the Liao, to Han Wudi's pursuit of the Xiongnu, then Qin Shi Huang's reunification, and then…

In the period of Spring and Autumn spear and sword met and broke. The weight of the heavy spear snapped her blade in two, but not before she hewed off the metal spearhead with her half-a-sword.

Strength left you. You collapsed, lungs heaving, back against some display case or the other. She did too, staring at you from across the room. Everywhere, you leak. Your foot leaks blood, trailing through the door. Your face is bloody and you are discovering cuts and stabs from Ma Yuyue that you hadn't noticed. Like your right hand, two fingers cut open to the bone. .

"So." She rasps out. A towering general or prince or something or the other, bearing a sword in his hand, towers behind her. Carved out of ice. THIS SWORD WAS MADE FOR GUOJIAN'S USE, the characters on the sword say.

"So," you agree.

You fall silent, unsure where to go. "You still up for it?" you call out.

"Give me a moment." You nod. You need a moment too. "Li Peng?"

"Hm?"

"Do you regret anything?"

You think. "Yes," you conclude. "It's too late now, though. If I wanted a new life, I should have bounced from J3 first chance I got. For a moment, I was free. But I stayed. What about you? How's being Batman?"

"I never wanted to be Batman," she replies, clutching a spreading stain of red on her stomach. "It was to… oh, just to fight, you know? You have to know. Because school was boring, everything was so boring. But when I swing my sword… I feel alive. The rush. I could say whatever crazy thing comes to my mind. You're right. Halfway."

"It's fun," you agree.

"Yeah. There's nothing quite like it. It was still strange when they caught you. Gu- the captain," she clarifies, "told me that there was a guy named Li. Ran away, though, so I thought I'd get him."

"Now you do."

"Maybe. Li Peng, Li Peng, do you have an uncle?"

The thought makes you smile. "Yes. Do you need him too?"

"What's he like?"

The question shocks you. "I don't remember. Uncle-ish, I suppose. If I saw him I think I would know what I think of him. But he raised me, so I think somewhere he loved me in his own way."

"Into a weapon?"

The question, and the pity behind the question, infuriates you so. "You're a weapon too," you snarl. "Seriously. Don't come this far to pity me." You cough. A hand comes out bloody.

This next bit doesn't need words. You hold her gaze, she holds your gaze, and then all of a sudden you whirl up together, pain and hurt forgotten, and smash the cases behind you. The sword of Guojian and the spear of Fuchai, in your hands. The bronze sang and it felt right that they would face each other again after thousands and thousands of years. You and her are no kings, no worthy inheritors of Guojian and Fuchai, but who are they to say no? They are rotten to dust while you and her are in the flush of life.

For your own use.

[1.4] {Harmonious Society} You smile because Yuexia is surmounting you, becoming greater than you.
[1.2] {Wrathful Manifestation} You feel nothing but to move and dance until it empties you out.
[1.1] {Chase the Red Sun} You are glad because this is over and then this will pass into memory.
[1.1] {Pain is a Teacher} You almost want to sing. This is home. Bleeding, killing and being killed.

 

[Laplace]

It's strange. It's euphoric.

Fuchai's spear is alive in your hands, an old friend that you didn't know you had. You think it's the same for Yuexia with Guojian's blade. You feint high, flicker out blows in strange slippery slideways movements you don't remember knowing. Yuexia is changed too. Gone are the elegant circles and acrobatic fients, now she hammers down brutal hacks like she's holding an axe and you're some poor log.

Bile eating bastard, a part of you screams. Wu bastard. I'll kill you.

That's not you, another part says.

You fucker from Wu, Yuexia's sneer screams. I've wanted this since you made me a servant.

That's not her, another part says.

Goujian and Fuchai, isn't it. You wish you were tripping balls. You have a feeling that, next to your reflection punched full of holes, that knife-man, and the leopard-eyed thing, you'd see a bitter drunk with a slit throat bemoaning his kingdom of Wu. Go away, you would say. You're a ghost. I'm more than you, king. I know what it's like to shit in a flush toilet.

Are you? You live in a nest of steel and know pleasures and drugs I can only dream of, but here you are, killing and being killed. So many thousands of years and you're still hacking and slashing like a common sword-guest. I should make you my assassin.

Fuck. You can only hope Yuexia has better luck with her ghost-delusion.

Yuexia. Ma Yuyue. You let a downwards hack whistle without sound past your nose. You think you know why Uncle teached you this. You check her rush with a strike of the spear's haft, and spins a cut that she intercepts with an open hand. You made her, in some respects. She made herself, chasing after you. Your heart swells with obscene pride and respect as you continue the duel.
Each muted clang of steel on steel shatters the floor, the walls, the cases, whenever it touches something else. Every time you step, you put holes on the floor. You can walk through walls now, the plaster and wood and wires coming apart into mist. As if you are the only real thing, you and her. Yuexia has slipped like a ghost through a window. You walk out of the wall, constituent bits exploding before you, then tumbling in slow motion, and then freezing.

