We made it back to the Native Housing District within an hour and Lee offered to take Mu Lin home while I headed for my own hovel just across the square. I was stiffening up something awful now. I wanted nothing more than to dive into my cot and start reading the orb, but I needed something in my stomach if I was going to survive the night.
The square was now filled with night vendors and the smell of wood smoke from their wok fires cause my stomach to growl. The light din of conversation mixed with the airy notes of a zither somewhere off in the backdrop, creating a welcoming atmosphere, especially when returning from the desolation of the wild.
I dropped a few pieces of copper for a bowl of rice, pickled vegetables, and a thin strip of braised pork. Finding a table, I powered through the meal with the voracity of a starving man, my chopsticks clinking against the bowl. As I ate I idly thought of how back in the day, we’d call this Chinese food, but now it was just food…and pretty shitty food at that.
Glancing up at the glowing pagoda, I wondered what they dined upon every night. Perhaps the same stuff, I figured, but likely infused with Qi to make it taste ten times better. I was just about finished when a loud raucous laughter drew my attention across the square to a group of cultivators playing dominoes.
“No frigging way,” I said, when I saw who it was.
There was Hein and his two buddies, shitfaced and slamming dominoes onto the table. But that’s not what really irked me. Yu Li was there also but not seated with them. She was instead placing bowls of rice liquor onto the table, grinning and laughing at their jokes. Su Ling was on her back, slung in a harness and screaming her head off. Hein and his friends seemed oblivious to it, and just kept on laughing and drinking while she served them.
Had those pricks been here all damn day?
By the exasperated look on Yu Li’s face, I would say that they had. For a split second, I almost considered just letting it be. I may have unlocked my Frenzied Flame but I still didn’t know jack about magic kung fu yet. But who was I kidding? It just wasn’t in my DNA to allow something to go on. And besides, I didn’t give a shit about death anymore. I was on my feet and halfway across the square before I knew it.
There were at least a hundred-odd people in the square and the closer I got, the more I saw the appalled looks on all their faces. They were as disgusted by Hein and his friends as I was. And Yu Li pandering to them like a damn slave while her baby was screaming brought up a wave of heated anger in the pit of my stomach.
It wasn’t just emotion.
I was feeling Frenzy.
“Young Master Hein,” I greeted him, sans the bow. “Still here I see.”
“Oh, look! It’s Chun!” Hein slapped his hands together laughing. “Welcome, my boy!”
Yu Li looked up with a nervous smile, but it vanished immediately when she saw my bandages and sling. “Chun! What happened?”
“Nothing,” I said. “Just a rough day at the office.”
I had to remember that not everyone remembered the old colloquialisms from Earth. Sometimes it didn’t translate too well either. “Nevermind. I’m fine though.”
Worry and concern flashed through her eyes as she tried to bounce Su Ling on her back. “Are you sure?”
“Getting kind of late, isn’t it?” I said directly to Hein. “Think maybe it’s time to start packing this up?”
“Don’t be foolish, the night is just starting.” He then reached sloppily into his robes and threw a few Wen of copper onto the table. “Yu Li, fetch us more wine. We’ll entertain this oafish friend of yours.”
His two friends started laughing again.
Yu Li began reaching for the coins, but I slammed my hand down on top of them, making the dominoes jump. “How about you go get your own damn wine and then get the hell out of here?” I said. “Or better yet, why not just get the hell out of here period? Like right now.”
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“Chun!” Yu Li exclaimed, her face white with fear.
A bit of chatter died down as a few people close by overheard what I’d said. I could sense the anger boiling off of Hein as well as his two friends as they stared at me in silent outrage. I tried to match them with a stare of my own, feeling the Frenzy filling me with confidence and resolve.
Hein’s hand moved so fast that I felt it before I even saw it. The ringing backhand across my face sent me flying back through a couple of tables and landing hard on my side.
“Insolent dog!” he screamed. “You dare to give me commands! Teach him a lesson!”
They were on me in a second. I winced as Hein and his buddies kicked at my bandaged sides and through the pain I vaguely mused what the chances were that I was receiving my second beating of the day from three cultivators. I focused on my meridians, trying to turn the pain to Frenzy as I endured the pounding.
