Ten Thousand Tragedies

Wang Hangsheng gave the same warning again as he had last time. Wu Hao nodded at the right times but otherwise didn't bother to seem all that impressed. There was a small outburst of anger in Wang Hangsheng's qi, which was swiftly smothered, and then he stomped off after making the same threats as he had last time.

The important thing was that it'd left Wu Hao free to head back to his room.

Wu Hao pursed his lips, looking at the array of knives he'd arranged before him. He had three kitchen knives, the edges of which weren't that sharp but which he'd used before to create his improvised bombs with. Those were the kind of knife used for general cooking. He'd stolen two bread knives, too, with a serrated edge meant mostly for what the name suggested it was for, and he'd smuggled away a boning knife which was thinner and more suited to prying open cuts of tougher meat.

Finally, he'd risked being caught and just walked out with a butcher's cleaver hidden in his shirt, and the stench of blood and fat at its edges made it clear it'd seen heavy use. All of them bore the signs of heavy use, frankly, with fingers imprinted indelibly on the wooden handles, the blades far from as sharp as they might have once been, and they smelled of the scent of an active kitchen.

He probably smelled much the same himself, with the way he'd kept all the knives within his clothing. Pockmarks checkered his skin, but most of the injuries hadn't drawn that much blood, and he'd cover them with Old Qin's ointment before heading to the courtyard anyway to catch the expedition to the mines.

Normally, he restricted himself to just stealing random knives, but if he was going to be facing not one but two second-grade martial artists or more, he needed to expand his arsenal, such as it was. Just to make that point clearer he'd taken his saber from its sheathe and placed it next to the knives. It was twice as long as the cleaver and three times as heavy, but he supposed that the fundamental use wasn't so different after all.

There'd been a few shouts behind him from people wondering where their knives had gone, but no one had followed him. It wasn't a problem until it had to become one, he'd decided.

The knives weren't really clean, and he'd figured that trying to wash them off in cold water would entail going outside, so he'd left them as they were. Neither did he really have a way to sharpen them. He hadn't even sharpened his saber.

There were a total of seven knives, which he hoped would be enough for his purposes.

After all, Wu Hao had decided on a plan, and to execute that plan he needed a specific kind of weapon. That was why he'd stolen more knives, and that was why he'd stolen different kinds of knives.

He raised his right hand, the one that felt most natural to use for this, and began placing knives between the gaps in his fingers. The butcher's cleaver proved too heavy to hold that way without enhancing his strength with qi, and Wu Hao had to jerk his leg out of the way before it impaled his leg as it fell.

The kitchen knives fit, but that didn't mean they'd work.

The handles were all jostling in his palm, and as a result he noticed that the points of each of the knives all were aimed in slightly different directions. Basic common sense told him that if he tried to punch someone now, the knives would just jerk back unless he focused more strength on clenching his fist than the punch itself. And if they jerked back, the only thing he'd really accomplish was to cut his hand open.

His jaw worked for a moment, studying his materials. The handles would have to go, but then he'd have nothing to hold on to. That was a problem.

Someone knocked at the door. Wu Hao looked up from his attempts to craft a claw weapon and glanced up at the door.

That was the servant who'd be telling him about the "young master's invitation" - or the ambush, in other words. Wu Hao looked towards the knives again, looked towards the door, weighed his options.

"Fuck off," he shouted towards the door, timing it accidentally with another knock.

Another knock, a little more forcefully this time.

Wu Hao's jaw worked. He might have worked his stress of by fighting those three, but he'd already proven that he could win against them. It was better to spend that time that he might have used on burying their corpses into something actually useful.

Jumping up, Wu Hao pushed the scattered knives under the blanket of his bed, and opened the door.

"What?" he asked, trying to make his irritation clear.

He'd been right. The same servant stood at the door, fist ready to knock again if Wu Hao hadn't opened.

"The young master has sent you an invitation," the servant said. He looked annoyed, too. "He asks that you make your way to the courtyard near the training grounds."

"Now?" Wu Hao asked.

"As soon as you're able," the servant said.

"Right," Wu Hao said. "Message received."

The servant nodded. "If that's all?"