She lands in an open pavilion. What's happening? She asks. You shake your head. You don't know either. It's divinity, you think as you walk to her, dragging a hand through the wall. It splatters away like water.

You think you're in between moments. Blood drips off of you and tumbles in frozen time. Yeah. The world after the thunder. Soundless. Timeless. Breathless.

This has nothing to do with our thing, you mouthed the words at her.

She nods. But now we have all the time in the world. I want to stay for a while.

It won't last. It is dreamlike, how you're talking to her. Are you even talking to her? You've lost quite a lot of blood. Face up, Yuexia!

The Beijing Palace Museum needs renovations everywhere you pass through with her. Weren't even trying to keep it contained. You smash cases and throw the swords, the knives, the shards of pottery and statues at each other. Now she has a crossbow strung and looses it. The bolt's like a high powered anti-mat rifle shot. It cores through three walls. After that you found it paramount to slide into a suit of bronze armor, just the vest. Three times she struck you three times it bounces off the bronze scale. You smash her through three walls and had that spear at her throat, but Goujian's blade, victorious over Wu, comes alive of it's own violation and nearly cuts your Achilles' tendon open.

You had to hop away.

Now you are back where you started, dueling under the moon and hazy clouds. Dust and water blown in from the northern darkness. Here we are again!

Yuexia is adapting to your rhythm, half your's, half Fuchai's. Goujian won over him, anyways, so why shouldn't history repeat. She is winning, cut by cut, thrust by thrust, feint by feint. Even though Fuchai's spear makes you light as feathers and sharpens your senses beyond compare. You know, on a bone deep level, that Yuexia's hiding a stowed knife behind her back (you knocked it away in your next clash) and that she's limping on her left (you press her on that leg).

But for every ounce of hyperawareness Fuchai's spear (is it? Or is it just psychosomatic?) Goujian's sword gives her superhuman fortitude. You are strong, yeah. You kicked Metalhead into the sky. Yuexia should be shaking, but she's like a zombie, pressing on to you, sticking to your side. She soaks up blunt strikes to the gut that would have (had) doubled her over. And you know she still has a festering wound in her gut, but she still comes at you a killing dancer.

Not even Fuchai and Goujian's noble spirits could stop you from tumbling to a fall together. Feet trip each other and you land separated.

Nobody moves. Not because they don't want to, but because they can't. Let's finish this, you think Yuexia is saying. It's hard under this strange light. C'mon.

What can you say? You finished it. You charged pell mell across the marble, and then…

The world snaps back. You feel the wind on your face. You feel the stone on your knees. You feel Goujian's sword in your guts, and you feel Yuexia's blood down your hands. A sudden shockwave ruffles both of your hairs. The palace museum is coming apart. Exploding from the inside. "We did that," Ma Yuyue says, proud as anything.

You look down and see that she's also stabbed you in the knee with a piece of tile from somewhere. "Seriously?" you ask.

She shrugged. "I had to take the chance."

"Fair enough. You think you'll make it?"

"Worry about your own ass, old man."

You hack up blood with your laugh. Bits of precious history rain down around you. "You're going to have fun explaining this to your dad. Hi, I'm Ma Yuyue. I blew up a couple thousand years of history. Please don't arrest me."

"They'll have to catch me first," she smiles with blood on her lips.

"You should go north," you suggest. "The border. No, wait. You can't speak Russian."

She thanked you for the concern and wrenched the sword out of your gut. You count your wounds. Flayed fingers. Gut. Your shoulder feels loose, you think she cut a tendon. Collarbone's sore as hell, might be cracked. Foot. She's no better. You stabbed her twice, sucks to be here. "Alright," you say. "I gotta. Go."

You left her behind, and to your everlasting surprise she didn't cut you down when you had your back turned. You would've, if you did the same to you. Killed your relatives. You shake your head. The Zhenyan mooks are coming at you. You stop and think for a while, purposely ignoring some things. Well? This is it. Don't you have anything to say?

The moon was high and bright. Yuexia will come after you. She's strong. She's good. If you could know… no, that's not for you. You had the fight of your life, even stepped briefly into semi-divine myth, with Fuchai and all. Vision is failing. Your body cannot stay standing for long. But, one last thing. You can say this with honesty, before you fall. "things have never been better."

Fin.

A/N: Thank you for staying with me. I can't say that I was satisfied with all of this. At parts it was disjointed. When I wrote myself into a corner I introduced a new character and oftentimes never used them. (Rip the Manchurian and Lei Beihong). Some arcs were more concluded because I didn't want to drag them out, and to my greatest shame, Li Peng did not get high off his tits on speed and go on a semi-conscious blender.

Still, I'm glad it's done. And once again, thank you for staying with me.

 

[Laplace]

https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/polluted-jianghu-今年恶鲲.99079/

Sequel's up, for those who's interested.