The King spreads his draconic wings!
Thundering, raging, the black lightning spews forth!
We, his tiger-slaves, tremble to obey!
We go forth to destroy the pitiable Eagle!
The Emperor’s host spills forth
We conquer and cleanse!
The Eagle responds with its scything claws
The wheat is cut, stacked, and counted!
How few of us remain!
Yet we stay here in the mud.
Our Prince commands, and we follow his Majesty!
How few of us Remain!
How few, yet we fight on!
Battlefield chant
Warriors of the Heavenly Kingdom
Reality of Shénzhōu
Qufu City, Lu Province
August 4 th , 2183 ESC
The morning fog clung to Song Xifeng’s pantlegs and shoes as he stood in line waiting for weekly rations along with the others in his neighborhood. The queue of True People, Zhēnshí De Rén, stretched for half a block in front of him, and he had gotten here several hours before the sun had risen. He had learned from experience that the others in line behind him would stretch for several blocks. The last time he had woken up late, he had gotten only the dregs of rations, and his mother had beaten him with a spoon.
Looking around the street, he saw that most of the people in front of him were black marketeers from other parts of the city. They wore forged identity cards that the occupiers hadn’t figured out how to detect yet. The cobblestones and bare walls of this area’s residential streets were only broken up by a few doors into courtyards and the occasional propaganda poster the occupiers had stuck up.
The one across from him had a human soldier stepping on a dead black dragon in Imperial Court robes and reaching a hand in friendship to a local in a peasant’s outfit. The title said, “We are here for the common man.”
He snorted in derision and sneered at the poster. Yeah, that’s why all the artworks and treasures had ‘disappeared’ from every corner of the planet in the last two years, he thought. Well, he had heard that, but it wasn’t confirmed. There was a commotion in the front as the doors to the charity opened. They’re opening early today, he thought.
A grumble went through the line as one of the guards walked out from the gate. This time it was one of the Jīmó, the Machine Demons. The giant was almost a Zhang high, towering over the True People who only came up to his chest. This one was similar to most of the male Jīmó he had ever seen. Hugely muscled to the point of absurdity, the giant nevertheless moved with grace and no wasted motions. His tattooed head looked small against the large neck. Tiny brown eyes scanned the crowd. He almost looked like a long-legged pale-skinned Gorilla stuffed into a set of grey coveralls and boots.
The Jīmó made some noises in the grunting language they spoke to the people in the house’s courtyard, where they kept the supplies and food that they gave away. Then, he turned to the crowd and pointed to the black marketeers. “You five, you received supplies yesterday in district three,” He spoke in Central speech flatly toned like a golem speaking to one of the old soldiers. “Your identity badges are false. Leave, or I shall be forced to make you leave.”
The five bristled and started yelling at him, “You monster! How dare you!” “I’m just trying to feed my family!” “You stole everything from us and now want to let us starve!” “You’re a liar!”
Xifeng looked away and disassociated himself with the scene. He didn’t want to make eye contact with the Jīmó and be implicated with the black marketeers.
The Jīmó just looked at them and shook his head. “No,” he intoned. He pointed them out one by one, “You are Yi Jin. You have been to four dispersals and have been caught selling food,” the man snarled at the Jīmó. “You,” he pointed to another one. “Are Fan Shi. The local head of a gambling ring. You have no family.” The third. “You are Liao Xue, a runner for the Blue Nose Gang.”
Xifeng looked up as he felt a gathering of power from the fourth of the black marketeers. He recognized Mao Ning, an enforcer for the Blue Nose Gang and the man dating his sister. Xifeng felt the Mana that had been sluggish and stagnant in the alley suddenly pulled from the walls and the ground. It concentrated on Ning as he quickly moved his fingers behind his back and muttered. Then, Ning was hitting the alley’s opposite wall with the Jīmó one pace from where Ning had been. The Jīmó’s left outstretched hand was now in a slapping position where Ning was previously standing.
How had he moved so quickly? One second he was pointing, then the next, there was a heavy thudding and a blur, and Ning was casually slapped into a heap against the wall. Blood marked where he had impacted, then slid down. People were startled and began shouting. The Jīmó held his hands up and said calmly, “An offensive spell was being cast. I did not know how many people it would kill if it went off.” People from inside the compound were running out and looking over the scene. Several of them had rifles.
