Qian Shanyi grabbed a tentacle reaching into their hunting shack and pulled it closer. Glowing Rosevine lodged itself against the far end of the window slit, and Wang Yonghao speared it until it stopped moving. She released the tentacle, and the rosevine fell into the corpse pit in front of the hunting shack.
[https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/jz5UjPwTCwcHwja9jyttoJU6NDjfRbxA6FuzSKQvfhFqDUBhwxNr4qlieiBIyynRia6Ue8BxNB10PZnNEprURzQS0NscudVAyKNfxBqlitnUK4NIrX2ydskqOtNuSw6qktvghBtSjs2Ntcq2qnZrYgM]
“It feels a bit unfair,” he said.
“Hunting isn’t supposed to be fair,” she raised her eyebrows at him, “We are cultivators, and they are demon beasts. We can plan, and they cannot. It’s not ‘fair’ no matter how you slice it.”
“Well, I mean that they can’t hurt us at all, and we just keep killing them,” he said, “it feels unsporting.”
“These flowers are too dumb to recognise a trap for what it is,” she responded, yanking a new rosewine by the tentacle, “If they didn’t want to die, they should have cultivated some brains.”
Glowing Rosevines tended to hunt in groups. They were not smart enough to coordinate a proper “pack”, but by swarming their prey in numbers they could cut off paths of retreat through sheer numbers, with no direct organization. Qian Shanyi put this advantage to work against them - the two of them would sing to attract rosevines from a great distance away, and as long as even a single one heard them, the whole pack would swarm over. This was the second swarm that found them over the night, and they were sure to be busy with ropemaking for quite a while.
“If you want to make it more equal, the hatch is right there?” she said to Wang Yonghao, motioning towards the ceiling.
Wang Yonghao shook his head and kept working the spear.
----------------------------------------
When the sun rose again, they laid the rosevines out on the grass in the Inner World to dry, and went to sleep. In the morning, Wang Yonghao cut them apart into leaves (that could be brewed into tea after drying), tentacles (for the ropes) and the rest (useless, to be thrown out), while she spent a couple hours cultivating. He seemed much more willing to do the butchering when the beasts weren’t made out of meat.
They made a good haul: forty six demon beasts in total, with each of them having from ten to twenty tentacles of around five meters in length. Once they braided them, they wouldn’t be lacking rope for the foreseeable future.
After the rosevine leaves were drying within the chiclotron, they made breakfast. To spice it up a bit, Qian Shanyi tried her hand at brewing tea out of pine needles - thankfully, they weren’t at risk of running out of those in a pine forest. It didn’t taste like real tea, but at least it was more interesting than pure water.
After some discussion, they decided to follow the river downstream: chances were that if there was civilization nearby, they would find it near a river. Before they left their bath camp, they collected some sand from the shore and popped the cover on one of the fire nodes of the chiclotron, warming up the world fragments to dry out their collected vines.
The stream wasn’t deep enough to swim in, and so they simply followed the river along its banks. It slowly grew in width as they followed it, smaller streams bringing more water into it. Occasionally, they saw fish splashing in the water. Wang Yonghao tried his hand at killing them with the Honk of the Solar Goose, but by the time the swordlight hit the water, it was long gone.
Halfway through the day, they saw an enormous anthill in the distance, towering as high as the trees, and had to move away from the river to circle around it. On the way, they crossed paths with two insect trails - the ‘ants’ were reflective like the trees around them, and each was the size of her arm. She didn’t want to think what an entire anthill of these could do to a person. After that, they were even more careful about following the river.
By the time evening fell again and they returned into his Inner World, all of the tentacles were dry enough to be worked. They only traveled for twelve or so hours on the outside, but within the Inner World, two and a half days had passed. They ate dinner (more bear, with a side of omelet and a salad of forest flowers), she cultivated, and then they started to process the tentacles. Each of them had to be carefully split open with their fingers to avoid damaging the fibers, then pulled apart into individual fiber bundles. To make the fibers elastic, they needed to be bent as much as possible, which Qian Shanyi did by repeatedly stretching them over the sole of her foot.
They didn’t quite manage to breach into the rope-making realm before they called it a night. After she woke up, Wang Yonghao was still asleep, so she focused on her cultivation to pass the time. Her overall state was rapidly improving, as her meridians continuously adapted to Three Obediences Four Virtues, and her broken bones had slowly started to mend themselves back up. That she was starting to run low on Mo’s healing tablets worried her a bit, but as long as she avoided breaking more of her bones, she should be fine.
