The Ming Storm

by Yan LeiSheng

  Rather than try to climb the building hand over hand, which would have taken too long, Shao Jun threw her rope dart up five or six meters to catch onto the building, using it to follow in the eunuch’s wake. She climbed several stories, then relaunched her improvised grapple to continue her ascent, threatening to catch the Tiger much sooner than he had expected. For the first time in a long time there was no one he could order to sacrifice themselves in his place. He paled with fright.

  As Tiexin watched the vertical race and regretted being unable to join in, one of his men screamed in panic: the yuxiao which had been stabbed in the heart had returned to try to force the metal door open. He succeeded in catching hold of the Celestial King who had cried out, snapping him like a twig as he crushed him in a deadly embrace. The pirate leader despaired. That was the third member of his group to die on this cursed island. He hadn’t expected so many problems, nor such danger. He no longer had a choice; he must fight or die now that escape seemed impossible. And he had learned from how Shao Jun had dispatched Katana: while these monsters had superhuman strength and resistance, they still relied on their senses to find their targets and know when and where to attack.

  The Vimalakirti Sutra said that “the inexhaustible oil lamp is like a lamp that lights a thousand candles: it banishes the shadows with its infinite light”. This parable of Mahayana Buddhism encourages the spreading of the faith, but in China it had also given rise to a kung-fu technique. Its most illustrious practitioner was Jiechi, a Southern Shaolin monk. According to the legend, one day he struck a wall to reach a meteor hammer master hidden behind it who planned to ambush him. Driven through the bricks, which held the imprint of his punch, the power of the blow struck the hidden assailant with such power that he began to cough blood and fled as fast as his legs could carry him. This wall of the Imprint of Infinite Light, as it was later named by the monastery, was irrefutable proof of the teachings of the Vimalakariti Sutra. Tiexin had trained hard to master the Inexhaustible oil lamp, and used it now to hit the yuxiao through the body of the sailor it still held.

  With its extremely limited intellect, the monster was thrown off balance by the unconventional attack and rained blows down on the body of the dead Celestial King in its arms, unable to see the pirate leader. The poor, inert body quickly began to disintegrate into a quivering mass of bloody flesh and broken bones. Its accelerated destruction would certainly put an end to the ruse and Tiexin would be deprived of his makeshift shield. What should he do now?

  “Hurry and push the monster outside!” Ye Zongman yelled, as if in answer to his unspoken question.

  The latter had rushed to the base of the tower where he thought he saw Yu Dayong a few moments earlier and found the door’s closing mechanism. But he didn’t dare activate it, fearing he would trap the yuxiao in the same room as himself and his companions. Too focused on his boxing to think or talk, the pirate leader chose to blindly follow his second’s instructions. Aching and covered in sweat, he’d already executed the equivalent of seven out of the eight rounds of Celestial drums beat the thunder he normally performed. The superhuman fighter would kill him and the remaining Celestial Kings if he didn’t force the superhuman fighter back. He summoned his last reserves of strength and struck like a man possessed. Thud! With the corpse of his man reduced to shreds of flesh, he could now attack the yuxiao’s body directly, and struck it directly in the chest. He summoned something divine and profound from within himself, a will to survive that was almost transcendent, to deliver that final blow which forced his adversary back several paces. It stumbled then fell on its back, legs straddling the rails the door was mounted on. They were crushed by the heavy metal door as Ye Zongman activated the mechanism, but the monster, unable to feel pain, paid no attention and continued struggling like a demon with the sailor’s broken remains.

  Covered in blood and sweat, Tiexin contemplated the hellish scene. With Katana dead, Zhang Yong was his last hope of finding the item he sought, but it was unlikely. In his exhaustion, he wondered if it was really worth continuing. Only two of the Celestial Kings that had accompanied him were still alive, and he knew they would have no chance of escaping if another yuxiao appeared.

