To Embers We Return — Chapter 32
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Back at the ruins of the tavern, Dou Xuanji, Fang Pan and a squad from the Southern Garrison who had hurried over to the scene of the child’s macabre transformation were busy dispersing the crowd.
The child’s headless body still lay crumpled against the table where he’d been sitting. One of the soldiers, feeling sorry for the boy, went up to it, intending to move the body somewhere suitable until it could be given a decent burial.
Fang Pan, who had just been escorting a group of townsfolk to safety, turned in time to see him approaching the body. ‘No!’ she called out. ‘Danger—’
Her electronic voice held no emotion, and even in this moment of great alarm the metallic lips under her veiled hat could open only a little way. But her words blared out as clearly if they’d issued from a high-powered speaking-trumpet, reverberating in the ears of fully half the crowd that had gathered at the Eastern Market.
There was a blur of movement before the soldier’s eyes, and the child’s corpse vanished from his field of vision. At almost the same moment, a weight of some forty pounds descended suddenly on his back, and he found himself teetering forward. As he staggered about, off-balance, a small, ice-cold pair of arms wrapped themselves around his head.
The child’s corpse was now clinging firmly to the soldier’s back, its hands gripping his head as if it found it irresistibly appealing. Screaming at the top of his lungs, the soldier flung his body about wildly to shake off the corpse, but those arms hung on as if they weighed several thousand tons. They felt as if they belonged to some powerful mechanical device rather than a small child.
The corpse’s hands began twisting at his head, and the soldier’s face turned scarlet with pain. Just as he felt as if his head were about to be ripped completely from his shoulders, a figure lunged forward from behind him and brought its sabre down on the corpse.
It was Dou Xuanji, and that strike of hers was known to be both swift and deadly; it was the kill-stroke she’d spent many years perfecting.
The blade sank squarely into the corpse’s shoulder — but only a little way. Dou Xuanji felt as if she’d struck a solid wall, and one made of metal at that. Not only had she failed to cut the corpse from the soldier’s back, the force of the blow had left the crooks of her thumbs temporarily numb.
Dou Xuanji tried to pull out the blade, but it was stuck fast in the corpse’s flesh. Some inner force seemed to be holding it there.
Fang Pan and the other soldiers came rushing up to help her. ‘Stay back!’ Dou Xuanji barked, and they halted in their tracks.
Dou Xuanji wrapped both hands around the hilt of her sabre and tugged at it with all the force she could muster. But one of her wrists had been broken by Li Si earlier, so she was unable to use her full strength.
Then, with no warning at all, the sabre that had been her favoured weapon for so many years suddenly twisted free of the corpse and spun like a corkscrew towards her, the blade aimed at her wrist. Startled, Dou Xuanji let go of the hilt instantly and retreated a few steps backwards.
The sabre began dancing gracefully about the corpse’s shoulders, as if it had transformed suddenly into a fluttering, metallic ribbon. Then it shaped itself into a flattened oval rather like a head. The spot where its ‘mouth’ should have been split open, revealing sharp fangs and a rapidly flicking ‘tongue’. It put Dou Xuanji in mind of some venomous serpent.
The next moment, the sabre struck in exactly the same way as a snake, thrusting the upper half of its body viciously towards Dou Xuanji. Only her lightning-fast reflexes allowed her to dodge the attack.
The corpse finally managed to tear the soldier’s head from its shoulders and began attaching it to its own neck. The grotesque sight of a small child’s body topped by a the face of a middle-aged man was enough to make anyone’s pulse race. Even Dou Xuanji, hardened warrior that she was, found herself covered in cold sweat.
‘Ah,’ said the creature, turning its neck from side to side. Its movements were nimble enough, though there was still blood where its new head joined its throat. Gleefully, it picked up the spear which the soldier had dropped on the ground and brandished it a few times. The firelight from the street lamps glinted along its length.
‘Good brain, weak body.’ The creature spoke very simply — the words of an uninformed child in a grown man’s voice. It turned to Dou Xuanji and said eagerly, ‘You’re very strong. Can you give me your body?’
Every single hair on Dou Xuanji’s body stood on end. It’s not thinking of putting that man’s head on my body, is it? She gestured hurriedly for Fang Pan and the soldiers to retreat even further away.
