The yellow tape was still up when Daniel came back a few hours later. The window had been boarded up, leaving pieces of glass on the floor. He went straight to the courtyard. He could almost imagine her in the back, asking if he wanted some tea. Now, there was just the chill in the wind.
He had walked the city in a bit of a daze before returning. Did Henry come and leave before then? He didn't even want to talk about it if he did. Guess all their training would have to wait another day.
The small table where she set the tea was still standing. Her walking stick was still there, leaning on the seat. The teapot on the table. He poured himself some tea and drank it anyway.
"Hey, I'm back," he said, sitting down.
The numbness came before any emotions.
Like it wasn't even real. He had just left yesterday. How could she be dead? Maybe, that was his body hoping it wasn't true. Keeping it and everything else at a distance.
The courtyard was a mess. Sword marks cut deep into the wood and stone. Martial artists. Did Li Qinghua fight back? Were these people after him and did she get caught up in the fight?
The feeling made him sick to his stomach.
He moved through the room, trying to figure things out from the marks around the room. How many were there? More than one weapon? Or was it all from a single person?
He stepped back and then realized all the marks converged on a point on the back wall. A huge seven-foot claw mark dug deep as if a great beast had torn out a piece of the wall. Frightening. But also, some relief.
At least she didn't go down without a fight.
He shook his head and made his way back to the shrine in the back of the shop. The photographs were all scattered across the ground. Forensics hadn't thought they were important. And neither did the attackers who took out Li Qinghua.
But to Daniel. He knew they were important to her.
He picked them up, one by one, setting them back into place. A single picture in the middle showed a young man with his hands behind his back, looking very formal in a traditional hanfu that martial artists wore.
As Daniel touched the photo, there was Chinese writings on the back.
"To my dear brother, don't worry. I'll keep it safe. It'll be with me as long as I live. Stand tall over there on the other side, be strong."
Speaking of which, it reminded him of the walking stick that Li Qinghua always had around. Let's put it next to the shrine. Felt right to leave it there with the rest of the photos.
He found it on the ground, near the table.
The walking stick felt strangely heavy in his hand. He found a switch in the side and the handle popped open. He drew it out. A long straight sword with waves etched into the blade, as if it had been folded a thousand times over. The hilt was heavy in his hand with only a small inscription on the base of the sword.
Yang.
And oddly enough as soon as he touched it. The blade radiated hot near the edge.
Two pieces of paper fell out of the sheath as he drew it. The first was a letter. The second was heavier stock paper, folded separately.
The letter was not finished. He could tell because the last line stopped in the middle of a sentence, the ink trailing off where the brush had lifted and never come back down.
It began:
It's strange to write things down on paper, but I wanted to leave something behind in case something happens to me.
Daniel, if you're reading this, then I have to apologize first. I wasn't truthful to you. I did know more than I let on. Not to deceive you, but the truth is often more complicated than fiction.
I grew up on the Wudang Mountain with my brother, Li Qingshan, but I was never formally trained in Wudang. Girls are not allowed to learn martial arts. That was the rule since forever. I got around it by bothering my brother until he gave in.
He was a disciple of the sect and when the position of Sect Leader eventually passed to him, he made me an honorary member so I could at least sit and listen to the lectures. The sect elders were furious. But they could only hold their tongue. It was the only thing he could do, as he couldn't teach me directly.
I was never trained and only learned second-hand from watching him from afar. How can someone like me who learned things in such a haphazard way call myself a master? My skills are a joke compared to the real thing.
But somehow my skills did grow, and my brother entered me in the Dragon and Phoenix Conference in Shaanxi. Ha! You would have liked it. Dragons for the young men. Phoenixes for the women.
It was a big tournament where all the young fighters under the age of twenty were invited to prove who was the best of the new generation. I won and was given the name the Little Phoenix of Wudang. Ah, that was a long time ago.
So truly, I don't know much about qi. Just what my brother told me before he passed away. By the time, I was born, qi had already been gone for hundreds of years. We only grew up listening to the stories, believing it would come back in the future.
If I am gone, please seek out the Wudang Temple if it still stands. It's on the highest peak of the Wudang Mountains. The second paper in this sheath is an introduction. I don't know if the customs are still the same, or if anyone is even there. But read this carefully and show them this sword. They will understand.
