The taste of blood filled his mouth; none dripped, but the overwhelming taste of acid was drowned by iron. It filled Hao’s nose too. A small trickle of red trailed down his faint, fair stubble under the mask on his face, coating his exposed lips in front of Yao as he glared at her.

  As his neck itched, it told him to run, not to fight. The part that was telling him to fight was the shallow beat of his heart, the same thing that told him to kill Mo Bangkai and his followers whenever the man was in sight. It was his own pride and honor, never broken even when he was degraded in his home. The Island’s Elders couldn’t break it, so they taught him instead of foolish things. The Monk at the water temple on that Island won in the end, Hao was sent away, his father remained bedridden, and his Mother an outsider in everyone’s eyes—even more so than the monk who also came from land.

  Something leaked into that honor, and pride, perhaps nature itself. It was darker and tasted grittier. It moved that iron-rich taste to his eyes, painting his vision with a red film. He took in a breath, his head felt like it was filled with that bloody scent, the chamber got darker, as if his head was split and bled into his vision.

  Yao looked shocked, more so after Hao released her arm, his leg lifting to her stomach. He drove it into her lower abdomen, the woman falling back and striking the ground, sliding. Perhaps that was his pity, his kindness in return for fake kindness. As her sword pulled from him, the skin of his neck stuck to it like a moment, like lips locked in a kiss between steel.

  Hao turned to find the one who struck him. A bald man in his thirties, the look of a monk from the Water Temple. White cloak of the Blue Moon Mountain. A righteous look on his face. Hao recognized him as one of the many who teamed up to brutalize one of the smaller tortoises. Hao stared at him.

  “You don’t touch the disciples of Blue Moon’s Mountain.” He chanted, no one following along.

  Hao clicked his tongue, tilted his head, seeing the bald head swimming in a pool of red. “Did you not see her…” There was no point in explaining anything. The animal in front of him wouldn’t understand. It might’ve been able to if it wanted to. Many, like it’s kind, refuse common sense, common things, and fair things as long as it looks and feels right.

  “Come, for bullying a woman…”

  Hao looked at the ground, he didn’t want to hear the walking fish speak—its words were lips flapping, they had no meaning behind them. He lifted his head and yawned. Looking at the fish that saw itself as a Hero once again. A fascinating specimen of life, one that sought its own death. Rabbits leaping off a cliff. A fish, seeking a net. Hao heard his own thoughts, his own words this time.

  The creature attacked Hao, its staff falling, its bald head glistening like shining scales. Hao took the gift, holding the staff under his arm since the creature had given it to him. But he had no interest in a stick.

  Hao dropped the stick, letting it fall when the creature turned, a fishing fight against the current it swam into.

  He didn’t choose this river for the fish, it chose itself. Right? He dragged the bald-headed creature over to the stone wall near the tunnel of injured people.

  Hao’s lips parted, his voice an echo of things he thought were simply truths he was once denied, unlike the self-righteous thoughts these beasts gathered. A simple message: it was natural that this would happen.

  “Stay in your pond! You can’t blame the wolf for eating from the rivers. You can’t hate the dragons for feasting from the sea.”

  A silence ensued, the only sounds were murmurs from the lips of dreaming men and women, and the creaking of the giant black-shelled tortoise behind Hao. Not battle or death.

  Hao woke, or seemed to reawaken, blood flowing in front of him, the kicking legs of the bald-headed man hitting his chest like a child trying to fight back against his father. Blood spattered from his mouth. He was hung up like a fisherman’s pole in winter when the ocean froze over. His neck, run through by Bao’s spike-like sword, held him high on the stone wall. When the sword was pulled back, the body slid down the wall with a rapid descent, going limp before his head hit the ground. The sound of fruit hitting stone from a great height, its juice spilling out with a great splatter. Hao’s finger twitched. Did it smile at me before it died?

  Hao took a few steps backward with the blood-covered spike in his hand. He could feel a cold trickle on his neck—no, it was warm and half a familiar smell to it. The same liquid started streaming down his face. His free hand went to the top of his head and his neck, feeling two warm streams and a splitting headache.

  The headache was made worse when piercing screams shook the caverns, eardrums rattling all over again. The day seemed to repeat in his head, but the people were around him instead of the tortoise. Not everyone, but the scene was similar. Swordface—No, Meng Hongyu was still over there, swinging his sword at the giant shell like a puppet propped on half its strings. Of course, Yao was behind him, her face carried genuine shock, confusion, even a hint of concern that seemed somehow cold.

  When he turned back to the injured, Lang barely glanced at him. He looked at Hao, then looked at his wife; he was more concerned for the woman than the blood Hao spilled. If that was a good thing or not, Hao didn’t know, he couldn’t tell. He looked away from the couple to the new man standing in front of him.

  Another disciple with a white cloak, not quite white, gray, or brown now. Someone who had faced a battle unlike the bald one over there near the wall. The color of his cloak and robes was tainted with dried blood and mud, dirt falling from the ceiling, and dust that constantly flowed in the stone chambers.

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  He stood there, his hair a solid black, and all around him, everyone had the same black hair, some lighter to a dark brown, and of course, the wrinkles had gray strands or full heads of wilted white. But none had hair like his beneath this dust.

  All of them had weapons on their person—the one right in front of him had a sword, it was in his hand, pointing at Hao, his lips flapping. Hao didn’t listen, yet the words poked his ears, “Drop it… Surrender… Kowtow… Justice… Righteousness”

  Hao repeated, “Face justice…” Justice exists because there is injustice. How can you not see these are constantly flipping two-faced coin… “two,” he muttered, seeing the confusion on the man’s face right in front of him. They were both after justice in a way, one because he was attacked and now threatened by an unwelcome third party joining his affairs. The other, a man who wanted to avenge his ally, his sect member, one he probably didn’t know the name of.

