I wasn’t going to make it. That was the simple truth I realized even as I sped down the hill, slipping my brass knuckles onto my fist. Someone was going to die, here. Jing’s family all sat around the fire talking quietly to one another and to a pair of the women I didn’t know, unaware of the looming threat. I was on the wrong side of the camp, and whatever those things descending on the women were, they were freaking fast. Their bodies undulated from side to side as they swarmed over the hill, racing down it toward the camp. I could see the woman in their path; she was one of the ones obviously pregnant. There was no way she could get away, and even with qi powering my legs, I would never get to her before they did.

“You have a technique for that,” Sara reminded me. “Lightness of Being. It makes you faster, remember?”

I hadn’t remembered, as a matter of fact. I also had a technique for healing that probably would have been useful after the battle in the quarry – although I was pretty low on power at that point. It might not have worked. Still, I had plenty of juice in the battery right then, so I carefully channeled qi into the correct pathways and activated Lightness of Being for the first time.

The world around me seemed to drop into slow motion as celestial energy flooded my brain and limbs. My vision was tinged in a pale, silver radiance at the edges that made it look like I was seeing everything through an old-timey flashback. I didn’t feel like I was moving faster, but the camp sped past me in a blur. The women were moving at an almost ponderous pace, and as I raced past the fire, I saw Jing’s eyes widen very slowly as her head swiveled in my direction. I ignored her and rushed toward the attacking creatures, darting around women that seemed almost stationary to my qi-enhanced mind.

The technique wore off an instant later, and the world shifted back into regular speed around me as the odd sheen to everything faded. I felt ponderous and slow compared to how I’d just been, but I’d covered most of the camp in a fraction of a second, and now I was closer to the pregnant lady than those things were. I rushed past her, pushing her behind me as I did with maybe a bit more oomph than was necessary, then set myself for the monsters’ attack.

That close, I got a much better view of the creatures than I had from across the camp. They looked almost like jet black centipedes; they had ten-foot-long, chitinous bodies with innumerable legs, and they moved in a winding, sinuous fashion. Their jointed limbs ended in what looked like three-toed claws, the claws set in a triangle that probably let them grasp better. Each had a long, needlelike protrusion from their hind ends that probably injected poison, and it looked like their sides and backs were bristles with rows of thin spines that might have done the same.

Their heads, though, looked nothing like a centipede’s. The heads were round and bulbous, the black chitin shell making it look like they had an obsidian egg perched on their bodies. Two large eyes dominated their skull; the only other feature was a pair of cones that sat where a mouth might have been. How these things ate, I couldn’t even begin to guess.

As the first of the creatures neared me, the front half of its body reared up. It darted its head forward, and I dodged quickly to the side. I didn’t see how the thing could hurt me, but I had to assume it wouldn’t have struck at me without a reason. A moment later, I was glad that I’d moved as the pair of cones on its face uncoiled into twin, barbed lashes that swept through the space I’d occupied. The thing sucked its coils back to its face and turned toward me, but as it recovered from its attack, I moved swiftly forward. I lashed out with my knuckled fist, slamming the spiked weapon into the underside of its carapace with a loud crack. Its shell fractured beneath my blow, and my follow-up jab with my left hand punched through its armor and into the flesh beneath. The monster recoiled and scrabbled at me with its claws, but I jumped out of the way and prepared to cave in its skull with my next blow.

Sharp pain lanced through my left calf, and I looked down to see one of the monsters’ tendrils jutting from my leg. The wound ached dully, and the tendril began to glow silver as I felt a drawing sensation in my leg.

“It’s draining your qi, John!” Sara said in an alarmed voice. “That must be how it feeds!”

I didn’t really care about its biology; all that mattered to me was getting that tendril out of my leg. I reached for the tendril to pull it out, but it didn’t seem necessary. The creature yanked its tongue, or whatever that was, out of me abruptly; a moment later, the appendage burst into silver flames, and the monster scrambled back.

“Huh. Looks like I give them indigestion.”

“The rest of them don’t know that, though, John, and they could kill you finding it out.”

“Good point.”

I realized my mistake; I’d been still for too long. The centipedes were fast, and they’d moved quickly to surround me. I needed to stay mobile, dodge their attacks, and land blows where I could. This was going to be a battle of attrition, one where I killed the creatures with a thousand cuts. I dove past one as it lunged and rolled to my feet, then slipped past the scrabbling claws of another. I slammed a fist into the back of that one, cracking open its exoskeleton, then leaped sideways as a third lunged for me.

