To Embers We Return — Chapter 23
***
Once she’d confirmed that Shen Ni was not seriously injured, the tension began leaching slowly from Bian Jin, and the intense concentration she’d been maintaining under the stress of the last few moments dissipated.
With a complete disregard of their current circumstances, the tingling, electric sensation that swept over her every time her skin came into contact when Shen Ni’s was beginning to make itself felt once more. It spread gradually from her neck and cheek — which were pressed against Shen Ni’s — down to her chest, setting off wave after wave of pure, naked heat. Her eyes became unfocused; reflexively she bit her lip.
Shen Ni lifted a hand, intending to use the surgical suturing device embedded in her fingertip to stitch up Bian Jin’s wound. She did not particularly care for extensive augmentations, but as a machinist, some modifications were necessary to make herself more effective in the field. Like this suturing device, and the diagnostic scanner built into her palm.
When Bian Jin saw Shen Ni move her hand, the thought that Shen Ni might be about to treat her injuries did not even occur to her. Fearful that Shen Ni’s touch might set off another wave of those strange sensations, she shoved her shimei away from her with both hands, sending her flying.
Shen Ni only had time for a moment’s puzzlement, then the world tilted and swung around her. When it finally settled again, she found herself lying on top of something soft yet sturdy. She looked down, and saw that it was an awning outside a tavern.
Bian Jin was now some distance away. Her head was turned, so Shen Ni couldn’t see her expression.
Just a moment ago, she was holding me down forcibly and telling me not to move, thought Shen Ni indignantly, and now she’s just… tossed me aside?
***
Zeng Qingluo coughed. When she recovered her rather dazed senses, she realised that she was outside a shop that sold sweet soup, some thirty feet away from the Information Services Bureau. Diwu Que had carried her there when the wall blew up. The shop’s glass doors had been shattered to pieces by the force of the blast; both Zeng Qingluo and Diwu Que were covered in glittering shards.
Pools of coolant, conductivity solution and hydraulic oil had been spilled across the streets by that massive explosion of electronic ‘fireworks’. They were evaporating rapidly, adding a sulfurous, metallic reek to the sticky, scorching air.
Zeng Qingluo coughed again, covering her nose with one hand. She looked around her, searching for any glimpse of Bian Jin.
‘Where is my dashijie?’
Diwu Que patted the dust from her robes and pointed upwards with her chin. ‘Over there.’
Zeng Qingluo saw Bian Jin leap up to the balcony of a teahouse, where tables and chairs stood under the shade of an enormous sun umbrella. Bian Jin plucked the umbrella from its moorings, then, carrying it before her like a sort of barrier, she began weaving her way through the buildings nearby.
Shen Ni, meanwhile, was lying on top of an awning, her legs elegantly crossed. She was dressing the cut on her forehead. There was an air of complete and absolute indolence to her. Those who were truly at ease with themselves, it was said, could reach the state described as ‘if Mount Tai were to collapse in front of me, I would not even flinch; if a chimeric deer[1] were to bound up beside me, I would not even blink’.[2] Shen Ni had completely surpassed that stage of enlightenment. If Mount Tai were to collapse in front of her, she would merely carry on sleeping; if a chimeric deer were to appear in front of her, she would simply climb onto its back and make it her steed.
And now, even though explosions were still echoing around them, she seemed perfectly content to make camp in the spot where she had landed. She finished dressing her wound and began applying waterproof spray to it in a leisurely fashion.
Shen Ni was combing out her hair when Zeng Qingluo and Diwu Que came hurrying up to the tavern.
‘Are you all right, xiaoshijie?’ Zeng Qingluo called from beneath the awning.
Shen Ni looked in the direction where Bian Jin had gone. ‘I’m all right,’ she said. ‘Just a few scrapes, that’s all.’
She felt a little resentful. Does shijie think I can’t handle something as simple as this? Does she think she has to leave me in a safe zone like some sort of child?
‘What happened?’ asked Diwu Que.
