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Chapter 31: "To the Windows."
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Shae and Lou approached the scene and found themselves blocked by two guards and an inspector whose face was shrouded by her loose hair, her eyes locked downwards on her clipboard.
When the inspector's hard gaze did look up at them it showed little patience. Yet, Lou turned to Shae with a smirk and whispered, "Good Fortune!" Then quickly stepped ahead of her.
"Inspector Tan." Lou saluted the severe looking woman.
"Second Captain Lou." She returned the salute awkwardly while holding the clipboard. "To what do we owe the visit?" Her dark eyes scoured over them and Shae felt the hair on her neck stand up. The sense that a wisp of qi scanned her followed soon after.
"A visiting consultant was interested in the investigation. Meet Wise Zhi Shae."
"Good morning, Inspector." She bowed, slightly unsure if it was deep enough.
"Is it, Wise Little Zhi? A good morning, I mean."
She shrugged. "I was having a good time before I reached the gates. Fortunately it's only gotten more interesting, if a little upsetting."
"I wouldn't think a little smuggling would upset many?" Tan raised an eyebrow.
"Neither would I, yet someone decided it's worth disrupting the lives of an entire city district over." Shae emphasized her point by glancing at the slums surrounding them.
Lou coughed. The guards beside them shifted uncomfortably. Tan inhaled deeply while trying to keep surprise off her face. "Oh," she said.
Shae decided to let the point linger.
Lou cleared his throat and asked, "Well, do you mind if we snoop around?"
"Is there a particular area you would like to snoop in?" The inspector smoothed her robes flat with her free hand. Shae thought they were nicer than Choun's, maybe just better fabric? and she wears less jewelry, which makes her look more professional.
"Yes, I was curious about the search pattern used, and if there were any interruptions?"
"Think we missed something?" Tan asked her sharply.
"Just curious. Though, I hear a certain Diviner might think you did." She turned to Lou. "Oh, did you say why they weren't brought back?"
Tan made a few sounds as she was trying to process what just happened. Lou answered, "Too expensive, and they really don't like it when people mess up their predictions. They take it as an accusation that they were wrong."
Tan recovered and continued Lou's point, "Yes, they were rather upset when they heard the news. Accused us of sabotaging their reputation."
"Did they give any insights as to what went wrong?" The young cultivator asked.
Tan smirked. "They did not." She looked past the guards. "Alright, look but no touching, and don't run into the buildings." She led them down the alley to the pile of crates.
Shae started reading over the labels on the crates. They were dates and locations where the contents were found. "Very organized." She nodded.
"Of course." Tan spoke. "Basic ground up search pattern. Though, it was disrupted slightly when a certain guard thought to check all the rooftops from here to the wall. That's the time gap in the logs on the second day."
Shae hadn't seen that gap, the crates didn't have time of day on them. "These are the most recent?"
"Yes, the top floor and roof. Searched from two days ago through to yesterday."
"In the rain? Or was that earlier?"
"The rain was overnight. We do take breaks."
"Good to hear." She looked around the courtyard, then up at the rooftops. "The exterior was searched at the beginning? With the ground floor?"
"Correct."
Shae hummed and softly clicked her tongue while she thought.
"A-hem, something on your mind Miss Shae?" Lou asked.
"Getting there. Which way is the wall?" She guessed by pointing in a direction.
"More left." He pointed with his chin.
She scanned the rooftops. A dark flicker caught her eye, it was about a slight turn left from the direction Lou pointed. She moved around the courtyard, trying to get a better angle on it. As best she could tell, some shingles and the edge of an awning looked to be fully in shadow, when they should have been well lit.
She pointed and looked at the two others. Tan and Lou both had pleased smirks on their faces.
"You already know what that is?" She asked.
Tan nodded. "It's a window to a hidden room guarded by shadow qi. Took us a while to find it and our specialist disrupted the shadow qi. So it visibly sticks out now."
The inspector pulled out a long clear-yellow crystal and pointed towards the rooftop. A bright spot appeared on the wall and she moved it across the shadow as she narrated. "It's not just to hide, but to refract the light so the room appears further left, hiding the protrusion and making it less obvious the room exists at all."
"Huh." She stared at the visual illusion. "So, the ringleaders' headquarters? Or just a safe room?"
"Safe room, with travel supplies."
Shae looked around and grabbed a small stone.
"I believe I said, no touching." Tan warned, flaring a touch of qi and intent.
