bluedragonauthor

VIP: The Blue Dragon: Chapter 36

Added 2024-08-18 23:34:42 +0000 UTC

-- CHAPTER 36: Trust --

****

Something tickled my balls, and with a start, I jerked awake.

Something tickled my thigh, and I glanced down the length of my torso to see a large, rotting zombie rat with half of its face exposed down to white bone staring back at me with inky, empty black eye sockets.

“Fuckity-fuck!” I swore, instinctively batting the disgusting, half-decomposed vermin off my leg. I then sat up, pulling my knees to my chest and shivering as I hugged myself.

I used to enjoy that sensation of something tickling my balls as I woke up (it usually meant a girl was going down on me in my sleep), but I was starting to get traumatized by the sensation.

The underside of my forearm burned with residual heat, and I looked down to see the red imprint of the feather’s glowing outline fading from my skin. I then looked up, gasped in alarm, and involuntarily crawled back on all fours, repeating, “Fuckity-fuck!”

I was back in the underground cavern, no longer high-up in the castle tower. Without any natural light, it was impossible to tell whether it was still daylight outside or nighttime. I had no idea how long I’d been unconscious, but at least I was still clothed. And my stomach wasn’t rumbling for now.

Ten zombie samurai stood in rows of five to either side of me, dressed in ancient armor deteriorated by the passage of centuries since they’d last been worn. The rotting corpses would’ve been disturbing enough, but all ten of these samurai were headless. Given our present location, I had to assume that each had been a victim of seppuku (including the beheading part at the very end) before being buried. Hundreds of rats - both living and undead - continued to mill about the cavern, some of them crawling all over the headless samurai, who didn’t seem to notice the rodents’ presence.

The samurai didn’t seem to notice anything at all, actually, standing so still as to seem like statues.

The same way Ziyi stood absolutely still like a statue.

Like a… jade statue.

‘Bruh. That was baaad.’

Made you crack a smile.

‘Well, true.’

Unfortunately, it was also true that I didn’t see “My Ziyi” in the figure standing there. She was… so still.

So hard.

So cold.

Even more so than the swarming rats and headless samurai, my lover’s undead form was actually the most unnerving thing in the room. She stood at the end of the double-row of samurai, standing at military-precise attention with her wrists crossed behind the small of her back. Her unblinking inky black eyes stared straight ahead at nothing, completely bereft of the warmth and love I had become accustomed to.

The warmth and love I needed.

I needed her.

My Ziyi.

This? This was Jade.

And only Faguang Long could bring Ziyi back to me.

The cavern floor beneath me was cold and hard, but polished to relative smoothness. Now that I wasn’t so laser-focused on Ziyi, I took a moment to survey my surroundings. The chamber had clearly been carved by humans - it wasn’t a naturally occurring cave - and it was a marked improvement over being trapped in a literal shithole. The area in which I was presently seated was clearly the largest room, but there were underground hallways leading to the left and the right, reminding me of… catacombs.

This was a crypt.

As if I hadn’t been grossed out enough already.

It soon became clear where the headless samurai had come from. There were recessed burial slots carved into the walls of the rear of the chamber, unnoticed while my attention had been drawn to the dais and the throne. Several curving Japanese katana and wakizashi swords had been mounted on the walls, some of the steel still bright enough to shine in the dim light. There were also bows and arrows and other warrior accessories as well.

Finally standing up, I took a better look around while remaining on my guard. But the ten headless samurai zombies remained where they were, standing utterly still, paying no attention whatsoever to me or my movements. Jade, likewise, didn’t even twitch.

The hundreds of rats, though, continued to mill about, presently filling in the empty space where I’d previously lain. The rats continued to mill about the dais as well, and only then did I see that Shen Wu had taken a seat on his throne.

The ancient lich sat erect with a regal bearing, as if lairing in the throne room governing all of China instead of this underground cavern beneath a reconstructed Japanese temple far from his homeland. But his eyes were closed as if he were in a trance, or even sleeping despite sitting up straight.

He looked… helpless.

Vulnerable.

Fragile.

Without even thinking about it, I snatched one of the katana swords off the wall, raced up the stairs, and cross the dais. Ultrasonic-silent rats scurried out of my way, just barely managing to not get stepped on, not that I cared one way or the other in my haste.

The headless samurai did not move.

Jade did not move.

Shen Wu did not move.

The katana was still sharp, its flawless craftsmanship so perfect that the blade would never dull, and when I set its razor-sharp edge to the rat demon’s neck, the paper-thin skin pierced quite easily.

