Griffon Augustin

I stare at the man with the bushy goatee in front of me, not sure what to say. In fact, I'm afraid to speak, afraid to hear my own voice, in case my suspicions are true. I lift myself up and drop my legs over the side of the bed so that I can sit and face the man in front of me comfortably.

"Shan'er? Do you need anything?" he asks, worry crossing his face. "Do you need water?"

"Um... no," I say. Again, that feminine voice surprises me. I look down and am greeted by two mounds on my chest.

Ah. So I really have become a girl. Is this what they call a gender-bender story arc? Have I finally reached the point in my life where I've become the main character in an anime?

"For some reason," I start, trying to sound as confident as I can. "I don't remember much about the past at all." My voice cracks.

"What do you mean?" the man asks, a blank look on his face.

"What I mean is... I don't know who you are. Or where I am. Or what the date is."

He looks at me incredulously for a moment, but after seeing that I'm serious, a feeling of shock emerges on his face. He grabs me by the shoulders fiercely. Oddly, it doesn't hurt at all.

"Shan'er. Tell me the truth. Do you really not know who I am? Or where you are?" He is shouting now, panic engulfing his features. He shakes me a couple of times for good measure as if my memories will come back if my brain is knocked on its side.

I nod, confirming his fears.

He immediately runs out of the tent and calls for some people. A broad-shouldered woman, a little girl, a boy not much older, and a tall, lanky teenage boy stomp in. They all carry worried looks on their faces, though the teenager seems notably less concerned.

"Aiya! It must be that Mao Feng who did this!" the little girl says.

"Mei! Don't talk about things you don't know," the woman chastises. She turns to me. "Shan'er, what happened to you?"

"I'm not sure. Suddenly, I just forgot everything about the past, including who you people are and what has happened in my life," I say.

The teenage boy interjects at this point. "Then how can you speak? How do you know words if you don't remember even your own family members?" He scoffs. "Don't tell me this is one of your pranks, little sister."

The hefty man stops him. "I don't think Shan'er is joking this time." He stares at me grimly. "If this is true, then the Demonic Spear Tribe may be engaging in the demonic arts. Their qi may have already been corrupted."

"Well, isn't the word 'Demonic' literally in their name?" I ask.

The man looks startled before sighing deeply. "Shan'er—I mean—Gu Wanshan, for that is your full name, you must understand, or remember, I suppose, that just because we have the word 'Demonic' in our tribe names does not mean we practice the demonic arts. We do it to pay respects to the Demonic Inferno Sect and to gain protection from them, or at least leniency, should we ever encounter them."

I nod, eager to learn more about this foreign world. "Then our tribe also has 'Demonic' in our name?"

"Yes," the little boy says, pounding his chest in a boisterous manner. "We are the Demonic Bone Tribe, the strongest nomadic tribe ever!" He giggles, and I can't help but smile along.

"You're having too much fun with this," the little girl named Mei reprimands, bonking him on the head with her fist.

"Hey!" he shouts. "Mama, she's bullying me again."

"Aren't you a man?" the big woman teases.

"Yeah," he starts, caressing his injury. "But every girl in this family is a gorilla."

He laughs and runs out of the tent with his, and presumably my, mother chasing after him.

"Get back here, Chang!" she shouts, her voice growing more and more distant.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

"Baba," the lanky teenager says, tugging on the hefty man's sleeve. "Can I leave now? I want to go and read."

He looks at the boy with some degree of disappointment in his eyes, but he nods anyway.

"Baba," I repeat, testing the waters. He hears me, and a smile comes to his face.

"Yes, I am your baba."

"I would also like to see the outside world," I say.

He nods and escorts me through the tent exit. "Stay here while I meet with the Demonic Spear Tribe." He walks away, and a gust of fresh air blows through my now-lengthy hair. I look around.

The sight of this place is less magnificent than I had expected, with dingy patches of light-brown grass covering the barren fields. But the air is much better than it was in the city, and there are little groups of towering trees here and there serving as eye candy. A river is running through the hill where the tents are situated, and some children are splashing each other with water, laughing, and playing. It strikes me as odd that the field remains barren even with a water source nearby, but it may have something to do with the idea of qi that my father was talking about. If qi, as I understand it, is life energy, then a place with little qi would possess little life.

