“So,” said Yao, and blinked demurely, “who do I have the pleasure of calling my saviour?”
The patchwork youth examined the bloodstained woman, streaks of crimson still lining her jaw, and laughed out loud at her farcical attempt at looking demure.
“What?” Yao huffed. “It was worth an attempt.”
“Sorry, sorry,” the youth managed to get out, in between bouts of laughter, wiping a tear from his eye, “it was just so ridiculous. Don’t worry - I was laughing with you, not at you.”
“I’m not worried in any event. That was an icebreaker,” Yao muttered sweetly, her cutesy tone belied both by her general appearance and by the cocky expression she wore on her face. “But seriously, who are you?”
“Ah, forgive me. I suppose I do owe you some sort of explanation. My name Edward, Edward Brittleby, though my wizard name is Artemaeus and my friends call me Art. And yourself?”
“Yao, Yu Yao. My friends call me Yao,” Yao replied, assiduously not mentioning anything about wizard names.
“Well met, Yao,” Art said, and extended his hand for a hearty handshake. Yao looked down at it. She vaguely considered insisting on modesty, but she knew the Western Regions did things differently and it could be seen as a form of impropriety to insist on the proper laws of modesty. She took the hand.
“So, what do you plan to do with that,” Yao asked, waving vaguely in the direction of the very confused heavenly jade beauty. Art started, having forgotten he’d created life not ten minutes prior.
Yao said nothing and purposefully thought less as the cockamamie youth ran off to talk excitedly to his newly created (and surprisingly intelligent) golem. She took stock of her situation. She was lost in unfamiliar terrain, her only support a(n admittedly very friendly, and in some respects remarkably sane) lunatic, with no clue how to get home and with an unknown number of demonic cultivators wandering around in the wilderness.
It was perfect. Her heart sang, as she thought of the chaos she would have to bring to order. She was rubbing her hands and cackling gleefully to herself when Art tapped her on the shoulder, causing her to jump.
“Sorry about that. I spoke to Jade Stone - that’s the name I gave her - and she has no idea what she wants to do yet. She wants to travel with us, err, me.”
Yao grinned evilly. “‘Me’? Aren’t you forgetting your poor travel buddy?”
The youth waved his hands. “Oh, no - not that I wouldn’t love if you did, and of course I’ll help you back to civilisation if you don’t know the way, but I’d never want to force you to do anything.”
“Is that any way to speak to the woman whose life you just saved?” Yao pouted. She put her hands together and posed. “Don’t I owe you a debt of gratitude?”
Art’s eyes narrowed in mock disapproval. “Yet I can’t help but think that ‘debt’ is more a tool than an obligation. Forget about it - consider it an act of charity.”
“Okay, you’re correct, but wait a moment.” Yao commanded.
Now the reader should not be unduly confused as to the nature of Yao’s felt obligation. Though it is a commonplace in fiction that the saved person swears to dedicate his or her life to his or her saviour, the blunt fact of the matter was that Yao had been in hundreds of dangerous altercations, had risked her life nearly twice that many times, and owed life debts to so many people it was practically comedic.
Art was not (at least in this respect) special, and the case on its own merits was no cause for any special concern on her part, save for one fact…
“You see, I need your help… again,” Yao said. Art waited politely.
“So I’m a travelling noble, as you can tell by my dress,” and here she motioned to her bloodstained and completely unrecognisable clothes. “I was meant to be on vacation, touring the great bathhouses and resorts of the Western Regions when, well, this happened. Now, I can go back to my party, but I don’t want to; so I need your help.”
Art crossed his arms, leaning back so it looked like he was resting in a column, though he was still standing in midair. He motioned for her to continue.
“Listen. There clearly are problems going on with demonic cultivators in the Western Regions, but I’m not going to find them while touring luxury bathhouses. At least, not all of them,” Yao added, as it occurred to her that she had, contrary to her expectations, found demonic cultivators in a bathhouse.
“Hence, I need an excuse to leave my party.”
“And I’m that excuse?”
“Yes. Well, not quite.” She leaned in close, hand cupped over Art’s ear, and began carefully whispering into it. Art’s face - which until then had been highly confused and intensely sceptical - cleared up, splitting into a brilliant grin.
When Yao had finished she stepped back, looking bashfully up at Art. “So, can I count on your help?”
He snorted, but couldn’t quite conceal his excitement as he shook her arm. “Aye - if nothing else, it will be quite the adventure. Now to get the last member of our devilish plot to concur…”
***
“I… beg your pardon?” Said the captain of the guards, a nice man who didn’t deserve all the nonsense this chapter was putting him through.
“I’m very sorry, but I’m afraid that while I can give you cash, I can’t give you my pardon - it’s not a physical object, after all.” Yao deadpanned.
If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
“No, that’s not - ugh. Let me go back a bit, and see if I can get this straight. First, you were abducted by demonic cultivators who lived under the kitchen cupboard.”
“Well, I don’t know if they lived there, but they were certainly present there, yes, and they did abduct me - granted that I exist in the manner traditionally conceived.”
The captain of the guards groaned. Not this again. He doggedly ploughed on, determined to iron out this hopelessly confusing narrative. “And upon being kidnapped, you were taken all the way to some castle out in the wilderness, where they planned to assassinate you until… I’m sorry, what did you say your name was?”
“Edward Brittleby. My wizard name is Artemaeus; my friends call me Art. You can call me Artemaeus, Edward, or just Ed. Preferably not that last one, though. I don’t like it, you see.”