  Bang! A man crashed to the ground at the bottom of the tower, falling to his death from a higher floor. It was Yu Dayong. It was terrifying to see a man of his stature meet such an end. Though the pirate leader prided himself on never giving up a fight, he would do it this time. He shuddered, then turned to Ye Zongman, who always gave good advice.

  “Come, big brother Tiexin, let’s go!” he said to him, pale and trembling.

  “Good. Open the door.”

  He didn’t need to be asked twice: the door began to open again to reveal the upper half of the yuxiao which had been sliced in two. The pirate leader kicked it out of the way, then as they passed through the opening, turned back to his second and ordered him to close it behind them.

  Feng Renxiao shivered as he heard these words.

  “But Captain Tiexin… Shao Jun is still inside!” he protested.

  While he had neither the talent nor the courage to help Shao Jun directly, he also felt unable to abandon her to her fate as if there was no way out. Unable to leave things to chance, the pirate leader moved towards the valve embedded in the wall and prepared to turn it. According to Yu Dayong, this mechanism controlled the self-destruct mechanism for the cave. He had always thought it was an oddly accessible place for such a dangerous mechanism, but of course the Tiger had not been responsible for choosing the location of the devices in the cave. He had not understood even a quarter of them. But this one’s purpose seemed obvious, which was why he had assigned a yuxiao – Katana – to protect it.

  “No, Captain Tiexin! Don’t!” Feng Renxiao cried, standing in front of the valve.

  “Do you want to die?” the pirate asked coldly.

  Stunned by his tone, Yu Dayong’s former man moved away while Ye Zongman closed the door. Tiexin began to operate the mechanism.

  “If I use this, then everything explodes?” he asked.

  “Yes, but I don’t know if it’s immediate.”

  The bandit repaid him with a devastating punch which reduced his ribs to pieces and tore apart all his organs.

  “Big brother Tiexin, why did you kill him?” exclaimed his second.

  “He was no longer useful. And I did my duty to Wang Yangming by ensuring his disciple had a companion to accompany her to the other world.”

  When the mentor of the School of Mind had sought out the small group to ask for their help, the Celestial Kings had been astonished by his eloquence and profoundness of his spiritual lessons and had unanimously agreed to assist him. Their leader had his own reasons for agreeing: to gain possession of Taki Choji’s cargo. Now he had given up on it and Yu Dayong’s former employee, who might have testified to his acts of piracy, was dead, he saw no reason to remain on this cursed island or risk his life further. He felt able to activate the vessel alone, and he knew how to safely leave the island using the current which passed near to the tortoise-shaped reef.

  He glanced around one last time. The miraculous light which lit the cavern had begun to dim slightly, the first sign of the complete destruction which would undoubtedly ensue. Closing the hatch of the vessel on himself and what remained of his men, he felt a certain satisfaction. After all, he had told Wang Yangming he would help dispose of Zhang Yong, and there was no way the man was leaving this island alive. He had kept his word.

  Chapter 22

  As she climbed, Shao Jun wondered why Zhang Yong hadn’t come down to help Yu Dayong. Faced with the two Tigers and the yuxiao, the pirates hadn’t stood a chance. It was pure luck which had allowed the former imperial favorite to emerge unscathed from her encounters with the captain of the imperial guard at both Emerald Dragon Pass and Guimen reef. Something must have kept him above, but what could be so important? Soon she would reach him, and only one of
them would come out of it alive.

  The openings in the tower wall revealed a new floor every three or four meters, each mostly destroyed but scattered with strange and unfamiliar objects which seemed as likely to date from the previous millennium as they might the next. Having already passed the governor of Nanjing, the young woman rushed into the eighth level of the tower and waited for her enemy to appear in front of her as he ascended. As soon as he passed on the mechanical ladder, she hit him on the shoulders with two precise sword strikes. It was a technique known as One hundred purples and a thousand reds, a martial acupuncture technique which caused the victim terrible pain and paralyzed their limbs. He would almost certainly have fallen immediately if he hadn’t been firmly wedged into his bucket.