Too easily.

I hesitated.

Why? Why hesitate? In the immortal words of the Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland, ‘Off with his head!’

I drew the sword back over my shoulder, eyed my target, and prepared to strike.

Again, I hesitated.

But why?

‘Heroes don’t murder people in their sleep.’

Seriously??? He’s an evil rat demon who wants to unleash a plague that will enslave all of humanity. You’ll be saving the world.

‘Will I?’

What’s your alternative? Leave him alive?

‘You’re the one who said he isn’t technically alive. He’s a lich. He’s reanimated. Will cutting his head off even kill him?’

I’m not sure. Let’s find out. Off with his head!

‘No. Something’s wrong. Something’s off.’

Damn fucking straight something’s off. Baihu TOLD you he isn’t invulnerable. You’ve got a great opportunity to destroy him right here, right now. Do it!

I lowered the sword. ‘No. This isn’t going to work. Tianshi said she thought she’d destroyed him once and for all five years ago, but he still returned. It can’t be this easy. Shen Wu has survived for more than a thousand years with a massive hole in his heart. There’s no way I’m going to be able to kill him with a katana that just happens to be conveniently located within my reach. He’s much too smart for that.’

You’re much too stupid to be on such an important quest! You don’t think it’s gonna work? Fine. Try it anyways. Swing the fucking sword. If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. You can’t be any worse off than you already are right now?

‘Wanna bet? But fine. You want me to swing the sword? I’ll swing the sword.’

I swung the sword.

Hard.

The blade bit into the undead sorcerer’s skin.

Barely.

And then it stopped.

Shen Wu’s eyelids flew open, and the eye sockets beneath weren’t empty black pools of nothingness. The shu yaoguai’s eyes were glowing. The warlord snarled. And then an earth tentacle promptly threw me across the room.

My poor, battered body slammed against the rock wall opposite the dais. I hit awkwardly against a corner of one of the recessed burial slots, wrenching my left shoulder and arm. Pain radiated throughout my entire body, and then I fell helplessly to the floor.

More pain radiated throughout my entire body with the impact.

“See?” I muttered with a grunt, struggling to breathe. “I’m worse off now.”

Dong stood on the floor a couple of feet in front of me, waggling his hands and looking apologetic. “My bad.”

“Urrgghh…” I groaned, planting my palms on the floor in order to push myself up. Once I got to my feet, I reached my hand back to rub my neck, still grimacing in pain. Without any sex-energy coursing through my body, I was only human. As Baihu would’ve said, I was… fragile.

But Shen Wu, apparently, was not.

Well, not fragile enough to be harmed by a katana that just happened to be conveniently located within your reach, Dong remarked affably, once again perched on my right shoulder. He’s much too smart for that.

If looks could kill, I would’ve vaporized Dong in an instant.

Owwww. Turning my head that fast to glare at him made my neck hurt even more.

You should think before you act. Doing so can spare you unnecessary injury.

I wanted to vaporize him again.

The ten headless samurai marched into a semicircular formation with five on my left, five on my right, and a gap in the middle. Jade soon stepped into that gap, but with enough room beside her for Shen Wu himself to fill the empty space. The twelve undead figures hemmed me in with my back to the wall.

And then the ten headless samurai all drew out their katana swords.

‘Um. Shit.’

Relax. He’s not gonna kill you. He needs you alive to find The Golden Dragon, remember?

‘By now I’ve learned that there are varying definitions of ‘alive’. For all I know, he’s gonna pancake me, reanimate my corpse, and use THAT to find Faguang Long.’

Um. Shit.

“So that happened…” I began lamely. “I mean, come on, man. Rack of swords on the wall. You seemed to be sleeping. I had to try.”

“Now you know you will fail. I am far more powerful than last we met, Liu Kang,” Shen Wu intoned coldly. He didn’t pancake me. He didn’t even look angry anymore. He merely took a step forward into the semi-circle and then asked, “What did you see?”

“My vision?”

Shen Wu’s eyelids dropped halfway while his face took on an expression that clearly said, Obviously, you pathetic waste-of-oxygen.

That’d be pretty rich coming from a corpse.

I winced and thought about how to answer that without going into the nitty-gritty details of my underwhelming performance my first time ever having sex with Cindy Lou.

Good call. He’d probably have those samurai cut off your head.

It had been quite disorienting to experience that vision from her perspective instead of my own, to feel like I could hear her thoughts, to get to know her better now in a way I’d never had the opportunity (or had never taken the time) to do back in high school.