Shae ignored it. "Right, sorry." She hefted the stone and looked up. "Second Captain Lou. Think you could hit that shadowy window?"
"Hah, of course. How many pieces do you want it in?"
"Pretend like you don't want to break anything."
"Ooo, that'll be tricky. I like breaking stuff."
"And that if it makes any noise, you'll be executed for treason."
"Treason? Tax evasion and smuggling isn't that severe."
"True, but it's about the incentive, at that moment he probably felt more pressure than you can imagine now. So, imagine that you are trying to silently leave a note for your secret lover, Princess Tan."
The inspector coughed violently. "What?" She was already showing some red in her cheeks.
Lou grinned wide, "ah, I see, and if I'm caught, I'll be beaten and hung by her disapproving father."
Tan meeped.
"Exactly." Shae nodded sagely.
Lou gracefully swung the stone underhand, stepping forwards as he did. It silently arced through the air and passed into the shadow. Shae thought she heard a slight clink of glass, but it could have been stone on wood, or her imagination.
Tan gasped. "Perfect throw, Captain."
"Anything for my princess." He bowed.
She blushed again. "I'm not a..."
"Of course," Shae stepped over to her and patted her back. "It's just a thought experiment, Princess. Now the real challenge for your secret lover."
"What?" She squeaked.
Lou smirked at the woman, and Shae thought she saw a twinkle in his eye.
"Lou, can you make the same throw, but two or three paces to the right?"
He stepped two and a half paces right.
"I meant aim to the right."
He flashed a smirk, looked up at the windows, then back with a serious expression. "Hmm, I'm not sure. I might need some more motivation, to get into the proper headspace." His serious tone was undercut when he finished with a smirk and head jab towards Tan.
Shae sighed, what have I started, then she smiled anyway. "You just found out that the Evil Court Vizier has cast an illusion over Princess Tan's window. Your last throw missed and you need to do it again."
Inspector Tan meeped again at being called a princess.
"What's the evil vizier's name?" Lou asked.
Shae inhaled, then nodded to herself. "Choun, obviously."
"That bastard!" Lou punched his palm. "And here I thought he was a doddering old fool!"
"Indeed, but he is also a cunning fool. You must aim where the window would be if the shadow illusion were reflected to the right."
Lou turned his head slightly and concentrated. "I think I've got it."
Shae saw Tan put her sleeve over her mouth and take a deep inhale, and she held it as Lou made the throw.
It sailed through the air, completely missed any windows, and bounced down the roof with the clink of clay tiles to land out of sight.
The three paused, Tan exhaled.
"Huh. I expected it to get caught up there." Shae said.
"Oh, right! The investigation." Lou said as he rubbed the back of his neck.
Inspector Tan coughed then replied, "Yes, of course. Let's go see it, then." and rushed forwards to find where it fell.
Shae grabbed more stones. "Maybe a few more between the two points. Feel free to make them louder so they are easier to find." She passed them to Lou and followed Tan.
"Sure." He said, then threw them all in a single motion.
Shae followed the noise of clattering rocks on clay around two corners and out into the street where Tan already was. A couple stones chased her out as they rattled off the roof and onto the street. She nodded to Tan.
"We checked the eaves, troughs, and rain water barrels." The inspector frowned and stared at where the stones were bouncing off the roof. Lou was still throwing them.
"In that order? Or did you check the barrels before the rain?" The young cultivator asked.
Tan stiffened, then looked around at all the barrels that were next to the street, under the eaves of the housing they had walked out of.
Shae traced the spouts and pipes that brought the water to the barrels. There were more than she expected. Like someone had built three buildings on top of each other, but left all the troughs and barrels behind.
Tan shouted at the nearby guardsmen and soon they were tipping barrels into the street. Tan yelled at them again and they stopped to sort out a more organized method that she could keep track of.
Shae's attention was drawn back to a few stones bouncing off the tile roof and not coming down. She tracked the eavestroughs and found down spouts at both ends. One end led into the barrels they were already searching. The other ran up above their heads where it was being used to hang clotheslines and colorful banners.
She was surprised no one had taken the banners down, I bet they didn't expect them to be hung off a drain pipe.
As Lou excited the alley to aid in the commotion, Shae wandered down the street to a noodle vendor. "One please, extra spicy, extra sauce. And do you know where I could get one of those noodle baskets? Even an old one?"
The vendor joked she could buy one of his for a tael. So she did. He then tried to get her to try the 'crab juice', but she did not.