An elvish woman with blonde hair and roundish green eyes wearing a long white coat and glasses was now yelling at the Jīmó in the grunt language. She pointed accusingly at the crumpled man against the wall, then stared angrily at the Jīmó, who seemed to back up and then looked away. Two more people dressed like her came out and began using instruments and minor spells to heal him. Unlike magic from Shénzhōu, you could see the spells clearly with tiny runes spinning in little balls or circles around the hands of the casters. The energy seemed to come from a slightly different place as well.
The woman pointed at the inside of the compound and the Jīmó shrugged and went back in. She pointed at the five black marketeers and then said in slightly accented Central speech, “I am sorry for the problem with Mihail 55670. You will be given supplies. However, you will have to go to the back of the line. You’ve been identified as being at many of our events only to sell the supplies afterward.”
Fan Shi made to protest, and she held up a hand. “Mr. Fan, I will send a bottle of whisky as compensation to you and to the Blue Nose Gang,” she interrupted.
He grumbled, then nodded, “Fine, just keep your pet monster on a leash.” Finally, he turned with the others and asked, “When will Mao Ning be let out?”
She shrugged, “He did try to use a fairly powerful earth shatter spell. I’ll let the local magistrate know of our cooperation and how no one was hurt.”
“Alright,” he muttered, and the black marketeers headed back towards the end of the line. The woman took out one of the nasty paper pipe replacement things and put it in her mouth, lighting the end on fire with the tip of her finger. Then she blew smoke out of her nose like a dragon. “Enough excitement! Line up. Everyone gets extra today cause of the problem caused by local criminals!” she shouted.
A small cheer surprised Xifeng. He was mildly happy that he got five spots closer and didn’t get hurt. Twenty minutes later, he carried out two sacks of noodles, a can of soup base, and some clothing that they had forced on him. The bags were of this unnatural material they called plastic. It shed water, was flexible and somewhat durable. But unfortunately, they seemed to wrap everything in it. It was also highly foul-smelling if someone burned it.
Moving through his neighborhood, he stopped next door at widow Guo’s house to hand off the clothing. She had four children, and the clothing material that the charities gave out was not of the highest quality. Widow Guo herself was wearing an outfit made of several different patterns from the off-world material. He also gave her half of the second bag of noodles as he knew she didn’t have the time to wait in line.
Leaving Guo’s and turning a corner, he almost ran smack into his mother, who snapped at him, “You’re late! Why were you next door? Are you giving more of our food away?”
He shrugged, and she hit his right ear with her spoon. Wincing, he replied, “They gave out twice as much. So I gave her part of the second bag. You still got more than you normally get.” He pulled his head back as she went to smack his other ear.
“That doesn’t make up for all the stuff you give her.,” his mother snarled. “No one needs seamstresses anymore. She’d better find another way to make a living.”
He hung his head. The charities had put a lot of people out of work. Moreover, the goods from the charities were of lower quality than what could be produced locally, but mass produced. How could you compete with your higher quality goods when the cheap stuff was given out for free? If something broke, they just asked for another one.
Since the invasion when the world and sky had cracked two years ago, magic had been diminished. The Mana needed to sustain their craftsmen’s quality, speed, and spellcasting had been reduced to the point where only powerful spellcasters could do anything. Mao Ning had initially been a soldier known for his instant forts. Now he was one of the few that had retained enough spellcasting power to be a criminal enforcer. In a way, Xifeng had admired the man. At least he still had his pride.
Unlike me, he thought. He followed his mom into their small house courtyard. Everything was perfectly arranged just so with the military precision that his family was known for. Well, all except him. He had failed the military exams of the great testing just before the world had been invaded. Instead, they had said his aptitude lay with training animals. This had been a great shame brought on their family that he had never been forgiven for. His father and brother had perished while he was left to fetch food from the local charity and do odd jobs for people around the neighborhood.
His mom went into the kitchen and threw a bucket at him. “Get water! We have a guest tonight. Three buckets, make sure it’s clean. You can do that much magic!” It clattered next to him, and he sighed.
“Yes, Mom,” he said, picking the bucket up and heading to the local well. The streets were swept in this area as the locals still had some pride, but closer to the occupier’s base where the ruins of the governor’s palace had been, things were rough. You could still see the scorch marks and gouges in the stone where the offworlders had flown around in their machines and sent salvo after salvo of rockets and bullets into the palace until it had finally exploded in flames.
