The Ming Storm

by Yan LeiSheng

  As the two men worked the crank, their efforts finally began to pay off: a large black shape emerged from the waves at the end of the chain, like a gigantic fish caught on a hook. Impatient to see what they were bringing up, the sailors worked even harder, and clackclackclack!, something resembling a gigantic barrel rose out of the waves, black and glistening like a beast from the deep. Their captain climbed on top of it and, seeing a carefully wrought door, pulled on the handle with all his strength to reveal an opening.

  “Captain Tiexin,” said Feng Renxiao, “this is what I was telling you about. You need to get inside it to enter the island.”

  At a glance, at most six or seven people could fit inside the narrow compartment.

  “Are there others?” asked the pirate.

  “No, this is the only one.”

  “And how does it work?”

  “The vessel is located near a current which runs along the reefs to an underwater entrance.”

  What an ingenious system! It made the island impenetrable to anyone who didn’t know the system and prevented any mass invasion of the Tigers’ base. They were all impressed, even A-Qian.

  “Go, big brother!” she cried. “Get in!”

  Tiexin grabbed her by the arm as she was about to rush into the opening. Even if Yu Dayong’s former man was telling the truth, none of them knew what they would discover when they arrived at the underwater entrance. The risk was too great to expose his sister to it. He looked at Ye Zongman, whose intelligence had always made him the person he always turned to for counsel.

  “I’ll take several men and go first,” he announced quietly.

  “No,” the captain objected. “We’ll go together, and A-Qian will remain here.”

  “That’s probably wise. How many men will we leave behind on the dock?”

  “Three will be enough. A-Qian, you guard the boat, and be ready to weigh anchor at any moment.”

  “Alright,” she answered discontentedly, but without raising any further protest.

  Tiexin, Ye Zongman, Shao Jun, Feng Renxiao, and four of the Celestial Kings entered the vessel, pressed against one another. Once the hatch was closed, the young woman asked, “How do we start this machine, Feng Renxiao?”

  “I’ve only been this way once, miss, my memories are hazy…”

  They lit the oil lamps on each side of a crystal porthole on the front wall, illuminating both the interior and the exterior several meters ahead. When the men on the dock detached the chain from the capstan, the vessel fell back into the water and began to move, carried by the current. Despite the hatred she bore towards the Eight Tigers, the former imperial favorite couldn’t help but marvel at the ingenuity of the invention. Now she better understood the great respect her master had for Zhang Yong despite their differences: the Tiger’s scholarship and passion made him one of the rare few Wang Yangming would count as his peers. Who knew what they could have accomplished if they had followed the same path? Contemplating this wasted potential only strengthened Shao Jun’s resolve. This time she would kill him, even if it cost her life!

  “There we go, miss, we’re moving,” Feng Renxiao announced.

  As soon as they had boarded, Tiexin had stood behind him and not taken his eye off him since, just in case he suddenly got the urge to betray them. Controlled by two pairs of levers – for speed and direction – the vessel quickly progressed along the submarine current. It entered a tunnel where the darkness seemed absolute, before emerging into a slightly less dark basin and bursting through the surface of the waves. As the atmosphere in the vessel grew stifling, Tiexin rushed to unscrew the door and allow in fresh air. No noise came from outside, but it would have been foolish to imagine an attack was impossible.

  “Balang,” he said, “you go out first.”

  The man he addressed was the Japanese man. He had begun his career blurring the line between trade and banditry, like the other Celestial Kings, but the restrictive measures implemented by the Ming dynasty had prevented him taking to the high seas to carry out his business; since then, he and his companions had limited their activities to the Chinese coast. The pirate captain asked Balang to be the first to exit the vessel because, like his sworn brother Taki Choji, he had grown up in the Buddhist Temple of the Benevolent Fields and learned the way of steadiness, a martial teaching rumored to be the best of all the defensive arts. This technique, with results similar to the Golden mask and the Iron shirt of the central plain, had allowed him to resist two full rounds of Tiexin’s extraordinary boxing when they dueled for his entry into Tiexin’s group.