“Master Hein!” Yu Li cried. “Please stop!”
She reached out to him, catching Hein by his sleeve. The cultivator wheeled on her, a look of disgust on his face as he raised his hand high to strike. “Don’t interfere, you bitch!”
As his hand came down, something inside me snapped and an image of a raging fire appeared inside my head. I was up on my feet in a flash and threw a punch straight into Hein’s jaw. It felt like I was punching a wall as his head snapped back. The punch must have hit harder than he expected though, because he touched his face slowly in disbelief.
I felt a surge of rage erupt inside of him as he literally flew at me with a martial strike.
He froze in midair as he delivered two rapid kicks to my chest that sent me sailing into a couple more tables behind me. Steel flashed as he drew his sword and then from twenty feet away, he suddenly appeared before me, moving without moving, in a sudden burst of Qi.
Even his friends let out gasps of panic as he drew the sword back, ready to plunge it into my chest. Strangely, I didn’t care and leered at him all the same. The look must have unnerved him slightly, because I felt a pang of fear bubble up inside of him, disrupting his rage and resolve.
The entire square was watching now.
Deathly silence took hold.
He glanced at the crowd as he continued to breathe heavily while standing over me. Finally, his body loosened. “You will count yourself lucky that This One’s station is too high to snuff out a wounded and insignificant commoner such as you.”
There it was. What he was really afraid of. The loss of face.
He spat on me instead, but with a flick of steel I felt something sharp slice my cheek. A few seconds later, the hot wetness of fresh blood poured from it.
“Take you that,” Hein said, staring down at me with a hateful glare. “Let that scar remind you each morning of your place and how merciful I was to have spared your pathetic life today.”
If he was expecting some kind of groveling, he wasn’t going to get it. I grinned at him instead as I touched my cheek.
One down, one thousand more to go, I thought. I’ll catch you up yet, Big Sis.
Hein finally sheathed his blade and then stormed out of the square with his two lackeys in tow, kicking tables over as they left.
“Childish pricks,” I spat.
A murmur of cautious conversation resumed as everyone tried to pretend like nothing had happened. A woman came up to me and handed me a cloth to press against my cheek, giving me a smile as she did so. It was then that I sensed a different kind of energy flowing through the crowd. It was fear but slightly different, fear mixed with anger and resentment both.
I felt the same spilling off of Yu Li as she stooped down to me.
“What the hell was that, Chun? Are you crazy?”
I gave her my cheesy smile again. “You’re always calling me that.”
“Do you have any idea what you’ve just done? You’re lucky he didn’t kill you. Or all of us for that matter. What are we to do now if he returns still vexed? Or brings one of his family members with him? Did you think of that?”
I huffed out a sigh. I thought at first that maybe I had instilled some kind of defiance in the crowd. But it was the opposite, it seemed. They were more scared than ever from fear of retribution and their anger was directed at me. I understood their fear, but I just didn’t feel it the same way anymore.
“Let them come,” was all I said.
I got myself off the ground and an old man tipped his straw hat to me. He wasn’t Terran but he didn’t look like a Yee citizen either. A lowly commoner just like us.
“Well at least someone did something,” he said.
I smiled. That made it all worth it, in my mind.
“Go take care of Su Ling now,” I said to Yu Li. “She sounds hungry.”
I left the square with Yu Li and half the Native Housing District drilling holes into my back from their stares. I could tell she was still pissed off something proper, but I didn’t really care. I did what needed to be done and had taken the beating to pay for it.
One day she’ll thank you, I hoped.
But she wasn’t wrong to be afraid either. None of them were.
Who knew what Hein or his family might do once word got out? But that just got me to focus more. Once I had reached my small 10-by-15 room in the retrofitted Days Inn hotel, I quickly stashed the lightning core under a floorboard and then whipped out the orb.
There was nothing like lighting a fire under yourself for motivation. My body would have liked nothing more than to fall dead asleep from the exhaustion and pain. But a new thirst was running through me now. I stared at the tiny script until it began to make sense, characters superimposing themselves within my mind. If Hein was going to return, as I was sure he would.
Then I was going to be prepared.