The Black Box did not spread through blood. Cybernetic components were the soil in which it thrived, and every single one of the elite soldiers present at the scene was fitted with the most cutting-edge augmentations. If the Black Box were to take possession of any one of them, it would be difficult to defeat indeed.
On hearing that the Black Box had turned up suddenly at the Eastern Market, all the shopkeepers and revellers — at least, those who still had the use of their legs and had not yet drunk themselves into insensibility — took to their heels and fled towards the exit. They soon found themselves running down residential streets lined with the mansions of the wealthy, and immediately began hammering at those great gates. These mansions were patrolled by their owners’ personal guards, and some of them had even been fitted with defensive mechanisms designed by skilled machinists. If they could take shelter behind those high walls, the townsfolk realised, they would be much safer than if they continued in their haphazard flight.
This close to the Eastern Market, every bit of land was worth its weight in gold, so the nearby residences belonged either to the nobility, the wealthy, or both. Although the mere mention of the Black Box was enough to make anyone’s knees quake, the owners of these mansions still had compassion for the plight of the defenceless townsfolk. One by one, the gates opened to their desperate knocking, and the fearful townsfolk streamed through them, accompanied by some of the soldiers of the Southern Garrison. Trembling, they huddled together, ears pricking for every little sound from outside. Some of the more generous households even handed out bowls of hot ginger soup to soothe the townsfolk’s spirits.
Only one set of gates in the whole neighbourhood remained resolutely shut. They belonged to Li Chu, whose residence was located just on the western side of the Eastern Market. His mansion was so opulently appointed that it verged on vulgarity; it was the only showy building on the whole street.
The fleeing crowd hammered at Li Chu’s gates again and again, but he was sitting in one of the inner rooms, lost in a full holographic simulation of a beast fight. His excitement wound up to fever pitch, he placed a huge wager on one of the combatants.
A servant came rushing into the room. There had been an outbreak of violence in the Eastern Market, he told Li Chu, and the townsfolk were now at their gates begging for help, and could His Highness give them shelter?
Li Chu did not even bother to take off his virtual reality headset. At the words ‘townsfolk’ and ‘shelter’, he shoved the servant out of the room. ‘Can’t you see your master is busy?’ he snapped. ‘Leave. Now.’
The beast he’d staked so much money on lost its match. Bitterly disappointed, Li Chu tossed his headset aside and collapsed into a nearby chair. He couldn’t shake the feeling that this was a particularly inauspicious year for him. Whatever he did, bad luck seemed to dog his steps. It was deeply frustrating.
Now that he was no longer wearing his headset, he could hear the commotion outside. What was going on? Something about the clamour was making his skin crawl.
When Li Chu emerged from the room, his nightshirt hanging open and his hair dishevelled, the first thing he heard was the pounding of several hundred fists on his front gates. The racket was almost deafening. ‘What is the meaning of this?’ he demanded.
A chill wind blew across the courtyard, making him shiver. Hurriedly he tied his nightshirt closed.
Before his guards could answer, a resounding boom echoed from the main hall. Startled, Li Chu and everyone else in the room turned to see what had happened.
Something had plummeted right through the roof and fallen straight into the main hall!
Through rising clouds of dust, a servant stumbled towards Li Chu, a hand over his mouth. ‘Your Highness! A mutant beast has crashed into the residence!’
‘What?’ chorused Li Chu and his guards in disbelief.
Their fearful exclamations were loud enough to be heard by the crowd at Li Chu’s gates. The sound of hammering fists was abruptly replaced by the scuffle of fleeing footsteps. The townsfolk had only one thought: The monster’s here! We have to get away!
Inside the main hall, Li Chu’s collection of pottery from the previous dynasty — which he’d acquired in order to reinforce his status — lay in pieces around the room. The out-of-season peonies that had been imported from Luoyang at great cost had been crushed into pulp. The chairs of golden threadwood,[1] the floor-length antique lamp, the hanging scroll that had taken first prize in a calligraphy competition for the best imitation of the great Wang Xizhi’s hand…[2] all of Li Chu’s treasures had been reduced to so many piles of rubble.
Shen Ni poked her head out from one of the piles. She coughed, clamping a hand over her mouth. Something had slammed into her lower back a few moments ago, and now it hurt so much that she could barely straighten. It seemed as if she really was going to have to use her battlestaff as a walking-stick after all.