She wandered back to the group of guards while eating her meal and with a new toy hung off her belt.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
"Hey, great idea. Did you get one for me?" Lou joked while pointing at her bowl.
She shook her head with a mouthful of noodles.
"Oh and great idea about the rain barrels. Tan says they were checked after, but the logs are thin that day."
"Mhhmm. Someone sloppy? Mmm, or a cover up?" Shae said through her meal.
"No, I mean the rain got the paperwork wet, hard to write on wet paper, harder to read."
"Huh." She said after swallowing. "Are they going to replace all that water they are dumping out?"
"Uhm. Maybe? It's just rainwater."
"Those people seem pretty upset about it." She pointed to a group of angry peasants. They weren't about to do anything, but were glowering at the guards dumping barrels into the streets. "Probably just looks petty to them. Here, finish this for me." She handed him the noodles.
"Wha-? Um, thanks? But I could go explain."
"Nah, if anything, get ready to ask Tan to stop. I'm ready for my big reveal!" The young woman approached a water barrel on the other side of the road and hopped up beside it. It was a pace above ground, with a tap at the bottom. She pried the lid off and reached in with the noodle basket.
"Oooh, this is spicy!" Lou said. "Good, but spicy." He kept eating.
"Street noodles are always good." Shae insisted then grunted as she withdrew the basket. Several objects were caught in the wide flat mesh. "And better when spicy."
"Is that a bone?" Lou asked.
"Ugh, and a... don't want to know, actually." She dumped it behind her and reached in again.
Tan showed up with a question. "This is the wrong side of the street?"
"Ah-ha!" The young woman cheered.
"Find something?" She asked, the two adults leaning in close to see.
"Yes, a... Triangle?"
"Arrowhead. Should probably save that as evidence. Could solve a murder," the inspector said seriously.
Shae slowly dumped the scoop behind her. There were other things in it again. The black sludge of silt and slime plopped onto the ground with a wet thwap.
"Third time's the charm," she said while reaching into the murky water.
"Is it?"
"You should try this!" Lou said to Tan.
"Is that from the vendor over there? Is it spicy?"
Lou nodded and Shae looked over to say, "Extra spicy, extra sauce."
Tan nodded, "Good choice, they're one of my favorites around here."
Lou scooped up noodles with the chopsticks and held them out to the woman.
"Thanks, I'll get my own later."
Shae was focused on the barrel. She could feel something metal in the silt, but it kept evading the scoop. She pushed it against the side, but couldn't be sure it was landing in the scoop and not under it.
"Could you..." She started and turned to see Second Captain Lou feeding Inspector Tan a mouthful of noodles. They both froze like startled deer.
A solid clink came from the barrel. "Oh! Got it!" Shae yelled and jumped down with the scoop full of silt. Dirty water splashed after her and the two adults deftly dodged away.
She switched the scoop to her left hand, then shook out her right. It was cold from the water, and her uncleansed shoulder muscles were a little sore from reaching. She shook her head and cycled a bit of qi through it.
Lou slurped the noodles as they walked closer to the young woman digging through a handful of black muck.
"What is it with me and black muck these days- oh! Tah Dah! One suspiciously black ring."
"Wow. You actually found it in there! No wait, how did it get there?" Tan asked.
"That's a drainage pipe." Shae pointed. "Now how do these things work?" As her intent to open the ring hit it, a lot of things happened very quickly.
Lou and Tan were already saying, "No." and "Don't." respectively.
A flash of shadow qi burst from the ring, latching onto Shae's hand and pulling at her qi. She screamed as the invading qi was cut into her channels with the intent to cause more pain.
"Cursed." Tan snapped off. "Cut off her arm."
"What!? No!" Shae yelled.
Lou was already moving as Tan's words left her mouth but his blade slowed to a stop before it hit flesh, he carefully watched the shadow qi. The noodle bowl and a hint of hesitation were the only thing to save her arm.
"I'll fight it off, this is my favorite arm." She strained to say.
Both experienced cultivators watched with some surprise as the shadow didn't immediately climb up the young woman's arm and didn't dive into her Dantian.
"Don't cycle the qi." Tan warned.
"No shit, Sherlock." Shae cursed. She grunted as she poured more qi into the infected limb. Her small reserve of personal qi, divine qi, and enlightenment qi dwindled as it fought back the shadows.
Red lightning qi sparked around her hand and soaked into her hairpin that she was still wearing as a ring.
"Lightning won't do it, you'll need light or fire." Tan said.
Lou's grip on his sword firmed, the blade following the leading edge of the shadow qi's progress.
