《BODY&SHADOW》048: good ideas
Advertisement
Gao Suilian was rarely ever up before half past eight and always rose with the unapologetic insistence of her militant father. He, trained by a life lived between Yunji and the conflicts Luanshi raised him for, always rose at dawn and banged around their shared home with little consideration for things like beauty sleep or five more minutes.
“Daaaaaaad,” she groaned from beneath her cave of blankets, freckled cheeks crinkling with the scrunching of her discontent. “It’s too eeeeeeearly uuuuuuggggghhhhh.”
“It’s never too early to start a good day’s work,” Gao Erxun replied, voice steadfast and foundation firm as he flung the windows open to let the morning light transform his daughter’s somnolence into a fit of enraged hissing. “If we didn’t live on the Tian estate, you’d’ve been up two hours ago—up with you.”
So began Suilian’s day: a quest for petty revenge to soothe the burns of a bad start.
She began by taking tea and breakfast with Miyan, empathising with the Princess’ left-behind misery. While Miyan missed both her brothers, Suilian wore a sour face knowing the elder Prince was gone and she wouldn’t catch a single glimpse of him for the whole week—a whole lifetime if the Millipede challenge ended in failure. She took her frown to the market and haggled extra aggressively for three bolts of fabric for new matching clothes for her and Miyan. She demanded the stablehand prepare a horse for Ren Fei with her dry voice and her deadpan eyes. She prepared a travel pack for him herself and placed a small confection inside for Tian Xiaoxu.
It was mid-morning by the time Gao Suilian got around to taking her early-to-rise misanthropy out on the sleeping Ren boy occupying Tian Yuhui’s bed.
“Get up,” she demanded, ripping the covers off the wounded boy’s body. She stood over him like a judgemental pillar, unwavering, shadow cast long over Fei’s bedside. “Ugh, how are you still sleeping.”
Gods, Suilian wished she was still sleeping.
“Suilian!” Fei shouted as he bolted upright, ripped from his slumber with a high strung force that nearly reached the pitch of a shriek. “What the f—what is the m-meaning—”
“Your horse is ready,” the girl replied, unphased by the noble boy’s indignance. “You’re going to Yunji to train with everyone else, right?”
“Yeah, but—”
“No buts,” Suilian said, brows set stern over sleepy eyes. She tossed Fei the pack she’d prepared for him. “There’s a present for Young Master Tian Xiaoxu in there. Get dressed and make sure he gets it.”
Advertisement
x x x
It was noon by the time Ren Fei was setting off on one of the Tian clan’s black mares, riding past The House of Endless Dawn on his way out of Fanxing City to join his brother and their friends.
Inside, Feng Quan excitedly slapped at Ma Yixun’s arm, nearly knocking over his own teacup in the hurried and incautious movement, the wide sweep of his robe’s long sleeve.
“Yixun, Yixun!” Quan leaned forward in his upper-story study, face nearly flush against the window set with the perfection of upper-class clear glass. Noontime conspired with the overhang of the house’s roof to fill the room with a wealth of shade, dampening the bright vermillion accents of his clan’s influence to a deeper red. All of his gold treasures were similarly dimmed. Curios full of possessions acquired and priceless baubles kept tucked away from the world lined the Feng son’s walls sat in a swathe of passive shadow. “Tian colors on that horse but it’s not one of the princes—who the fuck? Oh! Wavy hair! Yixun, it’s Ren Fei!”
Yixun withstood his friend’s assault with his tea almost to his lips, carefully holding it aloft as he waited for Quan to get his enthusiastic attention scrabbling out of his system. Growing tired of waiting, Yixun slapped the blonde’s hand away so he could finally drink his goddamn tea.
“So?” The words were terse in the puppeteer’s mouth. He squinted at his friend. “Who cares where that runt is going?”
“I do! He’s obviously on his way to Yunji to go train with the Tians and his brother. You know what that means, right?” Quan pulled himself away from the window, giving his friend a quick but hard look before he was on his feet. “We can nab him before he joins up with them and use him for our own benefit.”