It had been Shen Ni’s idea, to lure the mutant beast that now wore the face of a middle-aged man to Prince Wei’s mansion. With so many eyes on them, it was inadvisable for Bian Jin to unleash her full powers in public. As a machinist, Shen Ni’s own fighting skills were nowhere near as formidable, especially given that the creature they now faced was much stronger than the late Liu ji had been. If she’d had her toolkit to hand, she could have fashioned a suitable weapon on the spot — or even tried to hack into the creature’s cybernetic systems, turning it into her very own marionette. But since she’d come to the market quarter for a leisurely outing with Bian Jin, she had not thought to bring the heavy case with her.
Even though Bian Jin was holding back most of her strength as she fought the creature, it was still Ni’s Heart that powered her every move. Since it was still relatively new to her, there was every chance that her control might slip, and she would end up accidentally razing the Eastern Market to the ground. If that happened, Li Ruoyuan was sure to call them to account — and she would no doubt have awkward questions about how much progress Shen Ni had made in breaking through the block on Bian Jin’s memory module. They had to find some hidden spot where Bian Jin could bring her full powers to bear against the creature.
A house would be ideal, Shen Ni had thought. One that’s unoccupied. Then Bian Jin would be able to subdue the creature, and she could think of a way to whisk it back to her workshop.
She’d lured the beast into chasing her across the rooftops of the Eastern Market. Bian Jin sprinted alongside her, ready to provide cover if needed. As she ran, she could see the townsfolk streaming from the Eastern Market and into one or another of the mansions that lined the neighbouring streets. Those would be packed full of watchful eyes, so they wouldn’t do as potential battlefields.
Just as Shen Ni’s hopes were becoming dimmer, she saw something that made her eyes light up — a very large residence with only a few servants milling about in its courtyards. Activating her palm scanner, she aimed it at the building. It told her that the mansion’s main hall was completely unoccupied. Those high walls would shield them from sight, and the thickness of the masonry suggested that it should be able to absorb at least some part of the force from Bian Jin’s attacks. No innocents would be harmed.
Just as Shen Ni was rapidly running over the pros and cons of using that mansion as a battlefield in her mind, she spotted Li Chu striding out of one of its rooms. She nearly smacked herself on the forehead. Of course — this was Prince Wei’s own residence! Well, there was no more weighing needed now. This was the perfect battleground.
She gave Bian Jin a meaningful look over her shoulder, and together they swooped in towards the mutant beast on both sides, driving it towards Prince Wei’s residence. As the creature landed heavily atop the main hall, the roof promptly gave way, and it plummeted into the empty room underneath. Sensing that it had fallen into some kind of trap, the creature scrambled to its feet and charged headlong down the nearest walkway as if it maddened.
Bian Jin, who’d landed safely in one of the courtyards, was suddenly filled with the urge to test the full potential of Ni’s Heart and her new cybernetic spine. The impulse had barely formed in her mind when she found that she was already moving, so swiftly that an onlooker would not even have seen an afterimage. The deep pit that she left behind in the ground where her feet had pushed off was the only proof that she’d ever been there.
Meanwhile, the creature was charging through the mansion, bounding so swiftly from floor to wall and back again that it was visible only as a blurry outline. It smashed through the intricately carved pillars that lined the walkways, leaving shards of wood and stone in its wake — a deliberate attempt at distracting its two pursuers.
Thinking that it must have shaken them off by now, the creature — still hurtling along at high speed — threw a glance over its shoulder to see how far it had left them behind. It had just turned its head when it sensed an oppressive, almost crushing presence approaching it from the opposite direction. A reflexive shudder went through its body, and it stumbled to a halt.
Then, with the swiftness of a lightning flash, Bian JIn was standing in front of it, barring its way.
‘How did you—’ the creature exclaimed.
Bian Jin had surprised even herself. Forward, she’d thought to herself, and the next thing she knew, her body had taken her exactly where she wanted to be.
The creature was grinning with both fear and exhilaration. ‘This is the body I wanted! It’s even more perfect than I thought.’
Those words reminded Bian Jin of the dream she’d had some time ago — the thousands of arms that had risen from the abyss and wrapped themselves around her, holding her down. They’d thirsted for her just as greedily as this creature. Revulsion hardened her cool gaze into ice.