“Right, so, they took you - that is, the princess - to a castle way out in the wilderness, where they planned to assassinate you until Eddie here interrupted them and throttled them to death with his… tentacles…”
“And chicken feet,” Art added helpfully.
“Ah, yes, wonderful. At least the princess has always liked chicken feet.”
Art shivered as Yao licked her lips.
“Now, Edward here saved you from the demonic cultivators with his tentacles and chicken feet, but by that time this… alternative version of you had come into being.”
“Hi,” said the heavenly jade beauty, “I’m Yu Yao.”
The captain of the guard looked at her. She looked nothing like the princess. His eyes narrowed, and he turned back to the fleshy princess.
“Forgive me for saying this, your majesty, but for mysterious and unaccountable reasons I find myself strangely unconvinced that somehow, someway, in the middle of the fight you found yourself divided into one person that looks and behaves precisely like you do, and another that looks and behaves completely differently.”
“Hi,” said the heavenly jade beauty, “I’m Yu Yao.”
Yao (not the jade beauty - the plain one with the ahoge) winced. “What’s there to doubt? One moment I was sitting there, all trounced up in a sack, and the next I’d been zippedy zapped by a demonic cultivator and bam, there was heavenly jade beauty me.”
“What demonic technique?”
“What do you mean, ‘What demonic technique?’”
“What do you mean, ‘What do I mean, What demonic technique?’ I’m asking you what demonic technique you’d been zippedy zapped with that caused a wildly different heavenly jade beauty of you to peel off from your body and waltz around stating such inanities as ‘Hi, I’m Yu Yao.’”
“Hi,” said the heavenly jade beauty, “I’m Yu Yao.”
The captain of the guard facepalmed. Yao was equally irate.
“What, do you really expect me to know every demonic cultivation technique from the capital of the Great Xuan to far off Avalon?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, I do. It is, so far as I’m aware, a well established fact that your knowledge of demonic cultivation techniques is encyclopaedic - literally. You actually wrote an encyclopaedia on demonic cultivation techniques, or did you forget?”
Yao went fish eyed. She had forgotten. Hurriedly she wracked her brain for any techniques that might possibly have turned part of her into a living statue while leaving the rest untouched.
“Uh… it was probably a body splitting technique, or some sort of cloning technique, combined with a withering mutation technique and a petrification technique. All at once, too - rather impressive. Must be some kind of new technique. Can’t wait to study it!” And Yao pumped her fist nervously.
The captain of the guard narrowed his eyes again. “You never do that.”
“Never do what?”
“An arm pump. You never do an arm pump. Twenty two years I’ve known you, your majesty, since you were a newborn babe, and you barely even smile, nevermind do the things normal girls do.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“Hi,” said the heavenly jade beauty, “I’m Yu Yao.”
“Now, given the idiosyncratic nature of your behaviour, can you see why I’m suspicious?”
“No, I can’t. Now listen. What are my bodily contours?”
“Your bodily… contours…” the captain of the guard nearly choked. “Your majesty, you shouldn’t ask such things.”
“No worries; it was a rhetorical question, because I’ll provide the answer. My bodily contours are: thin legs, which then curve up as we get to the pelvis, before slimming again, then curving. I have a face, with an ahoge. Also I wear robes. Now, what are the other version of me’s bodily contours? No need to answer - she has thin legs, which then curve up as we get to the pelvis, before slimming again, then curving. She, who is me, has a face, with an ahoge. Also she, who is me, wears robes. Is this not all true?”
“Yes…” Conceded the captain of the guards, carefully not mentioning that the heavenly jade beauty’s “ahoge” consisted chiefly of a palm frond awkwardly glued to her forehead.
“So you see, a careful morphological analysis does tend to the conclusion that this creature is a heavenly jade beauty, and I am a heavenly jade beauty, and hence we’re the same person. Or do you propose to assert that the princess is not a wondrous beauty?”
The captain of the guard looked at her. He debated the wisdom of questioning why she considered a vague, willy nilly comparison of general features shared between her and what was obviously not her a careful morphological analysis. He also considered asking why he was compelled to concede that the creature that was obviously not her was actually one and the same as her because both of them shared the generic quality of beauty. Lastly, he internally reviewed why, precisely, the both of them having morphological similarities should tend to the conclusion that they were really one and the same person.
As there were no good answers to any of these questions, nor even answers that were not intrinsically ludicrous, he decided to roll with the punches.
“Fine. You have my official condolences for the horrible crime that has afflicted you, your highness, now that your body has been divided between what looks like you and what looks nothing like you.”
“Beautiful. Finally, you agree to the obvious. Now… I’m declaring this heavenly jade beauty my body double!” Cried Yao, and then ran away before the guards could stop her.
The captain of the guards stared dully at a very apologetic Art. “If she wanted to leave, why didn’t she just ask?”
Art shrugged. He didn’t even know why she was here in the first place.
The captain struggled to get some words out, but failed. One long, slow sob choked out of his throat.
Art politely gave him time to cry, showing the captain respect, then ran off himself.
The captain of the guards stood there, alone and mystified, with only the heavenly jade beauty for company.
“Hi,” said the heavenly jade beauty, “I’m Yu Yao.”
The captain made a strangled sound, then paused as an idea occurred to him. He turned to face the perfect woman carved of jade.
“So, your highness, would you like to go to the baths?”
The heavenly jade beauty that was absolutely positively one hundred percent Yu Yao rubbed her hands gleefully. “Go to the baths? Me? Why, I’d love to.”