Also, if you get the chance, please take my ashes and bury them near the tall peach blossom tree on Mount Hua in China. It's the tallest one near the top that looks like it was cut into two pieces. There is an idiot there that I promised to see after many years, that I never got to. If you see him, please let him know I'm sorry.
His name is Yue Jianhong.
There is one more thing I should tell you about the nature of…the Yang sword…
That was it. The ink trailed off. Whatever came next was gone.
Wudang. He was right next to someone from one of the most famous schools in the history of martial arts. Did that mean all the photographs were all her former friends at the mountain? And with her dead…did that mean the Wudang Sect was now extinct?
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
No, she said someone might have returned to the mountain. Maybe, it wasn't all gone yet.
Daniel sat on the stool for a while.
What is left when everyone is dead?
He looked down and saw characters carved into the ground near the base of the table. Clean strokes, cut with a blade. Not part of the fight.
亨利在我们这里。你知道我是谁。别管。我们走后他会没事。
Henry is with us. You know who this is. Don't interfere. He'll be fine after we leave.
Li Mei.
His fist clenched for the first time since he came in. In the end, he hadn't changed a damn thing. He was still that stupid kid from the start of this whole journey. Still making mistakes, when he should have been careful.
When was it? Did he get overconfident cause he knew a few moves? Or did he really think just a few talks made him friends with some random girl who tried to kill him? She was right. They weren't friends. The first chance she got, she stabbed him right in the back.
He closed his eyes, remembering a scene from his past.
One he had avoided for a long time. The car accident had taken his parents. He had been in the backseat when they had crashed on the interstate trying to avoid a drunk driver.
Moreno had come in, the first on call, while the car was burning. And they had called him to take him and Rachel out first.
Get out of the fire. Daniel! Leave, don't worry about us.
He had told himself to tell Moreno to get his dad out first. He was closer to the door, if only he had moved it a few inches, he'd be able to get out too. But by the time, Moreno had moved out, the car exploded.
And his first thought after it happened wasn't that his parents died, it was the slight relief knowing he wasn't in there.
Hah, what kind of kid was he? Some fucking demon? His parents had died and he thought, glad it wasn't me?
Be a good kid Danny.
Deep down. He guessed that's what it was…I'm a good kid. So, I have to act it. Be the hero. Be the nice guy. But really…
Daniel raised his hand, over his head.
"I guess I'm not a very good kid after all."
My demons.
He brought his palm down.
The ground shattered in pieces, the rocks splintering until the ones right under him turned into powder, giving a horrific scar on the floor.
"I don't give a fuck. I should have just trusted my gut like when I was back in high school. I don't need to behave. I don't need to be a hero. I just need to beat every fucking asshole I see till there are none left."
He felt a subtle impression deep in his body as if clearing the murkiness from his head. His thoughts, which were a mess, organizing into one single direction.
"If someone tries to kill you. You kill them. It's that simple."
They have Henry. But can he really trust what they were saying? He should kill them all and fix all his problems now.
But how to find Li Mei?
She said she was looking for the Seven Swords of Wudang. This one had to be one of them. She belongs to a secret society. Then how did they communicate? He had a feeling he knew where to look.
He slid the sword back into its sheath, the blade clicking into the walking stick casing. Tucked it under his jacket. It sat against his ribs, warm through the fabric.
He stepped over the yellow tape and started walking.
Jackson Street was shutting down for the night. The metal security gates were already pulled across most of the storefronts, padlocked at the bottom, the shop signs dark behind them.
A bakery on the corner still had its lights on, a woman inside wiping down the glass cases where the egg tarts and pineapple buns had been. She didn't look up as Daniel passed.
Three blocks. Four. The buildings changed. A bus rumbled past, its windows lit up and almost empty. One passenger staring out, forehead against the glass.
The library sat at the end of the block. The big windows glowed. Still open. He could see the row of terminals through the glass, a few heads silhouetted in front of the screens.
Daniel pushed through the doors and sat down at a terminal.
His fingers sat on the keyboard for a few seconds. Then he started typing. In the beginning it felt like the whole world was dangerous, and that he needed to be careful. Now it felt that the world needed to be afraid of him.