There was a surprising disadvantage to her situation: because of the high quality of spiritual energy within the world fragment, her meridians were being cleansed at a much faster rate than she would have expected - she was already coming close to unlocking the sixth out of of her seven dantians - and her body was starting to lag behind. Soon enough she would be stuck between realms, with the meridians of a high refinement stage cultivator and the body of a middle refinement stage one. Thankfully, this was not dangerous, but it would make purchasing medicinal pills a lot harder until her body caught up.
She shook her head. This wasn’t much of a “disadvantage”, as most cultivators would pray to end up in a situation like this. Training your physical body was a lot easier, all things considered.
She stopped once her meridians started to ache, and saw that Wang Yonghao woke up some time ago. He smiled, and waved her over, presenting her with a square board of eight by eight squares cut out of a solid piece of oak, with small carved figurines on both sides of it.
“This is shatranj,” he said, motioning for her to sit down on the grass, “it’s not really played in this part of the empire, but it’s one of my favorite games. Come on, I’ll explain the rules to you.”
“When did you make this?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.
“While you were busy cultivating, obviously,” he said, “I started yesterday, but finished this morning.”
A corner of her mouth twitched downwards. Her back ached every morning from sleeping on the ground, and now she might need to wait another full day because this man wasted two good morning hours.
“You could have at least started on making the ropes, or done something else productive,” she frowned, “I don’t know if we’ll make enough for our hammocks before the evening falls.”
“Eh, it’s not my first time sleeping on the ground. I can wait one more day,“ he grinned, “Besides, if you can waste time on playing around with cultivation, I can waste it on games, right?”
“Cultivation is not a game,” she sneered, “it’s the path to infinite freedom! The more I cultivate, the faster I would be done with my recuperative training and would get off your back. Is this not what you want?”
“I don’t know about that. I almost never cultivate and just play games, yet my realm keeps going up by leaps and bounds,” he said, still wearing that insufferable grin, “perhaps you just aren’t very good at it?”
She stared at him with a blank face. The bastard was clearly baiting her, and it was working. It was made all the worse by the fact that she knew she could not properly confront him about his unintentional kidnapping - even if she ended up benefiting from it greatly - lest their fragile cooperation shatter here and now, leaving her to slowly stew in her anger.
“Look, we’ll be cooped up in here for two full days every night, right?” he continued, raising a hand in a placating gesture, “You might as well play a game or two. What’s the harm?”
“Fine,” she said, coming over and sitting down on the grass, starting to plan her small revenge, “You want games? We can play games.”
She stayed quiet while he explained the rules to her. They were surprisingly simple, when compared to mahjong she used to play, and she memorized them with practiced ease. She had a fair amount of experience winning games she had never seen before - there was more to gambling than the play itself.
She waited for him to finish before she sprung her trap.
“What are we betting?” she asked casually.
“Betting?” he blinked.
“Well it’s boring to play without a bet,” she responded, casually fixing her hair, “so what are we betting?”
“Can’t we just play for fun?” he asked, still not understanding what he was getting into.
She snorted, exaggerating her expression. “Come now,” she said, “What’s the fun in playing without stakes? It would be like fighting without your life on the line, and didn’t you yourself say that was unsporting?”
“But we don’t have any money to bet…” he scratched his head.
“How about this,” she said, as if the idea only now entered her mind, “if you win, I’ll do all the work in the world fragment for two weeks.”
She saw his eyes glint with avarice, and she knew that she hooked him. She continued, keeping her tone casual. “And if I win, oh, I suppose you’ll be the one reinforcing the chiclotron.”
“Reinforcing what?”
“The trenches,” she said, motioning towards them, ”It’s just carrying some stones to keep the fire ones from collapsing. I wouldn’t worry too much about it.”
She picked up one of the carved figurines, rolling it over her knuckles, watching Wang Yonghao with hawkish eyes.
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“Is this a trap?” he said, drawing out his words uncertainly.
“How could this be a trap?” she asked, fluttering her eyelashes innocently,
“You’ve never even heard of this game, and you want to gamble right away?”
“The deal is in front of you,” she said, “Have I ever been deceitful?”
“Yes?”
“Junior, you strain my patience,” she frowned.
“You aren’t going to cheat, are you?” he asked, “If you win by cheating, it doesn’t count.”