Cindy Lou was no angel, nor a devil. She was a bit funny, a bit sad. I used to think of her as a hot body with a great pair of tits, and while I had always looked back fondly on the girl who had given me my first time ever, I couldn’t help but think of her as more… human… now.

She wasn’t just a trashy cheerleader with cheap bottle-blonde hair who happened to put out for me on a whim. She was a person with her own hopes, dreams, and disappointments. Mostly disappointments. She was right: I’d never forgotten my first, but that didn’t mean I’d ever given her much thought, either.

Speaking of someone who had immediately categorized Cindy Lou as a trashy cheerleader with cheap bottle-blonde hair, I still didn’t know what to think of unexpectedly learning that Rae had been inside the room. I hadn’t forgotten her tearful confession back in Rome that she felt overwhelmed and out of her league without backup, that she’d been merely acting like she knew what she was doing. She’d claimed that at first, she didn’t understand what was so important about me, and that she originally thought she’d been given a simple observation mission over some random guy.

Those claims had formed the foundation of our relationship. To learn that she’d actually known about me all along, for years before we’d even met? Well, let’s just say that foundation didn’t feel so solid anymore, especially coupled with Shen Wu’s statement that I’d been lied to about who was truly responsible for my real mother’s death.

“What did you see?” Shen Wu repeated roughly. I must’ve spaced out for long enough to test his patience.

But his snarl and entitled attitude rubbed me the wrong way, so I shook my head and gave him a defiant look. “I see no reason for me to tell you.”

The ten headless samurai stepped forward, circumscribing me within an even tighter space.

But I stood firm and shook my head. “You’re not gonna kill me. You need me alive, remember?”

“Do I?” he challenged, raising his hands and pointing his yellow-nailed fingers at me menacingly.

I set my jaw and took a deep breath, readying myself for anything. I didn’t want to capitulate now, knowing it would lead to a slippery slope under which I’d end up giving him anything. I HAD to believe he needed me alive, and not just some ‘varying degree of alive’, either.

He needed Faguang Long.

-I- needed Faguang Long.

For her.

My eyes may have flicked to Jade for a moment, a motion not unnoticed by the ancient warlord. His fingers remained pointed at me as he sneered, but then he turned his hands to the lithe and languid beauty beside him.

Jade abruptly rose into the air and she let out a howling scream of agony as her body contorted into an awkward shape. Her neck twisted past ninety degrees to the right. Her left arm folded behind her back, and then folded again as if she had two elbows located in the wrong places on her arm. Her legs twisted into a decidedly inhuman braid, and all the while I heard bones cracking and snapping in a way that immediately made me want to vomit up the prepackaged mass of ultra-processed carbs I’d eaten for breakfast.

But I swallowed the bile rising up in my throat and forced myself to not look at her. I closed my eyes and tried to close my ears to Jade’s screams, knowing that even if that was my Ziyi’s body, it wasn’t really her inside.

Shaking my head, I took a deep breath and then opened my eyes again, keeping my focus straight on Shen Wu. “You made a big mistake by killing her, bro,” I told him sharply, feeling like I had ice in my veins. “Alive, you might’ve been able to use Ziyi as leverage to make me do anything you wanted. But dead? Or… undead? Or whatever this is? That… that thing… isn’t the woman I love. Bend it. Break it. Torture it. Doesn’t matter to me. The only thing that matters is whether or not you can help me get her back, get my Ziyi back. You want me to find Faguang Long? I’ll find Faguang Long. But you can’t make me tell you what I saw in my vision, so I won’t. Period.”

Shen Wu dropped his hands, and like a marionette with its strings abruptly cut, Jade’s body collapsed to the floor in an awkward, boneless, ragdoll heap.

“You may be able to control Jade,” I continued, pointing at the mess on the floor without looking at it. “You may be able to control any of your reanimated monstrosities. But you will never be able to control ME.”

Amen, brother!

“Don’t tempt me, mortal,” the ancient lich threatened.

“Do you want Faguang Long or not? If you kill me and reanimate me, yes you’ll probably be able to control my body. But I’m willing to bet my life here and now that you KNOW you’d never get Faguang Long that way. If I die, all of your work will be for nothing.”

Tell it, dude!

“If you die, I will simply have to wait patiently for the next Chosen One,” he retorted, narrowing his eyes at me. “I have already waited for more than a millennium. Continue to be insolent, and I may decide that killing you will be worth waiting a few more years.”

“Fine. Do it.”

Testif-- Wait, what?