At this point, the Jinwu Guards,[3] who were responsible for the city’s general safety and security, turned up to disperse the crowd. Their captain looked up and caught sight of Shen Ni.
Shen Ni slipped gracefully down from the awning. She drew out her silver-white battlestaff and said to the other two, ‘I’ll tell you along the way.’
***
A mere half-hour ago, Shen Ni had been in the Information Services Bureau’s broadcasting studio, trying to stop herself from falling asleep as she dutifully recited the details of the planned fortification works. Suddenly, a strange movement outside the window caught her attention.
Directly opposite the studio — though still quite some distance from it — and visible through the window, was the office belonging to the officials of the Information Service Bureau. Its door stood ajar, as did the door of the studio.
As a top-tier machinist, Shen Ni’s vision was much better than most people’s, despite her eyes’ tendency towards dryness. She could see that the object moving outside the window was something small and box-like. From a distance, it looked like a sky lantern drifting through the air. It was a deep, spectral blue, and stood out vividly against dull, snowy sky.
A junior official of the Information Services Bureau, who’d been watching Shen Ni’s broadcast in the office opposite, had spotted it as well. Drawn by the sight of the little creature floating in mid-air, she wandered curiously over to the window and opened it.
Now that she was closer to the strange creature, she could see that it was much smaller than a sky lantern — just half the size of a human palm. The blue light at its core was cocooned by a thin, semi-transparent membrane. The edges of the membrane rippled like lapping waves; it was a rather charming sight. The creature hung placidly in the air, blinking at her out of a pair of big round eyes.
The official had no idea what it could be. She was about to take a picture of it with her watch to post online when the blue light at the creature’s core flickered suddenly, like a flame that someone had blown upon. The light did not go out; instead, it fluttered more and more wildly, until it seemed to be vibrating up and down.
Buzz — buzz — buzz —
The box-like creature began convulsing violently.
The official froze in the very act of taking a picture and took a fearful step backwards. She recalled what she’d just heard Shen Ni say: if you see any living creature’s eyes or inner core oscillating rapidly, then there can be no doubt — that’s a sign that the Black Box virus is ‘twisting’ its plaything into its desired shape. In mere moments, the creature will have mutated beyond recognition, becoming a monster capable of consuming everything in its wake.
It’s the Black Box! thought the official. She was about to scream when a streak of silver-white light flashed past her cheek and plunged straight into the creature’s body. At the same time, something shoved her head roughly down behind a partition.
The box-like creature was sent hurtling back through the window to a distance of some twenty feet away, where it promptly exploded.
The clear crystal of the window was shattered by the force of the blast. Red light bathed the sky. Waves of scorching heat filled the air. One whole wall of the broadcasting tower was singed completely black.
The official was trembling unstoppably where she crouched. The hat that marked her office sat askew on her head. Still shivering, she looked up, and saw that the person who’d shoved her behind the partition was none other than Shen Ni.
Shen Ni’s forehead was bleeding from a cut that had probably come from a fragment of crystal. The official was about to point it out to her when Shen Ni said, ‘Stay down.’
Clearly she’d spotted something.
Abruptly, there was loud, gurgling sound just outside the window. It echoed through the room and down the corridor behind them. The junior official cowered behind the partition and put her arms over her head, barely daring to breathe.
Then a whole string of the same box-like creatures swarmed in through the window, brushing against her scalp as they did. At the base of each of their soft bodies fluttered a score of tentacles, so transparent that they were almost invisible. The tentacles scrabbled at the air, as if trying to change the direction they were travelling in.
The creatures made straight for Shen Ni. She sprinted out of the office and into the corridor beyond and they followed suit, smashing haphazardly through a wall.
Shen Ni glanced at them over her shoulder. ‘You’re after me? That makes it simpler.’
She paused in her headlong charge down the corridor, waiting for the troop of creatures to catch up with her. Once they were close enough, she made a sharp right-angled turn and ducked back into the studio.