The first two buckets were gathered without incident. The local girls were twittering and watching him modestly through their fans even though they wore the t-shirts and pants the offworlders had given them. He knew he didn’t look bad. Like his brother, he had a compact body with wiry muscles, long black hair, and slightly drooping ears, the last a family trait. His brother had been very popular with the ladies. Still, his mother had a bad enough reputation in the neighborhood to keep the interested ones far away.
The last time he headed out, something felt wrong. The streets were deserted, the air felt charged, the girls were gone, and all the residences’ gates were shuttered. Xifeng walked over to the well with trepidation and placed his bucket next to the well. Then, picking up the clay pot for retrieving water tied to a rope, he slowly lowered it into the well until it hit bottom. As he was pulling the clay pot back up, he heard low talking from down the street. It was the flat nasally speech he had heard some of the offworlders talking, not those in the grey uniforms, but those in the red uniforms. The really bad ones.
Three men and a woman turned a corner as Xifeng filled his bucket with water from the pot. He placed the pot back in its place, a small ring worn in a spot after centuries of use. He tried not to make eye contact with the offworlders. Their uniforms were high collared, almost like an official, but the buttons were off to one side. They wore belts with pistols and swords, and their pants were the odd loose ones with pockets tucked into their boots. All three of them had their heads shaved very close with tight-fitting caps with small bills in the front. One of the men had very dark skin, and the woman was a nut brown. He chanced a glance at them and felt his skin grow clammy. All of them had the red upward fist on their shoulders.
Oh no, these are from the gang that likes to beat people up, he started to think when the paler soldier stepped in front of him.
“You with water. Show us where drink place is,” the man said in halting pigeon Central speech. He looked at Xifeng expectantly.
“I’m too young to drink,” he replied. “But all the drinking places are near the central base. This is just a place for people to live.”
The man looked confused and said, “Slower. I not understand.” The other two started talking to him, and he made shushing motions.
Xifeng gave the man a disgusted look. Damn humans, he thought. I thought we had killed them all, and now they’re strutting around like they own the place. Sure, these were different humans, but still. He pointed back the way they had come. “You go back. No drink here. Only sleeping for True People,” he said in his best baby talk.
He got that and talked to his two companions. The woman shook her head and made loud, honking, complaining noises. He had heard some of those words, and they mostly mentioned fornication and defecation.
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
Xifeng turned to go, and the woman said the mispronunciation of his people’s name, “Dayum shee….”
Frowning, he turned and said under his breath, “It’s Zhēnshí De Rén, you stupid monkeys.”
Their talk all stopped at once, and he felt the hairs go up on the back of his neck. Oh, no! I said that too loud, he thought and tried to walk away faster, but the water was starting to slosh. If I do this nice and slow, maybe they’ll think they misheard me? It was a common insult for humans, and his mom had often said it behind closed doors. Movement, then the woman was standing in front of him. She wasn’t very pretty, and the almost shaved head made her look worse.
She started in on him, saying things he couldn’t understand. When he didn’t respond, she shoved his shoulder and made him spill his water all over himself. He gave her a hateful look, and the next thing he knew, he was on the ground with her kicking him. The other two looked on dispassionately, with the pale one looking a little worried.
Panic set in, and lying on the ground, he curled up in a ball, but it hurt so much. In desperation, he pulled energy from the well and the water he had spilled. The magic flowed better, this time cooly flowing through his right hand to his core. Once there, he recirculated it and made a gesture of warding towards the woman. A shield of ice grew from the ground and slammed into her - pushing her back.
There was an exclamation from the other two, and they were upon him, kicking and stomping. The woman got up, pulling out her pistol, but stopped, watching as they beat him. His magic broke, and he again curled tight into a ball. Soon he had blacked out.
Hours later, he dragged himself into his home courtyard. His mother was next to him, stopping her nastiness when she saw him so injured. His sister Ai Bi was then next to him and pressing her hands against him. Bones knit, and he felt some pain go away. Darkness soon took him.
“Ah, he ran into some Federacy troopers looking for a day of drinking,” he heard in a voice he hadn’t heard in over two years. Did he die? His brother, Wuying, had been dead for two years.
Scoffing, his mother replied, “He should have known better. Those hopped-up monkeys think they run the universe. He should have ran when he saw them.”
Quieter, Ai Bi replied, “He still has his pride as a man even if he was told he was only good as a zoo-keeper or stablehand. He can still work magic around the house. Unlike you, Mother.” A sense of pride crept into her voice. “I had to learn the magic of the offworlders to continue my training as a healer, but Xifeng can still use our people’s magic enough to hurt offworlders.”
