The acrid tingle of burnt air touched at her nose, the hairs within yearning to prickle despite being long dead. The corpse was huddled there, curled into a ball, all flesh either carbonized or merely rotting. It was indistinguishable... Sex, age, appearance, identity, anything at all was completely obscured by desiccated blackness. It was huddled around a barrel, one that also held a scent of rot - distant though the twin aromas were, that only made it worse. It meant that they had to reek, if Xiao Fan could smell them so strongly.
She stepped forward, but was immediately pushed back - the sheer aura of foreboding coming off of that corpse nearly floored her. It reminded her of her first time at the incense tree, in the grand hall... All that lingering energy, pushing her back not with physical force, but spiritual energy. That didn't bode well for whatever the hell was in that barrel, or whoever's body that was. She took a step back, bare feet against the cobbled stone floor (a reminder that she had left her boots in Xinmeijin, damn it), but a clearing throat stopped her dead in her tracks. Her head whipped about, gaze snatching for the door - only to see Zhichao Tingfeng standing there, a bemused expression on his face.
"Well, Xiao Fan? Looking for something? I thought you had eaten plenty back in Xinmeijin... Ah, I see your hand is better. Shocking that Hao Ning can... can do that, I suppose. Next time you see her, simei, would you tell her I miss her? I can't see her... I can't hear her, or interact with her at all." He stepped into the storehouse, seemingly unaware of the scent of rot, or the corpse in the corner. It was like he couldn't see them, either. That thought served to unnerve Xiao Fan a bit; it set her on edge, forcing her to think a bit harder on everything around her.
Zhichao Tingfeng made his way over to the rot-reeking barrel and turned on a heel, hopping up to sit upon the lid. It didn't buckle or shift at all. He reached to a nearby shelf and plucked up an apple, going to bite into it without a second thought. He swung his feet while he chewed - one foot tapped the charred corpse on the head, knocking a piece free. Still, he acted as if it wasn't there.
Xiao Fan swallowed hard, another vestigial gesture from her years of life. She tried not to look at Zhichao Tingfeng - at least, not in the eyes. She felt like any wrong move may cause him to lash out... There was something about his laxness, his unspoken desire to just sorta hang out, that didn't feel right. It felt like he might've been onto her, honestly, at least in the sense that he knew she was going to snoop. She hadn't had time to do any snooping at all before... And right now, with a task that brought her further into the sect proper? She wanted to snoop oh so badly.
After the next bite of apple, the seated sifu spoke up. "So. I'm sure you've wondered why this place is in ruins - why there are so many scorch marks everywhere. Why it looks like a dragon attacked us, hahaha..." There was no joy in his laughter. He stopped kicking his legs, then, adjusting himself on his barrel seat to face Xiao Fan fully. He was silent, then - gaze boring a hole into his disciple. She realized he was waiting for an answer. As quickly as she could, she nodded; it was less of an awkward bobbling this time, at least. Improvement.
He smiled then, his elegant, powerful brows arching down, eyelids drooping to make slits of his irises. He looked down to the floor of the storehouse for a few moments before taking yet another big chomp from the apple. He chewed, thought, resumed and stopped kicking his legs in a single sitting, and swallowed. Once he had, he looked back up at Xiao Fan, who stood frozen as if encased in ice. Frankly? She'd rather have been in a block of ice right now.
"Ah, ha-ha-ha... Yeah. Okay. Sure, simei, I'll tell you... I led you into the question in the first place, anyways. So... Long ago, long before you were even born... Thirty years, I'd have to guess. Again, before you were born..." He took another bite of apple and chewed it thoughtfully before continuing. "Back then, this sect was thriving. Two hundred years of cumulative knowledge on martial arts... Our own unique styles and techniques, our own forms of combat... We were everything a sect should be. Strong, proud, righteous..."
He sighed then, a wry, cynical sigh, the kind that forces a grin as it exits your mouth. He smiled into the floor, eyes vacant, his mind elsewhere. He paused for a moment, taking a deep breath and releasing it as a more melancholy sigh than his initial attempt. Zhichao Tingfeng's expression became downcast; he slowly raised his head to lock eyes with his simei.
"But all good things must come to an end. Our master was... Tempted. Seduced by those bastards in the south, of their means for achieving power... He allowed his cultivation to become tainted. He started mingling with ghosts and demons, using forbidden knowledge to advance his prowess, even harming innocents through his own, purposeful actions." Zhichao Tingfeng gestured wordlessly to a jar of baiju on a shelf near Xiao Fan. She immediately grabbed at it and tossed it to him, watching the thing arc through the air, only hoping he would catch it...