The creatures had been surging forward at high speed. The ones in front, failing to turn in time, crashed right into the wall ahead. Unable to stop, the ones following in their wake found themselves caught in the resulting explosion, setting off another chain of blasts. By the time they died down, a good half of the building lay in ruins.
Those of the creatures that had been bringing up the rear seemed to realise what was happening. They slowed just enough to navigate the turn, then squeezed their way past and through the cracks in the fallen masonry that lay across their path, relentless in their pursuit of Shen Ni.
Shen Ni skidded to a stop just in front of the studio’s backdrop. At this point, the broadcast signal had been cut off completely.
Just now, when she’d slowed down deliberately before turning into the studio, that hadn’t been only to lure the creatures into colliding with the wall. It was also to allow her to capture one, so she could see see what it exactly it was.
Due to Bian Jin’s phobia of dirt, Shen Ni was already in the habit of wearing gloves. Now, through the thick leather, she could feel the creature trapped in her palm, squirming restlessly.
Now that she was examining it at close quarters, she could see that the blue light at its core was vibrating up and down in a frenzied manner. A chill crept over Shen Ni’s heart. The creature was a box jellyfish that had been infected by the Black Box virus.
The flock of box jellyfish that had been pursuing her spilled into the room from the corridor, flinging themselves in her direction. Shen Ni was poised to leap out of studio’s large window when another box jellyfish rose into view. This was much bigger than the ones that were chasing her. It was more than twice the size of her head, and its bulk filled the entire window. If it were to explode, the force of the blast would be considerable. A direct collision might well blow her to smithereens.
The jellyfish from the corridor were almost on top of her, and now the window she’d meant to escape from was obstructed by an even bigger threat. Caught in between the hammer and the anvil, Shen Ni made a swift decision: she sliced through the wall with her battlestaff.
The instant the wall parted company with the rest of the building, she hurled the jellyfish in her hand at the big one outside the window, then threw the whole weight of her body at the wall. Using it as a shield, she managed to deflect some of the force from the resulting explosion. The wall fell away from the building, taking her with it.
The explosion had left the large box jellyfish half-incapacitated. The flock of smaller jellyfish, however, were still at Shen Ni’s heels, and they swarmed out of the opening after her.
For some reason — whether because its size made it clumsier, or the shock of the blast had confused it — the big jellyfish made no attempt to avoid its onrushing fellows. They slammed into each other like two trains converging from opposite directions at high speed. The ensuing explosion made even the earth shake.
The wall Shen Ni was clinging to was made from a tough metallic alloy, which was both anticorrosive and bulletproof. The impact of the blast, however, was forceful enough to shatter a good half of it to pieces, leaving Shen Ni momentarily unconscious.
And then Bian Jin had turned up and rescued her.
As Shen Ni recounted the events of the last half-hour to Zeng Qingluo and Diwu Que, a veritable horde of box jellyfish descended from the sky. They made towards Shen Ni with single-minded determination.
Shen Ni threw her battlestaff at a nearby cluster of jellyfish. It traced a long, graceful arc through the air, crushing all of the creatures in its path.
When the battlestaff returned to Shen Ni’s hand, its surface was hot enough to burn a hole through Shen Ni’s deerskin glove. She hissed, and nearly dropped it a few times before she could steady her grip.
More and more jellyfish gathered in the air. They squirmed about restlessly, seeking out their target.
Zeng Qingluo despatched a few with her broadsword, but at such close quarters, the impact of the explosions made her feel as if her head were about to split open. Hand-to-hand combat, she realised, was a less than optimal strategy for dealing with these creatures. She hadn’t had much training in ranged weapons, but they were clearly the preferable option here.
From the recess in side of her new leg, Zeng Qingluo drew out a pulse pistol. The S-tier prosthetic had shown her what it meant to be able to move as swiftly as lightning; even Diwu Que had had difficulty catching up with her earlier. Now, she sprang effortlessly from building to building, nimbly evading the jellyfish’s attacks, and looking for the best position to pick them off. Soon, she’d despatched a good many of them, one with each shot.
