Ten Thousand Tragedies

Wu Hao was, frankly, stuffed. They had brought in more food to mutters of approval and smacking of lips, while the arrival of more wine had brought raucuous cheers. Even he got to have some, and after a few swigs he realized he had no clue what to think of it except that it was strong, both in taste and in alcohol. That made sense, he supposed: otherwise you wouldn't even taste anything after eating so much of the spicy food the people from Sichuan seemed to adore.

He wiped his lips and handed the bottle back to the bootlicker who had given it to him.

"Thanks," Wu Hao said. "Very strong."

"Please," the man said. He was a dignitary of some prefecture - maybe even the Sichuan prefecture. Maybe not. Wu Hao had made no effort to remember. "Keep it. I'll get myself another. A good evening to you, young hero Wu."

After a brief cupping of the hands, the man left. Wu Hao was finally given a moment to think. His head was a little fuzzy, though he hadn't even had that much wine.

"You must be a second-grade martial artist," Tang Hui said, appearing out of nowhere to sit back down at his side."Congratulations."

Wu Hao grunted.

"How do you figure?" he asked.

"A third-grade martial artist your size would be face-down right now," Tang Hui said, matter-of-factly. "You consumed four cups of plum wine, half of a cup of osmanthus wine, and a few sips of baijiu."

Squinting, Wu Hao tried to make his own tally and failed. "Maybe," he allowed.

"Sober up," Tang Hui whispered. "We're about to bring you a present."

Wu Hao blinked. How exactly was he meant to sober up?

"It's like clearing a poison," Tang Hui told him, in what was supposed to be a helpful tone. He'd never learned how to clear poisons, either.

Although that did give him an idea. Concentrating to make sure he didn't mess anything up, keeping himself in as close to a meditative position as he could, he released just a bit of the control he'd kept on his qi. It washed through him - all of the exhilirating power at his disposal, though he was careful not to let it leak outside of his skin.

He exhaled, feeling like the drunkenness bunched up inside that single breath and, by exhaling, he had rid himself of the mind-fog that kept him in its grip. That was useful, Wu Hao thought. His mind had cleared. He did give the cup sitting at the table another glance, though. Drunkenness hadn't been unpleasant...

Priorities, he reminded himself. He did not want to end up like Uncle Bai.

"Done," he said quietly.

"Great," Tang Hui said brightly. Then, waving a hand, Tang Hui motioned for the servants to come. One man had been standing just out of sight, a martial artist in his own right, though only of the third-grade. In his hands he bore a small chest, with at its front an elaborate lock that was keeping the lid tightly shut.

"A gift," the martial artist said, loudly enough to be heard. "For the new disciple of an old friend, from the Patriarch. We sincerely hope you like it."

He set it down on the table. It didn't look heavy and it looked very ornate, so Wu Hao figured that it probably wasn't just money that he was being gifted. He squinted at the lock, received a quick annoyed glance from Master Shu, and remembered his manners enough to stand up and respond with an equally enthusiastic, "Thank you."

Then he sat down again, looking at the lock. It was engraved into the wood of the chest, but the arrays were complex enough that he hesitated before trying to touch the wooden chest.

"Allow me," Tang Hui said eagerly, and Wu Hao moved aside slightly to let Tang Hui at it.

Tang Hui's nimble fingers felt around the lock, before stopping. Something gave a loud click. Moving fast to a commoner's eyes, Tang Hui's hand darted inside their robe and plucked a needle from a pocket on the inside of the chest area.

"There," Tang Hui said. "Give me your finger, please."

Wu Hao looked at the needle, feeling a thin sliver of revulsion crawl up his spine. Memories from a year's worth of days ago welled up - paralysis, being unable to act or do anything except stare at the needle that was plunging down, and pain like he'd rarely felt it before.

"Why?" he asked.

"The case ought to be bonded to your blood," Tang Hui explained matter-of-factly. "So I need to prick you."

"And why does it need my blood?"

"Do you want anyone to be able to get their hands on this?" Tang Yue asked, from next to her sibling. Wu Hao hadn't said much of anything to her all evening, which had seemed to suit both of them fine.

He extended a hand. With a single deft motion, Tang Hui pricked the tip of his index finger, and he held himself steady. If a needle prick was bad, then two needle pricks would be worse.

Tang Hui lifted the needle, checking that the tip had was properly wet with blood, and then slotted the needle into place before pushing a thin thread of qi through the chest. Tang Hui's qi manipulation was still a little rough in places, Wu Hao noticed, though he might not have noticed as much if he'd still been a third-grade martial artist.

