Quick note: I'll be on vacation starting Saturday for a week. I might have limited access to the internet, so to ensure that updates don't stop I'm trying out the advance scheduling thing here. There will be no break in the update schedule.
"Hao Wu?" someone asked.
Wu Hao sighed. Again?
"Are you from the Wudang?" he asked, not turning his head. "Does your patriarch want me to talk, also?"
The tone had been polite. Not a martial artist, then, he presumed. That made sense - he hadn't felt any real qi nearing him. Then again, he had been focused on the fight happening, where Mo Ritian was testing the guard of that ass from the Kunlun Sect.
A short silence followed.
"Pardon, sir?"
"Who are you, then?" he asked, turning his head. The man was wearing official's robes, now that Wu Hao was looking at him properly, and filled them perhaps a little too much; there was a definite paunch around his belly and the whiskers of his beard were turning grey.
"I am an aide of Sir Tai Buzhou of the Lion's Roar Sect," the official said. His tone was still polite, but there was an underlying snootiness to it. Wu Hao didn't understand why, but then he didn't understand much of this world.
"And?"
"Sir Tai has asked that you make yourself available to speak to him," he said. "I can take you to his office, if you would prefer? It is a difficult route to follow, I am told."
Wu Hao grunted. There was another short silence, at which point the aide coughed. "Sir -"
"The matches aren't over yet," Wu Hao said. "Du Linglong has to fight that boy from the Kongtong Sect, and then there's still the last match as well."
"An Xifan," the aide said. "His name is An Xifan, sir."
"I'll remember it if he manages to beat Du Linglong," Wu Hao said. She was definitely one of the stronger competitors. Stronger than him, he didn't know, but she still had her Heaven-tier techniques. If she couldn't beat her opponent even with those, then he'd honestly be disappointed.
"But, sir -" the aide said, then searched for the words.
"I'll make myself available," Wu Hao said. "When I feel like it."
The aide cleared his throat, finding his footing unsure. "But, sir, he asked that it be at your earliest possible -"
"It is," Wu Hao said. "Now shush, man. It's about to get good."
He had been tracking the way the qi moved and swirled throughout the fight. Mo Ritian disappeared into another blinding rush of speed, his movement technique activated to the fullest of his potential. So far his attacks had been nothing but probing, strafing attempts, thrusts and stabs to test how well the Kunlun Sect boy's defenses held up.
Several scales that had manifest on the boy's skin carried faint traces of blood, looking like a bruise beneath the skin itself. If that was how dragon-skin worked.
Mo Ritian reappeared, sword held straight ahead of him, completing movement and stab with such ferocious speed that the jerk from the Kunlun Sect didn't have time to react. The tip of the sword pierced into the unprotected belly, instead of hitting against the well-protected arms.
But instead of soft flesh it just found scaled flesh and thick skin.
A hand reached out, grasping Mo Ritian's neck. Lightning sparked and thunder flashed as Mo Ritian tried to get himself out of the grip. The arm wasn't much bigger than Wu Hao's own, but it exerted enough force to keep Mo Ritian contained.
Mo Ritian was thrown down into the ground so hard that the stone cracked, and that was it as far as the match went, really.
The Kunlun Sect boy raised his arms to the sky, accepting the cheers that came his way. He turned, watched Wu Hao look at him, and then his eyes turned into a cruel grin.
Then he mouthed the words "You're next".
Wu Hao hoped so.
When he was still there after Tai Buzhou jumped up on stage to felicitate Hua Lixin of the Hua Sect on his awe-inspiring victory of the lady of the Tang Clan, the man's qi erupted with anger, and when Wu Hao waved at him as their eyes met, his face got redder than a tomato. The booming wave of sound that followed hurt his ears, and others clapped their hands over their ears as well in pain before Tai Buzhou reined himself in. That included the aide still standing next to Wu Hao, wringing his hands apologetically.
When the second-grade matches were over and Wu Hao still hadn't moved, the man began to tug at his sleeve.
"Another round to go," Wu Hao said, snatching his sleeve back. It was the first time that he'd ever matched strength with someone not a cultivator after getting to the third-grade, and the man's grip felt like tofu despite having hefty arms.
The aide was nearly in tears by the time that the first-grade matches had also wrapped up. Tai Buzhou managed not to look at them at all in a way that made it clear that he was still horrifically pissed about the whole thing.
Finally, though, Wu Hao raised himself to his feet as people began to leave the arena stands. He got more than a few looks, and if he really tried he could almost convince himself some of them were of grudging admiration.
"Let's go," he said.
"Yes, sir," the aide muttered. He had gone from panicked to despondent. "Follow me, please, sir."