She’d noticed the signs of mutation in their cores. That was the work of the Black Box virus. Ordinary jellyfish were merely venomous; in the hands of the Black Box, they’d been twisted into shockingly powerful explosives.
The Black Box truly wasn’t dead. And it was only coming back to life sooner and sooner.
A chill wind blew across Zeng Qingluo’s sweat-drenched forehead. She tightened her grip on the pistol, forcing herself to stay calm in the midst of her fear. She breathed in deeply, once, twice, and her eyes gradually took on a vicious light.
She could not be afraid. The destruction of the Black Box was her sole reason for living. No matter how many times it came back to life, she would make herself stronger and stronger, so that she could send its malignant filth straight back to the hells.
As Zeng Qingluo slaughtered jellyfish after jellyfish with the aid of her new S-tier prosthetic, her robes soaking with sweat from the exertion, Diwu Que found herself getting into greater and greater difficulty.
Her spear was proving quite a useful weapon, as it allowed her to keep the inevitable explosions at a distance. When she spun it with extra force, the spear could even shoot out a whirlpool of rays capable of disintegrating a target as far as a hundred and twenty feet away.
Diwu Que had two Talents. First, she was an S-tier warrior, but her specialty lay in close combat. At close quarters, no one in all of Muzhou came anywhere near to being her match. However, her skills were not particularly well-suited for dealing with these jellyfish, which swam through the air in packs. As the fight raged on, Diwu Que — whose eyes were already red and sore from lack of sleep — was beginning to see double. Her vision blurred.
The box jellyfish clearly had a target — Shen Ni. But single-minded though they were, they would also retaliate if attacked from another quarter. When their power reserves were close to being depleted, they would even attempt to consume the closest living creature that had hydraulic oil running through it.
A swarm of box jellyfish bobbed up and down in front of Diwu Que, their tentacles waving. She despatched two of them with her spear, then rubbed a hand over her sore eyes. Suddenly, one of the jellyfish changed its trajectory and hurtled straight towards Diwu Que.
Distracted by the swarm’s movements, Diwu Que’s confused vision was completely unequal to keeping up with this sudden attack. Before she knew it, the jellyfish was almost on top of her. She raised an arm to block it, ready to sacrifice the limb for the sake of preserving her life.
The jellyfish did, as expected, explode right in front of her. But when the dust settled and she opened her eyes, she found herself looking at the underside of a black umbrella. Not only was she still in possession of all her limbs, but someone else had their arm around her shoulder.
‘That was truly embarrassing,’ said a cool voice. ‘Don’t tell anyone you’re my deputy.’
With that, the person who’d shielded her from the blast let go of her. Diwu Que’s knees buckled, and she nearly fell rear-first on the ground.
She looked up and saw that her rescuer was He Lanzhuo. ‘What are you doing here?’ she exclaimed in delight.
He Lanzhuo snapped the umbrella shut one-handed. Another jellyfish sprang towards them and she slashed at it. The umbrella arced through the air like a flash of black lightning, cleaving the jellyfish in two. It imploded in a cloud of thick smoke.
The flames from the blast illuminated He Lanzhuo’s completely expressionless profile. She glanced off into the distance. ‘I didn’t come here for you, of course,’ she said.
A broad grin was beginning to spread across Diwu Que’s features. Without looking back at her, He Lanzhuo reached out and gripped hold of Diwu Que’s face with one hand, her fingers splayed across Diwu Que’s cheeks, as if she had eyes at the back of her head.
‘Quiet,’ said He Lanzhuo, her ears twitching. ‘I can hear the sound of the Black Box twisting something into place. Over there.’
She pointed the tip of the umbrella towards a rather magnificent building in the distance, which stood seven floors high.
