Ten Thousand Tragedies

Wu Hao stared at the beggar, who'd kept a glib sort of smile on his face as he'd said the line about rejects. The silence stretched and that smug smile began to waver at its edges, as if straining to be kept up.

"Whatever," Wu Hao said.

Despite saying that, though, he did consider it. The Martial Arts Alliance headquarters, huh? It'd have a library, that was for sure. And there'd be a lot of martial artists there.

He'd heard vague stories of the Chongqing headquarters when he was younger. Old Qin had mentioned once that it was the center of the Jianghu, where more martial artists resided and worked than anywhere else in the world. He'd also mentioned that there'd been other places in the past where the Alliance had been headquartered in the past, but even Old Qin hadn't known why they'd moved.

What Old Qin had been sure of was the sheer scale of the place. He'd insisted there were markets there the size of towns, and if something wasn't sold in either the aboveground or the underground markets then it wasn't sold anywhere. There were supposedly palatial mansions, maintained at the expense of the Nine Great Sects and the Five Families, that were so immense and beautiful that even the Jin clan compound would feel like a hovel compared to them. The qi there was rich, the people competent, and around every corner adventure was supposed to lurk.

Wu Hao didn't believe all of that, but what the hell. It made as much of a destination as anywhere else. If he could arrange to show his talent to someone important, he might be rewarded. Obviously, he'd refuse mentorship offers out of sheer principle, but there might be opportunities to make some money or a name there.

He might even be able to expose that the Heavenly Demon Cult was to return in a few years. If the Alliance was warned early, then they might win the war instead of being locked into the stalemate that he'd seen, or maybe they could prevent the war entirely. They'd reward him for that, right?

And as for the Union, well... he'd see when he got there. He obviously wasn't going to join them, that was for sure, or if he did then he'd join them maybe for a few weeks to see if they'd give him the secrets he wanted and then reset.

Not for the first time, the sheer utility of being able to return in time at the cost of just a few deaths ocurred to him. At least if there were no accidents like fainting.

"I might," Wu Hao admitted.

The beggar grinned, showing broken and browned teeth. "Attaboy."

"Shut up."

Shrugging his shoulders, the beggar leaned back. His eyes fell to his staff and Wu Hao's foot, still placed on top of it protectively.

"You don't got to keep hold of that," he said. "I'm beaten. You're not gonna kick a man while he's down, are you?"

Wu Hao very deliberately did not step off the staff.

"Rude," the beggar said, sniffed, and spat. "Whatever."

A momentary silence hung in the air. The beggar leaned back down and let himself fall against the wall, sliding down slowly into a sitting position.

He coughed. Wu Hao felt his lips twitch, either into a frown or a smile he wasn't sure. The beggar looked up at him, and then an idea seemed to occur to him.

Wu Hao could see the man's qi twist a little bit as he considered it, then decided just to go for it.

"Listen," the beggar said, and leaned forward. "If you ever meet someone like me - someone from the Union, I mean - then hand them this."

His hand snaked into his shirt, and when it reappeared he was holding a sort of coin, pierced through in the middle. Two lines had been burned into the metal with a hot iron, for some reason.

"What's that?"

"It's a token," the beggar said. "My token. Shows you're a guest of the Beggars. Don't forget the key phrase, though. 'Wind whispers through the willows; the dogs shiver.' That's very important."

He flipped it around, offering it to Wu Hao. A sort of flash of bittersweetness threaded through his qi before it faded into a general, dirty mess of all sorts of colors. If Wu Hao had spent more time with the man, he might've untangled it.

"It's pierced so you don't just spend it," the beggar added. "Don't go handing this off to just anyone."

A thought seemed to strike him, then, and he added: "Tell 'em it's from Greasy Bao. That's me, by the way."

Wu Hao hadn't actually accepted the token, yet.

"A guest of the Beggars?" he asked.

The beggar - Greasy Bao, though Wu Hao didn't intend on calling him that - tried to grin.

"Yeah," he said.

"What does that mean?"

Greasy Bao spat on the ground, then grinned. "What's it mean to be a guest anywhere? Good treatment. They'll help you out with a little food or a safe place, if you need it. They won't help out in fights or if their own lives are at stake, though. And it works only once."

"Right," Wu Hao said. He still didn't take the coin. "And in return?"

Licking his teeth, Bao tried another smile. "What do you mean?"

"Nothing in life is free," Wu Hao said. "So. What do you want or expect in return?"

His tone was harsher than perhaps it should have been, but at the offer of help he couldn't help but think of the Jin clan and the "opportunity" they'd offered him by buying out his contract.

"Well," Bao said, and considered the question carefully. "How about a favor later? If someone from the Beggar's Union should ask for the favor, let's just say you should earnestly consider it, yeah?"

"That's all?" Wu Hao asked. "What if I never repay that?"

"Then either my insight's wrong or the Union's doing worse than I thought."

Wu Hao stared at the man, trying to feel out his qi. Bao was feeling a lot of things - pain from where Wu Hao had punched him, a sense of yawning but minor unease as the silence stretched, a sort of repressed excitement. He didn't really spot any attempts to be dishonest or trick him, though. Either this Bao was a greater liar than Wu Hao had seen before or he'd simply not been trying to trick Wu Hao.

It still didn't make much sense, though. No one did anything just because they felt like it. One of the things that Lady Jin had said that Wu Hao had agreed with was that benefits were eternal, even if friendships weren't. There had to be some benefit to handing him this coin.

