The guard led me through the muddy streets of Falling Hen Village as a bell tolled from a watchtower by the gates. Villagers rushed to shelter, and as I walked, I heard the clattering of doors being locked and shutters drawn. The bell’s deep, metallic tone was a familiar warning system that I remembered from my time as a farmer. It echoed through my past as it shook the flimsy wooden walls of the village buildings.

  My steps were heavy as I neared the walls.

  I could have used my blood manipulation to enhance my muscles and propel myself toward the gates and the damned monkey spirit beasts that were no doubt flinging their muck at the walls or something else equally demented.

  But I was trying to conserve my willpower.

  I was already using blood manipulation to keep my arm intact and functional after losing a piece of bone to the talking monkey’s eye. That absence still irked me, and my bones were annoyed like that time I’d borrowed a neighbor's mule and it got bitten by a snake in my field. The mule survived, but the neighbor never trusted me again. Were my bones going to lose faith in me? What would that even look like?

  A terrible image of my skeleton walking out of my flesh and giving me the cold shoulder filled my mind before the looming gates shook me out of that particularly nasty daydream.

  The guard directed me to the ladder leading to the top of the walls.

  “This way, honored cultivator,” she said with a respectful bow. “We're marshaling our defenses at the battlements.”

  Honored cultivator. It was a lie, and I felt bad, but I couldn’t exactly explain what else she should call me. Partly, because I didn’t know myself, and saying I was a monster was unlikely to go down well.

  Especially with the two sect cultivators in the village.

  But there was another reason I didn’t correct her.

  I hadn’t given her a different name to call me. I hadn’t given anyone a name.

  Not Special Inspector Deng, not Tan Lu, and not Cabbagy.

  Not even Drippy knew my name, and that brought a pang to my heart as deep and resounding as the warning bell.

  Did I even have a name?

  Three sets of memories told me I must have at least three names, but I couldn’t remember a single one. When I reached for those memories…

  Nothing.

  There was something horrible about that. Something far more insidious and cold than even the uncaring faces of the cultivators who experimented on me in that underground facility.

  What was my name?

  I suppose I really needed to get on with my quest to retrace my past. Only then could I rediscover what people used to call me — all three of me — and what they should call me moving forward.

  With newfound determination, I reached the top of the wall just in time to see a red-faced, one-eyed monkey point a familiar bone my way.

  “You!” he shrieked. “You will die!”

  The fourteen guards standing on the wall with me flinched back at the monkey’s unbridled rage. Their grips on their bows and spears quivered. It was easy enough to understand why.

  Besides the ugly, winking monkey, a troop of twenty smaller monkeys stood in loose formation at the treeline. We had a few hundred feet of cleared earth between us and the monkeys, but nobody doubted the spirit beasts could clear that distance in seconds.

  The monkeys waited, their eyes glowing red with rage, their silver fur shining like dull metal in the noonday sun.

  “What will we do?” the guard captain whispered as he inspected a glowing talisman. “I’m detecting that those Howling Spirit Monkeys are all in the Qi Condensing realm. I’m a 5th-stage Body Tempering cultivator, but the rest of my men are lower. Those spirit beasts… they’ll tear through us like paper!”

  “No,” I said. “You’ll be fine. They’re not that strong.”

  I’d only survived my encounter with them because, well… because I think I could survive most encounters with anything at this point.

  Damn, I hope I didn’t just jinx myself.

  Even though I was pretty sure I would be fine, the villagers had nowhere to run. So my words were for them. If they had to stand and fight, they might as well not be too afraid.

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  That seemed logical to me.

  The guards turned at my words and looked at me with awe.

  “You’ll protect us?” one of them asked with hope quavering his voice.

  I guess I signed myself up for that.

  “I’ll do what I can.”

  Part of me thought it was ridiculous that I was even standing here saying these things, but my past as a farmer recalled the fear that came from a village’s warning bell. Every toll was the heartbeat of a nightmare. My situation didn’t matter; this was the right thing to do.

  I wasn’t some mythical cultivator who could wipe out the monkeys with the snap of my fingers, but I could still fight. I could still help. It had been enough motivation when I helped the red-haired farmers, and it would be enough motivation now.

  The guards murmured their thanks, while the captain shouted orders to prepare the defenses. Bows were drawn, spears readied, and prayers uttered. The sun climbed toward noon.

  I gazed out at the furious spirit beasts and tried to come up with a working plan.

  At least Cabbagy wasn’t here to distract me. Sure, he’d been helpful more than once in a fight, but did I regret leaving him behind in the inn?

  No.

  Of course not.

  There was the soft sound of graceful footsteps behind me, and the guards quickly cleared away. I turned, hoping to see something other than what I knew was behind me.

  No such luck.

  Qian Ling and Mu Min stood on the walkway at the top of the walls. Their veils were gone, and serious, militant expressions covered their beautiful faces.

  Beautiful in the objective sense, I’m not Cabbagy.