He took Wu Hao away from the crowd, instead moving to a nearby structure that had a guard standing at its door. They were let in with barely any introductions necessary, the guard barely reacting at all to their presence, and then the aide led Wu Hao to a corridor, where a large door bore a painting pinned to its surface, reading Tai Buzhou in large, self-satisfied lettering.
The aide fled, fading into the jumble of robes all sort of milling around nearby in the building. Muttered conversations took place which Wu Hao didn't bother listening in to.
Tai Buzhou swept into the hallway with a scowl clearly visible on his face. One of his assistants was too slow to get out of his way and was simply pushed to the side, stumbling and nearly running head-first into a wall in their haste not to trip over their own feet.
That didn't even merit a second glance. The man's focus was on Wu Hao, and with every step his frown grew graver.
"Boy," Tai Buzhou barked. "At your earliest possible convenience, I commanded."
Wu Hao shrugged.
Tai Buzhou colored, breathed in, thought slightly better of it, and turned to one of his aides.
"You," Tai Buzhou ordered. The aide who had nearly been bashed into the wall righted themselves clumsily.
"Yes, sir?"
"Tea."
The aide gulped. "Yes, sir."
Then he went off like an arrow shot from a bow. Wu Hao would not be surprised if the man didn't return.
Tai Buzhou tapped on the painting on the door with exaggerated care until it clicked open. Tinny pinpricks of qi had passed through his fingers, meaning the entire thing was a sort of key-lock system made with arrays. Interesting, Wu Hao supposed.
"Come in," Tai Buzhou demanded, rushing into his office himself. It was a large, beautiful room, very neatly appointed with all sorts of nick-nacks and oddities. Cultural artifacts showing off how much of a gentleman Tai Buzhou was, none of which Wu Hao recognized except from knowing that Wang Bin had several similar examples in his own study.
They sat in silence while the aide that had been sent for tea entered, then went through a few steps of the ceremony. To Wu Hao it was clear the man didn't want to be here, not in the room with both of them. In the end, with a very muted sigh of relief, he just barely didn't run from the room as he left.
And then the interrogation began.
"Tell me," Tai Buzhou demanded, clenching at his tea cup. "What sect are you from? What family?"
Wu Hao smiled thinly, knowing that it'd piss the man off worse.
"Why should I tell you?"
"It's simple," Tai Buzhou said. "No one recognizes your spear technique. No one recognizes your saber technique, either. But you're - hrmph - you're of passable strength, for your age. Taking all your tricks into account."
Wu Hao grunted at the 'compliment'. It was good to know, though. It wasn't the first time that he'd wondered where his techniques actually came from. Were they existing techniques gathered somewhere, stuffed into his brain by some sort of bizarre god that spoke through him in those boxes? Were they completely new techniques?
He still didn't know, but at least he had an additional bit of knowledge about them now. Not that he was grateful to Tai Buzhou.
"So what?" he asked.
"Your techniques are not orthodox," Tai Buzhou said, slowly. His voice gained a slightly gleeful edge, the way in which a hunter might have felt when a particularly juicy rabbit stumbled into his trap. "And they're not unorthodox, either. I've asked around."
Wu Hao raised an eyebrow, but said nothing further.
"'So what', you said," Tai Buzhou repeated. "I'll tell you what. If they're neither orthodox nor unorthodox, then that means they're demonic."
Self-satisfaction rolled through his core. He leaned back, studying Wu Hao.
"They're not," Wu Hao said.
Tai Buzhou snorted. "If it's your word against mine, and you're accused, do you really think that anyone's going to believe you?"
He tapped his finger on the table with a self-satisfied grin. "It won't work. I have an exalted position within the Alliance. If I say the sun rises in the west, who dares say otherwise?"
"I do," Wu Hao said bluntly.
"Again," Tai Buzhou ordered. "Tell me what sect you're from, or else -"
"That's not how demonic techniques work," Wu Hao said.
Tai Buzhou went very quiet, very abruptly.
"What?"
"You're bluffing," Wu Hao stated. "Demonic technique work on a basis of sacrifice. I haven't sacrificed shit. You're talking out of your ass."
Tai Buzhou's grin vanished like a candle's flame pinched out with two fingers. He rose from his desk, agitation running through his qi deeply. Strands of crimson anger warred with faint purple-and-green strands of anxiety that were suppressed as quickly as they came.
"It's very interesting you know that," Tai Buzhou said, quietly. "And how do you know that, hmmm? Who taught you that little fact?"
"Does it matter?" Wu Hao said. "If I know that, do you think the masters don't also know that?"
He crossed his arms. "Try and blackmail someone else, you old shit."