  Hao tilted his head. He found the thought fascinating, the man in front of him who screamed in his face, and Hao himself was seeking a sort of justice, the same thing, but entirely different. Animals trying to understand abstract concepts, Mortals trying to find the Dao… Hao sneered. A laugh curdling in his throat, getting stuck in coagulated blood.

  Righteousness, Justice, you just want to kill me… why lie through clenched white teeth… Ah! I see Meiqi, so they all believe he is on their side, a good person aligned with them.

  He looked at all the humans just like him, but with different features, their dark hair and piercing killer eyes. I made him think of the Temple of water again, in their book, a line that spoke of old heroes standing against a villainous beast, like the tales his mother would tell him. One verse that haunted outsiders when they arrived looked at the golden hair of Islanders, an easy source of hatred in the book he once studied. The book of his mother’s religion. The idea Islanders were forced to accept in a pact hundreds of years ago, a pact no Island Elder would speak of. One line from the book, resting in the temple that Hao’s mother went to pray at.

  “And when the sky was never to be seen, the sun gone and three moons with it, all lost to the void but the familiar dirt beneath their feet, they stood upon beloved land and he led, slaying the golden beast.”

  Hao lowered his head, he looked about—only a few stood. Only one stood in front of him, he was not a golden beast, they were not heroes, just people slaughtering each other for greed and reputation. “Am I here just to die? Would it be defying fate if I killed you to save my life, or does this fit the designs of nature?”

  Hao threw the spike sword away, incidentally, the sword rolled over toward Lang and Bao. A message for the couple, a sly way to return what was theirs. He began scratching his neck. Turning fast, he felt something staring at the back of his neck, it felt larger than the tortoise. It cleared his vision like a bucket of fresh water. But there was nothing there. Just Yao, her sword at her side, a bottom lip quivering. And Meng Hongyu, with another group, slowly meandered around the shell, looking over in curiosity because of the screams.

  “Get him! NOW!”

  A voice called next to Hao’s ear, footsteps, multiple in the directions his shoulders and chest faced.

  Hao turned fast, his head moving faster than his vision. Seven colored steps made all colors fade from the world, every worry, any stretch of anger, grief, or guilt gone. His hand slipped inside his robe sleeve, coming back out in a flash. Hao was going to pull out a dagger, but he would let the man survive if he was strong enough.

  Three came from his left, and the man with the sword lunged forward. The three chased a shadow while the man with a sword in front of him flinched, and Hao’s palm slammed into his face. The man spun his sword, flying off, clanging somewhere beyond sight. A second head hitting the ground, not a splashing sound this time, however. Then Hao vanished, his back falling into shadow as he went down the tunnel.

  “Go, now, let’s go after him, get Senior Brother Hongyu, Sister Feng Yao, it’s your he originally threatened before his bald brother stepped in. Let’s all go and find him together. He had blue robes, right?”

  Voice echoed down the tunnel, the last words made Hao stop for a moment, he looked back, would they kill the innocent because of him?

  “Leave them be for now, they haven’t done anything, let’s pursue.” The voice was sweet and bitter, Yao of all people, stopping the death of the innocent on his behalf.

  Hao clenched his jaw, turned, and continued into the dark, holding his hand under his chin to catch his dripping blood.

  Like the rest of the mountain, the path was winding, most of it climbing up now. The unique formations in the stone stopped—the only thing remaining that seemed familiar was the rotten smell, and the light that stretched above him. He could reach up and touch it now, but not for long. He came upon a stone chamber that brought it back above his reach.

  Hao sat for a moment, moving the pool of blood in his hands to the Space inside the Spirit-holding bag. He sat and held the wound on his neck first, letting his blood gather and coagulate. He leaned forward, holding the top of his head, blood dripping from his head, cleaning his hair of grey stone dust, changing it to a crimson-brown. His back rounded, he spat. Blood gathered in his sinuses and throat, coming out in large chunks… In the back of the head with a staff, Hao mused.

  The bleeding in the back of his nose stopped slower than his neck, but faster than the top of his head. His scalp was bleeding in a manner that seemed uncontrollable. “By Salt and Water…” He murmured, trying to find a cloth that was clean enough for the wound. The best he had were old bandages he wrapped around his shoulder a time that seemed long ago, back when he was eating with Dong Lingli.

  Hao chuckled, thinking of that Brother, a funny fellow, enormous belly, who ate with a passion for life. He held the old bandage he received from Dong Lingli to his face until he was soaked through. The bleeding finally slowed, but didn’t end, yet Hao had to stand, the first set of footsteps was coming his way.

  He stood tall, the darkness of the cave eating half his presence. It didn’t hide him long; the person who turned down the path facing him stared him in the eye.

  Hao slid his feet back, dropping into a subtle stance. “You… Your whole name is Feng Yao, huh?”

  The woman stood in the tunnel where the light was low, her hand brushing it, a shadow of her fingers cast behind her. “Little Brother, it seems I found you first. I really am quite lucky when it comes to you, I think.”

  As she spoke, a smirk grew across her face. Her hand fell from the air. The palm of her sword-hand pointed flat towards Hao. She got close to the ceiling and climbed, pulling the light away from her. The distance between them shrank in an instant, Hao throwing out his own palm strike to receive hers.