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A part of him suggested that Jin Qilong had decided to take in Old Qin as a favor to Wu Hao, but that was different. They knew each other and also Wu Hao hadn't really fought with Jin Qilong the way he just had with this Bao.

Was this a tracker, maybe? Wu Hao stared at the two lines burned into the metal of the coin. It wasn't even really a coin at all, honestly: he'd seen a few different types used across the land during his stay with the Golden Lotus Company, but this was a make of coin that he'd never seen before. That and the design on the coin seemed to have been made with the hole in the middle in mind, which wasn't the case for the coins he knew.

The lines didn't tell him anything, either. He saw no qi tether to the coin itself so it couldn't really be a tracker. There was no smell to the coin even in his enhanced senses - although it did look like it'd stink, that was more thanks to having been stored inside Bao's clothes. The point was, there was no trace of it bearing tracking scents or anything, though he'd only ever heard of those in random ramblings Jin Qilong had told him at some point or another.

No qi, no scent, not even an array or anything. It appeared to be nothing except a simple hunk of metal with a specific shape.

Wu Hao didn't trust it, but in the end he snatched the coin from the beggar's hand.

"If this backfires," Wu Hao said, "I'm hunting you down and we're finishing this."

"Right," Bao told him, raising his hands in surrender. "Sure."

Bao's qi showed that he didn't believe that Wu Hao's threat was serious. But it had been. If this was another trap or something Wu Hao would absolutely send himself tunnelling back through time to find this Bao again and beat his teeth in.

"Wind whispers through the willows," Wu Hao said dully. "The dogs shiver."

"Yeah, that's the phrase," Bao said. "Good job."

"Can I get food?" Wu Hao asked.

"Oh," Bao said. "Yeah, sure. Let me see what I got."

He rummaged around in his possessions. Wu Hao kept his foot on the staff just in case, but then Bao's eyes lit up with a sort of recognition and he pulled out a paper-wrapped packet from a bag that'd been sitting nearby, and he gave a triumphant sort of grunt.

"Found it," he said, unwrapping the paper and pulling something out. "Here."

Wu Hao looked at what he'd been offered, which was a dark chunk of jerky of meat that he couldn't identify. It wouldn't have looked too appetizing, but he was famished, and he wasn't in a position to try and reject food that he'd been offered.

"Fine," he muttered. "Whatever."

If this was poisoned and he died, then it was poisoned and he died. It'd be a lesson, if nothing else.

He bit down into the jerky, tore a chunk off with his teeth, and didn't bother to hide his noisy swallowing. He'd expected something that tasted bad, but this was... fine. About as tough as he'd expected and largely flavorless, but it was good just to get something between his teeth.

"Feels like feeding a stray dog," Bao whispered to himself, and smirked despite Wu Hao giving him a silent glare.

As Wu Hao ate, he kept his eye on Bao. If there was ever a time when the man might rip his staff from the ground and beat Wu Hao, it was now, when he'd have his hands full and the knife was back in his belt...

He didn't, though. Mostly he used the respite just to feel across his face where Wu Hao had punched him and rub at his shins. There wouldn't be any open wounds or anything but there'd be heavy bruising, probably.

An odd feeling crept over Wu Hao. Despite the fact that the beggar had started the fight, he'd given Wu Hao food afterwards. Was this guilt, maybe?

Deciding to stow the emotion, Wu Hao rose to his feet. "Which way is the headquarters?"

Bao pointed with a thumb, hooking it out as if to point towards the east.

"There's a sequence of towns along the way," he said. "Follow the road. There'll be people following the same road. Ask one of the merchant caravans, but they usually don't like our kind."

Huh, Wu Hao thought. Maybe he could try and hitch a ride with one of the people there, if they were pulling along a caravan? The Golden Lotus Company did so sometimes, transporting travellers. They'd have to pull their own weight or pay handsomely, and since he couldn't pay it'd be almost like trying to relive his earlier life as a porter.

Though, then again, who'd accept him, looking like he did? His clothes were filthy rags, his face grimy, and he'd need about three baths just to get anywhere near clean.

But maybe he could use that? They might feel pity...

Something else caught Wu Hao's attention, though.

"Our kind?" Wu Hao asked.

While he was thinking, though, Bao had settled back into his little hideout. His staff had returned to its hiding place underneath the bundle of his stuff, where it'd probably serve as the pole on which the beggar tied his bindle.

"Yeah," Bao said, shifting his hips so he could sit more comfortably against the wall. "Beggars."

"I'm not a beggar."

Bao raised an eyebrow, looked Wu Hao up and down, and grinned.

"If the shoe fits," he said, and chuckled to himself. "Or the lack of 'em."

Wu Hao's face flushed, and without another word he set off.

"See ya, kid!" Bao said as Wu Hao walked away. "No hard feelings!"

Before dawn had covered the town with its glow, Wu Hao had set out again. He'd stopped at the river to refill his stock of water and he'd kept the rest of the strips of jerky from Bao, which meant that for once he was fairly well-provisioned. His mind was still in something of a haze from the lack of sleep, but he'd deal with that by sleeping once he was sufficiently deep in the wilderness.

The coin he'd shoved into a pouch. He wasn't sure if he'd ever use it, though.

Grimacing, shielding his eyes against the dawn, he trudged along the long road. It wasn't so different from where he'd started last night. He was still hungry, still dirty, still sleepy and tired.

But at least he knew where he was going.