I threw up my hands, shrugged, and then gestured back at Jade’s crumpled body. “I don’t want to live without her anyway. Put me out of my misery and wait for the next Chosen One to be born.”

Damn, bruh.

Shen Wu took another menacing step forward, as did the ten headless samurai. Their blade tips were now only inches away from me.

I took a deep breath, exhaled slowly, and sighed with weary resignation. I had to believe I would see Ziyi again, whether in this life or the next.

The sorcerer’s nostrils flared, and for a moment I thought he really would kill me. But then he tossed his hands and turned around, stomping back across the cavern floor towards the dais.

The ten headless samurai each took a step back as they lowered their swords. In unison, they all sheathed their blades and returned to standing silently still.

Shen Wu ascended the stairs to the dais and once again took a seat on his throne. The rats scurried about, some of them climbing his robes, with a big fat zombie rat in particular perching on his right shoulder in much the same way Dong usually did with me.

“Return to Kyoto. Rejoin your companions,” the undead rat demon instructed coldly. “The Cao Wei will not interfere with your quest for Faguang Long.”

“You’ve already interfered. With her. I told you: only Ziyi can claim the fourth relic,” I said, pointing at Jade’s ragdoll body on the floor. “You’d better hope Baihu will still consider her The Chosen One of the White Tiger.”

Shen Wu scowled and then flicked his fingers dismissively, and within seconds Jade’s body reformed into a properly human orientation. She still looked to be in considerable pain, as if her very existence being reanimated after having all of her bones shattered would continue to hurt every. Single. Day. But despite the grimace on her face, the woman walked up to stand beside me, an obedient automaton at the ready.

‘Okay. I’ve got a plan. Keep Jade by my side at all times. Continue the quest. And the very instant we get The Golden Dragon, we use it to bring Ziyi back.’

Good plan.

But as if he were reading my mind, Shen Wu stated with a creaking voice and a sickening grin, “Even if you possess Faguang Long, you will not know how to reunite your lover’s hun with her body. Only I know the proper spells to do that.”

I blinked, trying (and failing) to keep my expression neutral and pretend that hadn’t been exactly what I’d been thinking. Dong then appeared on my shoulder with a grimacing expression, so I went ahead and asked him aloud, “Wait, is that true? I thought I’d be able to fix Ziyi myself.”

“Unfortunately…” the little blue gecko glanced at Shen Wu and then back at me. “I think he’s right.”

‘You think?’

Resurrection is a tricky thing, dude. I’ve certainly never done it before. Nobody really knows what Faguang Long is, let alone what it can do. But Shen Wu seems pretty sure that you won’t be able to bring Ziyi back without his help.

‘Well… shit.’

I instinctively reached out with my right hand. Cold and undead or not, Jade took one look at me and reached out to clasp it. The reanimated woman’s expression was still blank, but the simple fact that she was holding my hand gave me a sense of hope.

Hope that we could do this.

Hope that we would be together again.

It was my destiny, right?

I had to believe.

****

“Aksel!!! Ziyi!!!”

The two of us were seated at a two-person table in the main dining room of the Aman Kyoto’s “Living Pavilion”, staying warm by the circular fireplace in the center of the room. I had been famished and had eaten not only my meal, but Jade’s meal as well.

Reanimated corpses don’t have a need to eat, you see. At least to an outside observer, her bento box had been thoroughly cleaned.

It had still been daylight when Jade and I had emerged from the bowels of the castle, escorted by a bland-looking Japanese man who I thought might very well be Shadow Ninja in disguise (and by “in disguise” I mean removing all of his fancy Raiden-esque attire and dressing like every other middle-aged white-collar salaryman in this country).

I was still dressed in sweatpants, cheap sneakers, and a Himeji Castle t-shirt. Jade’s shapeshifting powers appeared to still work, as she was now clad in form-fitting UNIQLO athleisurewear. She’d also transformed her eyes from empty black pools of nothingness back to regular eyes, although her irises were regular black instead of her natural green color. But while her outward appearance seemed totally normal, whenever I was near her I felt a chill wind that made me shiver a little.

At the Ōtemae Park taxi stand, Jade and I had then been provided with the Japanese equivalent of an Uber to transport us back to the Aman Kyoto Hotel. The journey had taken more than two hours by car, and it had been a long trip of nothing but awkward silence since the taxi driver barely spoke English, and Jade had been as mute as a mime.

Reanimated corpses don’t have a need for conversation, you see.