  The Shinshu Temple of the Benevolent Fields had been founded the century before by Master Shinran. When he died, his daughter chose not to continue teaching in the same location, instead choosing to do so in her own monastery which she established in a gorge in the eastern mountains, named “Temple of the Source” by Emperor Kamakura. As her father had done before her and as her descendants would do after, she taught the way of the ancestors. The last spiritual leader of this place of meditation was Rennyo, Shinran’s distant grandson, driven from his sanctuary by followers of the Tendai way from China who invaded the building and made it their own monastery. The Temple of the Benevolent Fields thus seemed the last refuge of Japanese Shinshu Buddhism, and its monks had resisted decades of religious war by extending their practice to martial arts.

  But they were unable to resist forever, and thirty years earlier their home had been devastated by followers of the Tendai way. Only a few monks escaped the fire that ravaged the buildings; including two young trainees: Taki Choji and Balang. The former succeeded in obtaining employment with a lord, but the latter, whose social class was too low, turned towards banditry and crime before meeting Tiexin and his band. The captain had over a hundred men at his command, but it was the aimless young foreigner’s mastery of the way of steadiness that earned his place among the Eight Celestial Kings.

  He nodded, adjusted his belt, and exited the vessel with slow, careful movements. Outside, the air was hot and harsh but clearly breathable. He looked around to ensure there were no threats in sight, then spoke.

  “It’s fine, you can come out… Oh!”

  It was an expression of astonishment, not fear. The pirate leader climbed out of the opening in turn and let out the same cry of surprise when he saw their surroundings. He was in a large cave measuring around ten meters, the top of which glowed with a faint fluorescent light. On the left was a huge iron door embedded into the rocky wall, and on the right, a small pool of bubbling lava let off considerable heat. Some sort of large metal basin gurgled loudly within it. It was this strange installation that caused the smoke that constantly wafted from the Isle of Demons! But he knew of no metal that could retain its solidity and consistency when exposed to liquid magma.

  Balang curiously extended an arm towards the valve on the wall but had barely brushed against it when a shadow detached itself from the ceiling to drop towards him at high speed. Although the Japanese pirate’s senses were not naturally acute, they were sharp enough to allow him to react without thinking. His right foot slid back a half-step, and he adopted the pose typical of monks in kesa17 but lowering his hands to his waist rather than to his hips. This position was the foundation of the way of steadiness, supposedly allowing him to withstand even the most powerful attacks without flinching, how he had resisted Tiexin’s blows during their only fight. His attacker, who must have been clinging to the crevices in the rock overhead like a bat, hit him on the chest with his fists. A force powerful enough to topple mountains reverberated through him, breaking a dozen of his ribs. He immediately coughed out his crushed viscera in a bloody torrent. His lower body froze in place, not moving an inch as the upper half sagged like a piece of boneless meat.

  17 The robe of Buddhist monks, traditionally an ochre color.

  Tiexin, who had barely had time to exit the vessel and jump to the ground, was sickened b
y the scene. He quickly returned to his senses and threw himself at the man, who had his back to him. Bang! His fist hit a body hard as stone, and the absence of any rebound prevented him from beginning his favorite series of attacks. Balang’s killer swayed, likely because of his small size, but barely. The pirate leader hit him again, this time feeling if his fingers were about to break. What monster was this?

  The mysterious individual turned quickly, indifferently; eyes blank of all expression.

  Tiexin was unable to hold back his shout of surprise when he saw his face.

  “Katana!”