There was a slight grunting and a reply from his dead brother, “Perhaps we can use him then. But, of course, the tigers can always use another spellcaster.”
Quiet and shuffling greeted his ears. His eyes must be swollen shut as he couldn’t open them to look. Finally, he tried to make a sound, but only a gurgle came out.
He felt Ai Bi’s hands on him, and she was saying, “Shhhsh, rest, you were hurt. Wuying will help you soon.” Her soothing magic flowed into him, the pain left, and he soon slept.
###
The Emperor’s Embroidered Uniform Guard, his Jǐnyīwèi , gathered a few streets from where Xifeng had been picking up food in the morning. There was still damage at the spot where Mao Ning had been beaten, but the blood had been washed away. Song Wuying looked at his fellow Jǐnyīwèi dressed in disguises of peasant rags with pride and sadness. Sadness that the Emperor had died and they failed in their duty to protect him. Pride that they had gathered under him as a strike team to resist the lesser beings as they had been tasked.
He felt the energy of the air and lights nearby and began to pull it towards himself. This would be a revenge killing tonight as well as a diversion for the actual attack on the base near the ruins of the governor’s mansion. Mao Ning was going to be recruited as an earth specialist. But then the idiot had to get himself entangled with a Machine Demon, a Jīmó. The mockeries were hated by the Emperor and his Jǐnyīwèi above all else. How dare they have the noble ears of the True People! They were just golems these, Jīmó. Emotionless, murderous, dangerous, and dead to magic. They killed anyone that opposed them like a gnat.
His fellow Jǐnyīwèi looked at him nervously as his face twisted in rage. His hand resting on the hilt of his Spring Knife was starting to make creaking sounds as he gripped it tighter and tighter.
“Head Agent Song, should we begin preparations?” his advisor Yan Meng said gently, breaking Wuying out of his rage.
He nodded and calmed his face. “Yes,” he replied as he looked over the four men and three women that accompanied him. Eight was a good number for an attack on one Jīmó. However, they would spare the workers inside because they were working to bring some relief to the city.
The magic again began to flow to him, one of the women carrying a bouquet of different flowers as an ingredient for his invisibility spell. Placing his hand on the bouquet, the colors started to flow from the flowers to his right hand. Floating lazily in the air, the colors formed a small multi-hued dust ball. He made a gesture and pulled the ball of colored dust into his body. Petals began to fall to the ground, and soon the bouquet was nothing more than dust in the wind.
Wuying felt the magic reach the center, and then he lifted his left hand, touching Yan Meng. The other man faded from existence, his sounds being muted as the stealth spell took effect. He smiled at the invisible touch of his advisor before motioning to the next agent.
Two-thirds of a kè later, all eight were stealthed and had gotten to the top of the wall. The inside of the two-courtyard-house had sloping rooves covered with inward-pointing blue tiles. This first courtyard had been appropriated to be a distribution center that contained the food and clothing the offworlders gave Wuying’s people. In the middle of the courtyard were cooking implements and a few tables. He blinked. The Jīmó was sitting at a table out in the open with a woman who had a braid of white-purple hair. He squinted. No, it was a female Jīmó, not a woman. Damn, this made things harder. His intelligence said that there was only one Jīmó in the city. She must’ve just gotten here.
The male leaned back and talked casually with the female dressed in white, weird form-fitting armor with a weapon’s belt. She lifted two large white bags to the table. The smell of fried ground tubers and stinky spiced meat reached his nose.
“Lî kabo riki e ke bîpi,” she said as she pushed the larger bag towards the male Jīmó.
Wuying narrowed his eyes. The Jīmó rarely spoke their own language. This was the first time he had heard more than just battle cries. They seemed to trill the “r’s.” The sound was a mix of grating and purling. A rather fittingly ugly language for demons.
“Ke mî bebivuu.” The male looked at the bag with trepidation, “Meba kabo memi e pînîtse kî toh taha tsi?”
Wuying was surprised. He had heard that the Jīmó couldn’t show emotions at all. The female was typical in that regard, with her skin flashing cloud leopard cat patterning off and on, but the giant male was expressive. He had rarely ever heard them speak as well.
The female patted the bag and pushed it towards him. “Ni la nuuba manaba!” She opened it and pulled a paper-wrapped bun out of the bag, and after showing the giant how to open it, began eating the ‘hamburger.’