He did. The top was ripped free and thrown aside without a care before the martial master threw his head back, pouring the clear, pungent liquid straight into his mouth, swallowing even as he drank. Three swallows, three mouthfuls of straight baiju later, and he had wiped his mouth with his sleeve. He gave Xiao Fan a conspiratorial wink before leaning forward, hunching over to prop himself up on his bent arms. Zhichao Tingfeng yawned now, loud and long, before proceeding with his story.
"So. That bastard, Qinshu Lang... He was becoming a tyrant, and no one dared speak up. They didn't want to upset the order... They didn't want to face his wrath. People were killed, a harem of local women - even some of our sect-sisters - was assembled, treasures were amassed... The values of the Tianxia Leixiao sect... They were thrown away. Discarded for personal gain. And-! And then, he-!" Zhichao Tingfeng's face soured immediately, but swapped back to a mask of pleasant delusion. His smile was wide, nearly as wide as Hao Ning's - it was entirely superficial, however. Xiao Fan could see the pain behind his eyes.
"He encouraged us to follow in his footsteps. Made it mandatory. Told us to kill without feeling... To look down on the common people, because they were weak. To take what we wanted without question or hesitation - that the path to power was only found through violence and greed." His grin stretched his lips so wide that Xiao Fan thought it would split at the seams. His grip on the bottle of baiju had become so powerful that cracks were quickly forming on the exterior, clear fluid flowing from each fracture like the traces of a blade. He didn't seem to mind that his robes were getting soaked.
The bottle shattered. Shards of porcelain stabbed into his palm and fingers, and a splash of booze fell to his lap. Zhichao Tingfeng hardly seemed to mind. "Everything we had held dear! Every value we had upheld, f-for decades! Centuries! All of it, thrown away for one man's greed! I... I couldn't... I couldn't sit idly by, simei. You... You understand, don't you?" His uncanny smile diminished to an expression of sadness, frantic eyes and taut skin replaced with trembling lips and glistening ducts. He flexed the hand filled with porcelain; the shards fell away, clattering to the ground.
Xiao Fan nodded again, but this time, without nearly such emphatic nature. Her motions were as solemn and graven as her heart. She felt she knew exactly where this story was going - why Zhichao Tingfeng was the only one left alive, why the sect was in ruins, why he had renamed it to Tian Lei. She wasn't sure she had the strength to confront it herself; she wanted, needed him to say it.
"Good... I knew you would, simei. You... You understand the injustice of this world, ha-ha... You've seen the cruelty that men can hold in their hearts. All those who would oppress others using force of arms... They are equal, in my opinion. And each of them deserves a place at the end of my fist." His smile returned then, but softly, and briefly. He leaned back to a straight position on his seat, back now resting against the wall. He brought in a deep breath and blew it out through grit teeth, gaze falling back to the floor.
"I had to do something. So I raised my fist against him. I gathered support from fellow disciples... I organized meetings, began a rebellion... And one night, we made our move. In the middle of a thunderstorm, in honor of the spirit of the sect... We attacked." He cleared his throat, eyes angling skyward with an absent mind. He was lost in reverie almost immediately - Xiao Fan both wished she could see, and was thankful that she couldn't. For the sect to be left in such a state, it had surely been gruesome.
Zhichao Tingfeng raised his good hand into the air, to the center of his vision. His pointer finger went out, and he traced jagged lines in the emptiness; it took Xiao Fan a few moments to realize it was supposed to be lightning. He spoke again, and when he did, his voice was nearly dreamlike. He sounded as if he didn't even see the present anymore - he was too busy being locked in the past. "The storm raged as we marched on the grand hall. There were only twenty of us... And fifty of them. But... We had more senior disciples. We were confident. It was surely enough to cause change, if not full revolt..."
"...the fighting began without hesitation. Qinshu Lang instructed his flunkies to kill us where we stood - if we could not stand his truth, his vision, then we were useless to him. Brother fought sister, lover fought friend... It was... Awful. I've never seen so much blood. We tried our best, Xiao Fa-ha-han..." He had begun to sob at that last syllable, breaking one into three as his emotion overwhelmed him. Tears had begun to run down his face, following the creases of his face as a river follows a canyon. He continued to weep as he kept at his story.
