“This ought to teach you, filthy beggar! You’re spoiling the mood of our customers!”
Outside Red-Wind Pavilion, a trio of guards dragged along a tangled mess of limbs and never-washed hemp cloth. They were not city guards, but private security hired by the Red-Wind Pavilion. Once out of view of the street, they proceeded to shower their victim with kicks and slurs. They did not know the beggar’s name, only that he had appeared on the doorstep of the pavilion and his smell offended one of the wealthier patrons.
By now, the beggar had been rendered despondent from the physical abuse. One guard in particular: lead-foot Cheng really laid into the beggar. He pulled his foot back until it was taut like a bowstring and then loosed, driving his boot square into the side of the beggar’s head.
“Watch it, Cheng! I don’t want blood on my hands.” One of the other guards protested.
“Relax,” Cheng smirked, “No one will miss a piece of trash like this. And this way there’s no chance of him coming back. See?” he prodded the beggar's unresponsive body with his boot, smile widening.
The remaining guard kneeled to take the beggar’s pulse, but Cheng grabbed him and hoisted him back up, “Don’t check. Just help me lift.”
The guard gave him a look. They both knew the beggar was dead, “Fine.”
.
Led by Cheng, the Red-Wind Pavilion guards dropped the corpse in an alley located on the opposite side of the city.
The only witness to the act was an old cabbage-salesman operating at the mouth of the alley. The man was known in the neighborhood as Cabbage-freak Ji.
Old Cabbage-freak sighed as he watched the guards disappear back into the bustling city. He hadn’t sold anything today, yet four silvers weighed down his pocket. He felt ashamed: it was hush money. This wasn’t even the first time. The alley behind him was all but cut off from the rest of Jeongye City, making it an ideal place to dump a body.
The old man stroked his long white beard and decided to give the poor soul a short vigil. He approached the body as it lay in the shadows. Cabbage-freak Ji was surprised by the youthful features poking through the dirt-encrusted skin. The young man looked late-teens to early-twenties. The right side of his head, from the temple to the neck, was an ugly mess of burn scars, but the right half was alarmingly handsome. His gaze caught on the young man’s foot, which was misshapen. If the boy walked in life, it surely would have been with an awkward limp. As for marital arts? Forget about it.
Cabbage-freak Ji sighed once more. Fate played favorites. The lofty sons and daughters of the great clans were consummately talented and lacked nothing from birth. His eyes focused on the undamaged half of the young man’s face. Then there were people like this, who fate abandoned.
He placed a wrinkled old hand on the boy’s temple and muttered a short prayer, “I pray fate adores you in your next life as much as it despised you in this one,” He paused, gaze traveling to his own old, wrinkled hand, “I won’t be far behind you.” He closed his eyes somberly.
When he opened his eyes, the corpse was seated upright, looking at him.
Cabbage-freak Ji reacted as fast as his old body could, which was not fast at all. “Ghost!” he shouted. He jumped back and pulled one of the coins from his breast-pocket before throwing it at the ghost of the young man. There was a superstition that if you offered gold to a ghost, they would leave you alone. The coin hit the young man on the nose, then fell into his lap.
“I’m not dead.” The young man picked the coin up with some disappointment evident in his eyes, “And this is silver, you old fart. It should be gold.”
Seeing the old man stumbling over his words, the young man turned his gaze inwards.
Iron Bones 1 -> 2
Play Dead 14.9% -> 15% mastery, 1 aptitude
He made a fist and brought it down against his chest, feeling an incredible sturdiness. That was the effect of [Iron Bones 2]. He had been worried when that bastard Cheng delivered that kick to his head, but it appeared he had nothing to worry about.
By now, the old man had started to calm down, “What’s your name, ghost?”
The young man played with the silver coin in his hand before flicking it up in the air.
Coin Flicking 25.1% -> 25.2% mastery, 2 aptitude
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A flash of blue. He caught the coin and pocketed it with a thoughtful expression, “My name’s Hu.”
Cabbage-freak stroked his beard, “So, it’s Ghost Hu… I’m surnamed Ji. I’m known as Cabbage-freak Ji, perhaps you’ve heard of me?”
“Nope,” Hu observed the surroundings, squinting his eyes, “I thought I had been to all the alleys in this city,” For a moment, Hu considered the possibility that he actually was dead, and so was that old man, and that this alley was an otherworldly place where dead souls escaped to, or were pulled into. It would not be the strangest thing he encountered this week. First there were those otherworldly blue panels... His eyes failed to pierce the darkness of the alleyway. Could it really be a passage to the netherworld?
A moment passed in silence, each man stuck firmly in his own thoughts.
“When I was a youngster, this place never knew quiet,” Cabbage-freak Ji’s glazed eyes scrolled across the boarded-up windows and dark passages, seeing them in a different time, “That all changed when the old city flooded. That was many years ago.”
Hu pointed into the darkness, “This alley leads to the old city?”
Cabbage-freak sighed and ambled back to his place at the mouth of the alleyway, “I’m just an old man, maybe a ghost. All I know is that I have cabbages to sell.”
.
Hu left the alley and the strange old man. He did not feel like absorbing another beating today, so he steered clear of the Red-Wind Pavilion. That night, he decided to drink on a corner of a mercantile street that shot off from the main thoroughfare dividing Jeongye City into east and west. Many businesses lined the street, consisting of specialty shops, restaurants, and teahouses. There were enough competing interests that it was never clear who owned which street corner or alley, making it difficult to eject beggars like Hu.