Wu Hao shut the door in his face, whipped the blanket back, and restarted his little project. It was becoming clear to him that he needed a different approach. The Stone Soul Sect martial artist - Lan Yongbin, if Wu Hao was remembering it right - had manifested claws above his hand, not in it. Was the solution to put the blades above his hand, then?

In that case, he'd need a sort of glove. He rooted through his wardrobe, but all he had were a few ragged strips of cloth that he'd used as bandages once. He stared at them, eyes narrowed, and sniffed. They still smelled of Old Qin's stinky ointment, but whatever. It'd have been better if he'd had a glove of some kind, but they'd do.

Before long he'd made the claw that he was trying to make. The three kitchen knives lay flat against his hand, with a bandage wrapped tightly around them to keep them tight. He'd whittled them down a little and ripped away the handles, instead putting the wood to work in creating a sort of improvised glove that he could shove his hand into. Around the wood he'd wrapped the bandage to keep the entire thing somewhat cohesive.

Then he'd tried to improve an array of sorts that would keep the entire thing together. He'd pumped enough qi into the claw to keep it from falling apart on his hand for a minute, maybe. He could reuse the same array, if the idea worked.

It barely fit. If he hadn't been twelve, or thirteen, or whatever age he currently was, then his hand might not have fit in the small gap that he'd left. The edges weren't really sharp.

He decided to risk it. Clutching the wood awkwardly in his hand he made a few quick movements, finding the knives more or less holding with minimal sliding back and forth.

After that, he grabbed one of the discarded handles. He laid it carefully on top of his night stand and then, pulling back to practice the movement, tried to stab it with his claws.

The impact wasn't all that impressive. There was a dull sort of thunk and then the handle skittered off the table. When he picked up it again there were some tiny imprints - little more than the pockmarks that he might've gotten from idly stabbing it himself, but now it was three, more or less neatly spaced, small puncture marks.

Right, he thought, and gathered his qi properly. The roar that he heard this time was a lot closer, close enough that it might have startled him, but he felt an odd sort of approval filter through him at the fact that he was using claws, even if they were ramshackle. A remnant of the fact that he'd used the tiger's core to form his own, maybe.

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"Five Beasts Claw Art," Wu Hao murmured, pushing the qi into the required loop, and with an underhand throw he flung the same knife handle into the air, low enough it wouldn't hit against the roof. "Pawing Mole."

His hand lanced out in a slashing motion, like he was trying to punch something with the side of his fist. There was a soft tink of metal on wood and then the sides of the claws erupted with qi, building on top of the knives that he'd strapped to his hand and concentrating there, forming them into real, extended claws like those of a beast.

They tore through the wood like it was rice paper, leaving it to clatter on the ground in two halves. Wu Hao let the qi dissipate, pulled his hand out of the claw he'd made, and inspected the cut.

It wasn't smooth, and it wasn't a beautiful cut. His claw had ripped through the wood and left little hills and eddies in it, instead of tearing it cleanly in half. Of the three punctures that he'd made earlier, two were left at the top and one on the bottom half.

That was alright, though. It worked. He grinned, then shook his head.

He still had to make other preparations. It wasn't time yet to rest. There were other knives to engrave, and he still needed to finetune the claw. Not only that, but he also still had to meditate to top off his reserves again, after using the Five Beasts Claw Art.

Another knock came at his door, but he ignored it, and after a while there was a frustrated sigh and the man just left. No one bothered him after that, and honestly he was almost disappointed.

That was it? He'd killed two people twice over, and one person once, for something he could've just ignored?

He hadn't needed to fight at all.

It was a disappointing realization, mostly because he only now realized what an idiot he'd been. He'd focused for so long only on the next fight and winning that the thought of having to stop and consider that there wouldn't even need to be a fight at all hadn't even occurred to him.

Had there been other fights he hadn't needed to have? He'd definitely died deaths that hadn't been necessary, he knew that much. He couldn't have simply ignored several of the other fights he'd been in, but maybe this entire thing with Shan Kong had never needed to happen at all.

Wu Hao snorted, which nearly sent his fingers skittering the wrong way across his arrays on the butcher's knife. Eyes wide he hurriedly refocused himself. The butcher's cleaver would be one of his more intricate projects, and he couldn't afford to go down, break in, and steal another if he'd ruined this one.