I jumped and spun, moving constantly through the creatures. I focused entirely on defense, only striking when it was safe to do so. Even so, I wasn’t getting away unscathed. More of the qi draining tendrils pierced my flesh, slowly sucking out the energy I needed to continue the fight. They burst into flames moments after drawing my energy, fortunately, but each attack still sapped some of my strength. Claws raked along my arms and legs, opening thin, red lines. One of the tail stingers even got me in the back of my leg. I felt a brief burning sensation when it sank into me, but that passed quickly, and I seemed otherwise unharmed.

Something flashed in the side of my vision, and I spun swiftly to see Jing appear. She lashed out at one of the giant bugs with her foot, then spun to avoid a lashing tendril. She moved fluidly and gracefully, almost as if she were dancing through the bugs as she fought. Her feet barely seemed to touch the ground, and her legs moved with grace and precision as they batted away the centipedes. I gritted my teeth as a wave of irritation swept over me. I really didn’t want her help, in all honesty. She’d rubbed me totally the wrong way lately, and part of me wanted to shout at her to get the hell out of my fight.

However, I wasn’t fighting these things for fun. I was exterminating them before they could hurt the women I was protecting. If it had just been Jing and me out here, alone, I might have told the woman off. However, I had a job to do, and I quicky realized that Jing’s presence made that easier. She was a distraction for the creatures, drawing some of them off me and allowing me to attack more frequently. I lashed out with fists, knees, and elbows, cracking carapaces and crushing skulls. Without having to worry about being totally surrounded, I dodged the beasts’ attacks with far greater ease and didn’t take any more injuries. I crashed through the centipedes, tearing them open and spilling the thick, viscous ooze that seemed to be their blood across the ground.

When the last one fell, I turned to watch Jing for a few moments. The woman’s kicks were fast and powerful, and she wasn’t having too much difficulty cracking open the bugs’ shells. However, she seemed to be struggling to damage their flesh beneath; her follow-up blows lacked penetration. I could see the problem right away. The creatures’ armor was tough, and she lacked the natural armor penetration that my qi gave me…and, I supposed, my Pugilist profession, as well. She could crack their armor, but to get through it, she’d need to hit a lot harder. That would slow her down and commit her to an attack that she’d need longer to recover from. The issue with that was that the creatures were fast enough that slowing down might open her up to an attack from them. To hurt one, she’d need to take a risk and hope that she could recover before they took advantage.

As I watched, it seemed that she came to the same decision. A spinning back kick cracked the underside armor of a centipede, and an instant later, she seemed to fly forward, blurring as her extended foot crunched through its shell and buried itself in its flesh.

“That’s a technique,” Sara told me.

“Is it one we can copy?”

“Not easily, no. She’s using air qi to carry her and propel her forward.”

“Too bad. It looks useful.”

Unfortunately, while the technique was useful, it also left Jing standing motionless for an instant, her leg extended as she regained her balance. The centipede she’d struck flew backward, but as it did, it lashed out with its stinger and pierced the flesh of her extended thigh. Its own momentum jerked the barb free a moment later, but the damage had been done. Jing brought her leg down and spun to face the rest of her foes, but as she did, she wobbled slightly.

“She gets poisoned a lot,” I observed silently.

“It does seem to be a common thing for her,” Sara agreed.

The woman’s feet still swept out at the monsters, but I could tell right away that the poison was affecting her. Her movements weren’t quite as perfectly fluid. Her kicks were a fraction of a second slower, and she needed a tiny bit more time to recover from each. The centipedes were taking advantage of that, swarming her and pressing closer with each passing second. When a draining tendril lashed out and struck her in her lower back, I decided it was time to help out.

As it turned out, it wasn’t needed. One of the centipedes quite literally exploded in front of me as Wim appeared, seeming to materialize out of thin air. Even with my heightened senses, I couldn’t track his movements. He simply blurred, and another centipede died, this one crushed flat against the hard ground. He swept through the remaining bugs in a bit over a second, reducing them to chunks of broken chitin and splatters of clear goo. It was amazing to watch, and I realized that I had a much longer way to go in that whole cultivation business than I thought.

When the last of the creatures was nothing more than a pile of crushed flesh and broken exoskeleton, the old man stood still and looked at Jing, who still swayed slightly on her feet. “Daughter, are you well?” he asked.

“Y-yes, Shifu,” she bowed her head. “I will be able to clear the toxin without assistance.”

“Good.” He turned to me. “And you, Xu Xing?”

“I’m fine, teacher,” I bowed my head. Even as I spoke, though, I was aware that the movement of my lips wasn’t matching the words I was hearing myself say. It was a jarring feeling, and now that I was aware of it, it made talking feel very awkward. “I don’t seem to have been poisoned.”