He flexed his hands. I have five of my six moves. All the ones that I need to take someone down. If I don't try to catch them now, they'll get away, disappear to some other country, and maybe I'll never get a chance to get them back.
Henry could be dead, they'd be laughing as I did nothing, and I would never know. The world is a big place. Let's get rid of them now.
The forum loaded line by line. Same as always. Arguments about meridian theory. Someone claiming they'd felt qi during meditation getting mocked by three different people. A long thread about whether acupuncture was real medicine. The noise of people who didn't know what was real.
It's fine. I'll show them a taste of what's real tonight.
Subject: I have one of the Seven Swords of Wudang
From:
I have one of the Seven Swords of Wudang. I know you've been looking for it. You killed someone tonight. Someone close to me. And you kidnapped my friend. You know who you are, now tell me where to find you, so I can beat the fuck out of you.
He posted it and sat back. The screen refreshed. His post sat at the top of the thread list. The monitor hummed. Somewhere behind him a printer churned through someone's documents, pages dropping into the tray one at a time.
He waited.
The replies came.
From:
We roleplaying? "Oh, you killed someone close to me, now prepare to die?" LMAO. Somebody print this thread before the mods see it. Looks like one of the regular 'qi users' has finally lost their marbles. I want to show my roommate.
From:
Never heard of the Seven Swords of Wudang. Did they release something new in Hong Kong?
Also "you killed someone tonight." Call the cops man. What are WE supposed to do about it.
Daniel watched the first replies load. Same as always. The forum treating everything like a joke. But they weren't who he was looking for tonight. He refreshed the page.
From:
Uh. You okay there HiddenDragon? What's going on? Are you alright?
This isn't some kind of qi deviation is it?
From:
Yeah, he's never like this. What's going on?
Is something wrong? HiddenDragon, talk to us. What happened?
From:
I'll tell you what happened. This is what happens when people treat martial arts like a street fight instead of a path to spiritual development. Real practitioners don't go online threatening people.
If you trained properly you would know that qi is for healing and self-improvement. The ancient Taoists would be ashamed.
From:
Assuming any of this is real.
If someone was killed, contact law enforcement.
If someone was kidnapped, contact the FBI.
Posting on a martial arts forum accomplishes nothing except attracting attention from people who cannot help you.
If this is a creative exercise, label it as such.
I enjoyed our conversations, it's disappointing to see someone pretending to be in some sort of death match.
From:
Isn't Wudang one of those old schools? They were up there with Shaolin, Emei, Kongtong, and Huashan right? Is he hallucinating names straight out of history?
Qi deviation is scary.
From:
Do you have the sword? If you do what's the pattern on the blade?
JadeBeauty. So, it was you. Li Mei. You were here the whole time. He should have known it. Someone that knew that much, it would be you.
His hands were steady when he typed the reply.
From:
It has water waves as if folded a thousand times. A long sword that goes up to my chest. It has a clear inscription with the word Yang. Tell me where you are or I toss this thing into the ocean and you'll never see it.
He sat back and watched the screen.
Then her reply appeared.
From:
I'm at where we first fought. Come alone.
The restaurant. He knew exactly where she meant.
The thread kept moving below her post. Other voices coming in now. Some of them were pretty familiar to him.
From:
please don't go (′；ω；`). HiddenDragon I don't know what happened but don't fight.
From:
HiddenDragon if you're in trouble talk to us. If this is one of those organizations, you don't have to fight this alone. We can work out a plan.
JadeBeauty whatever is going on between you two. We can solve this. Tell us what's going on.
From:
It'd come to this. I knew it. You can't trust anyone.
From:
Don't worry I will intervene on behalf of the Mohist Sect and recite the principles of universal love and non-aggression to both parties. VIOLENCE is never the answer when LOGIC prevails!!
From: SilentMountain
Take care you two. Whether it's real or not, I hope you can work things out.
Daniel paused, but only for a moment.
Then typed a response in the chatroom. There was a possibility he might not make it back. Let's leave everything he figured out about qi to the rest. After he was done. He clicked send and logged off. The screen went dark.
He stood, pushed in the chair, and walked out. The fog had come like it always did. In the beginning it seemed to cast a haze as if the world was a dream.
The Golden Palace Restaurant was on Waverly.
Time to finish this.
He walked south.