The next morning, Wu Hao appeared at the courtyard. He'd actually slept, though not that much, and he still felt tired somehow. It wasn't the same physical tiredness as he'd had the last time in this courtyard, though - it was a more mental sort of strain.

If anything had changed for the servants or for Wang Hangsheng, Wu Hao didn't really notice, and he didn't really care, either. He stepped into the carriage and waited, shifting his sack onto the bench next to him. There was a small tink of metal butting against metal.

The old blacksmith's eyes opened. Ou Ziye, Wu Hao remembered, but other than that he knew nothing about the man. He was missing a leg and he wasn't a martial artist, but the same went for other people too, Wu Hao assumed.

"What've you got in there?" he asked, looking towards Wu Hao's bag.

"Nothing important," Wu Hao said defensively, and then realized how petulant that sounded. "A few knives, just in case. I want to be prepared."

Ou Ziye snorted, then paused and stared more deeply into Wu Hao's bag.

"They say that a bunch of kitchen knives have been going missing as of late," he noted. His tone was teasing.

Wu Hao felt a blush creep up his neck, reaching up until it felt like it'd spread all the way up his ears.

"I don't know what you mean."

Ou Ziye shrugged. "Not like I care. Forging knives and minor shit like that keep my apprentices busy and out of trouble."

Wang Hangsheng poked his head into the carriage, and then the rest of him followed. Ou Ziye eyed Wang Hangsheng, then was almost ready to close his eyes again before Wu Hao spoke.

"Do you have any experience with weapons other than sabers?" Wu Hao asked.

Ou Ziye's fuzzy eyebrows raised, and then he coughed irritably. Wang Hangsheng's fist rapped twice against the side of the carriage, and then there was a lurch of movement.

"Boy," he said. "I've been a blacksmith for thirty years now. That's twice as long as you've been on this earth, I'm betting. Are you doubting my credentials?"

"Do you," Wu Hao repeated, "have any experience with weapons other than sabers?"

What was it with these people and not just answering his questions? Had Ou Ziye's hearing gone from the constant ringing of forging steel and the blazing roars of the fires?

Ou Ziye grunted. "I do. More melting them down than forging 'em. You want a sword, boy? Because then you can put in a request with my fellow smiths and they'll gladly tell you to go get fucked."

"Good," Wu Hao said, leaning forward. "What do you think of claw weapons?"

"Don't like 'em," Ou Ziye said irritably. "Most of 'em have three blades, right? Some of them have even more for some reason. That's three times the maintenance. A saber's nice and simple. One edge, one handle. Easy to grasp, harder to master. Any martial artist worth his salt is able to pick one up and he's immediately effective with it."

Wu Hao hadn't thought the claw was that difficult. It could stab, it could slash, it could block. Yeah, it was kind of heavy, maybe a little clumsy, and the fact that the blades were attached to the hand made the impact sting, but he'd figured that those were problems with his own design. Besides, qi could take care of all of that.

"Seems like a bitch to get the gore out of," Ou Ziye remarked idly. "You'd get entrails tangled between the blades, wouldn't ya?"

He ran a quick hand through his beard, thinking.

"That what we're heading toward, then?" he asked, more to Wang Hangsheng than to Wu Hao. "Some sort of claw wielders?"

Wang Hangsheng grunted. "It's not your business, smith."

"It is my business if I want to keep all my limbs, isn't it?" Ou Ziye asked. "The ones I've got left, at least. If you lot start fighting it out..."

Wu Hao frowned, unsure if that had been a joke or not.

Ou Ziye's eyes slid back over to Wu Hao, considered him again.

"And you, boy? You want to tell me anything about what we're heading into?"

"Mines," Wu Hao said. "There might be someone from the -"

"Shut up," Wang Hangsheng said. His eyes opened a crack. "It's not his right to know. If he should have been told, he would have been told."

Wu Hao scowled. What, was the smith going to betray them to the enemy? That was absurd.

Ou Ziye shrugged, leaned back, placed a hand on his metal leg to stop it from shaking whenever they encountered a bad bit of road, and closed his eyes, as if sleeping. Wang Hangsheng followed, eyes closed again as if declaring the conversation over.

Once again, the silent, achingly slow ride over to the mines had begun.