“I swear on my cultivation that I won’t cheat or lie throughout this game,” she said, putting her right hand on her heart. She wasn’t going to in the first place: with a board this small, there was no way she could make sleight of hand pass by unnoticed, especially against another cultivator.
“Alright then, I won’t be polite and will accept your gamble,” he grinned, “You realize you are just going to lose, right? I’ve played this game for years.”
“Well, I admit the sides are not in balance here,” she shrugged, “so I hope you will allow me to even out the odds?”
“Sure, as long as it’s not too ridiculous,” he waved her off, putting the figurines in their starting positions.
“First of all,” she raised a finger on her right hand, “I don’t want a single match to be decisive. We’ll play five matches, switching sides. First to three wins wins it all.”
He nodded easily.
“Secondly, we’ll begin by playing five practice matches,” she continued, “A certain familiarity with the game is crucial when playing, is it not?”
“Be it five or ten games, you still won’t be at my level,” he snorted.
“That is true,” she nodded, “To account for that, I propose we use a clock to play.”
She got up and brought her replacement water clock over, and quickly fashioned a new water bottle for it that would drip faster.
“We’ll count our turns in drops of water,” she said, “Three drops fall for every breath. Whoever fails to make a move before a fourth drop falls on their turn will lose the game.”
That brought him up short.
“Hey, wait a moment,” he said, “this is a strategic game! You can’t think through your moves that quickly!”
“Hmm, that is true,” she said, pretending to consider this, ”how about this: we’ll each have ten additional drops, to be used throughout the game whenever we want?”
“Come on, that is ridiculous!” He exclaimed with his hands, “You can’t think that quickly!”
“A new player can’t think at all, no matter how much time they are given,” she smiled, “really, am I not granting you a far greater advantage appropriate to your great skill?”
“No way,” he shook his head, “You need more time to think.”
“Fine. How many additional drops do you want?” she raised an eyebrow.
He paused, thinking through his answer. She waited for him patiently.
“At least a hundred,” he finally said.
“Come now, that too is unreasonable,” she shook her head, “Thirty drops will be enough for you.”
In truth, she didn’t care how many drops it was, and only picked the ridiculously low number of ten to anchor his own proposals. If he was more cunning, he would have argued against the existence of a time limit in the first place, not where it was placed.
When she played mahjong, the parlor clocks were often set to limit a player’s turn to five seconds, with an extra twenty seconds for the whole game. New players were often given more time, but in truth, it mattered little: those who weren’t used to making decisions in a split moment would ironically find themselves paralyzed by the fear of losing time, even when their skill should have been sufficient to play quickly.
Whether it was a hundred or three hundred drops, she was sure that Wang Yonghao would see them all drain away. Still, it always paid to push your opponent. In the end, they settled on seventy drops, with her ceding ground willingly.
Once the practice matches started, she played carefully, stalling the game to think through the principles behind the rules and give herself time to develop a good strategy. Even with the sharp time limit, Wang Yonghao’s sheer skill shined through, and she lost the first four practice matches with little to show for it. She could feel the arrogance wafting off him, an anticipation of victory shining through his eyes. She kept her face calm and casual: it would simply make her trap stronger.
“You know, this is the last practice match,” he said in the middle of their next game, “are you prepared for the real matches?”
“Are you?” she raised an eyebrow at him. She was laying on the grass, with one hand supporting her head, “I hope you appreciate my courtesy of giving you time to practice.”
“What?” he asked, pausing with a hand on a figurine, “Giving me time?”
“Of course,” she nodded, spinning lies with every breath, “I can see that you have never played speed shatranj before.”
“What are you talking about?” he asked.
“The game we are playing?” she looked at him as if he asked wherever the sky was green. “Speed shatranj? I didn’t want to be unfair to you by making you play without getting adapted to the clock.”
“Are you bluffing me?” he narrowed his eyes at her, “You are the novice here.”
“Make your move,” she rolled her eyes at him “You have forty drops left.”
He moved his figure, and she responded in kind. Two turns passed in silence.
“No, really,” he couldn’t hold his tongue back, “what was that supposed to be? You even said you have never played regular shatranj before!”
“I can’t recall ever saying that, no.”
“Yes you did!” he pointed an accusatory finger at her, “Stop lying!”
“I didn’t,” she rolled her eyes again, “for a cultivator, you really are quite inattentive. That I have never played this game was merely an assumption you made, one I didn’t saw fit to tamper with. If you think back on what I said, you should see it as plain as day.”
