Chapter 15—Changing Situation

  Wu Di’s hands came up in the path of the boiling chilli oil, the sizzle still camouflaged by a layer of fried toppings.

  The bowl smashed into his hand.

  The oil splattered onto his skin. Fingers. Arm. Face.

  Wu Di screamed. He instinctively whacked the bowl away, but that caused more oil to pour onto his exposed shoulder and torso.

  Oil flew everywhere.

  Others screamed.

  Yu Han’s neck burned. Some splatters must have dropped on him as he turned. Wu Di had long since let go of his hand.

  Don’t panic. Follow the plan. Three more bowls!

  Yu Han hopped over the bench with his pudgy legs, but one foot caught on the edge and he tripped.

  “I’ll kill you!” Wu Di roared.

  Yu Han grasped the floorboard, then heaved himself up by holding the corner of another bench. He darted away, rounding the next table just in time to see Wu Di hop onto the previous one.

  The redhead had blisters all over his skin. One eye was closed, and one hand twitched as if constantly being shocked by electricity. The veins on his face bulged like wriggling worms, and his other eye was marred with bloody lines as tears poured from it.

  “Get back here!” Wu Di shouted, jumping off the table to the bench near Yu Han. Yu Han picked up a random food bowl and threw it at Wu Di.

  The other boy’s body jerked to the left, and he dived, the food bowl missing by a mile. As his blistered skin touched the floorboard, he screamed, barely stopping himself from skidding.

  Yu Han picked up the “decorative bowl” next and threw it. Wu Di kicked up, hitting the bowl like it was a football. It flew back and Yu Han ducked.

  The bowl hit the floor farther away and burst like a water balloon, spilling hot chilli oil everywhere.

  Yu Han ran.

  “Y-you think the same trick will work twice, you snivelling pig?” Wu Di’s rasping voice came from behind him. It was closer now!

  There! He picked up the next bowl. Calm down. It’s working. He’s going into his defensive stance.

  Yu Han feigned a throw. Wu Di stopped in his tracks. His arms went up, and one knee rose in his signature pose. And as Yu Han pulled his arms back, Wu Di flinched, hopping two steps back.

  Yu Han grinned. “You scared?”

  Wu Di lunged. “Bastard!”

  Yu Han chucked the hot oil without letting go of the bowl. Some spilt onto his hand. It stung like a thousand needles.

  Wu Di blocked his chest with his arms, then lunged to the left, but a good portion splashed on his torso and leg.

  “Argh!” he screamed, collapsing and writhing on the ground.

  “Talk like a man, chicken,” Yu Han taunted, and Wu Di’s screams got louder. His back bent like a bow, and he kicked up to his feet. “Cock-a-doodle-doo!”

  Yu Han passed the third table, but before he could take the last bowl, a hand pushed it aside.

  It was one of the Martial Eagle nobles, the groupie who had threatened Yu Han on the stairs. “You’re dead after this,” the boy said.

  Then he was blown back with a crimson shower of blood. The blue monkey chirped, thudding the staff on the floorboard.

  “No interference,” Duan Xiaolong said, throwing a mist ball at the meddling kid’s mangled form.

  Fuck. No, it’s fine. Lure him up. He’ll favour his uninjured leg.

  Yu Han ran up the stairs. He held the guardrail and heaved his body up, but his sweaty palms slipped. He fell, his fat body cushioning the collision, then crawled up the stairs on all fours like a dog.

  “Nowhere to run! Nothing to throw now, pig!” Wu Di shrieked.

  Yu Han risked a look back. He was at the foot of the stairwell.

  Good. Follow me.

  Yu Han got up, leaning on the guardrail as he looked down at Wu Di. He exaggerated sniffing the air. “Does anyone smell burnt chicken?”

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  Wu Di, with his blistered face, jumped three stairs. Yu Han scampered backwards.

  One step, three stairs.

  Wu Di was four stairs down.

  Above him, the hatch had not yet fixed itself. The wind flowed freely into the stairwell. On both sides, the wooden walls held. Paired with the sloped ceiling, it created a perfect tunnel for the wind.

  Yu Han was halfway up. He fumbled as if he had tripped. And, as if trying to find his balance, he grabbed the rope tied to the guardrail with one hand, while the other flailed forward as if to block Wu Di.

  “I have you now—aaaaargh!”

  A cloud of red dust flowed from Yu Han’s outstretched palm, covering the whole stairwell like mist. The walls, the floor. The burns on Wu Di’s body and his one open eye.

  He’ll do a defensive posture!

  The tall redhead cried. He raised one arm and knee, taking a small step back. This was the form he took in fights while defending. Yu Han had simulated it hundreds of times. Right now, Wu Di overlapped with the mirage from Yu Han’s Echoing Dreamscape.

  Wu Di moved another step back, his arm blocking his vitals. Switch balance. Right knee up, left foot down. Exactly before the rope on the step.

  Yu Han pulled the end of the rope he had grabbed before. The whole thing went taut, catching Wu Di’s ankle.

  The boy fell back. His arms shot out, and his legs kicked the step as he flew down.

  Yu Han coughed through the chilli powder still in the air. He pushed against the guardrail, then heaved his body up and jumped, foot kicking out.

  Wu Di fell to the floor, arms and feet breaking his fall as though he was doing a triceps dip. His head faced the mess hall, and his knees towards the stairwell.

  “Get fucked!” Yu Han shouted.