"There you are," Tang Hui said, while shuffling away to allow Wu Hao to look at their present again. "You can open it now. Just place your index finger against the lock."

He did so, ignored the pinprick of awareness that he got from the identification array clicking into place, and opened the crate. Inside the case, packed very carefully in two separate rows that were heavily padded with soft pillow-like cloth, ten small bottles lay, divided into neat groups of five each. The upper side of the chest bore the same thin hollowed-out spaces for the bottles so that they couldn't shift, no matter how rough the handling was.

Glancing at Tang Hui, who smiled at him, he picked one of the vials up, very carefully, and studied it.

There was a thin, translucent inside with a vague tint of green, maybe. It was hard to tell. The glass had been made thick all the way from the bottom to the top, where a cork had been wedged as deep inside the bottle as was humanly possible without shattering either the cork or the bottle. Thin arrays had been etched into the cork's underside where it might meet the liquid, and on top of the cork a single character had elegantly written: the character for "Fire".

Tang Hui was practically buzzing with excitement.

"And?" they said. "What do you think?"

"Poison?" Wu Hao asked, putting the bottle back. "Some sort of fire poison, judging by the writing?"

He felt a sudden, inexplicable urge to grab the bottle again, rip open the cork, and take a deep whiff, just to see what it smelled or tasted like. He restrained himself, though.

"Correct! That's poison harvested from one of the previous One-Heart Bean Flowers."

"The one that melts your bones from the inside," Wu Hao recalled.

"Exactly! I'm glad you paid attention. The one next to it is a poison that makes it so any wound you suffer won't stop bleeding for the next few hours. The third one is the strongest blood poison that the Tang Clan has records of. The fourth will cause so much retching that it'll feel like your stomach has been turned inside out. The fifth is a hypnotic agent that makes you extremely suggestible and calm."

"When you say suggestible," Wu Hao asked. "It's a truth potion?"

"People will say what you want to hear, unfortunately," Tang Hui said. "The Tang do not have truth potions. We really don't."

That was a very specific denial, but that was a conversation for a later date.

"What about the second row?" Wu Hao asked. It hadn't escaped his attention that Tang Hui's fingers had pointed only to the bottles on the first row.

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Tang Hui's eyes lit up. "That's the really cool part. You saw the match earlier. Do you remember what my father said?"

Wu Hao thought back.

"Medicine and poison are differentiated only by dosage?" he quoted, mostly guessing.

"Yes, that's exactly it. The bottom row is a set of mirrored poisons to the first row. The one in the first row is the fire poison, as I said. The one in the second row is the antidote."

Wu Hao picked up that other bottle. Inside the small bottle, through the thick glass, he caught sight of a powder which had been scraped into the bottle, filling roughly as much space as the liquid poisons did. On its cork the character for cold had been engraved.

It looked just like another poison, he thought. In fact, comparing the bottle with several others, there was almost no difference in the bottles except their contents and the characters at the cork.

And then he got it. He lowered the bottle from where he'd been holding it against the light.

"This is a poison too," he said. "But it's also the antidote?"

Tang Hui smiled widely. "It's amazing, isn't it? It's so clever. It was part of father's idea."

"How does it work?" Wu Hao asked.

"These poisons have been chosen for their mirrored properties," Tang Hui explained. "The cold poison mirrors the hot poison, meaning both serve as antidotes for the other. Should you ever need to offer up a remedy to someone inflicted with one poison, then give them an equal amount of the other one and they'll survive."

"Survive," Wu Hao said, staring at the bottle that he'd been holding. "But not in peak condition?"

Tang Hui blinked. "That's a good question. I don't think so, no. I think you'd probably feel very ill. Other than that, I think it depends?"

Tang Yue laughed softly from where she'd been listening in, then began an explanation.

"Combining hot and cold poison would result in severe dehydration and cause intense pain," she began. "Other side effects are possible total liver failure, heart attacks, lung failure, and so on. As to the second..."

Wu Hao tried to keep track of the various symptoms, but he got about as far as the word dehydration and then his knowledge was totally exhausted.

When he said as much, Tang Yue shook her head and smiled at him. It wasn't the sort of smile to make your heart skip a beat, though - it was just that Wu Hao had said something mildly witty, apparently. He himself hadn't realized.

"You would probably shit yourself," Tang Yue said, smiling at Wu Hao. Tang Hui giggled.

Right, Wu Hao thought. He put the bottles down - very carefully.

