Chương 78: A Restless Death, II

Wu Hao's entire afternoon was now open. This was an opportunity, but he was coming to realize it was a problem, too. What was he supposed to do with an open afternoon, exactly? He'd trained, cultivating now would give him little benefit compared to doing so in the cultivation caves, and he'd made his way through most of the compound already, on his evening walks. For a moment he considered that maybe he could've been at those negotiations, but that was a thought he squashed firmly.

Without Jin Qilong there to pull him to do something specific, with the library sealed to him, and with Old Qin presumably busy with his own tasks, that left Wu Hao to contemplate what it was that he'd actually do with his free time. He had the vague idea that perhaps others spent their time on leisure, but he had no idea what the hell that actually involved beyond the vague memory of Father complaining about idle hands and the evil they got up to. What the hell did martial artists do?

They didn't all just study martial arts endlessly, did they? They had hobbies. If Father or the Uncles were any judge, those hobbies were drinking and writing and maybe rearranging the contents of their medicine cabinet. For once, Wu Hao itched for a fight. Maybe he should've pressed that little shit Li Yanqing harder for a duel. Making his way in an oddly sullen mood through the compound, he found the servants busy with their tasks.

They hurried from one place to another, took things from each other in ways that seemed purposeful, exchanged goods, had whispered conversations that didn't really seem to be about anything interesting, as far as Wu Hao heard. Finding himself getting more restless as he walked, he stopped at a nearby garden. The gardener was working there, Wu Hao saw: the old man with bronze skin and an ancient, patched hat was snipping off bits of plants here and there.

He looked up as Wu Hao walked and, frowning slightly to himself, bent back to his work. Wu Hao sat in the grass, trying to enjoy the sun. Mostly, though, he felt bored. Thoughts kept running through his head that he had to go do something, but the particulars escaped him and he found it hard to try and pin it down. Something in him was glad for relief, while another part of him whined that he was wasting time when the Demonic Cult was out there, gathering its powers. In the sun, that future felt far off.

He might even have dozed off for a moment, but the sound of distant footsteps in the grass roused him, and he cracked open an eye as a qi signature appeared. He didn't recognize it. It stirred a distant memory, maybe, of a week or more ago, but where? He mulled it over, but then he had his answer. One of the guards had just walked in. Wu Hao recognized his face, at least: it was the man who'd cut him down, a few times now. He wasn't in a guard's uniform now, though.

Instead he wore a martial artist's casual clothing and a wide smile. On his shoulders sat a girl maybe five years old, who wore her father's hat on her head and was pointing at the various plants. Behind them trailed a woman who had to be the guard's wife, who seemed pregnant. They seemed happy, he thought. He could catch a few snippets of their conversation, between each other and when the guard walked up to the gardener, who gave them a bright smile and some kind words for the little girl.

A smile that he hadn't had when killing Wu Hao, that was for sure. The guard laughed, said something to the gardener, and then turned slightly. He saw Wu Hao, paused in the middle of smiling, and then asked something of the gardener in a voice too low for Wu Hao's enhanced hearing to catch.

After a quick glance, the gardener said something, the guard nodded, and moved to the other side of the garden, family in tow, out of sight of Wu Hao, though he could still see the distant qi shimmer behind a hedge that had been placed between him and a set of benches where the guard sat. Parents, Wu Hao thought, letting his head fall back into the cooler grass.

He had wondered, during the moment when he'd first seized upon the plan of returning to the distant past, if maybe he'd had loving parents, or even just parents at all. It'd been a hope of sorts, one of the few things he'd had to look forward to during that endless string of suicides. As life loved to do, though, he'd been duly disappointed. So far they'd failed to be even a single memory.

If he'd been younger in mind as well as body, that might've left him enough space to dream that perhaps his parents were masters, royals, people who were so special that he would be special as well, and maybe they'd come rescue him. Provide him with special training, perhaps, tell him more about whatever was happening to him that made death's hold on him so weak. But they hadn't, and they never would. Perhaps his mother too had been a laundress, or perhaps she'd simply been a whore.

Maybe his father had been a rich man or a servant of one, but perhaps he'd just been a customer. It was impossible to know. Wu Hao sighed, sprawling out on the grass and laying his hand across his eyes so he wasn't staring into the sun. Even then there was a pinkness that showed even through his closed eyelids. He told himself he didn't really care, one way or another.

He was strong now - and sure, maybe being a third-grade martial artist didn't count for all that much here, but in the wider world it was something, at least. He could defeat most bandits, live a good life, should he give up on his vague plans of taking revenge on Father. But he did care. It felt like a defeat admitting it, but it was true. The thin pulse that nudged his attention reappeared, and this time he was almost grateful to be reminded that it existed. Something to chase, at last.

He sat up and made his way to his feet. Gathering some qi to his legs, and pushed himself off, rocketing towards where he'd felt the sensation. It was across the stone way that cut through a garden, atop a roof there on a building Wu Hao hadn't ever bothered learning the use of. A servant stopped to stare as Wu Hao soared by, but then kept his head down. Wu Hao gave him a single glance and then landed at the place where he'd intended to.

His feet skidded across the tile, making a louder noise than he'd anticipated, and he grimaced. Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site. He really needed to get better at movement techniques.

