SU TANG (素醣)

  Day 29, 4th Month of the Lunar Calendar, 6000th Year of the Yun Dynasty, Taishan Province, Tian’an Sect

  “She’s never hit me before. What on earth did you do to offend her?” Xue Wan’er asked the moment I returned.

  I shrugged. I was tired and I didn’t feel like explaining the whole situation to her.

  “What do you mean—” she mimicked my shrug. “Surely it must’ve been something you said. Or did.”

  Correct on both counts, probably. Still, I didn’t answer.

  “It looks really bad. What actually happened?”

  I touched my cheek just as she held up a mirror. Three claw-like streaks slashed across my face and blood smeared around the wounds like a freshly butchered steak. I examined my fingers for fresh blood, then stared at the mess again.

  I wondered if only I was fortunate, or unfortunate enough to have been accidentally let in on such a big secret. Either way, it wasn’t my story to tell. Lady Ze’s grief belonged to her, and when she was ready, she’d tell her story.

  Xue Wan’er’s face tightened. “I think it needs stitches. You should ask that healer friend of yours.”

  I nodded vaguely, still marvelling at how something so small—fingernails—could shred my face like overripe fruit. A shredded heart for a shredded cheek. Fair trade, I guess.

  We left just as the sun was giving up on the sky and arrived under the banner of nightfall. My magic had stopped the bleeding by then, though the wound still throbbed like it had something to prove. I wrapped my arms around myself. Our maidservant uniforms were thin as rice paper, and even in Yǒnghéng Táomù, the winter wind managed to claw through the trees and my resolve.

  Xue Wan’er bounded up the stairs to Qi Qi’s hut and knocked like she meant to break the door.

  Except she didn’t have to.

  The door swung open like it had been waiting for us, smacking against the wall with an ominous crack.

  That…wasn’t right.

  Wan’er stilled. I stayed by the railing, scanning the dark interior like I was assessing a wild animal’s den.

  “Where is she?” she whispered, too loud for the silence.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  The residence was quiet, too quiet. Not the peaceful kind. The kind that presses against your ears like pressure before a storm.

  “Su Tang, I think we should go.” She tugged at my sleeve.

  I nodded, but my feet stayed put.

  Because something was wrong.

  Because I needed to know.

  Because I couldn’t lose someone else. Not again.

  What had happened to Qi Qi?

  “Wait here,” I said, brushing off Wan’er’s hands that were tightly curled around my forearm.

  She gripped harder. “Su Tang! Hey—what are you—where are you going! Su Tang!”

  I softened my voice, like talking to a scared kitten. “It’s okay, Wan’er. I’m just going to have a look.”

  She furrowed her brows.

  “She might’ve just turned off the lights to go to sleep, and forgotten to lock her door, as she does,” I lied with the confidence of someone who wasn’t even trying. But she didn’t know Qi Qi that well, which helped. Wan’er relaxed a little.

  I turned to the open door, took a breath, and stepped in.

  Chaos met me.

  Tables were flipped onto their sides and paper of various shapes and sizes were strewn across the floors. Plant pots that usually sat on her windowsill spilled their contents into a messy pile of dirt and bark. Scratches lined her walls as if someone had tried to tear out the wallpaper. Her cupboards and drawers were ransacked, precious herbs and flowers of all kinds scattered everywhere that wasn’t already littered with something. I tiptoed through the wreckage until I was standing in the middle of the room. I would’ve lit the candles had I not been afraid of burning the entire place up, seeing that the candlestands were bowing into piles of paper.

  This wasn’t just a mess. It was a warning.

  “Qi Qi? Are you here?” I called uselessly. I’m not sure why I did. It was fairly obvious that she was not here. Qi Qi would never, in eternity, leave her residence in this state.

  “Is she there?” Wan’er’s called. Paper crunched behind me.

  I spoke as I turned. “Wan’er I told you to stay—”

  A man stood there.

  I flung myself back, hand over my mouth. If I screamed, Wan’er would come. If I screamed, she would be in danger.

  He revealed a rapier that glinted under the pale moonlight and stepped towards me, one sickening crunch at a time. I back up, intent on maintaining the distance between us.