She gave the giant a thumbs up and said again, “Manaba.”
The gem earring on his right ear made a small chime. “Can we take them both, do you think?” One of the girls, Liang Lin, from the South, asked.
He brought his left bracelet to his lips and whispered at it. “Yes, they are distracted. Duan Tu, attack when you are in position.” He slid down from the roof and landed quietly in the courtyard.
The woman’s ear’s flicked, and she started sniffing the air. “Debranme,” she said, and the male stiffened. She took another bite of her food, with one hand lowering to her side.
Wuying froze and looked at them as he crept closer in. His hand grasped his large Spring Knife, preparing its ‘electric shock’ and ‘armor bypass’ enchantments.
“Tîga lazuume?” the male asked and reached for his bag. He hadn’t turned around.
“Ma debranme. Nokuupi lasî ve.” She paused and sniffed the air again. “Rakî chedî, ke raskasvuu. Te kaluute,” she said.
Wuying pulled his blade out of its sheath and pulled it back. Both of the two Jīmó were still deep in conversation. This would be a good assassination.
A crackle came across the courtyard and an arrow sprouted from the male Jīmó’s back. He roared. Wuying struck at the female Jīmó, except she wasn’t there anymore. The chair that she had been sitting in was crumpled and thrown to his right against a stove. A scream from where Duan Tu has shot his arrow came. It was a high shrieking scream that cut off with a gurgle.
Wuying leapt to the side to avoid the giant who threw the table and the food towards a roof. Then, turning his eyes and casually moving out of the way, Wuying looked toward the sound. Duan Tu’s body flopped as his blood sprayed in a fountain, his head nowhere to be seen.
The female Jīmó’s armor had come up and covered her entirely. She now looked like a white armored insectile statue holding a short leaf-shaped, black blade that crackled energy from its edges. Her head turned here and there. There was a spray of roofing tiles, and then Xiang Xinya was in two pieces near the front of the courtyard. Cleaved in two by that black blade.
The male was lunging about with a chair in both hands. There was a yelp, and Yan Meng’s shattered body suddenly flashed into existence to only fling against the side of the courtyard.
“Gîtasatsuutsî dapa! Mî!” the eyes on the female’s suit glowed a deep purple. Then she pointed her hand out, the glove swelled, and small lenses appeared around the front. Her hand then pointed directly at him.
“Oh fuck!” Wuying cast a physical enhancement spell on his legs and leapt backwards towards the front of the house.
There was a small explosion, and a sulfuric stench as the courtyard stones exploded where he had just been. There was another scream, and lightning shot out closer to the center. Liang Lin had her hands up, her peasant’s clothing disguise flapping from the backblast as the air in front of her was displaced.
The lightning hit the armored female. She grunted as transparent orange hexagonal shields filled with runes began popping up all over her armor and redirecting the magic into the roof, catching fire all around her. The male dashed forward in a blur, one of his large hands whipping around at impossible speeds to hit Liang Lin on the side of her head, which promptly came off.
People started running out of the buildings in the second courtyard with a blonde Anglian elf heading them. “What the hell is going on!” she was screaming in the Human language. "The police are on their way! Stop it!" Full-spectrum lights around the courtyard came on with a whine, and Peng Lingxin’s shadow came into view. The male threw a chair at the empty area where the shadow was, and the bloody body of a young elf crumpled to the ground. The blonde screamed at the bloody mess.
“Assassins!” the male Jīmó yelled back in the same language.
The blonde woman steeled herself and began to draw magic towards her hands. It was hard-edged and felt wrong, unlike the True People’s magic. Soon, red runes lit up on balls around the Anglian elf’s hands as she gathered magic and looked for targets.
Explosions in the central part of the city made everyone turn their heads. The main attack was beginning. Hopefully, the second team would have better luck. The female Jīmó stopped, looked away from the combat before her, and soon ran off towards the city center.
“Abort! Abort! They can see us!” Wuying yelled into his bracelet. He was on the street, dashing towards the crowds of the eastern night market. He hoped to get lost as soon as possible.
He raged with the remaining two of his unit three hours later in the safe house. Cao Yu and Xi Yong had survived, but the city was in an uproar. “Did the second unit get Mao Ning and my brother out?” He cursed as he scrubbed himself with scent-killing soaps. Cao Yu was crying on the bed, her head in her hands.