***
Inside the top floor of the building stood Bian Jin, surrounded by the shattered remains of wooden tables and chairs. She gazed expressionlessly at the woman lounging on the stage at the front of the room.
This pleasure house was one of the West Market’s most popular places of entertainment, and had played host to many notable opera troupes. But now, its spacious, richly ornamented stage was all but completely destroyed.
‘I’ve always wondered,’ said the woman on the stage, ‘why opera troupes still exist in this day and age.’
She was sitting cross-legged atop a massive red single-headed drum, twirling the accompanying mallet idly in one hand. The robes she was clad in were so stained that it was barely possible to make out the patterns woven into the cloth — patterns that proclaimed them the official attire of TangPro’s most high-ranking ministers, worn exclusively by the seven royal princes and the former Imperial Preceptor.[4]
The woman’s face was quite lovely, but it was marred by a thick line of stitching which ran from the left side of her forehead to the right side of her chin. It crawled across her features like a particularly aggressive centipede, making her smile even more sinister. A futou covered her head. Her skin was so pale that her veins showed clearly through it; it held a faint tinge of purple. Stuck to her forehead, rather bizarrely, was a piece of yellow paper with symbols written on it — a talisman.
Traditionally, talismans of this kind were used to contain a malevolent force of some sort. This particular talisman, however, seemed to have been stuck on in a hurry. It hung crookedly from the woman’s forehead, fluttering each time she shifted and fidgeted; it looked as if it might fall off at any point. That, combined with the way her features kept spasming, suggested it was not particularly effective at achieving the intended result.
‘It’s not as if they do much in the way of actual performance,’ she went on. ‘So what other business might they possibly be engaged in?’ She gave a rather cynical laugh. ‘It’s probably a custom of this establishment, to spare people’s blushes. After all, the more sordid one’s business is, the more high-sounding an excuse one needs to cover it up.’
‘Who are you?’ asked Bian Jin.
The woman tutted. ‘My darling, have you forgotten all that time we spent in each other’s company in Xuanzhou? Why are you asking me my name?’
‘So you are Qin Wushang,’ said Bian Jin evenly.
Qin Wushang hugged the mallet to her chest. A blush spread across her face, as if she had trouble repressing it. ‘I know you couldn’t possibly have forgotten me, my darling. Not after spending more than a thousand nights in each other’s arms, in my bed. Do you have any idea how much I’ve missed you?’
Shen Ni, who’d been tailing Bian Jin, heard those last words. She stood motionless in the stairwell, holding her breath, and decided not to emerge from her hiding place just quite yet.
‘You’ve mistaken me for someone else,’ said Bian Jin.
‘That’s impossible! Why, we—’
The words had barely left Qin Wushang’s lips when a loud crack echoed through the room. Nimbly, she scrambled from the drum just in time to avoid Bian Jin’s whip. It struck the top of the drum instead, shredding it to pieces.
‘Eh?’ said Qin Wushang, who was now hanging upside down from the rafters. ‘Why are you being so rough with me?’
The whip in Bian Jin’s hand was another temporary weapon she’d bought online. It had the added functionality of being able to generate high-voltage electrical pulses, and was also somewhat tougher than the one she’d inadvertently destroyed. Bian Jin had, of course, dutifully informed Shen Ni of her intention to purchase it before doing so.
Shen Ni had decided she might as well open an account they could use jointly. She’d deposited ten thousand taels of silver into it as a lump sum, for Bian Jin to spend as she wished.
Bian Jin met Qin Wushang’s gaze coolly. ‘What are you running away for?’ she asked, a note of mockery in her voice. ‘Didn’t you say you missed me?’
Inwardly, Shen Ni let out a snort of laughter. Governer-General Bian never used her talent for goading her opponents on her own wife.
Qin Wushang was fast, but she was clearly no match for Bian Jin. If Shen Ni recalled rightly, the woman was an S-tier machinist — not a Talent that would give her the speed necessary to evade Bian Jin’s attacks.