"What? Lightning is both of those, it makes light." Shae argued through clenched teeth.
"It's just a flash, hurts shadows but doesn't kill. It's trying to take you over."
"Grrr." She growled and pushed her qi harder. Then I'll take it instead. She started instructing her enlightenment qi to not destroy but to take, consume and subvert the intent of the shadows. Slow it down and trap itself.
She focused her other efforts by more carefully using her qi, she knew she wouldn't last at this rate. Instead she threw mental focus at the problem to direct her qi faster and with more intent. Cycling fresh divine qi to her head so she didn't pass out.
She focused her own thoughts as well: Lightning could make light, could make fire. The divine qi in her Dantian was cloudy, but also held light. She drew the lightning from her ring back into her hand to reuse it and speed it up.
"Good, but you're just pushing it around, you need to destroy it with light." Tan insisted, and shifted nervously.
Lou held firm, his blade harmlessly scraping up her elbow.
Light, where do I get light. She searched her Dantian, the ribbons glowed but were still lightning and still too much for her. The cat's-eye marbles were the same. Except one. One marble that held the memory of Ghon's enlightenment as observed by her. A bright beam of fire and light in the darkness.
She mentally wrenched at herself with a scream of pain and threw the marble into her arm. She felt it slam into the shadow qi just above her elbow and stop.
At some point during that scream she had dropped to one knee. Her mental focus had snapped then, bringing her back to the present and all the pain it held. Her arm burned. Misty qi edged with black billowed out of her hand like it was silver fire, taking some of the shadow qi went with it.
"It's not stopping, we need to break the trap, wear it down. Shae attack the trap formation."
"How?"
"Anything, throw more light at it." Tan waved her arms in a panic.
"Spiritual water?" Lou asked.
"Ah- Yes! That could work." Her panic stopped suddenly as she considered the idea.
"My bag, the bottle." Shae grunted but he was already gone. Dust and wind chasing his passing.
Tan caught the falling noodle bowl with inhuman reflexes. Then she splashed the remains into the gutter and washed the clay bowl in the rain barrel.
A commotion in the crowd drew screams of distress and one voice shouted very near to Shae, "Give it back!" The shadow of a man suddenly loomed over her as he swung a blade at her arm.
"No!" Tan screamed and lunged, but was too slow.
Shae's mental focus kicked in like adrenaline. Her first thought was surprise, as she thought it was expended. The blade drifted in slow motion and she twitched her arm away from it, bending her elbow to try and let it pass. It struck her forearm like a cudgel, a new pain, but not any worse than the rest. It slid down her arm like it was a shaving razor, the steep angle preventing a bite into her flesh. The tip met her wrist and she was not so lucky. The slow-down from the instinctual mental focus let her feel it ten times over as it bit into her wrist and scored a line down her hand.
As her focus snapped again she screamed out and her arm whipped around behind her. Rage filled her, muscle memory and instinct took over as she threw a punch. The man's side was wide open, he hadn't expected to miss, and she saw too late that he was just a man, not some shadow demon like she had first feared.
Red lightning coursed down her arm as she stepped into the punch. Some turned golden-white as it passed the cat's eye marble. Far more turned black as it passed through the shadows clutching her flesh and seeping from the ring. As her fist connected with the man's side she somehow had time to feel her bones crunch and mentally noted that it was not soft like the punching bag in Fairy Yun's training room.
All the colorful lightning discharged into the man and they both collapsed to the ground unconscious.
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Shae woke to a stinging sensation in her arm. She flinched but her arm held still like it was in a vice, so the rest of her twitched instead.
"She's up," came Lou's voice, near her ear.
"Shae, stay awake. You blocked it somehow, but you need to keep pushing the shadow qi out." Tan said from her other side.
A pulsing pain came from just above her elbow. It was the only thing she felt aside from the sting of something hot on her hand. She smelled the fresh aroma of Chef Van's spiritual water. Then the pungent smell of burning blood, her own blood, she knew. It pulsed again and fear came with it, and loneliness. Fear she would be alone.
"Ah!" She cried and groaned. "Fairy Yun, Chef Van."
"It's Tan and Lou, Shae. Can you release the ring?" He asked, sounding irritated.
She cracked an eye towards her right hand, it was hidden below the dark liquid in the noodle bowl, but darker lines ran up her arm to her elbow. She first mistook it for her tattoo, but it wasn't as jagged as lightning. Silver and black qi burned like fire from the wooden bowl. She was surprised to see it undamaged.