“I will be the judge of that,” his wife said crisply, walking past the old man and standing before me. She laid a hand on my chest and frowned. “Hmm. It seems to be as you say, Xu Xing. You were fortunate not to receive a dose of the Many-Legged Qi-Eater’s venom.” She walked over to Jing and touched her similarly. “And you are correct, as well, daughter. This poison is well within your ability to purge. Return to the fire and cycle your qi, and you will be well.”

“Yes, mother,” Jing bowed to the old woman, then trudged off toward the center of the camp, her steps heavy. The old lady sighed as she watched her daughter walk away, shaking her head. “Foolishness,” she muttered softly.

“Were we any different at her age?” Wim asked calmly.

“No, which gives me hope for her.” The old woman turned to face me. “Xu Xing, come assist me in harvesting the corpses of the Many-Legged Qi-Eaters.”

“Harvesting?” I asked.

She nodded. “They have an organ in which they store their qi venom,” she said. “It is a useful ingredient to create medicines that counter other toxins.”

Or to poison people that needed it. Obviously, I didn’t say that, but I thought it. “Okay, how do we get to it?”

“We must open its carapace, of course, and cut the organ free.” She looked up at her husband and shook her head. “Save for the ones my husband obliterated, of course. Those are likely ruined beyond retrieval.”

He shrugged unconcernedly. “The beasts are Wood-ranked, wife. I cannot be blamed for how easily they die.”

“True, but you could have restrained your blows to preserve the organs for me.”

“I chose not to out of concern for our daughter, however.”

“A fair reason.” She turned back to me. “Watch as I perform this task, Xu Xing. You will do the next one.”

I watched as the woman counted thirty-two sections back from the stinger, then slipped her knife into the joint between the thirty-second and thirty-third. She slid the knife around the edge until the chunk of chitin pried up. She discarded that and cut into the flesh, making thin slices, opening it a layer at a time until she revealed a brown, globular sac. She carefully cut around it and lifted it out, holding it gently.

“The Many-legged Qi-eaters use water and wood qi,” she explained. “The water powers their bodies; the wood strengthens their shells. However, in this sea of grass, they take in far more wood qi than they need, and they store it in this gland.”

“So, that’s what? Liquid qi?”

The woman laughed. “No, young one. That is a different substance entirely, and one that can only be found in the dantians of truly powerful practitioners. This is merely a secretion infused with wood qi. To use it, I must distill the qi from it, discarded the useless liquid. It is a delicate process, and one that I shall not perform until we are in the city, where I will have adequate facilities.”

“It sounds like you all have a home there,” I suggested.

“Not as such, but there is a place for my husband and me. His former school always welcomes him, and the Amber Teardrop Society will greet me with open arms.”

“What about Jing and Jia?”

“You do not ask about yourself,” she chuckled. “I notice this and wonder what it implies for you when you reach the city.” She glanced over at me, her eyes twinkling. “My daughter is not truly angry with you, Xu Xing.”

“I know,” I shrugged. “She’s angry with herself, and she’s taking it out on me.”

“It is astute of you to understand that. I am impressed.” She pointed to the next creature. “You may attempt to harvest that one.”

“I’ll need to borrow a knife, then. I don’t have one.” I held up my hands with a shrug.

“Ah yes. Your only weapon is your spiked finger rings. Here, you may use this one. I have another.”

The woman coached me as I worked, but even with both her and Sara guiding me, I accidentally punctured the first organ. And the second. And the third.

“You’re cutting too deeply,” Sara told me. “You have to make lots of shallow cuts. The organ’s held in place with a ton of connective tissue, and all of that wants to guide your knife right into the gland you’re trying to remove.”

It took me three more attempts before I managed to pull one of the organs free from the creature without slicing it open. The result was a lot messier than the old woman’s had been, with bits of muscle and what looked almost like thin cartilage hanging from it, but at least the thing was intact.”

“That is sufficient,” she told me, taking the gland from me and cleaning it off with swift, deft movements of her knife. “I do not wish to lose more of these. You can return to your vigil, Xu Xing. The Many-legged Qi-eaters were certainly not the only beasts out this evening.”

I used some of our water to clean up, looked at the spot I’d been on before, and changed my mind. It was too far from the opposite end of our camp if another fast creature attacked us. I moved to a more centrally located hill, instead, sitting just below the peak so my silhouette wouldn’t be visible against the starry sky. I’d lost some qi in the battle, and I could feel the moon hanging low in the horizon, bathing me in its light, so I started absorbing qi and cycling it, trying to replace what I’d lost.