"Rude brat," Tai Buzhou muttered. The anxiety went from his qi, replaced by a rising tide of anger. His qi rose up from his core, somehow forming a shape of a war drum, the skin stretched tight across its rim. A hammer of qi and will combined hovered above the thing, ready to smash into the drum and unleash a reverberation that would shake the building on its foundation. "I should -"
"You should know," Wu Hao said, "that people know I'm here. And why I'm here."
Tai Buzhou snarled and his qi snarled alongside him, the skin rippling with a distant call to war.
"I should kill you."
"Better people than you have tried," Wu Hao said.
They'd also succeeded, but Tai Buzhou didn't need to know that.
Tai Buzhou lunged up, throwing the tea set that had been carefully arranged on his desk to the ground. It crashed, throwing hot tea everywhere. It didn't soak into the man's shoes, though it did splatter across Wu Hao's, which would have been far more painful if he hadn't gotten Heat Resistance at some point.
They stood there, Wu Hao feeling a little bored with the entire thing. If he had wanted to watch angry old men have tantrums he'd have stayed with the Red Dawn Sect.
Hands clenching and unclenching, Tai Buzhou stared with unseeing eyes at the broken porcelain scattered across the floor.
Then regret and shame ran through his qi, making the anger fade just enough where rationality reasserted itself. Tai Buzhou sat, very carefully, mustering as much dignity as he could, in his chair. A push from his hand swept the broken remnants of the tea set across the floor, into a nearby corner. Drops of hot, fragrant tea still clung to the floor and in Wu Hao's nose, though.
"I can be a reasonable man," Tai Buzhou said, breaking the silence.
That was news to Wu Hao, then. He wondered where this was going.
"Tell me what you want," Tai Buzhou ordered. "If it's within my power, and if it's not an extravagant demand, then I will give it to you. You will take part again, in the next fight - whoever it is that you're fighting," he added as if both of them didn't know that the fights were rigged, "and you will lose. I will allow you to pick the manner of your loss. A hard-fought victory for your opponent, if you like. Soothe your pride by not appearing at all. I don't care."
He leaned in deeply, clearing his throat and speaking very softly, almost at a whisper.
"Just get the hell out of my contest," he said. Wu Hao might have called it pleading, except that Tai Buzhou was still pretending he had power here.
Time to erase that illusion, then.
"Give me a Jade Orchid," Wu Hao said. "You know, like the prize for winning."
A muscle in Tai Buzhou's neck bulged.
"That," he ground out, "is an unreasonable demand. You cannot win the contest. Don't refuse my grace."
Wu Hao said nothing.
Taking another deep breath, Tai Buzhou said: "How about this, then?"
Tai Buzhou named a figure. Wu Hao's mouth fell open and Tai Buzhou regained some color in his face, before his expression turned to affront when Wu Hao shook his head.
"Twice that, at least."
"And if I offer that," Tai Buzhou said with his mouth drawn into a deep grimace, "you'll get out?"
"Maybe," Wu Hao said. He leaned back in the chair, which was of a deliberately uncomfortable make. "Tell me, though. Why is this so important to you?"
"You are an imbalance," Tai Buzhou ground out. "The Martial Arts Alliance - what do you think it is? It is a creation of the first founders, not something that has always existed. For a thousand years, since the dawn of martial arts, each sect stood in open war against each other. There was no orthodox, unorthodox, or even demonic. All paths were one. A man might save a village one day, kill a child to harvest its natal qi the next. Men were akin to beasts, not being able to distinguish good from evil."
That was something he hadn't known. All the same, this was a man he disliked and who disliked him. Why should Wu Hao bother to believe him?
"Now we have become civilized," Tai Buzhou continued ranting. "Now we have become orderly. We can know good from evil, we can practice martial arts in the hope that we will never have to use them instead of having to know them simply to survive desolation and banditry."
Wu Hao snorted, which got Tai Buzhou to point a ringed finger at him and shake it angrily.
"Rude brat!" he said, his voice just below that of outright shouting. "The sects, the families - we have built a proper hierarchy. There are no more fortunate encounters than those we allow ourselves. The hierarchy in place is strict, and it is this hierarchy that allows for civilization in the first place. When men forget their place - when they dare to compete with their betters - then we fall back into anarchy."
Ah. There it was, then.
"I see," Wu Hao said.
In some ways it wasn't so different from the Red Dawn, really. There was a similar demand of obeying the hierarchy, and its proponents of course being at the very top of that hierarchy. Unthinking obedience, as well.
He stood.
"No," he said. "Look forward to tomorrow, 'sir'. I'll defeat whoever you put me up against."
"Wait," Tai Buzhou said, but Wu Hao didn't.
As he walked out the door and heard another doodad crash against the walls, felt the qi roil behind him, Wu Hao smiled to himself.
Right. Only two matches left; he was halfway through.