Upon arrival, we were informed that our companions had checked out of the hotel the previous day. Neither Jade nor I had our cell phones (those had been left behind in our rooms), and we had no way of contacting the others. But immediately after walking away from the front desk, the hotel manager came out from the office to explain that he’d received a phone call and written down a message to give to me.

Stay at the hotel. We’re coming to you. You’d better be there when I arrive, or I’ll give you another phone that still has a thumb button on it. - Rae

The note made me smile.

The name on the end made me scowl.

When my stomach grumbled, the hotel manager suggested we take a meal in the Living Pavilion.

And now you’re caught up.

“Aksel!!! Ziyi!!!”

Jade didn’t react to Hannah’s exclamation of our names, but I immediately turned to look over my shoulder, pushed back my chair, and stood up just in time to catch the flying dirty-blonde who had launched herself through the air at me. I staggered under the impact, nearly sitting down on the table (which would’ve made a mess), but managed to keep my feet as the excited girl started raining down kisses all over my face.

The well-heeled guests in the dining room gasped and averted their gaze rather than stare at the unruly Americans and their lewd public display of affection. I set Hannah back down on her feet, wiped some of the more obvious lipstick stains off my cheeks with a white linen napkin, and gave Rae a thankful smile when I noticed she was handing her credit card over to a waiter.

Moments later, the four of us walked out of the Living Pavilion and into the driveway where Magdalena was waiting by the car. There were no uniformed drivers wearing sunglasses and military-style caps this time. Instead it was an electric-blue Maserati Quattroporte, and Rae herself was the one who took the wheel.

Magdalena had gone straight to Jade to ask the Chinese beauty if she was alright, to which Jade had succinctly replied, “I am fine” without even looking Magdalena in the eye. The Italian woman had looked confused but didn’t dawdle, instead climbing into the shotgun seat while Jade, Hannah, and I sat in the back of the four-door luxury car (with me in the middle, of course).

The seat wasn’t particularly comfortable, but we didn’t have to drive more than two hours this time. Less than twenty minutes later, the car pulled into the underground garage of the Ritz-Carlton, Kyoto. And mere minutes after that, the five of us walked into the Tsukimi Penthouse Suite and its walk-out deck overlooking the Kamogawa River and the rising Higashiyama mountains to the east.

Tianshi sat on a teak sofa out on that walk-out deck in her porcelain true form, sipping tea and gazing out across the serenely picturesque view. She didn’t turn to face us as we entered, waiting patiently until all five of us ascended the steps to join her on the deck.

Jade and I were front and center like troublesome students brought into the principal’s office, with Rae, Magdalena, and Hannah behind us in a loose semicircle, unable to keep completely still. None of us spoke, waiting for Tianshi to take the lead.

I took deep, calming breaths, gathering my thoughts together to try and keep my explanation of all that had happened clear and concise. I’d done a piss-poor job of that in the Maserati on the drive over here, what with Rae, Magdalena, and Hannah all asking me questions and then exclaiming at my answers and then talking over each other to the point that everybody was yelling at the same time. We were all still a little hot under the collar, actually, and as Tianshi continued to silently stare out across the view without looking at us, I could feel the impatience of the group rising so tha--

// Baby Shark, doo-doo, doo-doo, doo-doo / Baby Shark, doo-doo--

“What are you doing?” I asked roughly, turning to look at my empty right shoulder.

Dong promptly materialized and gave me a shrug. “You told me to do that whenever Tianshi started poking around in your head.”

“Oh. Right. I did say that,” I admitted with a frown before looking back at the ageless huli jing, who silently evaluated me with an arched eyebrow.

Rolling her eyes, Tianshi then turned to stare at Rae, who apparently felt the mental probe of her teacher and immediately relaxed, closing her eyes and visibly opening her mind to allow her elder fox spirit to poke around as much as she wanted.

I sighed and wondered just how long it would take for the telepath to retrieve whatever information she wanted from Rae’s mind, especially given the jumbled-up nature of the conversation in the car, but only moments later, Tianshi looked over at the rest of us and instructed, “You are dismissed to your rooms, but the viper remains here.”

I glanced back at the others just in time to see Magdalena scowl, perhaps at the idea of “being dismissed” when she wasn’t a Shu Han soldier. But rather than argue the point, she merely pivoted on her heel and descended the stairs. Hannah looked at me and gestured with a head-nod for us to get out of there while we could, and I was quick to start walking before Tianshi decided she’d rather keep me there for an interrogation. Rae, however, stayed where she was; I had to assume she hadn’t been “dismissed” with the rest of us. And of course, “the viper” remained as well.