I managed that for all of an hour before I saw Jing’s shadowy form emerge from the darkness of the camp and move to stand over me. I simply sat, silently, focusing on my qi spiral and the careful pattern I was building in my dantian. The silence hung over us for long minutes, but I was fine with that. I really didn’t have anything to say to her, and I wasn’t much concerned by whatever she thought she had to say to me. At least, so I thought until she actually opened her mouth.

“Our fates are balanced, now, strange one,” she said. “My debt is paid.”

I blinked in surprise. “What are you talking about?” I asked irritably. “Our fates? Your debt?”

“The debt of my life,” she said flatly. “You saved me from being killed or used by the cursed’s Chief, and I owed you a debt for that. Tonight, I repaid it by saving your life. We are in balance, now.”

I actually laughed aloud at that. I saw her back stiffen up and her eyes blaze with anger, but I couldn’t help it. “Lady, you seriously think you saved my life?” I gasped after a moment. “From those…whatever they were? Really?”

“It was fortunate that you were not poisoned, but eventually, you would have been. Had I not intervened…”

“First of all, I was poisoned,” I cut her off. “I got rid of it, the same as you, just a lot faster. And second of all, I didn’t need your help. Sure, you made it easier for me, but I was killing them before you arrived. All you did was speed things up a bit.”

Her face reflected her fury, and I couldn’t care less. “I will not be indebted to you,” she hissed. “You are a fool who knows nothing of the Heavenly Path. Xu Xing, I chall…”

“Enough,” Wim appeared suddenly between the two of us. His face was angry, but it seemed that anger wasn’t directed at me. At least, not entirely at me. “Daughter! Were you truly intending to challenge Xu Xing?”

“I…Shifu…” she stammered, but the old man wasn’t having any of it.

“Be silent!” he commanded, and she fell still instantly. “I reminded you of your debt so that you could have a chance to repay it, to show how valuable your own life is to you. And you challenge the one to whom you owed the debt? Had he accepted, win or lose, you would have proven to all that you are faithless and without honor! Was this your intention?”

“No, Shifu,” she said softly.

“Return to the fire. Think on your actions, and consider how close you came to forever ruining your spirit!”

“Yes, Shifu,” she mumbled, turning and walking back toward the camp. He watched her go for a bit before turning his baleful eyes on me.

“And you,” he said, his voice disappointed. “You know that she views your every success as her own failure, yet you chose to laugh at her? As if her very existence was meaningless to you? Have you no respect at all for her honor?”

I hesitated before speaking. “Do you want the truth, teacher?” I asked quietly. “Or do you want me to make up a comforting lie?”

He froze, and I thought he was going to hit me, but instead, he sighed and sat down beside me. “That answer, in and of itself, tells me all I need to know, Xu Xing.” He looked at me directly. “You plan to leave and make your own way once we reach the city, yes?”

“Yes,” I nodded, not seeing the point in hiding it from him.

“And you do this because of my daughter. Do you truly hate her so?”

“No,” I shook my head. “I don’t hate her. I just…” I stopped and gathered my thoughts. “She’s impulsive, passionate, stubborn, and idealistic, teacher. She thinks everyone is honorable, and she acts without thinking.”

“All of this is true, yes,” he nodded.

“Well, I’m not like that. I’m a planner, teacher. I take my time, think things through, and only act when I’m sure of the results. I had a plan at the quarry, and Jing ruined it because of her honor and impulsiveness. That almost got her killed, almost got me killed, and almost got all those women killed.”

“I am aware of this. Shi Lo was not forthcoming, at first – I think she was trying to shield my daughter – but eventually, she told the story that you did not.” Well, that explained why they were talking to the women.

The old man stayed silent for a moment. “It is our fault, Xu Xing,” he finally said.

“What? What’s your fault?”

“Jing’s actions. They are our fault. Mine and Dancer-in-Flames. As her parents, we must accept the burden of our daughter’s choices.”

And that answered another question of mine. Now I knew Mom’s name, too. I promptly decided to call her Dif. Dancer-in-Flames was just too long.

“We made the choice to raise Jing – and later Jia – far from the city,” Wim continued. “We did not want her subjected to the machinations of the societies and schools, both of which would use her to influence or harm us. We wished to shelter her from that side of human nature, at least until she was strong enough to protect herself.”

“She seems plenty strong, teacher.”