  Nearly a hundred and fifty kilos of mass. Acceleration from the jump. The pull from the height. All that force concentrated on his extended foot.

  Which stomped on Wu Di’s crotch.

  A wet squelch. A bone cracked. Followed by a cry so miserable it could make the oceans weep and the heavens rage.

  The mess hall was silent.

  Wu Di foamed at the mouth, then passed out.

  Only Yu Han’s heaving breaths echoed. Repeatedly.

  “Get up!” He spat on Wu Di’s face. “You’re not dead!”

  He wasn’t talking to Wu Di. Among the crowd of onlookers, there was a girl at the very back, hidden in the shadows.

  “As long as you live, you can stand up! Crawl if you have to! Plot, stalk, scheme, then stab him in the eye!”

  Huang Niuniu remained motionless. Yu Han couldn’t see her reaction.

  Yu Han brought out a coin pouch with the booklet in a foreign script tied to it. It was the same pouch the head chef at his family’s diner had given him, the one Li Yao had returned. He grabbed a handful of coins and dropped them on Wu Di.

  “Go get yourself fixed, chicken. Next time you try to rape a girl, I won’t be so forgiving.”

  There was a slow clap.

  “Magnificent.” Duan Xiaolong stood. “The pig. No. The tiger wearing the skin of a pig hunts the rooster.” He came over to the boys, mist ball floating. The first one hit Yu Han. It was like breathing in air after chewing a mint candy, but throughout his entire body. The burns on his hand and neck itched.

  “This is troubling.” Duan Xiaolong hovered the second mist ball above Wu Di. “I cannot mend damage to one’s primordial yang. The flesh is weak there, especially for virulent men.” The cultivator looked down at Wu Di, lips curled disdainfully. “More so for roosters with uncontrolled urges. This healing shall cost far more than you are worth,” he told Yu Han. “But a profound talent is worth more than a thousand common ones.”

  The ship stopped. The inertia threw Yu Han backwards, the money pouch slipping from his grasp. He fell on the stairs, head instinctively going up.

  The ceiling had vanished.

  In the sky far above was a man in flowing white robes. He had a long white beard and a pointy moustache. There was a green-bladed sword in his hand. The edge gleamed like an emerald. The other hand held a wooden token, the same kind Qiao Jinhai was always clutching. He gazed down towards Qiao Jinhai, still tied up on the mast.

  Duan Xiaolong bowed to the man. “This one greets the core formation elder from the Verdant Blade Sect. May I ask for your name?” There was no surprise on his face, as if he’d expected the visit.

  The elder clicked his tongue. The sound wave shattered against Yu Han’s eardrums. He could not move. He could not talk. He could barely even breathe. There was a pressure against his very being. As if a mountain was holding him down.

  “A barbarian from the wildlands,” the old man said in a soothing voice. It was as if an aged grandfather from a village teashop had spoken.

  The elder nodded. “Perish.”

  He slashed out with his sword. It was the same green crescent as Qiao Jinhai’s, but the light was deeper green, with glass-like emerald lining the edge.

  Slowly, it came down.

  Duan Xiaolong took out a paper slip.

  He’s smirking? Yu Han felt his blood pressure rise, and a wet feeling spread through his pants.

  Duan Xiaolong threw the paper slip. It hit the green crescent, and a wall of blue appeared, like parts of the aurora. Moving, shifting.

  The green crescent stopped, and reality ground to a halt.

  It felt as if a million ants were creeping up Yu Han’s skin. Bile rose in his mouth.

  He wanted to close his eyes, but he couldn’t. They stung, dry. The sea breeze brought a salty scent. Under him, the constant rocking of the ship was long gone. It was like he was on dry land again. There was a low droning sound, as if a bee buzzed just outside his cognition. The sound would not leave him alone. All-encompassing. It came from the colliding wall of blue and the green crescent.

  Drip. Drop.

  Blood splattered on the floorboards. Duan Xiaolong bled from all his orifices.

  “The prey has taken the bait. When the mantis stalks the cicada, the oriole lurks behind!”

  A jet of water shot towards the elder. It must have come from the ocean, outside of Yu Han’s view.

  The elder dodged. The water jet continued up.

  And up.

  And up.

  Until it cleaved the clouds apart.

  Bullshit. This is bullshi—

  The elder slashed again, and another green crescent shot out—but not at Duan Xiaolong. It was aimed at whatever else was attacking him.

  Another jet of water. The green crescent shattered.

  And a shadow blocked out the sun.

  A fishtail whipped from behind the elder. It was large. Gargantuan. Bigger than the ship itself. And it flung the elder away like a tennis ball.

  There was a muffled groan, then a shallow roar, like the bellow of a whale underwater.

  A hundred swords appeared in the sky, reflecting the sunlight off each other like interconnected prisms. But all the light shone green.

  The swords flew like a swarm, like comets, each covered in a green light. They dived around the ship, barrelling into the ocean like torpedoes.

  And the ocean exploded. The ship heaved up—finally, some movement. Then it crashed into the ocean again. But Yu Han was stuck to the ship’s floor as if with glue.

  More of the deck had disappeared, and a large hole gaped on the side of the ship.

  In the sky, the elder had appeared once more. Yu Han saw the lines of sweat on his temples.

  “There’s been a misunderstanding, Fellow Daoist,” the elder said.

  And Yu Han finally saw the being who had been battling the elder.

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