"I'll try not to do that, then," he said.

"Yes," Tang Yue told him dryly. "Probably for the best."

Another giggle.

Wu Hao studied the chest. As far as presents went, it was dangerously lethal, probably not wise to give to a child no matter how talented, and he couldn't really think of any ways to put it to use that weren't going to end in someone dying a violent, painful death, that someone probably being him.

He loved it.

"Thank you," he said, and did his best to offer a proper bow. "To you both for the explanation, and to the Sovereign for the consideration. This is a very nice gift."

"Well said!" someone nearby said, and was met by mutters of approval from those who hadn't sunk into a drunken torpor yet. "I suggest a toast, to young hero Wu! May he win many more Winter Solstice Tournaments in the future!"

Wu Hao smiled awkwardly at the praise, at least until another cup of wine was pushed into his hands. After that, the evening went on as it had before that, and he didn't quite mind so much anymore.

The next morning he and Master Shu set out bright and early, though only through the miracle of qi. If not for Wu Hao purging himself using qi again, he was fairly sure that he might have not been awake before some time in the afternoon, and certainly not fit to travel besides. The celebrations had lasted the rest of the night, even after the Tang siblings had gone to bed and wu Hao had been persuaded to do the same.

He risked a glance at Master Shu. The old man's veil was up again and as solid as it had ever been, but Wu Hao had a certain feeling in his gut: Master Shu was disappointed that he didn't have a hangover bad enough to kill. Although maybe that was just his imagination speaking.

Wu Hao stared up at Master Shu, who stared back.

"What is it now, brat?" he asked gruffly. "Are you so in awe of my strength, now that you've seen me cut loose?"

"Could you have won that?" Wu Hao asked.

At least Master Shu didn't bother to pretend that he didn't know what Wu Hao was talking about, or that he had won. Wu Hao was certain that Tang Shibai could have easily continued the fight, even if the blast that Master Shu had arranged had caught him head-on. Wu Hao might have not survived, but even Wu Hao could have at least tried to dodge, one way or another.

"Boy," Master Shu said, before stopping and sighing. "What is winning to you?"

"Surviving," Wu Hao said automatically. "And achieving the reason why you're fighting."

Master Shu nodded, and from the look on his face Wu Hao gathered that this was more intelligent than Master Shu had expected, especially after a night of hard drinking.

"True enough," he said. "Then why do you think I should have won at all?"

"To establish your credentials?" Wu Hao asked, mostly guessing.

"And displease our hosts?" Master Shu asked in return, shifting slightly in his seat. "Again, what purpose would that serve? Neither Tang Shibai nor I profit from going all-out, except serving the simple purpose of swelling our ego and possibly gaining ourselves an enemy. Spars can be educational, boy, but spars can also be a show of support, regardless of who wins. This way, we both win."

"Right," Wu Hao said, ignoring all that because his question hadn't been answered. "But -"

"I could have won," Master Shu said, exasperated. "But not without either Tang Shibai or I killing everyone in attendance and the rest of the mansion besides. Even then it would be a very close thing. Is that what you want to hear, brat?"

Wu Hao just nodded. That would satisfy his curiosity, for now.

"There are more important things, in any case," Master Shu said. "While you were making an admirable attempt to reach the state of enlightenment through drink, I was negotiating and discussing business long after you went to bed."

That got Wu Hao's attention, at least.

"As a result, I can safely say that we now have our second ally in the fight against the Demon Cult," Master Shu said. A faint twinkle had returned to his eye. "And the first stones are always the hardest to get rolling. Sooner or later, boy, we'll have an avalanche."

Wu Hao wasn't entirely convinced, but he let it go.

"Right," he said, and leaned back against the side of the carriage. He shifted a little bit, trying to get himself comfortable. "So where to next?"

"Yunnan, boy," Master Shu said.

"Yunnan?" Wu Hao asked. He opened his mouth, thought better of it, and pulled the book out on the great powers of the Jianghu to check what kind of large sects were there. More unorthodox sects, he hoped.

The master stopped him, though.

"There, we will find allies who have been some of the most reliable anti-Demonic warriors that the jianghu has ever seen," Master Shu said. "The Diancang Sect."

Wu Hao stared in mute horror into Master Shu's smile. Distant memories of the bitter cold and the scraping feeling of ash inside his lungs forced themselves to the front of his mind, as well as the faint smell of peaches and the knowledge of exactly why Du Linglong had been there at all.

Out loud, though, he just said, "Fuck."