  An official despised by all and devoid of any respect for the people he administered, he had spent his entire life torturing and killing, taking sadistic pleasure in interrogating the unfortunates who displeased him in some way or another. One of his favorite techniques was “yellow cards”, where he glued a small square of card onto the prisoner’s face for each question he asked, continuing until even their nose and mouth were completely covered and they eventually suffocated. The result was unbearable psychological torment combined with slow and painful agony. And yet, like many torturers, he was unable to cope with pain himself, letting out a shrill scream as the joints in his shoulders were severed.

  Shao Jun grabbed the ladder a few bars below and began to climb towards the top of the tower. When Yu Dayong reached the sixteenth floor, a blade pierced his throat. It was Pyros’ sword, waiting there to kill anyone who would threaten him – of course the one he really expected was Wang Yangming’s disciple, and not Zhang Yong’s acolyte. With a muffled hiccup, the Tiger tilted backwards, trying to drag the young woman down with him as he fell. She pressed herself against the bars of the ladder at the last second and flew like a swallow towards the opening as the eunuch crashed to the ground. She unsheathed her sword as she entered and executed a lightning-fast thrust which opened the Portuguese man’s throat. His unpredictable Western fighting techniques could have made him a dangerous opponent, but he didn’t even have the chance to react. He stepped back, collapsing into a chair where he silently breathed his last.

  Standing in the empty room next to the corpse, Shao Jun let out a long sigh. Seven of the Eight Tigers now lay in the past, and her brothers in the Society of the Mind would soon be fully avenged, but she felt no joy, only a great feeling of emptiness. Killing him brought her no satisfaction. It wasn’t surprising that the wisest men, Wang Yangming included, only resorted to violence after exhausting all other means. Perhaps that was why he tried to keep her away from the capital after Wei Bin’s death, when the young woman wanted to launch an immediate attack on Ma Yongcheng. He had wanted to protect her, not from the Tiger, but from the savagery itself.

  It didn’t matter now, soon it would all be over.

  She returned to the ladder to resume her climb past the final two floors which separated her from the top. Clang! The ladder suddenly stopped, and the young woman leapt onto the top floor brandishing her sword, but the attack she was expecting never came. Zhang Yong, who must have been aware of her imminent arrival, had his back turned to her and was staring at a strange blue light in front of him, standing next to a table on which lay a naked man. She momentarily froze with confusion. What was the leader of the Tigers doing?

  The man was one of the greatest martial arts masters of their time, so it seemed strange for him to be so negligent. The idea of hitting him from behind unsettled the former imperial concubine, but the stakes were too high for her to allow her morality to deprive her of such an opportunity. Ending her hesitation, she leapt forwards like an arrow, sword pointed in front of her.

  Just before she reached her target the weapon was intercepted by a figure flying in from her right. The yuxiao lying on the table had unexpectedly come to life! It grabbed her blade in its left hand while simultaneously chopping down like an axe with its right, snapping her sword clean in half. Clang! The technique belonged to no known school, and for good reason: no normal human would have dared use it. Palms bloody, the monster stood between the young woman and the last of the Tigers.

  “Shao Jun!” he exclaimed. “You’re here at last!”

  Zhang Yong spoke softly, not even deigning to turn his head. The box translated not only the scroll he had given it, but the entire document it had come from. He had no idea how long he had to take in this knowledge, so he refused to waste a single second, to the point of sending Yu Dayong and Pyros to their deaths. Even if he couldn’t memorize it all at once, his reading had already provided him with a number of keys to solve the problems he had encountered, as well as a better understanding of the Precursors’ technology. Using this newfound knowledge, a moment before he had taken the opportunity to practice the new acupuncture techniques to improve the resurrection of the corpse laid out on the nearby table. Thanks to the information he had just acquired, he exploited an unusual meridian to breathe life into a new monster that would outperform any he had created before, though Shao Jun had arrived before his preparations were complete. He named this new fighter “yujing” after the sea god Yu Jing, the legendary western brother to Yu Xiao.