  Cabbagy, however, rested in the arms of Mu Min, his green head resting beneath her bosom with a look of absolute smug contentment.

  Both women dipped into quick bows.

  Qian Ling tucked back her silver hair as she straightened and met my eyes.

  “What are your commands, senior?” she asked.

  “You brought Cabbagy,” I said blankly.

  “Of course,” said the Mu Min. “Do you wish me to hold onto it?”

  “Say yes,” Cabbagy pleaded. “Please tell her to tuck me into her robes so that I’m snug and —”

  I reached out and took the disgusting vegetable from the innocent dark-haired woman.

  “Thank you,” I said before I scowled down at Cabbagy. “That’s enough.”

  A frown briefly troubled Qian Ling’s face before she smoothed it out.

  “You don’t want us to do anything else?” she asked.

  They were asking me to lead?

  Were they conducting some horrendous test in the hopes that I would expose myself?

  Fuck!

  If I used any of my blood abilities, they were sure to see that I was a demonic cultivation experiment. That, or they would quickly discover I was a buffoon with no training in military or cultivation matters.

  I wasn’t sure which one was worse, but both would end in my death. Of that I was certain.

  I just needed to make sure my death didn’t kill the villagers. They didn’t ask for me to be in charge… well, they did, but under false pretences!

  “Let’s survey the situation,” I said in a desperate bid to buy myself more time.

  Looking back out at the monkeys revealed nothing new. They pranced about the treeline, smacking the ground with their fists while the one-eyed monkey stomped back and forth like a furious general. Hooting and hollering reached our ears across the distance.

  Both women watched me with cool expressions. The guards watched with nervous anticipation.

  Cabbagy glared.

  “You’re a real ungrateful piece of shit, you know that?”

  I ignored him.

  “Oh, now you’re ignoring me? After all I did to help you? You knew I had a type. You knew I had frustrations I needed to work out. You knew I had needs! You could have been a lad. I’m sure you have the same urges, the same desires… hells! There are two of them. I could take the demure one, you could take the loud one. We could have been brothers, you and I!”

  I buried my face in one hand.

  “Why are you acting like this?” I asked him.

  “You know why!”

  “Senior?” Qian Ling said as she stepped forward. “The Howling Spirit Monkeys are building up a bloodlust… but of course you wouldn’t ask about something so obvious. Hmmm, do you sense something further out in the forest?”

  I thought of the mental tugging I’d felt from deep in the pines.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said with a frown. “If we go deeper into the forest, these monkeys will just attack the village.”

  She glanced out at the troop pounding their fists against the ground.

  “So many spirit beasts,” she said hesitantly. “Though Mu Min and I are exemplars of the Shining Mountain Sect, we would be hard-pressed to defeat such numbers.”

  “It would be easier if they weren’t so worked up,” I said with a sigh.

  Qian Ling looked at me, and then at the monkeys, a thoughtful expression crossing her face.

  “Perhaps…”

  “Yes?”

  “I heard the guards mention a powerful spirit beast called Ghost Fang who rules the Howling Spirit Monkeys.”

  “Yes! That’s right. Ghost Fang must be out there working these monkeys into a frenzy.”

  “Do you want…” Qian Ling trailed off as her eyes widened.

  I waited for her to finish her thought. Hopefully, it would provide me with a plan, because the monkeys looked like they were getting ready to attack. After a minute of silence, I gestured toward the excited Qian Ling.

  “Yes?” I asked. “What were you going to ask me?”

  She straightened up and looked me in the eye.

  “Nothing,” she said. “I understand completely.”

  It was at that point that I realized she was slightly taller than me.

  “And isn’t that hot?” Cabbagy said, despite me squeezing him until he creaked. “Don’t you want that taller woman to boss you around and step on your —”

  I hurled Cabbagy at the monkeys.

  “You bastard!” he shouted as he flew through the air.

  It was a moment of rage, but I’d spun up my blood manipulation in time to bolster my muscles and hurl the green, foul-mouthed vegetable hundreds of feet until he conked a monkey in the forehead and knocked it to the ground.

  Cabbagy rolled into the mud between the monkeys, who stopped pounding the ground and stared at him. One of the monkeys licked its lips.

  The guards stared at the silenced troop.

  The cultivators stared at the massive grin splitting my face.

  Impulsive or not, that had been far more therapeutic than I could have possibly imagined.

  “Senior?” Qian Ling asked me.

  “Here’s the plan,” I said as I judged the drop over the wall. “I’m going to lead those monkeys away from this village and kill them. You two stay here and defend the mortals in case more monkeys show up.”

  Qian Ling frowned.

  “But I thought…” she said as she started to argue, but Mu Min stepped in front of her.

  “We shall do as you command,” Mu Min said.

  “Of course,” Qian Ling said. “We shall do nothing else.”

  She winked at me, and I was glad Cabbagy wasn’t there to comment. Then, knowing I only had moments before the monkeys ate Cabbagy alive, and deciding that I should probably save him, I leaped from the walls and toward the fray.

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