I notice my mother coming back with a satisfied look on her face, probably from giving a series of smacks to my poor little brother. She looks at me, then beckons me to come with her. "It's time for the communal bath, Shan'er."

Communal bath? I hesitate, but she decides to grab my shoulder and drag me along.

"Our group will bathe first while half of the Demonic Bone Tribe's women guard us," she says.

I nod, a blush coming to my cheeks.

Finally, we reach a calm part of the river. A group of still-clothed women greets us. On instinct, I run away, hands covering my eyes and my face red with embarrassment.

"Shan'er!" my mother shouts.

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"When did you get so shy?" Mei asks. "We had to clear everyone out because you wanted to bathe all on your own."

I look at her, a stern look appearing on my now-clean face. "Would you believe it if I told you my soul became that of a man's?"

She laughs. "Don't joke like that, big sister." She slaps my arm, her small hands barely moving this tough body I now have.

I noticed during my... exploration of this new body that Wanshan is actually pretty strong, with defined muscles lining her body. It feels a little too lucky that I managed to obtain a body this powerful, when my previous self was quite pathetic.

I exit the tent after drying my black hair, and I notice the teenage boy, my older brother, sitting down on a log bench. I walk over to him.

"Could you tell me your name?" I ask.

He looks up from the scroll he is holding. "Cheng. But just call me 'big brother' like you usually do." I look at the text in the scroll. It seems to be an archaic form of Chinese, with some characters resembling some images I've seen online of the Chinese language.

"What is this called?" I point at the writing.

"Seal script," he responds. "Is that all?" He raises his eyebrows at me.

"Can I learn it?" I ask.

His eyes widen in surprise. "You've never been interested in learning how to read before."

I shrug. "Maybe I changed my mind."

He sighs. "I'm not going to bother teaching you if you want to learn this on a whim. It's not very easy to read and write, you know? Ask baba if he wants to teach you; he knows some basic words at the very least." He gives me a smile, but I can tell it's meant to be cordial and not a representation of any solid familial bond.

Looks like Wanshan and Cheng have some issues going on.

I nod and promptly leave, letting him read whatever it is he's reading. I understand that reading in silence can be sublime, so it'd be rude of me to bother him any further when he clearly wants me gone. As I'm about to go look for my father, he finds me instead.

"Oh! Shan'er, here you are," he says. "I need to speak with you." He takes me by the hand and leads me to a tent, the same tent that I woke up in. He looks me in the eyes.

"I do not think the Demonic Spear Tribe is using the demonic arts," he admits. His face turns grim. "Whatever is wrong with you, we will fix it when we find a healing cultivator in Qingtong's land. Do you understand?" I nod, though I'm not sure I fully comprehend what he is saying.

"Is it a money issue?" I ask.

He sighs. "To be honest, yes, it is. But cultivators are also fickle people who may slay us where we stand." He rubs his eyes as the moon outside begins to rise. "We will find a female cultivator to take care of you, a nice one, okay?" He enunciates his words slowly and clearly.

I nod once more, though a substantial part of me doesn't think this problem is something that can be fixed by anyone normal. He tousles my hair and leaves, leaving me to go to sleep in my state of exhaustion. It truly has been a tiring day.

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The next morning, we pack up the tents and start traveling. Mei informs me that we are entering into the Qingtong faction's land, to hopefully find a home in this chaotic world. For days on end we eat, drink, bathe, sleep, then leave the next day, never stopping too long in one place. The Demonic Spear Tribe travels with us, all apparent problems having been suppressed or resolved. Finally, we find ourselves in front of giant walls, with hills and mountains leading to a central point that acts as a sort of beacon.

"They call it the Heavenly Mountains," Mei whispers to me. "A bit arrogant, if you ask me." I stifle a chuckle as the heads of the two nomadic tribes talk to the guards situated in front of the walls.

After maybe an hour or so of anxious waiting, the gates open, and we are allowed in. The sight of the grand hills amazes me, as they get taller and taller the further in the city you get. However, we are left in the outer sector of the city, and the inner sectors are blocked off by walls.

Suddenly, an inexplicable weight forces itself down on me, and I fall to the ground, my body feeling crushed by gravity. I force my head to turn, and I see that everyone else around me has also fallen to the ground, some whimpering and others with tears in their eyes. A man with his hair tied up into a knot and wearing luxurious, gleaming clothing walks over and looks down at me.

"What are these peasants doing here?" he growls.