"I... My little sister, Hao Ning.... She was one of his supporters. She was scared that if she wasn't, he would've killed her, or f-forced her... Forced her to become his concubine. Debased her martial arts so she was only good as a trophy. She was so skilled with medicine, you know... I..." He choked on his own sorrow then, slamming his undamaged hand hard into the wall. It crumpled where his fist touched, solid plaster and wood fracturing and splintering from the impact.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
He took a few seconds to try and work up the strength to go on. Xiao Fan was about to tell him that he wasn't obligated to continue, that he could finish if he wanted, but as she opened her mouth to speak, so did he. "I killed her, Xiao Fan. And my sorrow... My pain... I-I think in that moment, the heavens smiled on me, as they did you. The sky opened then, sending the judgement of the heavens down... My ex-friends, now opponents, began to burn. Lightning struck them, one after another; every ten or twenty seconds, s-someone would just..."
"...would die. Struck down by lightning. The smell of burning flesh, burning cloth... The screaming, Xiao Fan... I..." He could barely keep himself upright now. After all this time the wounds were still just as fresh as they had been the day it happened, it seemed. Xiao Fan mentally scolded herself for mentioning Hao Ning now... Maybe it would've been better if Zhichao Tingfeng didn't know she was still hanging around. Then he'd ask uncomfortable questions about how Xiao Fan was healing, but that would've been better than seeing him like this.
"...he was the last one to be struck. He came out to meet me once his forces were defeated... We fought, o-of course. Lightning struck him on the skull at first, setting his hair and beard alight, scorching his skin, making his eyes bulge... And still, he fought. He put everything he had into trying to kill me; trying to prove that his method had given him superior, unnatural strength. To this day, I... I worry he was right..." Zhichao Tingfeng swallowed hard, then. His breathing was laboured; his glassy eyes seemed to be staring at nothing, just aimed directionlessly towards the sky.
He breathed out a laugh. It was somewhere between a desperate sob and genuine mirth, but it was an improvement. Or at least, so Xiao Fan assumed. "He got the upper hand on me. Broke both my arms, dislocated both my legs. He wanted to keep me alive... Wanted to keep me alive so I would suffer before he killed me. He gloated at me, boasting of his power, his endurance... Saying I could never kill him... And I didn't." He smiled, then, in the way someone smiles when they know they're saved not by their own actions.
"Six of them, all in a row, seconds apart. After the first, he began to burn... The second, he screamed in pain. The third and fourth... Well... I don't know if the fifth or sixth strike were necessary, but w-who am I to dictate the will of heaven?" He laughed fully and truly now. There was, again, no mirth in the sound - instead, only that harsh resonance of madness found home therein. Xiao Fan rushed to step forward and put her hands on her sifu's shoulders, no longer glued to her spot by the story - he needed someone right now, anyone. Xiao Fan was the closest option for him, so she'd have to make do.
He didn't react as she grabbed him, still continuing to laugh maniacally. Xiao Fan wound back and slapped him, again and again, trying to snap him out of it. Only after the sixth strike did he seem to regain himself, eyes becoming lucid once again, focus returning in full. He raised a hand to catch Xiao Fan's slapping hand by the wrist, holding it until she allowed it to relax. He nodded to her then, a conflicted, closed-lip smirk appearing on his face.
"I apologize, Xiao Fan. It was improper of me to let myself fall into such a state. Here; I've got some more manuals for you to look at and work on... Knowledge raided from the dead tyrant himself, ha-ha. Don't let me keep you, if you were searching for food..." He stood, slipping under her arms and making his way past her. He only stopped when she took hold of his shoulder once again, pulling him back to stay with her for a few seconds more. "Zhichao Tingfeng! Sifu! I... Hao Ning has asked me to provide her a burnt offering, so that she can eat. She's so hungry, sifu. I... Now that I know what I know, I want you to help me. Join me for the offering, won't you?"
Zhichao Tingfeng was silent then, motionless; he stood stock-still and faced the door, whole body tense beneath the veneer of cloth draped over him. He nodded once, decisively, continuing to face the door. When he spoke, the emotion in his tone had returned once again, though lingered just out of the spotlight.
"Yes. I should like that a lot, simei - it's been years since the last offering I gave to her. I had thought... I had thought there was no way she would want food from me, or any kind of reverence. She's my little sister, and I'm the reason she's dead. Why would she want me to remember her fondly, or at all? No; don't answer that. If you think she wants me to participate, I will." He reached out to grab a small, wooden-lidded pot off the shelf. Xiao Fan didn't even have time to ask what it was before he told her.
"Pickled plums. Sweet-but-sour plums, her favorite... Delicious, a rare treat, and... I only keep them around because she used to love them. I wouldn't dare eat them myself, if only for fear of the memories. But for an offering for her, I think these will work excellently - I just hope she'll be happy with them, hahaha..." He trailed off, breaking free of Xiao Fan's grasp and exiting the room. That was probably for the best, the dead woman thought - he needed time to himself, to deal with old problems that had risen up anew. She felt that the sheet of ice over her heart must be thinning, because his story had nearly brought her to tears. Not to mention her discomfort at the story itself, or how unstable he had been getting...