  Suddenly, his arm flung out like a coiled snake, and something whizzed through my hair, scarcely missing my neck. I clutched the side of my neck checking for wetness, before turning to see where the thrown object had gone.

  What was that? A needle? No, something sharper. But…there’s nothing stuck in the wall.

  I continued to inch along, sliding towards to the wall. My backside hit one of the flipped tables and I almost tripped over and gave myself another heart attack.

  I didn’t know where to look first: his hand that was adjusting its grip on the dreaded weapon or the beady eyes that leered from underneath his hood or watch where my feet were treading.

  His hood concealed everything aside from his eyes which seemed to produce their own glow.

  There wasn’t anything human in those eyes.

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  I grabbed the nearest object—a candlestick—I could reach and thrust it in front of me with both hands.

  Who are you? What did you do to Qi Qi?

  “An Lingqi, you should not have been there.”

  His voice was low and gruff and there was nothing familiar in it at all. His words confirmed my suspicions.

  He had caused the chaos.

  And worse. He thought I was An Lingqi.

  And now, he would end it.

  He lifted his hand in a practiced motion. Though, I could’ve imagined it, but it seemed weaker. Perhaps I—

  A shrill scream shattered the silence as Wan’er appeared at the doorway. Her hands were splayed out beside her as if she was going to ask a question; was probably, going to ask me a question.

  Except, all that met her eyes was a six-foot ebony clad man, whose arm was raised high above his head and hand flashing a glinting blade. And for a new cultivator, where the closest she’d ever gotten to seeing a murder was in a case file, there was absolutely no reason for her to maintain her composure. Even in the dark, I could see her figure visibly shaking and her mouth wider than a rabbit hole.

  The man’s head swivelled around like an owl; his beady eyes pinned on the source of the scream. Pinned and intent on silencing the source of that scream.

  At that moment, I did not stop to think.

  At that moment, I could only see his knife.

  I could only see Xue Wan’er.

  I could only see Xiao Wu.

  I dove at his body.

  We hit the ground hard. I couldn’t hear anything, as my ears buzzed from the rush of blood and adrenaline. I couldn’t tell if Wan’er’s screams had gotten louder, or it was just the cluttering and rustling of paper.

  My face was smushed into his cloak involuntarily and I raised my head slowly to regain my bearings. A thick stench of ash lingered in my sinuses and on my hands and on my face.

  I feel like I’ve smelt that before?

  I would’ve thought I had the element of surprise for pouncing him first, but I was as equally surprised by my instinctive jump that it hadn’t registered that I would need to do something now that I had shoved him over.

  He stared at me. Two amber eyes. Cunning and insatiable.

  And completely unamused.

  I jabbed my needles into his meridians. I got his left arm, before he kicked me. I landed on my butt, then scrambled for the candlestick I carelessly tossed aside when my body flung itself at the man, whilst simultaneously keeping my eyes on the man, who was slowly unravelling from his fallen position like a bat.

  A glint of something near Wan’er caught my gaze. A glint meant something shiny. Something shiny probably meant something metal. And something metal could possibly be a weapon.

  “Hand me that thing!” I barked.

  Wan’er blinked, shaking and confused. She tipped her head to the side upon hearing. I repeated myself again, this time, adding the word “hurry”. She peered around her with one hand over her mouth.

  She looked up at me as if to say: What thing?

  The man had unfurled from his former position as much as he could, despite my needle numbing his left side.

  Words escaped me and I shouted incoherently. “The thingy! The metal thingy on your right! Wan’er, that…”

  I saw metal a split second before the blade buried deep into my side. He dragged it out and the next thing I knew, I was flying across the room. Sharp pain filled my abdomen, and a dull ache resounded through my spine. I curled back, pressing my hand against the wound. Blood, hot like boiling water, rushed out, leaking between my fingers that barely held my innards inside. Stars filled my vision as I phased in and out of consciousness.

  I briefed a glance upwards. He lumbered towards Wan’er, blade out, dripping with blood. His eyes were soulless. They were cruel. They were empty. Move, Wan’er.

  It was like I sat there for eternity, watching my stomach rise and fall with every breath that made my body feel like it was on fire.

  Wan’er was calling my name.