It was the perfect place to drink and people-watch.
Hu rocked gently to zither song coming from a nearby restaurant, a faint blush about the left side of his face. The passersby gave him a wide berth, and the sky was cloudless, giving him an unobstructed view of the moon, which was brilliant and full, like a great silver coin suspended in the sky. He felt around for the silver coin in his pocket. He had the impulse to flick it.
The bottle in his hands contained the cheapest, most watered-down grog that money could buy, said to be unfit even for dogs. It had a dark color and an unpleasant grainy texture, like it was mixed with sawdust. Comparatively, the highest quality liquor, the kind that emperors and martial masters enjoyed, was said to flow like silk and glow like moonlight. Hu held his bottle up to the moon, transforming its appearance, causing it to glow like those prohibitively expensive Qi liquors.
The moon made for a wonderful drinking partner. Even the old burn scars on his face quieted down in that moment. Hu's eyelids lowered and his lips parted slightly as tension eased from his face. This was it. Peace...
CRASH
He sighed.
Not far off, a fat man in brilliant gold robes clutched a thick money pouch. A wide black pot, pulled from some nearby storefront, clattered on the ground next to a child dressed in rags who was curled up like a roly-poly.
Hu pulled keywords from the whispering crowd. They mentioned a ‘thief’, but Hu could tell just by looking at the little scamp. Attached to the little thief’s wrist was a burly hand tightened into a vice grip. The owner of that hand was not the man in gold, but a man lurking in his shadow, with the moonlit shape of a sword at his waist.
Hu tossed back the rest of the liquor. His eyes lost focus and he limped drunkenly towards the spectacle. He sloppily hummed to the tune of the earlier zither song that had been interrupted.
“Guard! Cut this thief’s hand off. Better yet, cut both off! No one steals from the son of Magistrate Guo!” the man in gold said, voice booming out over the crowd. It was an order, and also a warning.
The name Magistrate Guo caused a few would-be do-gooders to turn around and pretend they saw nothing, but there was someone who kept approaching, a stumbling drunk with a foot like a gnarled tree root and a face divided in two like Jeongye.
Hu burped, “Why don’t you show some mercy?”
The man in gold looked at him. He wound his arm back, fat fingers heavy with polished jewels and golden rings, and smacked Hu hard across the face. One jagged gold ring tore flesh. Hu let the momentum carry him in a full circle until he was facing the man once again. He stretched his jaw, “Come on friend, just a drop of mercy for a poor beggar.”
“Silence!” the man pulled his arm back and delivered a punch to Hu’s gut. Hu doubled over, then he belched.
The crowd guffawed. Hu unleashed a torrent of vomit onto the man in gold. Even the guard on standby had his eyes wide like saucers.
“Ugh! Disgusting! Disgusting! You—How dare you—You filthy cur!” the man’s chubby cheeks puffed red in outrage as he pointed a fat finger at Hu, “Kill him immediately! Kill!”
The martial artist stepped out from the man’s ball-like shadow. He wasted no time and delivered a quick knee to Hu’s gut. Hu stumbled back, then lurched forward like a marionette, belching out a projectile of saliva and half-digested grog that drew an artful trajectory over the martial artist and onto the fat man’s head.
“Bleh… Deepest apologies, good sirs,” Hu said, wiping away the thread of spit-vomit with his arm.
The martial artist delivered a powerful strike to Hu’s skull using the sheath of his sword. He frowned. It felt like he had struck armor, not bone.
The blow caused Hu to flip head-over-heels into a rice stand. Rice spilt in waves and a pair of hanging buckets bounced off each other noisily, attracting more onlookers. The rice merchant shrieked and pushed Hu away, attempting to persuade a customer who had just seen a dirty beggar roll around in the rice they were about to purchase.
Hu stumbled to his feet and limped back towards the martial artist. His eyes appeared unfocused, but he was completely sober. He noticed that the little thief had escaped during the chaos.
The fat man in gold was incensed, “Why aren’t you taking this seriously?! I gave you an order.”
The martial artist glanced at his knee, then the broad side of his sheath, looking wronged, “I am…”
“Draw your sword then!” the patron’s rolls of fat quivered in rage, “I want to confirm whether that beggar’s blood is as dirty as the rest of him!”
The martial artist hesitated, “There will be trouble.”
“I don’t care! My father will take care of it!”
The martial artist sighed and drew his blade, “I’ll make it quick,” as he said this, he dropped into a stance and his hand flashed. His sword shot out in an arc towards Hu’s neck—a deathblow if it connected.
Hu’s right hand moved.
A mote of silver light shot out. Alarmed, the martial artist pivoted into a rushed parry. The clashing sound of metal shook the scene. The martial artist recoiled slightly and looked down at his blade where a pebble-sized dent had appeared, brow furrowed in confusion. A silver coin fell away from the dent, clinking as it hit the ground.
Hu’s previously unfocused eyes had sharpened to a point. His lips, scarred on one side, twisted into something like malice.
The martial artist looked at Hu warily, eyes searching for confirmation that this beggar was more than what he appeared. Feeling his employer’s gaze, he shifted into an offensive stance, a discreet swell of Qi collecting in his wrists. He gritted his teeth at the sight of the growing crowd of onlookers. If news spread that he had used Qi to dispatch a beggar, he would be laughed out of Jianghu.
He moved.
SLICE