The mutant beast’s throat began to swell up in the most bizarre fashion. Within moments, the swelling had spread to its chin and jaw, and the skin around its lips was rippled. Its mouth transformed into the pointed muzzle of a rat.
The Black Box was, once again, twisting its victim into a new shape. Every part of the muzzle, down to the sharp teeth, was made of hardened titanium.
The old man whose body had been taken over by the child’s head had been a ratcatcher, and the Black Box had sensed his deep loathing of rats from what remained of his subconscious. And so it had given its victim this most hated form, making it an even more malevolent force — even crueller, even more monstrous.
‘I’ll bite you to paralyse you,’ the creature declared. ‘Then I’ll consume you bit by bit, so that I can savour that delicious body. Doesn’t that sound wonderful?’
The creature’s speech patterns had become more complex, Bian Jin realised. Its language skills had progressed rapidly in a very brief time. Something must be allowing it to do this.
Bian Jin’s gaze shifted to the creature’s chest. Was a really a brain which that metallic shell was protecting?
The creature had not even finished speaking when it flung itself suddenly at Bian Jin. The swiftness of the attack, together with the element of surprise, was bound to catch her off guard, it was sure.
Shen Ni arrived at the scene just in time to see the creature springing towards Bian Jin, an evil smile on its drill-shaped muzzle. Even though she knew it was no match for Bian Jin, her heart still leaped into her throat.
With a kick, Bian Jin sent the mutant beast crashing through the closed doors of the kitchens. Her movements were so quick that Shen Ni couldn’t quite make out how she’d done it. The force of the blow flung the creature — and the doors, now torn from their hinges — straight into the cabinet that housed Li Chu’s collection of fine aged wines which he’d acquired from all over the continent, often none too scrupulously. Every single bottle shattered.
Shen Ni looked around the room.
‘There’s no one here,’ said Bian Jin calmly, flicking some dust from her cloak. ‘They’ve all been frightened off.’
Shen Ni and Bian Jin stepped into the kitchens, which were now suffused with the rich scent of wine. The creature lay face up in a puddle of wine with its limbs splayed out. It was unconscious, and its muzzle was broken.
Even though there was no one else in this part of the house, Bian Jin had still been holding back some of her strength. If she were to strike the creature at full force, she risked tearing it apart, and that might give the Black Box a chance of escape.
The creature they were fighting was not a particularly powerful specimen. Based on her extensive experience, Bian Jin judged it to be no more than a zhulong-level beast. Back when she’d been on the front lines, she’d used such low-level creatures as training fodder for new recruits.
Even though she’d been restraining herself, Bian Jin was still surprised at the way Ni’s Heart sharpened her combat instincts, and how responsive it was to her will. The old jade core her shizun had crafted for her had functioned as a channel for her Talent, taking in her strength and transmitting it outwards efficiently. But Ni’s Heart was something different. It had become one with her completely.
A strange and wondrous resonance thrummed through Bian Jin’s bones and circuitry; her new spine felt even stronger than ever.
She’d long believed that she’d reached the upper limit of her potential, but Ni’s Heart had broken through that barrier, showing her the new heights that lay beyond. In her mind’s eye, she glanced towards the pool of her Talent — and found it so unfathomably deep that she could not even see the bottom.
Bian Jin kicked the mutant beast’s head from its shoulders and proceeded to truss it up. ‘It’s yours now,’ she said to Shen Ni. ‘What would you like to do with it?’
Shen Ni could sense Bian Jin’s elation. It must be because she’d discovered how well Ni’s Heart suited her. Now that her shijie was restored to full strength, it seemed she was inclined to be indulgent towards Shen Ni again. ‘I’d like to bring it back to my workshop,’ she told Bian Jin happily.
Even though the creature had been decapacitated, the virus that had infected it was still showing signs of activity. Its chest was twitching restlessly, as if the Black Box might break through at any moment to seek out its next victim. Bian Jin flung her whip around the body and activated the electrical current; it jolted the creature into temporary stillness.
‘This should be enough to keep the Black Box under control for a while,’ said Bian Jin. ‘But this cheap whip might not hold enough power for us to go on shocking it all the way home.’
‘Let me see.’ Shen Ni took hold of the whip and ran an eye over it. ‘I have some power cells with me, and we can connect one of them to the whip. The charge should last long enough for us to reach home.’