  Chapter 20

  Tiexin sometimes encountered Taki Choji at sea, though they kept to themselves and avoided conflict due to a mutually beneficial unwritten agreement. Shortly before his death at Zhang Yong’s hands, Taki Choji had gained possession of a certain item coveted by Tiexin. After the massacre of the pirates, the leader of the Eight Celestial Kings had ransacked their camp to find the item he desired but had turned up nothing. As he examined the bodies, he noticed there was one missing: Katana, Taki Choji’s adopted son. Thinking he must have fled with the item, he agreed to join Wang Yangming’s cause in the hope of finding him, then Shao Jun had come to ask for his help at the dragon boat festival. Tiexin told himself that it was an opportunity to take the item he had been looking for. Despite everything, it was extraordinary that the first person he encountered on the island was the teenager dropping from the ceiling in the depths of the Isle of Demons. It seemed the kid had joined forces with his father’s killers.

  He hadn’t grown much since the time the pirate captain had first seen him but had traded his boyish physique for unusual musculature and a rough face, made even more terrifying by a complete lack of expression. When he attacked, his blows were phenomenally powerful, and their intensity increased with every second, as if driven by a simmering internal rage. Tiexin launched into his famous Celestial drums beat the thunder, the potent southern Shaolin technique that had caused even Shao Jun difficulty, and which almost no opponent had ever been able to resist. But Katana held fast, delivering blow after blow without seeming to tire. He stood firm against his adversary, who was unaccustomed to not immediately gaining the advantage in a hand-to-hand fight.

  “What are you waiting for? Come help me!” he shouted at his men, who had by now all exited the vessel.

  Knowing their leader’s pride and strength, they immediately realized the situation must be dire for him to ask for their help. Ye Zongman told Chen Yuanping, the next best fighter after Balang, to help. He didn’t need to be asked: he was already rushing at Taki Choji’s adopted son at the exact moment Tiexin forced him to stumble back and brought his short sword down with all his strength on the adolescent’s right shoulder. Any normal human’s arm would have been completely sliced through, but to the pirate it felt as if he were stabbing his blade into a tree trunk.

  It penetrated three or four centimeters into flesh and then remained there, trapped. What was most frightening was that the teenager seemed indifferent to the attack, just as he didn’t react when he opened his hand and gripped the sharp edge of the blade in a clumsy attempt to pull it out. He finally managed to grab its handle with his injured hand and broke it in two like a twig. Then he stabbed the broken half of the sword into the chest of Chen Yuanping, who was too stunned by this display to understand what was happening and breathed his last believing he had been killed by a demon. When Katana, as unconcerned by the blood running down his body as if it were sweat, turned towards him again, Tiexin finally gave in to panic. The fruitless attacks had left his arms painful, and a wave of profound despair washed over him. He was convinced that he couldn’t win against such a supernatural opponent. He took several steps back until his heels hit the edge of the pool of lava. He was cornered.

  Just as he was about to give himself up to the molten rock, he saw a figure attacking his assailant with incredible speed. Shao Jun had finally joined the battle. She had exited the vessel last as a precaution and to avoid giving Feng Renxiao any opportunity to remain inside alone and flee. Once on the shore she had seen Katana kill Chen Yuanping and instantly realized he was a yuxiao. Having faced them before, she knew that while their bodies were practically impenetrable, their weakness of mind could be used against them. The inhuman monsters felt no pain, but they were by no means invincible. As she landed between the two combatants, she jumped again to execute a technique known as Kicking the arm. The kick used all the energy accumulated during the jump to strike down at an opponent’s arm. The affected limb would instantly fall to hang limply at their side. She knew that normal techniques wouldn’t work on this inhuman being, instead using sudden and unexpected techniques to plunge Katana’s dull mind into complete confusion The adolescent’s speed and strength had been increased tenfold by the process he had been subjected to, but his ability to respond with anything beyond the simplest of reactions was severely impaired.

  The strategy paid off: her disconcerted opponent was forced to interrupt his barrage of attacks and began to vainly wave his left hand in the air. Shao Jun took advantage of his disorientation to perform a variant of Swallow draws the veil: she leapt upwards and spun in the air, but instead of unsheathing her sword in mid-air to slice her enemy in two as she should have done, she turned her feet towards his face, the boot with the dagger in front, and sliced both his eyes in a single move before landing behind him. Rivers of blood streamed from his blind sockets like bloody tears, but the boy didn’t make a sound. His ability to fight was greatly diminished.