All of our rooms were apparently on the top floor of the hotel. Hannah led me to her room down the hall from Tianshi’s Penthouse Suite while Magdalena was one more room over. But rather than go to her own room, the Italian wordlessly followed me and Hannah into Hannah’s room. And as soon as she closed the door behind her, Magdalena barked quite angrily, “How could you let this happen to her?!”

Already feeling tired from the twenty-minute argument in the car, I didn’t immediately reply except to sigh. Hannah had been given a suite with city views instead of the river and mountains, but it had a small separate living room with a sofa. I went to sit with Hannah on the sofa while Magdalena took a wing chair, the latter continuing to glare at me expectantly.

“I didn’t just… I mean…” I began weakly before my shoulders slumped and I shook my head, admitting, “I DID let this just happen to her.”

“I’m sure you did everything you could,” Hannah soothed, stroking my thigh reassuringly.

“I was helpless. Trapped.” I said wearily, propping one elbow on the armrest and holding my head. “Couldn’t summon anything to fight back with except a little bit of snark. But ‘sticks and stones’, you know?”

“Mammalucco…” Magdalena drawled with an expression of disgust as she shook her head. I didn’t know what the word meant, but I could tell she wasn’t giving me a compliment.

“You weren’t strong enough to save her, but there’s no shame in being defeated by such a powerful enemy, as long as you tried your best,” Hannah said quietly, squeezing my thigh again.

I patted the top of her hand. “I just… I couldn’t stop him. I tried. I did. Nobody is more upset about what happened to Ziyi than I am. But there’s still a chance of bringing her back, and I’m going to do everything in my power to make that happen.”

“Not everything in your power,” Magdalena seethed. “You should have fucked me when you had the chance. Then perhaps you would have had enough strength to rescue her before… before…”

The dam burst and rivers of tears started flowing down the Zeusian demigoddess’s cheeks. She buried her face in her hands and started shaking as she sobbed, and Hannah was quick to get out of her seat and go wrap up Magdalena in a hug.

But Hannah had just barely gotten her arms around the other woman’s shoulders before Magdalena shook her off and then started unbuttoning her blouse, exposing abundant cleavage contained in a lacey black bra. “You need to fuck me now. If we act quickly, perhaps we can still race back to the castle and--”

“I agree,” Dong pronounced from my shoulder. “New rule: First order of business is for Aksel to fuck. Can’t allow him to walk around unpowered.”

“Lena… Lena…” Hannah soothed, grabbing the Italian woman’s hands to stop her. “Let’s not be hasty here.”

Dong transported to the coffee table for a better view. “I agree; let’s not be hasty. I think Italian chick with the big tits has a very good idea and should continue unbuttoning her blouse.”

Hannah turned to glare at the little gecko, threatening to backhand him with her right arm. “Now’s not the time, Dong.”

“I’m just saying: y’all hesitated to fuck Aksel back in the onsen, and look what happened then,” Dong retorted. “What if Shen Wu came busting in here right now?”

I leaned forward. “Shen Wu promised the Cao Wei would no longer interfere with our quest for Faguang Long.”

“Are you really stupid enough to trust in a promise made by an ancient, undead warlord?”

“Oh I’m plenty stupid enough to know that Shen Wu will break that promise the very instant he thinks it’s in his best interests to do so. Wait, that came out wrong.”

“Nah, I think that sounded just right.”

I rolled my eyes. “I’m confident that we’re safe from any Cao Wei assaults for the time being. Shen Wu wants Faguang Long, he can’t get it by himself, and his best path to obtaining it is to let us find it first and THEN try to take it from us. So no, Magdalena, you don’t need to continue unbuttoning your blouse.”

“Well, you might not need to…” Dong muttered, eyeing up the busty brunette. “But if you want to contin--”

“Dong.”

“Yeah-yeah. You guys are no fun. Imma going back into my crystal. Pornhub is way better than this.” The little gecko stuck out his slithery tongue and then promptly vanished in a puff of blue smoke.

I sighed, sagged against the backrest, and rubbed my forehead. Hannah returned to sit beside me, rubbing my leg. And Magdalena turned in her seat to stare pensively out the window, although I noticed she didn’t bother to re-fasten the blouse buttons she’d already undone.

“I do have to ask,” Hannah began tentatively. “Are we still sure that finding The Golden Dragon is the right thing to do?”

Magdalena whipped her head around. “Are you suggesting that we simply leave Jade in her present state?!”

“No, no, of course not,” Hannah insisted. “Heavens knows that if -I- was the one who’d gotten turned into an undead zombie I’d want all of you to do everything you could to turn me back. I’m just wondering, are we sure that The Golden Dragon is the only way to do it?”