Bian Jin lashed out again and again with her whip. Her movements were a little more restrained, a little more cautious than usual; she couldn’t seem to land a solid hit on Qin Wushang. Perhaps she was worried for her newly-repaired spine, and feared that it might fail again if she pushed herself too hard, subjecting Shen Ni to even more sleepless nights.
Qin Wushang swung back and forth from the rafters, dodging each of Bian Jin’s attacks. Suddenly, glimpsing an opening, she wheeled downwards, her arms transforming into a pair of gleaming blades. She landed lightly behind Bian Jin like a hunting spider.
‘Your injuries seem to have slowed you down, my darling,’ she crooned.
Bian Jin looked back over her shoulder, her eyes still cool — then suddenly a hint of tenderness surfaced in them. That unfamiliar warmth made Qin Wushang pause.
‘You still remember,’ said Bian Jin.
Qin Wushang was still puzzling over the meaning of her words when a battlestaff smashed her skull to pieces from behind.
‘Of course I remember,’ said Shen Ni, stepping out of the shadows. She spun her silver-bright battlestaff a few times; it became a whirl of cold metallic light, flinging the foul remnants of Qin Wushang’s blood and brains that clung to it landed on a nearby wall.
‘That was the tactical formation specially designed to serve as Shuangji Hall’s main defence,’ Shen Ni went on. ‘We trained in it for three long months during the hottest part of summer.[5] I couldn’t forget it even if I wanted to — and I have a very good memory, as you know.’
Bian Jin smiled and said nothing.
And now the two wives-in-name-only had reverted to the kind of dynamic they’d become accustomed to.
Shen Ni glanced at the whip in Bian Jin’s hand. She couldn’t help thinking to herself that, if she were Bian Jin’s enemy, there might be more opportunities for some… action between them.
She banished the not-entirely-proper notion from her mind, and was just about to say, ‘How could the infamous emperor of Xuanzhou be so useless,’ when Bian Jin’s expression suddenly tensed. Her right hand darted lightning-swift towards Shen Ni’s throat.
A box jellyfish had, at some point, drifted close to Shen Ni’s neck. It was just about to attach itself to Shen Ni’s skin when Bian Jin caught hold of it.
Shen Ni was frozen stiff from head to toe. Only her eyes rolled in the direction of the jellyfish; she did not dare to move even her head. She did not want to imagine what might happen if it were to blow up when perched on her unaugmented, defenceless neck.
Bian Jin was gripping the jellyfish with just the right amount of force — enough to stop it from moving around, but not so hard as to trigger an explosion. She was just about to hurl it away when the jellyfish wrapped its five or six thickest tentacles around her right hand, revealing the barbed stingers that lined their underside. Then it stabbed them right through the glove on her hand.
Bian Jin’s brows knitted together briefly, and Shen Ni cried out, ‘It’s venomous!’
A box jellyfish’s toxin was extremely potent. Once stung, the average person would perish within moments. The Black Box had mutated these jellyfish into powerful explosives, but they still retained their venomous stingers.
Bian Jin kept her composure in the face of this new danger. She kicked one of the chairs across the room, shattering a window. ‘Get down,’ she told Shen Ni, patting the top of her shimei’s head. Then, slicing the edge of her left hand across the back of her right, she scraped the clinging jellyfish off her skin and out of the window. She flicked her whip at it, lashing it into pieces. The ensuing explosion was almost deafening.
Every single one of Bian Jin’s movements had been as swift as lightning. The whole sequence of events had taken less than a heartbeat from beginning to end.
Shen Ni and Bian Jin both realised at the same time that the jellyfish had emerged from Qin Wushang’s corpse, which was lying across the floor with its skull shattered. Box jellyfish were climbing over each other in their haste to emerge from her decapitated neck. It was as if her body were a shell housing hundreds upon hundreds of the creatures. One after another, they broke rapidly through their containment.
The room Shen Ni and Bian Jin were in was large, but the space was not infinite. If they were to allow themselves to be surrounded by jellyfish capable of blowing up at the slightest provocation, that would put them in a very bad position indeed.
