Journey to the East 27

AN: And the second additional Journey chapter commissioned. Enjoy!

Zheng Nan’s undignified flop into the chair beside her had the wood creaking violently, the polished wooden legs of the chair visibly flexing under his sudden drop. “Uuuuuugh, never thought I’d find a party I didn’t like.”

She gave him a cross look. They were at the head table of the dining hall, but the older cultivators had already either vacated the room or were mingling among each other on the floor. “At least try not to insult our hosts.”

“I aint insulting nobody. Even the Master of Revels in Shuilian couldn’t put together a bash I’d be happy with right now.”

“It would be foolish to rush out before organizing,” Gu Xiulan replied quietly. She even managed to sound as if she believed it.

He cracked open one eye, leaning back until the chair wobbled dangerously on one set of legs. “Uh huh, and you’re saying me-an you couldn’t ride out with a couple hours to get our qi together?”

“And accomplish what?” She spat, crossing her arms.

“I dunno, saving even one person? Buying a failing garrison another few hours for the big folks to get things together? There’s gotta be something!”

He was at least, politic enough to have their words muffled to others by his qi, but his gesticulating still drew looks. She made sure to scowl even harder just to assure no rumors were born.

“I will not second guess Father’s intent, he has higher eyes than we, if he thought we could accomplish something of the sort, we would be riding,” Gu Xiulan replied stubbornly.

His expression screwed up, hands clenching behind his head. It made the muscle ripple under his skin and… Gu Xiulan pulled her eyes away. She had been running too much fire through her head in these last few days. “...Dammit. I know that. Just tired of old men and women telling me I can’t actually do shit. Been away, so I forgot. Your pops isn’t like that though. Sorry.”

She glanced toward him, her scowl slipping, he didn’t apologize often. “Accepted.”

He rocked back and forth on the back legs of his chair, brow furrowed deeply. Though she would not countenance insult to her father… she did understand his restlessness. Sitting here under the cheery lantern lights, watching the floor below where officers and courtiers mingled, celebrating todays victory.

Her heart itched.

“I know this is gonna sound… bad, but these months out here in the desert have been the time of my life,” Zheng Nan said, slower and more thoughtfully than he usually spoke.

“I am glad our strife entertains you,” Gu Xiulan shot back. “But you clearly knew what your words implied.”

“Hah! Yeah. That’s thing innit. To be a hero in the old style, you need people to be getting trashed by baddies, don’t you? If everything was peaceful and orderly, all I’d be able to do is sit around getting fat on kegs of beer,” Zheng Nan laughed.

“As if the world could ever be free of strife,” Gu Xiulan scoffed. “I did not think you were that kind of useless navel gazer, Zheng Nan.”

“Maybe not, maybe not, but I can definitely see how there could not be enough to go around, for generation after generation of little heroes,” Zheng Nan said. “I get why the grannies feel like we all just need to be managed, kept in our little parks to play at defeating evil.”

Gu Xiulan looked at him silently. She recognized the speech of one turning over their own thoughts aloud.

“The Strife broke us,” Zhen Nan said. “It snapped something important deep down inside. THe Bai didn’t give a shit, they never had any pretense of being anything but killers.”

“I don’t know that you should be saying such things to me,” Gu Xiulan said.

He chuckled and tugged at the tattered black scarf around his neck. “Ah, you’ll hear it all soon enough, even if I shut my mouth. But if you really don’t wanna hear my history ramble, I’ll shut up.”

“I did not think you a scholar either.”

“Neither did I! But nothing else could answer my questions.”

Gu Xiulan huffed, reaching for her wine cup, she cast her thoughts back searching for memories of old lessons. “My ancestors would hardly agree that the ancient Zheng were not killers.”

“Ha, they wouldn’t!” Zheng Nan agreed. “But the difference is in how we saw ourselves.”

“We were warriors and heroes, fighting was our virtue, and we took prizes we felt worthy of our strength. Each of us could live in our own heads, the king of our own little story, for all that there could be no King of the Zheng,” Zheng Nan said, chair falling forward with a thud and creak. “But the strife… the strife, ah we thought we were just getting into another little romp. Buncha knuckleheads we always were.”

The Strife could only refer to the Strife of Twin Emperors, the interregnum between the first and second dynasty, a thousand year civil war embroiling all the Empire.

“I think you Fields folks would understand the best. That wasn’t a fight, it wasn’t even a war, a thousand years of nonstop killing is an ancestors be damned nightmare. Every Way and every Craft turned to nothing but thoughts of how to kill better. The journals from those days are some unhinged shit let me tell you. It’s no wonder the Ao emperors had most of it burned.”

He shook his head. “Point is though, it broke us. We couldn’t go on being what we were after that. But we couldn;t abandon our ways either, couldn’t disrespect our ancestors like that. So… we made the Ebon Rivers a park, one big hidden world, a cultivation site for the Zheng clan. Everything managed to let us cultivate the old Ways without ever breaking things enough to start another nightmare like that. Just enough strife and evil to sharpen our ways on, but never actually allowed to root it out. That's how we’ve lived for ages.”

Gu Xiulan chewed her lip in discomfort, having a scion of a ducal clan, so freely talking about internal clan matters was… not done. She glanced around the room, no one was looking their Way, yet…

She truly wondered what was in those letters. Despite that though, there was an ember, a question, sparking angrily in her throat. “And where were they when the Suns death faded and the Dead surged back? If you were so starved for heroism to do? When my ancestors were…”

She cut herself off, sparks erupting between her teeth.

Zheng Nan turned to her and grinned elbows thumping on the tabletop. It was not a pleasant expression, wide and full of too many teeth.

“Right?”

His reply startled her with its vehemence, an anger she’d not heard from the man before.

“You’ve all been here struggling, for millennia, against an unending enemy. Something no one anywhere could argue didn’t need to be fought. And. There. We. Sat. Zhi would fucking weep.”

He took a deep breath.

“A lot of us are done playing pretend. One way or the other. Me, I’m staying here until you all physically kick me out, whatever my Master or those old ladies say. I’ve got villains to crush.”

“Looking forward to kicking ass with you again tomorrow, pretty lady,” he said, eyes glinting with the promise of violence.

She turned away, rolling her eyes even as she forced the heat out of her cheeks. But… she couldn’t deny the appeal.

“Hmph, I will drive them all before us. Do try to keep up.”