A young girl with snowy white skin twirled in the firelight. It was raining again, the clouds creeping back over the province after the weeklong reprieve. Silk with designs that looked blurry, like through a drunkard's recollection, smeared and indistinct when looked at directly, adorned her robes. "Is this good?" she fretted, "or do I-"
"Please stop this and put these on," Yongming said for the eight time today, holding out a pair of the same ragged robes Li Xiaopeng and the others wore. Hu Jie had transformed into a young and frankly pretty woman for some godforsaken reason. All she had said when Yongming found her prowling in the main hall was something about looking her best for her debut. One thing led to another, and now they were sitting in the rear hall's kitchen with Ge Niao, looking on like it was a comic opera.
Hu Jie, in her new guise, putted, turning up her nose at the clothing. "No," she declared with all the practiced petulance of a young rich kid. Where the hell did she learn that, anyway? "I'm not going to show up at the city looking like a country rube. Like you," she added.
In her infinite benevolence, Yongming pretended she didn't hear that. "Ge Niao, could you convince her…" Even as the words left her mouth, she could tell it was a lost cause. He was laughing now.
"Why, so, sister?" He drew out a long, sarcastic note on his bow. "Is it not every man or woman's desire to look their best? Ah, how cruel, no?"
"Yeah, and then they'll see through the transformation and then we'd all be very sad or very dead," Yongming retorted. She looked over Hu Jie's transformation. "She can keep the hairpins, I guess." It couldn't have been too hard to make a fake of those, but the silk robes, "they have to go. The fancy robes, I mean. Or at least make it look less like someone vomited over a canvas."
The tiger demon rolled her eyes to the ceiling, and in a shimmer like a heat haze changed again. This time, instead of looking like she was a peasant's imagining of what a noble daughter looked like, she looked far more like the daughter of a well off merchant household. So like Bai Yanhua, actually. "Does this work?"
"Yeah, yeah. Let's go. They're already impatient."
"But I still haven't gotten everything down!" Hu Jie wailed as she picked up Ge Niao with a single arm and they hobbled out after Yongming.
"Finally," Xiaopeng groaned when the other three joined him and Ma Wei and Jing Chenbiao at the gate. "We've been waiting forever. Let's go." Jing Chenbiao was at the reins of the cart repossessed from the magistrates, which creaked precariously when all six of them climbed onboard. The trip was relatively quiet, with only Hu Jie constantly asking questions. Would the Five Greats of the Jianghu be here? No, replied Jing Chenbiao as he fixed his eyes on the road, this is far too small a tournament. Then the Four Saint Swords, what about them? No, Ma Wei yawned, all but three of them died, and the last doesn't care for this sort of thing. Then at least a Bronze Arhat of Shaolin, Hu Jie begged, and to that Li Xiaopeng laughed and told her to travel to the temple herself should she wish to see one.
There was a river of men under Jingcheng's walls, martial guests of every stripe huddling under umbrellas or straw hats under the rain. "Odd," Li Xiaopeng mused. "This is rumored to be a marriage tournament, yet I only see rough fellows about. I suppose it's only a rumor."
"Then say that this Bai Chengsan prefers a rough sort for an heir," Ge Niao shrugged, waving at a couple of gawkers. "What, you fellows!" he shouted at them as they hurriedly turned away. "Have you never seen a man as handsome as I?" This elicited a guffaw of laughter from Ma Wei, who seemed always inclined to laugh, and Hu Jie, who growled out laughter that was out of place for a frame so small.
The line was slow, as usual. The great press of bodies had blocked the gate, letting only a trickle in. The roads were more clear when they passed through the gates, most of the people heading down the main road, where in the distance there rose a circular building, an opera house alight with red lanterns and the faint snatches of song, Yongming supposed.
"Here it is," Jing Chenbiao announced as he reined in the horses at the courtyard in front of the opera house. "Supposed to be that ol' Bai went and converted this house for the tournament. Good thing too." There was already a milling crowd in the courtyard, where at the far end there was a scribe and a line of soldiers, a block of stone sitting besides the scribe's table.
"What's that block for?" Ge Niao asked, squinting as it. All but he had left the cart.
"Probably for measuring internal power," Ma Wei noted. "Punch it, and if you don't leave a hole deep enough, piss off, this tournament doesn't collect fodder."
"Ah," he nodded, "so, who is important here, do you wonder?"
Li Xiaopeng scanned the crowd. "There," he said, pointing at a man hovering by a cluster of others. "That's Lu Zhuxi. I crossed blades with him once. A rather dangerous fellow, but greedy." He lowered his voice. "I think we could bring him in, you know."
Yongming grunted in acknowledgement. "What about him?" she asked, nodding at a peasant's peasant, carrying a cormorant in a cage. "Hidden dragon, or just a fool?"
"Always lean on him being stronger than he looks," Jing Chenbiao advised. "But, is that a brother of Shaolin I see?" There was one indeed, a tall, thinner monk with a staff that looked more like a rattan stick rather than a proper iron-banded cudgel. Whatever the case, speculation ended when the scribe stood up.
"Thank you, one and all, for arriving!" He shouted. No, it wasn't a shout. It was as if they could just hear his voice as if he was standing right by them. "Now, I'm sure that you've all understood why I've this rock next to me. Some of you have already guessed it out. Simply leave a mark one centimeter deep, and you pass! So, who's first?"
Yongming stepped forward. She was the tallest of the bunch, and the most physically fit. The idea was that most of the spectators would see a big tough guy, but with little in the way of internal cultivation. This way, the rubes would bet money on her, while hopefully the fighters would fall for her ruse and underestimate her in the tournaments. Or something of that manner.
It wasn't the confident step that came naturally to her. It was a bit sloppy, her gaze was a bit listless, and when the scribe looked at her with barely disguised disappointment she crowed with joy on the inside.
The stone block was as high as her shoulders. She raised one arm, letting it hang like a hammer above her head, and made a fist. Then she let it drop like a ringing hammer, and there was a crack of stone breaking as she let it hang to her side. Yep, she nodded. That was certainly a centimeter, an ugly rent in the stone's edge. "So, I pass?" she asked.
"Yes, yes," the scribe sighed. "Name, please?"
"Huang Jun," Yongming lied. The scribe nodded and wrote it down, shooing her away with one hand. She sunk back into the crowd, walked to where the others are.
"How was it?" Hu Jie asked.
"Easy," Yongming replied, slipping her hands into her pockets. There was a piece of paper there, on that wasn't there before. When she opened it, it read Western Pearl. "Hey. Does anyone know what Western Pearl is?"
"A teahouse. Why?" Ma Wei said as Li Xiaopeng walked forward to test his mettle.
Yongming nodded slowly. "I think there's more to this tournament than just the marriage.
[]- Stay and observe the rest of the contenders.
[]- Go where the note tells you.