The platinum blond stomped off toward his door, ready to abandon his steaming tea. “Come on, if we get the horses ready now we can intercept him outside of the city.”
“Or we could get started early on our training with Ban,” the younger of the pair said, quickly downing his tea before Quan had a chance to come back for him. “We could focus on our techniques and develop some strategies to counter the maneuvers we know the princes will throw at us.”
Pausing, Quan glanced back, quizzical brow bending the line of his typical harshness. “What? Why would we do that, Yixun?” He leveled his stare on his friend with two-tone hair, expression shifting as if his own intentions were obvious and culminated in a much better plan than that suggested. “If we have Fei, then we have any ability that is pulled on us. We have all the counters instantly. And the Tians and Ren Li will be so hurt by Ren Fei’s betrayal.”
Advertisement
Yixun was always ready to go along with his best friend’s worst laid plans even when his mouth played devil’s advocate. He rose slowly, setting his teacup on the table. “What if they get one of Xueyu’s crazy disciples to replace him since they’re up there?”
“Does it matter? Fei can just mirror it. If they bring it to us, then we can just use it against them.” The platinum haired deviant tilted his chin sidelong, frown threatening to rain on his malicious parade. “Gods, Yixun, it’s like you don’t even want to do this with me.”
“You know I want to,” Yixun replied as he found his way to his best friend’s side. He bumped the blonde’s shoulder on his way out the door, waiting for the more regal boy to follow. “Just gotta make sure that in ten minutes, you’ll still want to do this too.”
“I don’t back out of my own ideas, Yixun.” The statement was a partial truth. The reality of Quan’s situation was that he remained perfectly content to turn-tail for the sake of his own convenience, willing to betray as long as it suited his needs in the immediate moment. His friendship was a liability. It always had been and it always would be. As long as the boy continued to value money and items over the needs and feelings of others, himself raised upon a pedestal high, high above everyone else, then his days would continue as usual: flippant, subject to the tossing of his duplicitous whims.
He hurried after his friend, gathering his long hair into a jumble with an even longer segment of bright, golden ribbon. It shimmered even in the shade of the hallway as he passed the Ma boy, shone brightly even as he shouted down to the courtyard for a servant to prepare a pair of horses.
Quan glanced back to Yixun, confidence augmented by platinum sobriety. “I only have good ideas. You should know that by now.”
x x x
The sun was high above the pebble-strewn road, blocked by nothing, hot and beaming. Behind the pair of riders from The House of Infinite Dawn, Fanxing City shrunk into a distant perspective. Every noise was now natural, grasshoppers and the chirp of crickets long replaced the sounds of civilization.
“Ugh, we lost so much time,” Quan griped.
“If you didn’t complain about your tack chafing your ass so much, we’d have caught him by now,” Yixun grumbled, trawling words somewhere between a complaint and a taunt. “Fuckin’ wounded rabbit outrunning that expensive warhorse.”
“Shut up, I did no such thing.” The blond shot a look aside, glaring as intense as the day. “You were the one who was wasting time back home, drinking tea and hemming and hawing.”
“Owwww Yixun,” the two-toned boy whined in a tonally accurate, cruelly exaggerated imitation of his platinum friend. “Slow down up this hill, my taint can’t take the rub of this plebeian saddle–“
“Fuck off.” The noble steered his horse nearer to his friend simply for the satisfaction of reaching a leg out and nudging the man. “That doesn’t even sound like me. This saddle is FAR from plebeian.”
“That’s funny, it’s not made of solid gold. It doesn’t even have any emeralds or jade on it. This is definitely tack made for Poors, Quan.” Yixun’s mockery carried an air of curious disbelief as he leaned over, as though he had an actual interest in inspecting the saddle. Instead, the puppeteer utilized his proximity to smack his friend’s horse in the hindquarters, sending the startled stallion galloping through the trees.
“That’s a better pace!” Yixun shouted as he kicked off after his friend. “Let’s get that Ren!”