Although Shen Ni had not brought her toolkit with her, there were power cells embedded in both of her arms, which supplied energy to the various implants in her hands. While they were obviously insufficient to power a large-scale engineering project, they could easily sustain a standard, mass-produced item like Bian Jin’s whip.
Shen Ni felt a slight stickiness in her palm. She unfurled her fingers, and saw that her hand was covered in blood.
Bian Jin saw it oo. ‘Where are you hurt?’ she asked, frowning.
‘It’s not my blood,’ said Shen Ni. She looked down at Bian Jin’s own hands. When Bian Jin avoided her gaze, Shen Ni knew that her suspicions were confirmed.
She gripped hold of Bian Jin’s fingers. Bian Jin tried to pull away, and Shen Ni glared up at her. ‘Don’t do that,’ she snapped. ‘Let me see.’
Bian Jin did not want to. There was every risk that her secret would be exposed. But there had been a note of softness in Shen Ni’s imperious command, as if the realisation that Bian Jin had been concealing something from her had hurt her. Besides, given how clever Shen Ni was, she’d probably guessed by now that Bian Jin was hiding something from her.
Bian Jin stopped struggling. Silently, she acquiesced to whatever Shen Ni might want to do next.
Very delicately, Shen Ni took hold of the edges of Bian Jin’s right glove. Slowly and carefully, she peeled it off. No stains showed through the black material, but once the glove was off, blood began dripping steadily down Bian Jin’s pale fingers.
Her wrist, her fingers and the back of her hand were all covered in old scars, some deeper than the others. As with all fighters who habitually used a whip, a thin layer of calluses had formed over her palm, though, her hand was still exquisitely shaped nevertheless. Hers was a seasoned pair of hands, toughened by years of hardship. They’d slaughtered countless enemies and saved the lives of countless comrades; they’d protected Shen Ni as she grew up.
Holding Bian Jin’s fingers carefully in hers, Shen Ni activated the cleaning spray in her palm, clearing the blood away. Then she turned Bian Jin’s hand over to inspect it.
Blood was seeping out of the half-healed cut across Bian Jin’s palm. Shen Ni had stitched it up for her perfectly, but it had split open again under the stress of battle. The sight of it made Shen Ni’s heart ache.
‘This is such a deep wound. Didn’t you feel it?’ she asked. Why else would Bian Jin have claimed that it wasn’t her own blood?
Bian Jin had never been particularly good at lying. And now Shen Ni was finally confronting her about the secret she’d kept hidden for so long, and she was holding Bian Jin’s hand as well. That delicious, tingling sensation she both feared yet — in some deep part of herself — yearned for was beginning to spread slowly up her arm, towards her heart.
Bian Jin did not speak for fear that she would make some unseemly noise. Instead, she bit her lip and nodded silently.
Shen Ni understood from the look on her face what she meant. ‘Has it been like this since I installed Ni’s Heart and your new spine? You can no longer feel pain?’
Bian Jin blinked in reply.
Shen Ni was filled with a dull sort of rage. She did not know, of course, that other than the inability to feel pain, Bian Jin had also developed a heightened sensitivity to her touch.
‘Your endurance truly is legendary, shijie. Were you only planning to admit it when someone found out? If I hadn’t asked, when would you have told me?’
Bian Jin remained silent.
‘We can’t wait till tomorrow,’ said Shen Ni vehemently.
‘Hm?’ said Bian Jin.
Shen Ni looked her straight in the eye. ‘We need to bring forward your full-body inspection,’ she said calmly. ‘It must take place tonight.’
***
Footnotes:
- In the original text, 楠木 (pinyin: nanmu). Wood from Phoebe zhennan, a large species of tree which, in our world, is endemic to the Guizhou, Hubei and Sichuan provinces of China. Historically, wood from this tree was so valuable that it was reserved for the exclusive use of royalty. [return to text]
- There is a tradition of imitative copying in Chinese calligraphy, which forms part of the practice of calligraphy itself; renowned calligraphers begin their training by studying and copying the calligraphic specimens of past masters. Wang Xizhi (王羲之) was a calligrapher, general and politician from the Jin Dynasty, and is often regarded as the greatest calligrapher in Chinese history. [return to text]
douqi 随笔 