  Run. Run. Run, Xue Wan’er. Get out of here.

  Please.

  Please.

  I beg you.

  I crawled towards him, clutching my stomach, and hating everything in my body which ached and screamed pain. Stupid magic, heal faster. Give me time. Please.

  Please don’t touch her.

  He must have heard me because he hesitated in his steps towards Wan’er and turned back to me.

  The man flexed his shoulder. A gesture to show how bored he was; how my stubbornness to stay alive was nothing more than a bothersome mosquito he would soon snuff out.

  In two strides, my face was at his feet.

  I blinked, and his right hand was on my throat.

  Pain became everything as he strangled me against the wall like a tiny rat facing the claws of a cat. My hands curled around his enormous hands, scratching and tugging at his thumb and his sausage fingers guarded with gloves.

  Bright flashing lights burst behind my eyes. My lungs sobbed to be filled, as I desperately pushed and pulled at his wrist.

  My spirit began the final movement of the waltz with Death. Death spun me in a graceful circle, baiting me to step away, but tugging me back to continue the dance. I couldn’t tell if my headache was to do with the fact my air supply had been cut off or because I had lost too much blood. Everything, from the crown of my head to the tips of my toes, reminded me again of how good Death would be.

  Death breathed in my face as my hand loosened its grip on the man’s. It whispered of my worthlessness, my failure, my uselessness. It laughed as it triggered those horrible memories amidst the brief flickers of lucidity that graced my mind. Lucidity that came and went like waves on a seashore.

  It wasn’t a bad way to go out.

  Perhaps I could finally atone for my failure to protect Xiao Wu. Hopefully, Wan’er got the hint and had fled the scene by now.

  I wouldn’t have to worry anymore. I would be free. And no one would miss me.

  Memories couldn’t be so easily erased.

  Truth couldn’t be traded for lies, no matter how hard we tried.

  My death could never atone for Xiao Wu. Nothing could. Because he was gone. Something inside my heart unlocked at that thought. Since his death, I thought that the revenge I took, or perhaps the guilt I forced myself to carry, or perhaps even my death, could make it up to him. If I tried hard, if I punished myself, if I dragged my flesh through pain and hurts and thorns…I would make up for it.

  When I had watched Wan’er as the man loomed upon her, I could only see Xiao Wu; I could only see my failure repeating itself.

  But Xue Wan’er was not Xiao Wu.

  How arrogant of me to believe that I controlled their destinies.

  It was time that I let go.

  My hands slipped from his firm clasp on my throat.

  ***

  The first thing I saw was darkness.

  The second thing I saw was a hand stained blood red.

  I couldn’t move. Couldn’t feel my legs, my arms—nothing below the collarbone, really. Except pain. Pain, pain, pain, and more pain, a thick dull ache that called me into a slumber I might not wake from if I closed my eyes. The kind of pain that wasn’t sharp or hot but deep. Heavy. Dull, like a pestle grinding down the corners of my mind until all that remained was pulp and ache. My mind danced and twirled like a drunkard, wandering back-and-forth between different thoughts that seemed to have no beginning and no end.

  I wanted to curl up. I wanted to—but the ability to curl requires limbs that function. So, I lay there, foetal in spirit if not in form.

  Somewhere nearby came the sound of someone breathing like they’d just survived a drowning. Mucous gurgled in their throat. Was that…me? It sounded close. But also, not me. But also—maybe it was me. I didn’t know anymore.

  My head was resting on something—solid but kind, round like a knee, maybe? Someone’s lap? My neck burned from the angle, but pain was kind of inescapable at this point. I accepted it just as I accepted that the only thing obeying me were my eyes.

  Even that was a herculean task. They flicked upward, barely, and the light stung like betrayal. My lids dragged down like heavy velvet curtains.

  How easy it was to let them shut.

  Nightmares came to collect me, to pull me down and down, further and further into an abyss I could never escape from.

  No matter how my soul screamed and wailed, the darkness did not yield, and the descent did not stop. I drowned in my fears, in their disapproving faces, in my blood.

  At the centre of it all, like a spider at the heart of her perfectly spun web, sat the White Lotus.

  Elegant. Still. Waiting.