“I don’t know of any other ways to do it,” I muttered.

“You don’t know of any other ways to do it yet.” Hannah gave me an earnest look. “Just because Shen Wu told you that only he knows the proper spells to reunite Ziyi’s soul with her body doesn’t mean it’s the truth. There could be other earth elementals out there with the power to do so. Are you even sure it has to be an earth elemental in the first place?”

“I’m not sure of anything,” I admitted. “Of the four of us in this room, Dong’s the only expert on Chinese elemental philosophy.” I then turned to look at my right shoulder, but the little blue gecko did not appear. That’s when I noticed that the blue crystal was now sitting on the coffee table.

“Whether or not there are other paths to bring her back,” Magdalena growled, “we must pursue the one path we have in front of us that is likely to succeed: find the Sword of Baihu, find The Golden Dragon, and bring it to Shen Wu in order to restore Jade’s soul.”

“But what of the plague?” Hannah asked. “We know that Shen Wu can’t release it without the power of The Golden Dragon. Are you truly prepared to risk enslaving all of humanity in exchange for one woman?”

“Yes,” I stated while Magdalena simultaneously replied, “Most certainly.”

“Okay, okay. I had to ask.” Hannah held her hands up defensively. “Don’t get me wrong: I like Ziyi. But somebody had to ask.”

“You’re only asking the same questions we’ve both asked ourselves,” I told Hannah, gesturing back and forth between me and Magdalena, the Italian woman shrugging with a nod. “Neither of us wants Shen Wu to have the power to unleash a zombie plague, but we both know we’ll do whatever it takes to get Ziyi back first and then worry about how to stop the undead rat demon.”

Hannah pursed her lips and nodded. “I’m sure Tianshi has some plans of how to do that. She’s always known Shen Wu was out there, trying to get his hands on The Golden Dragon. She must have some contingency plans for how to deal with him once we’ve acquired it.”

“I’m sure she does, but at the same time, I don’t trust her,” I stated gravely. Glancing over at Magdalena, I took a deep breath before returning my attention to Hannah. “In fact, the only people in the world I trust right now are in this room.”

Hannah gave me a curious look while Magdalena sat up in surprise. Hannah was then the first to speak, saying, “Wait, I know you don’t trust Tianshi, and for good reason. But are you saying you don’t trust Rae, either?”

“The student must always be considered a branch of her master,” Magdalena intoned sagely. “Rae is fond of you both - that much is clear - but her ultimate loyalty will always lie with Angelika.”

Hannah turned to me. “Is that how you see Rae?”

I pursed my lips, thinking about how much I wanted to tell the others right now. Neither Tianshi nor Rae knew I’d had a vision of Rae invisibly watching my first time with Cindy Lou, and while I wanted to believe that Hannah (and maybe even Magdalena) would keep that information a secret if I asked them to, I couldn’t be sure Tianshi wouldn’t simply pull that secret out of their heads the next time she saw them. So instead I merely said, “Basically, yes. I like Rae and I want to believe she’s on our side, but at the end of the day, we both know she’ll follow her teacher’s orders. So like I said: the only people in the world I trust right now are in this room.”

Magdalena gave me that look of surprise again. “You truly trust me?”

“I trust that you want what’s best for Ziyi. For Jade. I know how much you care about her, and I think you feel the same kind of pain I feel inside watching that… that shell of her walking around looking just like the woman we both love and yet--”

“--and yet knowing it is not really her,” Magdalena finished for me, looking somber. She nodded slowly, adding, “For what it is worth: I trust you. We have a common goal, and I believe you will do anything you must in order to save her.”

Hannah smirked, eyeing us both. “Anything?”

I glanced at Magdalena’s exposed cleavage for a second, blushed pink, and then kept my gaze firmly locked onto Hannah. “For Ziyi.”

“Don’t act like it would be such a chore,” Magdalena drawled.

I blushed even deeper and chose not to continue down that tangent. Instead, I continued, “In all seriousness though, I want to make sure the three of us are on the same page about this. We all want Ziyi back. We all want to keep Faguang Long OUT of Shen Wu’s hands. But… I ALSO want to keep Faguang Long out of Tianshi’s hands as well.”

Magdalena nodded firmly. “Agreed.”

“Because you don’t trust her motives,” Hannah observed.