He was still trying to master even the basics of the Dragon Gate Ascending Art, but it was proving frustrating to get hold of, all the more so because he'd only really been able to practice in his room, and there was no room to maneuver there, especially with the wide, voluminous steps that the Art required. Shaking his head, he focused his mind on the tiles instead of what-ifs and should-bes. Again, though, there was nothing there to see.

He reached out hesitantly with his senses, trying to see if he could find any trace of a martial artist, or any qi at all. But he couldn't feel anything. He stared, frowning down at the roof tiles. How was it that he was sure that it was here that whoever had been observing him had been standing? There were no traces of qi, and yet his gut told him that it was here, even if he couldn't tell where the trail ended. The tiles didn't answer him, and he kicked one of them in frustration.

It clacked against the others with the loud sound of stone against stone, but still there was just this niggling feeling, this idea that he was missing something. Another nudge. He spun, feeling it brush across his senses and then fade away quickly. It had to be on purpose. He took a deep breath, preparing to shout loudly for whoever this was to show themselves, but then reason held him back. Would that achieve anything? No. It'd only make him look all the more foolish, and it wasn't like they'd respond.

He wouldn't respond, he knew that for a fact. So, breathing out, he let his qi bubble up to the surface again, focused it in his feet, and crouched to send himself flying in a leap that set all the roof tiles to shuddering below his feet. He landed, taking a few extra steps to arrest the rest of his flight, and scowled. Another brush, but this one he ignored. That one was definitely a taunt, challenging him to try and find whoever this was.

He turned his back to the nudge very deliberately, inviting them to attack already, but all he got in response was another nudge. Wu Hao growled something under his breath and stomped off, back inside. He'd go to his room, get out of the sun, and read. It wasn't that he'd suddenly discovered a love for reading, but if he got nudged a few more times he'd really get annoyed. Today was decidedly not his day.

He left his room only once more that day - just to grab some food from the kitchen, survey the room again to see if Old Qin was nearby and maybe they could eat together, something he hadn't really bothered to think about before. Old Qin was nowhere to be seen. Wu Hao felt faint stirrings of an emotion he might have hesitantly called loneliness, but he banished it together with his other, unuseful feelings to the back of his mind, where it belonged.

On a whim, he raised himself from his room, walked to the end of the corridor and checked the room there. It was summer and dark came late if it really came at all, but night had somehow contrived to sneak up on him. He was about to return to his room when someone came up the stairs, catching sight of him. It was the same servant who found him in the mornings and had told him about the morning trainings at all.

"Wu Hao?" the man asked, walking forward. In response, Wu Hao just nodded.

"The young master's asked for you," the servant said. There was something in his eyes that Wu Hao couldn't quite decipher, though, and without qi he couldn't get an accurate read on his emotions.

"He asks that you make your way to the courtyard near the training grounds." Jin Qilong'd asked for him? Wu Hao nodded again.

"I'll go."

"Good," the servant said, and turned to go. Wu Hao watched him go back down the stairs, wondering at what Jin Qilong had need of him for, but shrugged. Just to be sure - and because it was the Jin clan - he returned to his room first, strapped his saber to his back, and left while trying not to be seen. The courtyard was empty, and the lanterns had deliberately been left unlit. Wu Hao stared out over the stone, and several things fell into place. This was a trap, was it? Good. He'd been horribly bored.

This was just what he'd need.

"I know you're there," he said, speaking to no one in particular.

"Spring the trap now or I'll just leave." Only one person came forward at a sedate pace. Features resolved from shadow into those of a boy Wu Hao's age, with a pale face and a saber clutched in his hand. A nick scored across the blade, a cut that was matched by the angry red scar that trailed up the boy's hand and disappeared into his sleeve. It was Shan Kong, of course. Wu Hao's eyes narrowed as he saw the other boy stop at the edge of Wu Hao's vision, leaving the sound of his footsteps to fade.

Even in perfect darkness Wu Hao would have recognized his qi. That blend of oily metal and faint seawater was one that he wouldn't forget. He said nothing, though. Two more shapes appeared out of the relative darkness, though Wu Hao had seen them clearly already, their silhouettes unclear but their cores unmistakenable in his senses. One stepped out from behind a corner, the other landed with a light thump on the ground, slightly shaking the lanterns.

The same lanterns ignited, one by one, showering the square with light. Wu Hao's eyes narrowed, not just at the sudden increase in light that his eyes had to adjust to. It wasn't just Shan Kong. It was Zhu Yelin and Li Yanqing as well. Wu Hao was half surprised that Shi Huyin wasn't there to boot.

"So," Li Yanqing said, his nose turning up in an arrogant scowl.

"You wanted a duel, right?" Shan Kong frowned at the other boy. Instead, he pointed his saber at Wu Hao and sneered.

"You've been a thorn in my side for too long," he said.

"We're going to finish this." Wu Hao didn't even bother listening to whatever else he said, what excuses he made, or what other bullshit the others would spout. He drew his saber from its sheathe and cast the leather to the ground, assuming the Storm-Chasing Saber's first stance. With a thought, his qi roared into action, sending shivers up his spine as his feet crunched down onto the dry gravel of the stone garden.

"Finally," he said out loud.

"I've been waiting for you since yesterday. Is this everyone you've got?"