The storeroom was scoured. Within the barrel, she found, was nothing too scary - once-pickled vegetables that had long since fallen to rot and decay. The joss paper was the hardest thing to find, having been buried beneath a myriad of other ritual implements, but she collected an entire sheaf before moving on. Pickled plums... Dried meats would go well with those, plus bread, and rice. That was a little bit of a given, though - being a rice farmer, she thought rice went with everything. It practically did, to her credit.
Finally, she gathered some incense sticks from the shelf the joss paper had been on. She guessed they were jasmine, from their colouring... When her blood wasn't flowing, senses like smell were pretty weak, after all. She'd just assume jasmine was fine. Items piled in her arms, she stepped out into the moonlight - and was greeted with a sight that smashed the rest of the glacier in her chest. Permanently this time, she hoped.
The grand hall was lit up. Everywhere a candle was meant to go, one was placed and lit; the braziers near the cardinal doors were piled with wood and set to blaze; the paper lanterns hanging from the eaves glowed with light. It felt alive, in all honesty - it felt like the hall itself was revived, along with the Tian Lei sect. Xiao Fan didn't blame Zhichao Tingfeng for renaming the place... The bad memories from the old identity of the sect wouldn't be good for anyone, least of all himself.
Zhichao Tingfeng walked out of the door nearest the storehouse - the western door. He smiled, and this time, it was as full and genuine as the strongest smile he had given her since they had met. He beckoned for her to come in, and follow him. "Come on, simei! Ning is waiting, and the longer we keep her, the hungrier she'll get! After all this time, haha, I don't know if we'll have enough food to feed her!" He laughed as he walked away, disappearing down the hallway. Xiao Fan rolled her eyes, smirking playfully for no benefit other than her own.
Up the stairs to the porch; down the hallway to the grand hall. Zhichao Tingfeng had apparently been quite busy: the incense sticks from before were all removed, ready to be replaced. He was sat upon a kneel pillow, having a one-sided conversation with the incense tree itself. He sounded like he was trying to speak with Hao Ning; however, he stopped when he realized Xiao Fan was there, too.
"Ah, simei! Place the incense, won't you? C'mon, let's hop to it. I've got a bowl set up with some wood..." He certainly did. A metal cauldron like the kind they used for pill-making sat in front of him - the interior was piled with wood nearly to the lip, but they didn't need that big of a fire. Xiao Fan began to do as she was instructed without delay - placing sticks in the mouths of tigers, the claws of dragons, the beaks of birds. Zhichao Tingfeng stood to light them, the flame from his lantern used to aromatic effect. That is, he used it to light the incense.
Once the sticks were lit, he sighed heavily and turned to Xiao Fan. His right hand gestured for her to sit; his left hand turned his paper lantern to the side, letting the candle within spill out, the lantern itself dropped to feed the fire as kindling. It didn't take long for the rest of the kindling in the bowl to take light, and the fire started to grow; larger pieces were slower to catch, but they weren't pressed for time. Not on this, at least. He sat down as the offering fire really began to climb, thankfully not too close to the incense tree.
"Alright, simei. Thank you for this, all of this - helping me honor my sister, helping me take the first step towards reviving Tian Lei... It may not seem like much, but it means so much to me. I sincerely hope you've never felt like our relationship is one-sided... I'm more than happy to share everything I know with you, because in return, you're doing more for me than I can put into words. Thank you." His smile flashed sad for a second, but returned in full, paternal force.
This was nice, actually. Xiao Fan was shocked by how... how comfortable it was, now that they were actually honest with one another. It may have hurt Zhichao Tingfeng to talk about this sort of thing, of course, but the fact that he trusted her enough to be honest with her... To tell her about his own past, the tragedies he had endured? She felt closer to her sifu than ever before. "Of course, sifu. And likewise; thank you for everything you've done for me, and everything you continue to do. I promise not to disappoint you."
They shared the moment together, enjoying the silence of the hall's stillness, broken only by the crackle of burning wood. Xiao Fan turned her head to gaze away from Zhichao Tingfeng, only breaking eye contact so that it didn't linger and overstay its welcome - and her eyes instead locked upon a new pair, big and gorgeous and doelike. She couldn't help but laugh, putting a palm over her mouth.
Hao Ning laughed too, going to throw her arms around her brother's shoulders, resting her chin over his left.