“I don’t. Something about her has rubbed me the wrong way since the first time we met. She’s made clear from the beginning that she has her own agenda in all this, and that not all of her goals align with mine. For example, when you first captured Ziyi…” I gestured at Magdalena before continuing, “Tianshi made clear that she had no interest in exchanging the two relics for Ziyi. If we DO find Faguang Long, I rather doubt she will have any interest in letting Shen Wu anywhere near it, even if it’s the only way of getting the real Ziyi back.”

“Agreed,” Magdalena repeated. “We must assume that both fox spirits will work against us when the time comes and put into place our own contingencies.”

“Work against us because they want to save humanity?” Hannah asked. “Or work against us because they have their own ‘nefarious plans’ for The Golden Dragon?”

“I wish I could be sure it would be to save humanity,” I stated uncertainly. “But after Tianshi raped me, I can’t be sure of anything when it comes to that woman.”

“She did WHAT now?!” Magdalena interjected.

“Long story,” Hannah began patiently. “The short answer is that back before you joined us, Tianshi shapeshifted into me in order to trick Aksel into having sex with her in order to prove her theory that he needed to have sex with a supernatural in order to power his elemental abilities.”

“I see…” Magdalena muttered, averting her gaze and looking thoughtful.

“What that proves to me,” I went on, “is that there are no limits to the things she’ll do in order to achieve her goals. The ends justify the means for that woman, which includes sacrificing any of us.”

“Of that, you can be certain,” Magdalena pronounced.

“So what do we do?” Hannah asked. “What can the three of us do in order to ensure that we hang onto The Golden Dragon once we find it, keep it away from Tianshi and Rae, and make our way back to Shen Wu in order to restore Ziyi’s soul? And all that’s assuming we can’t figure out another way to restore Ziyi’s soul without having to involve an evil undead warlord.”

“I don’t know yet,” I said with a weary sigh. “My brain is mush. My body is sore and aching. I spent the past two nights sleeping in a literal shithole, and I got thrown against a literal brick wall for good measure.”

“You must be exhausted,” Hannah observed sympathetically, rubbing my leg again.

“Totally exhausted. Right now, I just want to get out of these clothes, get into the shower, get in bed, get horizontal, and get some rest.”

Hannah giggled. “Or…”

I waited for her to finish that sentence, and when she didn’t, I went ahead and asked, “Or what?”

Magdalena snorted. “You must be really exhausted to not have understood what she meant.”

Hannah giggled again and then sat up straight. “I have a plan.”

“A plan?” I asked.

“The plan involves revitalizing you in the best way I know how,” she stated primly with a happy glow about her. “I’ll get you out of those clothes, get you into the shower, get you in bed, and get you horizontal, but the rest of the process does not involve a whole lot of rest, per se.”

I was finally catching on. “Ah… Well… your plan certainly sounds like a lot more fun than my plan.”

Hannah grinned excitedly.

After taking Hannah’s hand, I stood up and then helped the dirty-blonde babe to her feet. But before we walked away, I turned to the Italian demigoddess and said with a smile, “Magdalena, if you’ll excuse us…”

“Actually…” the gorgeous dark-auburn brunette began, remaining seated and in fact reclining back in her chair with a somewhat saucy smile of her own. Her blouse had already been unbuttoned halfway, and the remaining few were doing a very poor job of containing her bounteous bosom.

Hannah realized what was happening first, and she squeed excitedly. And only then did the Italian demigoddess finish.

“If it is alright with both of you, I would prefer to stay.”

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Chapter 37 will post on August 22.

Remember that all authors thrive on feedback, so let me know how you're enjoying the story! Leave a comment here or come chat with us on Discord! And be sure to connect your Discord account here on the Patreon website to get access to the Patron-Only channels! https://discord.gg/fg3m6MdfN9

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Prologue & Chapter 1: The Ax Effect: https://www.patreon.com/posts/99894240

Chapter 2: Santa Monica: https://www.patreon.com/posts/100614606

Chapter 3: The Zellij Fountain: https://www.patreon.com/posts/100887440

Chapter 4: Euhemerism: https://www.patreon.com/posts/101140816

Chapter 5: The Fremont Troll: https://www.patreon.com/posts/101373122

Chapter 6: Jade: https://www.patreon.com/posts/101713211

Chapter 7: The Blue Gecko: https://www.patreon.com/posts/101962728

Chapter 8: Yaoguai: https://www.patreon.com/posts/102225122

Chapter 9: Rome: https://www.patreon.com/posts/102437581

Chapter 10: Seeing Sights: https://www.patreon.com/posts/102690886

Chapter 11: Liu Kang: https://www.patreon.com/posts/102919633