Something bumped the pain in her arm and she cried out.
"Relax Shae, meditate if you can. Tell the ring to unlock, disarm, deactivate. Anything you can think of." Tan placed a hand on her left shoulder.
She did that. She pushed the thoughts through her arm, through what qi was left in it, and added more with the same. She recalled what started this, and her intent firmed, directed at the ring to open up. It is still a storage item.
A flash of something new opened within her mindscape. No, not mindscape, I'm not meditating. It was like seeing into a room that hadn't been there before, smaller though, a closet if she thought about it one way, a broad shipping crate if she turned it over.
It contained mostly metal. Bars of iron or steel. Maybe brass or copper. It flickered and she couldn't get details. On top of that were tools: some smith's hammers and tongs, then cooking pots and pans, then smaller boxes of... nails? She saw no weapons or armor.
She pushed it to dump itself out, like tipping over a box. She heard a few thuds and clanks beside her but the pain surged again and she lost concentration. She didn't think she got much.
Her rage bubbled up again. Why trap this? Why be so cruel? Such pointless vengeance and wrath.
The words resonated inside her. The red lightning cheering at her rage and at the cursed wrath the shadow qi still inflicted upon her. Almost instantly, her previous dilemma of whether to embrace the tribulation lightning's wrath was solved.
"No!" She shouted. "No wrath, no vengeance! Pain is for the petty and cruel." She mentally pushed against the ideals the red lightning was resonating with until she found a solid thing that she could grab onto. Desperately, she pulled and tore it out of her personal qi and cast it away, through the enlightenment memory, transforming it. From there she directed it without hesitation at the ring's trap like a perfectly aimed ax strike. She inhaled and screamed again. "I will never be so desperate, so spiteful, so afraid. I will not use the tools of cowards and empty gods."
Thunder crashed above her. Sudden and unyielding.
Her onslaught of qi shattered something in the ring, and the painful infection of shadow qi vanished as quickly as it had come.
She took one last breath and started up at angry clouds. "I will not... be a tool... for de-"
She passed out again. The same pain in her upper arm insisted upon something, but she could do nothing. She fell to the ground, unsupported by Second Captain Lou or Inspector Tan.
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Aside: ~{/ Chapter: 3?.X
"A Totally Normal Dream."
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Something stirred her out of unconsciousness. Insisting that she wake up, that there was something left undone. An icy spike of pain brought her fully awake.
She opened her eyes to find her Dantian, the inside of it, and only that. A vast empty sphere with a few pitiful clouds. Just shadows of what they had once been. Their intensity wasn't lessened, just their size. Representing mere fractions of the power she once held. The fight with the shadow curse had taken so much.
Her ribbons of lightning played through the empty space. Small marbles streaked through the emptiness, puffing out trails of mist and cloud as they passed through the various qi. There were fewer now. She felt that was correct, but also wrong, something was missing.
A knife tapped at a window in space, the act drawing her attention like someone flicking her ear. Revealing a little bubble of perception that shouldn't be there, yet was. Its connection was fading, the image in the window flickering.
She grabbed onto it. This part was important, she needed to keep it. Not it, but what it connects to.
The spherical window showed darkness on one side, and a crack off light on the other. The crack widened and voices came through.
"This is peculiar. Never seen something like this." An older male voice spoke from the other side.
She saw a white mask covering half a face that peered into the crack, possibly the owner of the voice. Bright lights behind the figure made his features dark aside from the mask, and bushy white eyebrows.
Finger tips swept in quickly to nudge up against the crack in the window, tapping it. This... window, it's so small that a fingertip can cover it.
"Calcified meridian?" A familiar female voice asked.
The masked face shook. "No, it shouldn't be so well formed. Looks more like a monster core." He was the owner of the older voice.
"But it has no qi presence." The woman said.
The mask nodded. "And it's definitely doing something to the patient, we should remove it."
No! Shae cried! She knew she needed that, whatever it is.
They hadn't heard her.
"Heart-rate up." A third voice said.
"Now or never? Inspector Tan?" The surgeon said.
"Do it." Tan said.
No! She screamed again. The fingers wrapped around the little window, obscuring her view.
No, you cannot have it. It's mine! It belongs here, inside me!
Something popped and the window vanished. Replaced by a small cat's-eye marble. Its eye held the silhouette of a man at a campfire, surrounded by golden light.
Shae smiled as she slowly blacked out, watching the marble fall into the heart of her personal qi, right where it should be.
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