“No but… You…” he rubbed his face with one hand, the other one hovering over the board with a figure in hand. She heard his heart start to beat faster.
“You are at thirty drops, in case you lost track,” she helpfully noted, and he made his move. She immediately moved her own piece, sending the turn back to him.
“You listened to me explain the rules!”
“If you wanted to hear yourself talk, why would I stop you?”
“You said a new player can’t think right!”
“I was referring to you.”
“You said you weren’t at my level!”
“A hawk is not at the level of a mouse, even if they fly at half their height. Twenty drops.”
“This… No way,” he shook his head, “you are just trying to trick me.”
“Am I?” she raised an eyebrow, “If you do not believe me, then why are you wasting time?”
“You lost the last four matches!”
“What of it? They are practice matches, they matter not,” she shook her head in mock ruefulness, “and to think I tried to encourage you to play better by giving you some early wins, and stalling as best as I could. It seems giving you more time to adapt to the clock was a mistake. Truly the youth have no appreciation for the efforts expended on them.”
She could see the thoughts circling in his head, questioning every little thought he had, everything he saw and believed. Did he lure her into the game, or did she lure him? Who was really a better player? If he had more time, he would have figured out her ruse - saw through her moves in the past games, thought back on times where she could have easily stalled for longer if that was really her goal - but time was the one thing he didn’t have.
”Seven drops,” she noted, pushing him further, and she saw him start to crack. He moved his knight without thinking, then had to move it back because it would have illegally exposed his king. Even despite this, she still couldn’t manage a win, and they ended up in a draw.
“Well, are you prepared for the real matches?” She cracked her knuckles, grinning wolfishly as they set up the figures again, “This was the last practice match, you know.”
She felt warmth in her soul at the sight of his eyes opening wide in fear.
“So this was a trap!” he said, his spiritual energy starting to flow freely out of his body as he started to lose control of his emotions.
“I never said it wasn’t. Make your first move.”
“You…you swore!” he pointed a finger at her, “You swore you wouldn’t lie or cheat!”
“Still haven’t,“ she raised an eyebrow at him, “what of it?”
“Setting this trap is cheating!”
“It isn’t,” she shrugged, “and besides, even if it was, what of it? I swore I wouldn’t lie or cheat during the game, not before it, when we discussed the terms.”
He just scowled at her.
“Admit it,” she grinned, “you walked right into this one.”
His agitation made his moves sloppy, and she captured both of his rooks before he could get his game back under control, and won the first real match. He scowled at her angrily, but she heard his breathing and heartbeat slowing back down.
Well, that certainly wouldn’t do.
“I suppose I have been somewhat dishonest with you,” she started slowly, “when I said that if you lose, I wouldn’t worry about the work too much.”
“What, are you going to try to go back on your word?” he replied grimly, “I agreed to move some stones, that’s all I’ll do.”
“Oh no, that part is true, it’s just a question of where those stones are,” she said, concentrating back on the game. She couldn’t afford mistakes right now.
“And where is that?”
She shrugged, and pointed down at the ground. “Somewhere down there,” she said, “best guess, under two or three meters of soil, though I haven’t checked.”
“What?” he scowled, “You want me to mine them from bedrock?”
“Oh it would be soooo much work,” she dragged the words out, pushing her bluff further, “Hard work, too. I bet you’d need at least a week for everything. Just imagine yourself working with a pickaxe - and thank me that I thought to bring one from that sect, or else you’d have been doing this with a sword.”
“Are you a demonic cultivator?” he spat out, his heartbeat going back up, “With how evil you are, you must be.”
“Oh don’t you worry, there is a point to it,” she said, savoring her minor revenge, “Those trenches really need strengthening. I was going to do it myself, but now that you’ve volunteered, why should I mar my delicate hands?”
With how agitated he was, it wasn’t too difficult for her to score a second win in a row.
“Two to zero, fellow cultivator Wang,” she grinned, helping him reset the board, “Are your hands prepared for the sturdy handle of a pickaxe?”
The pressure of losses compounded on top of the pressure of time, and turned into a death spiral, a whirlpool from which none could escape. Like an experienced sailor, she guided his mind directly into it. He started making mistakes, which only made him more anxious, which led to more mistakes. Halfway through the third match, he gave up and admitted defeat. She gently clapped him on the shoulder, accepting her victory.
Her teachers always wanted her to pick up an instrument. Personally, she preferred playing on the raw human soul. The sound of it was…exquisite.