  “Kill her!” he ordered.

  The monster suddenly widened its eyes, revealing the icy gleam that burned within. It was a being whose sole reason for existence was to kill. It rushed at Shao Jun, who quickly leapt through the window and sent her rope dart flying to catch on the tower’s roof, which was decorated with a strange, enormous leather ball. Her rope secured, she began climbing towards the top, closely followed by her assailant which climbed the building with disconcerting ease. Zhang Yong listened to the action with an attentive ear as he continued to devour the tome of light.

  “So, Shao Jun,” he called in a satisfied tone, “would you have risked coming here if you knew what awaited you?”

  Above his head, the young woman was engaged in a deadly game of cat and mouse, flying at the end of her silk and sinew rope to escape her terrible pursuer. She knew she would tire first despite her agility, and the Tiger’s provocations did nothing to help.

  “You betray Zhengde with these unnatural experiments!” she retorted. “The Emperor trusted you!”

  It was true. He had begun to suspect the captain of the guard on his deathbed, despite allowing and encouraging his meteoric rise over the previous years. Such ingratitude disgusted the former imperial favorite. She would have reentered by the window to confront her sworn enemy, but the supernatural warrior on her tail left no room for maneuver. She jumped to catch onto the wall a little further down the tower, at the seventeenth floor.

  “I had to kill him to achieve my aims!” Zhang Yong shouted to her. “But do you know what the Emperor noted on his scroll?”

  The young woman felt a cold shiver run down her back, but she was forced to redirect her attention to the yujing hurtling down the wall towards her.

  “He recommended a subject whose body would make a perfect yuxiao…” the Tiger continued. “You, his favorite concubine!”

  These words struck Shao Jun like a blade to the heart. The Emperor had occupied a special place there ever since he took her as his consort. He had been the first to show her true kindness, and while he never invited her to his bed, she had truly loved him. After his death, she was the only one to let her tears fall in silence while the rest of the harem echoed with loud and ostentatious wailing. She had never cried for anyone close to her before. Could Zhang Yong’s claims be true? She refused to believe it, but still felt as if the earth crumbling under her feet. Whether he lied or not, Zhang Yong was trying to throw her off balance and he had succeeded. In her turmoil, she let down her guard just long enough for the yujing to close its hands around her throat with such force that not even Tiexin himself could have removed them. As her vision blurred, the Emperor remained in her thoughts. Had he reall
y intended to use her so? If it was true, then she might as well give in to the darkness.

  Just then, a deafening roar reverberated through the right tower and a gear the size of a man flew into the air to violently hit the left tower. Identical to the first building externally, it held nothing other than the mechanisms that drove the island’s installations, and Tiexin had just triggered the self-destruct. With this vital part now gone, the lights went out. Surprised by the unexpected darkness, the superhuman monster momentarily relaxed its grip, giving Shao Jun a chance to pull herself together. She sent both her feet flying into her attacker’s face, forcing it to release her and lose its grip, tumbling to crash into the ground at the bottom of the tower. Meanwhile, the young woman used her rope to propel herself to the upper floor.

  Yu Dayong had told Zhang Yong about the fateful valve designed to set in motion the island’s inexorable destruction, so he immediately understood what was happening, though it took the disappearance of the Precursor Box’s miraculous light to plunge him into confusion. “The bitch is still alive!” he thought. He grabbed the precious box and headed to a trap door leading to the roof, but the former imperial favorite threw her rope dart at him from behind. He reacted with cat-like reflexes, smoothly avoiding it as he unsheathed a small dagger and rushed at her. He knew the way of the heart’s weakness was the chest and that he had the advantage in close combat. He could already feel the scent of blood tantalizing his nostrils and reveled at the idea of Wang Yangming’s disciple dying at his hand.