The two of them exchanged glances and, without saying a single word, knew exactly what the other was thinking. Decisively, they both jumped out of the window.
As they did so, Bian Jin lashed out with her whip, curling it around a decorative carving on the building opposite. She wrapped an arm around Shen Ni, and the two of them clung to each other as they swung down from the seventh floor.
‘That’s not Qin Wushang,’ said Bian Jin, while they were still in the air.
‘You must know her very well,’ said Shen Ni curiously — but also pointedly.
Bian Jin choked. She was fully aware of all those lewd, absurd rumours that had been circulating about herself and Qin Wushang, of course. They were unfit for anyone’s ears, but now it seemed they had found their way to Shen Ni’s.
She was about to say something when she felt a sudden stabbing pain in her right hand, making her loosen her grip on the whip.
They were still about eleven feet from the ground at this point, and Shen Ni could feel Bian Jin’s arm slackening around her. She reached out and gathered Bian Jin tightly to her. Moments later, they crashed noisily through the roof of a florist’s shop.
Much of the shop had already been destroyed by the explosions earlier. The poor flowers were completely charred — though they did serve as a protective cushion for Shen Ni and Bian Jin as they landed heavily from above.
The blackened petals fluttered, revealing beneath them a layer of unburned blooms. The impact of the landing sent those colourful flowers scattering into the air. Then they drifted down again, settling slowly on Shen Ni and Bian Jin’s bloodied bodies. The bright red streaks clashed vividly with the surrounding desolation, like new life pushing itself stubbornly out of a grey, inhospitable wasteland.
With an effort, Shen Ni propped herself up, feeling rather dazed. Then she heard footsteps and raised voices. The Jinwu Guards had arrived, as well as the officials of the Lijing Bureau.
In the distance, she heard Dou Xuanji say, ‘All the buildings have been cleared.’
Shen Ni forced herself back to her senses. She needed to get rid of the venom in Bian Jin’s hand at once, otherwise her shijie’s life would be in danger.
Bian Jin was lying right beneath her. Her hair was loose, and a few pink petals dotted it here and there. Her breathing was laboured, and her eyes had clouded over; the toxin in her system was beginning to take effect.
Shen Ni lifted Bian Jin’s wrist and plucked off her torn glove, intending to suck out the venom from her hand as quickly as possible.
Peeling off the glove of someone who had as strong an aversion to dirt as Bian Jin — the glove which served as a barrier between herself and the outside world — was tantamount to stripping her of her clothes. The thought that she was invading her shijie’s privacy in so intimate a way made Shen Ni’s breathing heavier.
Then she heard Bian Jin say, ‘I’ve… heard that she knows some strange sorceries, which is why I guessed that she wouldn’t have come here herself. I don’t know her at all.’
Shen Ni paused for a moment, staring at her.
Her shijie might be far from a fount of scintillating wit, and she had no idea at all how to even begin flirting with her own wife, but the sight of her earnestly trying to explain herself while in the throes of a deadly toxin was unexpectedly endearing.
Shen Ni had no time to spare for questions about Qin Wushang. She examined Bian Jin’s hand. The box jellyfish had more than a hundred stingers, but thanks to Bian Jin’s Talent, they’d penetrated her skin in only two places. The first was the crevice between her fore and middle fingers, the second was one of her knuckles.
I should be able to do this in time, thought Shen Ni. The most direct and effective way of ridding Bian Jin of the venom was simply to suck it out of her hand.
Shen Ni parted Bian Jin’s fingers with her tongue, and Bian Jin’s forefinger bent under the weight of her lower lip. Her hot lips enveloped Bian Jin’s wound completely as she began sucking at it.
The toxin had left Bian Jin weak and only half-conscious. Suddenly she felt something warm and wet teasing at the sensitive spot between her fingers. Shen Ni’s hot, soft tongue glided lightly over her skin, then she felt an unfamiliar, piercing pain as blood was siphoned from her wound.