Xi Yong nodded, “Yes, Head Agent. Our attack was a successful diversion, and the city guard station was at minimal levels. We killed all the collaborators and got the second unit out of the city to the skyship cave.” The slight man looked terrified when Wuying stared at him with bloodshot eyes.
“Good job,” Wuying said after a moment. “The failure was mine tonight. Remember this night,” he said flatly. “I’d probably be demoted if there was anyone left above me. We’ll get revenge on the Jīmó eventually.”
Outskirts of Teerstadt
Reality of Edelweiss
December 3 rd, 2188 ESC
The full moon illuminated the land, scrub oaks, chaparral, sage, and Joshua trees as far as the eye could see. Xifeng and Wuying Sat at a fire with some of their fellow Jǐnyīwèi. All of them were dressed in thick denim pants and heavy leather jackets, with large brimmed hats on top of their now blonde, brown, and red hair. The biomancy Xifeng had learned, and the mind control magics of beastmaster training had come in very handy in getting this cover job. They herded huge auroch cattle out in the areas considered too dangerous for the humans behind the fences. In return, they were paid handsomely by their enemies.
The small six-wheeled truck that their cook used to make their food was parked nearby, the human deep asleep within its small bedding compartment. She had come to enjoy the herbal tea they made for her every night, giving her better sleep. It should, after all, it was a heavy sedative they made from the local plants. They could speak normally with her passed out, not in the horrible grunting languages that the humans or Anglian elves spoke.
“Any Watchers tonight?” Wuying asked Xifeng pointedly.
The younger man closed his eyes and concentrated for several moments. “The wolves and coyotes say no. Not sure about the cats. They aren’t cooperative unless I have them hunting.“
Wuying nodded to his brother. “Get them under control for the upcoming festival,” he stated flatly as a commander rather than a brother.
Xifeng looked away, “Yes, sir.”
“So, how are the finances? Did we get the shipment for the festival soon?” Mao Ning asked. He had changed his appearance more in line with a human but had none of the smell or manners. Biomancy was fantastic for disguise work, even if it could be painful.
Cao Yu answered, “Yes, the plasma rifles from NewHome finally arrived. I have them hidden in a canyon near what they call Saddleback. It’s surprisingly well hidden. I would suggest we use that as a staging ground to conduct a festival there and blame it on one of the separatist groups.” She paused and then added, “If the base on Erde wasn’t using that area for training grounds, that is.”
Nods all around the campfire happened in reply. “Speaking of separatist movements,” Wuying asked. “Any update on our little friend in the datasphere?”
A cough from Xi Yong, who, while still male, was now pretty enough to pass as an Imperial Concubine. Xifeng did excellent work as a biomancer, he admitted. “Yes, the Strong Ants have contacted us,” Xi Yong said in a very female voice. Then, holding up a datapad, he stated, “They have infiltrated the data networks here but are having some trouble with some monitoring stations. Apparently, the older Mechanese made monitoring stations are more resistant to hacking than the newer GmbH ones. So they ask that we take out a few of them to force a repair crew to install new ones. This will better allow them to help us proceed with the festival.”
Wuying nodded. The intelligence was good, and Xi Yong was an impeccable agent. “Yes, we shall do that. I will have some of the animals take the stations out along our route.”
“Good work,” Wuying said.
Xi Yong nodded and then smiled at Wuying for the praise. The man’s heart skipped a beat, and he looked away, blushing.
“One more thing,” Xi Yong said quietly. “We have a request from the Strong Ants. They ask us to rid them of a person in the repair crew who will be sent.”
“Oh? Why bother a repair slave?” Wuying asked.
“This person has been a thorn in both our sides. You may remember her.” The datapad was lifted, and a picture was shown of a white-haired female Jīmó that was at once both familiar and hated. “Apparently, this bitch gets around. Finally, we can get our revenge and get paid for doing it.” Xi Yong gave a very vulpine look of wicked pleasure that Wuying found extremely attractive, and his body responded.
Coughing, Wuying nodded. “Yes, we’ll find a way to try to assassinate her before we begin the festival. If that doesn’t work, we’ll just have to target her during it.”
Xi Yong nodded and started humming happily while writing on her, no dammit , HIS dataslate. Yes, he would ask, no, demand , that Xi Yong return to his original appearance once the hated humans had been exterminated. He would also have to talk to Xifeng about what he did for body sculpting for disguises in the future.