  When Tiexin, shocked by the nightmarish spectacle, whispered the boy’s name, Katana turned towards him to recommence his assault. Still unable to see, he must be relying on his hearing to find his prey. His random attacks were now too easy to avoid to be any real danger, and the pirate captain was easily able to escape. By slipping next to the yuxiao, he was able to grasp him firmly by the wrist using Jade closes and metal locks, a powerful incapacitation move in the Toppling Mount Kailash boxing style. He needed to question him to find out where the item Tiexin had been searching for was hidden.

  Crack! Katana broke his bones as he attempted to attack as if nothing was wrong. Tiexin was in trouble, because he would have to let go to move away, which would immediately expose him to a fresh assault. He moved around Katana to stay out of reach of his other arm, leading him as if in some grotesque, lightning-fast dance. How could he get himself out of this impossible situation? In the end he didn’t have to: Shao Jun buried her sword into the creature’s back, stopping him completely. The heart was still the source of life, even in a beast such as he. He collapsed to the ground as the young woman withdrew her blade.

  Seeing his last chance to his lay hands on the precious object he was seeking disappear – because extracting information from Zhang Yong was unlikely – the pirate chief felt a flash of hatred for the one who had just saved him. Nonetheless, he hid his resentment.

  “Miss Shao Jun,” he asked, “can you explain what just happened?”

  “It must be Zhang Yong and Yu Dayong’s work on this island.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  According to Chen Xijian, the purpose of the experiments carried out in the Leopard Quarter had been to discover the secrets of immortality, though it was now clear that that Zhang Yong’s true purpose had been to create yuxiao. Before he died, Wei Bin had mentioned a link between Dai Yu island and the Precursor Box. The most obvious answer was that it somehow allowed him to correct the final flaws in these soulless monsters. If they succeeded in creating enough to form an army, there was no doubt that the leader of the Tigers would be able to conquer the world. That was why Wang Yangming had strived to the last to prevent him carrying out his plans.

  Shao Jun was filled with sadness. If her guess was correct, then the former Emperor must have been involved in this horror. After growing up in the harem, he was the first man she had ever met, and his tenderness, his kindness, had
for her been like rain falling on parched earth. She still remembered his smile and their time spent together with nostalgia. How could she reconcile these images with the monstrous mutilated corpse that lay before her? She let out a long sigh.

  “Help me move him,” she asked Feng Renxiao as he stood next to her. “We’ll find somewhere to bury him later.”

  As they moved the body to the bottom of one of the cave walls, Tiexin inspected the metal door on the left. Clearly made from the same metal as the large basin over the lava, it was completely smooth and had no handle. The only device nearby was the valve in the wall. As the pirate chief prepared to unscrew it, Feng Renxiao shouted out.

  “Captain Tiexin, don’t touch it!”

  “What’s wrong?” asked Shao Jun.

  “Uncle Yu said everything would explode if it’s used. To open the door, you need to do this…”

  He trotted over to the door and crouched to lift a small stone at the foot of a nearby rock, revealing a metal handle polished smooth with use. He pulled it as hard as he could, but to no avail. Conscious that everyone was waiting for him to prove his word, he panicked, sweating profusely as nothing happened: the device failed to move.

  “B- But… this is how Uncle Yu entered…” he lamented.

  “Let me try,” the former imperial favorite interjected.

  Resting a hand on the handle, she felt a small slot underneath; she had hardly put her finger into it than the mechanism began to move on its own. Screeeech! The door began to open with a metallic squeal. Given that it had to weigh several tons, seeing it pivot on its rails was a wonder, but it was insignificant compared to the sight that awaited the small group on the other side: an immense open space at the center of which stood twin towers sixty meters high, made from intertwined metal rods. The left tower was equipped with ropes continuously moving up and down. So, the center of the volcano was hollow! The area was lit by strange objects attached to the wall. They looked like fat candles as thick as an arm, with no flame and no smoke, but blindingly bright if stared at.