Had the pain come from any other source, Bian Jin would not have paid it any mind — but now it was Shen Ni’s lips and tongue that were inflicting it on her. An almost unbearable tingling sensation was spreading over every inch of her skin, building itself up layer by layer, wave after wave, until she let out a whimper.
‘Shimei…’
Shen Ni had only drawn out a few mouthfuls of blood when she realised that Bian Jin was quivering all over. Bian Jin’s knuckles were flushed crimson. The soft skin of her palm was burning hot, and the voice in which she’d called out to Shen Ni was so weak that it sounded like a moan.
Her right hand really is very sensitive, thought Shen Ni, gripping the tips of Bian Jin’s fingers. Out loud she said, ‘Bear with it for a little longer, shijie.’
Shen Ni wasn’t sure how she felt. To take her mind off the doubts and feelings of jealousy that had welled up within her, she went on sucking at Bian Jin’s wounds — and this time, her movements were even more deliberate. She ran her tongue along the pads of Bian Jin’s fingers, venturing deeper and deeper into crevice between them. In the process, she did end up extracting all of Bian Jin’s poisoned blood.
Shen Ni looked down at Bian Jin. Under her ministrations, her shijie’s peach-blossom eyes, usually so cool and self-possessed, had glazed over; they glistened strangely.
On a wicked impulse, Shen Ni bit down lightly on Bian Jin’s knuckle.
Bian Jin made a faint noise. Her knees jerked up involuntarily, rubbing against Shen Ni’s hips. From deep within her throat came the sound of her restrained panting.
A bite mark was now visible on Bian Jin’s knuckle. Shen Ni, her cheeks flushed, looked up again. Her eyes fell on Bian Jin’s red lips and lingered there, and she thought about how much she wanted to make Bian Jin hers — hers and hers only..
Then, at this most inopportune of moments, she heard Zeng Qingluo calling out to her, and with a monumental effort, she brought herself back to her senses.
***
Footnotes:
- In Chinese, 麋鹿 (pinyin: milu). Known in our world as Père David’s deer, this animal has a head shaped like a horse’s, a tail like a donkey’s, hooves like a cow’s, and the antlers of a deer. In Chinese, it is also referred to as 四不像 (pinyin: sibuxiang), meaning literally ‘four not alike’ or ‘four unlike’, due to these features. In the Ming Dynasty novel The Investiture of the Gods (封神演义, pinyin: fengshen yanyi), which combines elements of religion, history, folklore, mythology and fantasy, the sage Jiang Ziya is described as having such a creature for his mount. I’ve chosen to render its name as ‘chimeric deer’ here as an allusion to its mythological links and also to reflect the idea that it looks as if it is composed of parts from different animals. [return to text]
- In the original text, 泰山崩于前而色不变, 麋鹿兴于左而目不瞬 (pinyin: taishan beng yu qian er se bu bian, milu xing yu zuo er mu bu shun). The saying originates from ‘Mental Disposition’ (心术), an essay by the Song Dynasty essayist Su Xun (苏洵). It describes someone who is able to remain composed even in the face of seismic or surprising changes. [return to text]
- In the original text, 金吾卫 (pinyin: jinwu wei). In Tang Dynasty China, the Jinwu Guards were a branch of the military with law enforcement responsibilities. They were stationed in the capital, and patrolled its streets and manned police posts located at its major intersections. [return to text]
- In the original text, 国师 (pinyin: guoshi). In imperial China, the title given to the emperor’s teacher, who was responsible for the emperor’s education prior to his ascension to the throne. Upon his ascension, an emperor would often appoint his teacher to an important post within his government, due to the relationship of trust and confidence between them. [return to text]
- In the original text, 三伏天 (pinyin: sanfu tian). This refers to the hottest, most humid period of summer, calculated according to the traditional Chinese lunisolar calendar. [return to text]
douqi 随笔 