“Oh, she is. She is quite skilled, and should she simply learn to use her other weapons in combat and rely less upon her feet, she will be a match for any near her age and rank.” He looked at me. “Our initial thought was to bring her to the city five years ago, Xu Xing. I would enroll her in the Brilliant Desert Sea, and she would begin to learn of the wiles of men and women. And yet…”

He sighed. “I waited. I thought her still a child, not prepared to face the wickedness she would see. And so it was the next year, and the one after that. Each year, I told myself, ‘She is too young. Wait another year’.”

He looked directly at me. “Do you know why I sent the two of you to clear the quarry of the cursed?”

“I know you could have done it any time you wanted, teacher,” I shrugged. “I thought that maybe you wanted Jing to learn that everyone isn’t honorable and trustworthy, and that there’s a difference between dueling and fighting.”

“You understand precisely,” he nodded. “I expected the two of you to be at the quarry for some days. I thought that once my daughter saw how many cursed there were, how they treated their captives, and how brutal they were to one another, she would realize that life is not like the stories of great cultivators that I told her as a child.”

I sat silently, considering his words. I mean, he was right; it kind of was his fault. Still, I didn’t really know what that had to do with me. It wasn’t my problem, and I didn’t want to make it mine, either.

“Thank you for sharing that with me, teacher,” I said slowly, “but it doesn’t really change my decision…”

“Nor should it,” he agreed, rising to his feet. “And yet, Xu Xing, you saved my daughter’s life. This creates a bond between the two of you, a debt that she must repay.”

“Teacher, what if I don’t want her to repay me? What if I just tell her we’re even?”

“That will not make it so, Xu Xing.” He shook his head. “Your choices are your own, and you must make them as you see fit. Yet, know this: should my daughter not repay her debt, the shame and guilt will stain her spirit. Such a wound could permanently damage her cultivation and turn her from the Heavenly Path. Should that be the case, then she will inevitably send herself to her next turn at the wheel.”

“Are you telling me that if I don’t let her repay her debt, she’ll kill herself?” I asked disbelievingly. “Are you trying to guilt me into helping her?”

“I am attempting nothing, Xu Xing. I merely give you the information that I deem pertinent to to the decision you must make. I cannot make it for you.” He looked up at the sky above me. “The wheel is endless, Xu Xing. All things come around again, if we are but willing to wait – even those things that we inflict on others.” He shrugged. “Then again, no one may truly know what the wheel brings. Decide as you will. In the meantime, I will continue to teach you, as will my wife, as our repayment for the gift of our daughter’s life.” He smiled. “We do not hold it as cheaply as perhaps she herself does.”

As he walked away, I sighed and rubbed my eyes tiredly. “You know, for not trying to make me feel guilty, he sure as hell did a great job of it,” I complained silently.

“I think that was the point, John.”

I stared at the dim flames of the distant fire. “Do you really think what he said is true?”

“I think it might be. I know that in this world, a person’s mental state can affect their cultivation. If Jing felt a deep-seated anger or guilt toward you, it might alter how she cultivates, maybe even take her down a path that isn’t suited for her. I couldn’t tell you about the rest, though. That’s all cultural, and I don’t know the culture here, yet.”

I groaned and let my head sink into my hands. Now, it appeared, the old man was asking me to babysit not just the women we’d rescued but his own, damn daughter. It wasn’t my problem; I didn’t want it to be my problem. He was making it my problem, though, and I was fucking letting him.

If I was smart, I’d slip over the hillside and disappear into the night. I’d find the city, somehow, and leave all this shit behind me. That was the smart thing to do, the practical thing to do. The old man would protect the women and see them to the city. Jing would get over it, or she wouldn’t, but it wouldn’t have anything to do with me. Sure, I’d lose out on the training the old couple could give me, but hell, I wasn’t planning on being on this world all that long, anyway. I wouldn’t have to live with the consequences. Why was I making this my problem?

I had half-risen to my feet as I realized what I was about to do. This was how the old John would have solved this. He would have disappeared, left the pieces for everyone else to pick up, and never looked back. That was what I’d done with my family, my former friends, even the few women I fell for over the years. I told myself that I was doing it for them, to protect them from the dangers of my life, but that wasn’t it. I’d created those messes, then ran from them before I could become bogged down in them.

And there I was, about to do it again. This was supposed to be my second chance, but I was making the same bad decisions I had the first time around. I was meeting anger with derision, kindness with contempt, and responsibility…with cowardice. Did I really want to be that person all over again? If I wanted things to be different, then I had to be different. At the very least, I had to try.

I sighed again as I resumed my lonely vigil on the hillside, and swore silently for several minutes. I might have to act like a goddamn adult…but I didn’t have to fucking like it.