In an instant, Quan was little more than the flutter of branches trembling in his wake, leaves rustling in memory of the body that was sent tearing through their shadowy spaces. A few feet ahead, he was battered by twigs. The blond boy possessed a network of small sticks in his hair, hangers on too clingy to let go and the remnants of a low-hanging bird’s nest worn like the world’s saddest, dullest crown.
The Feng son gathered up the reins after a few rapid, harried moments and pulled his horse back into a controlled canter but he was fully scowling now, determined to pay back his best friend at some point, vendetta lovingly sworn in the solemnity of his silence.
There was no one left to observe Feng Quan’s displeasure; the sound of galloping hooves drowned out his petty huffing. Ma Yixun was gone, a memory dashing far ahead, a pariah dog hot on a wounded rabbit’s blood trail.
Advertisement
Solo Player Arvin
Arvin was a genius back on earth. With eidetic memory, he was able to enter college at the age of 15 and could have become one the greatest genius on earth after graduating college…
8 1893Kairos: A Greek Myth LitRPG
Available for purchase on Kindle Unlimited and Audible! It has been centuries since mortals unlocked the secrets of the Fate System and overthrew Mount Olympus. The old gods are dead, and their thrones are empty. Kairos, a young pirate with the ability to speak with animals, has an ambition: to ascend as the newest deity of a flooded world. But divine power is not given. It is taken.Now Kairos must sail the endless sea, tame fearsome monsters, and conquer new lands. The challenges are many, but he will face them all. For Kairos is a cunning [Rogue] indeed... Cover by Vitaly S. Alexius.
8 509Infestation
The world is being overrun with 'hives', corrupting buildings into nests for monsters. The unlucky people in a building when a hive emerges either die, witness someone die, or gain otherworldly power. The latter are known as 'users'. Charlotte, a recently emerged user with the rare power of precognition, has found herself stranded with little to no support and a desperate need to get some money. She's weak and so teams up with a stranger to clear hives together but life quickly falls into disarray as her situation and paranoia compound.
8 160Contact Through Voided Lenses
[participant in the Royal Road Writathon challenge] Edit: Fixed some inaccuracies in the synopsis. The void is a vast unexplored ocean filled with various wonders and dangers all waiting to be explored by those brave enough to travel and record. Many souls do find themselves brave enough to face the vast distances, the various risks to personal safety and do the hundreds of task required on a craft. However, at times the void itself can be boring with absolutely nothing to do but as time pass and more and better technology is reached, things got better. The various trips got faster, communications became faster than light and you can be home to see your loved ones after only months now. Through the various planets whether rocky or gaseous, the various stars whether small or giant, the various systems both eerily similar or completely alien. As part of an expeditionary scientific exploratory survey craft, one could see that the void offers no reprieve from all the discoveries and wonders. At times, it can feel empty and silent where no soul can hear you scream and at others it can be overwhelming with sudden phenomenon that can overwhelm the brightest of minds. The void itself is a truly fascinating ocean where one must chart the various islands or drown in its deadly tidal waves. But the question still remained no matter how you try to hide it in of itself… is there truly other intelligent life out there? Are we alone in this ocean? Those very questions still haunt the minds of those on the crafts themselves as they brace for every jump ready for the unknown and the known. Many would try to explain that yes there is other intelligent life out there whilst other still say no after 2 centuries of continuous flight out of the home system. Still, those are questions that bury deep in the minds of the crew and those at home as the voidcraft jumps to a system with a single yellow star orbited by 8 other planets with one crowning blue jewel being the 3rd closest with its 5 oceans and 7 continents, a planet called Dirt which is inhabited by a primitive species called Humanity. Hello, author here and this is my newest dive into writing particularly for the Writathon currently in progress being my first one. I hope you give me story a try but in case you still want more information on what you’re getting into, below are some pointers about the story itself. First Contact: CTVL is a story about a first contact scenario between an advanced alien civilization and a slightly more advanced modern day humanity on their planet called Dirt. Characters: The story will take place mainly on the perspective of the alien visitors themselves though there will be human POV characters who will show how the rest of humanity react through media and forums. Action: It won’t be an actual alien invasion but you have to see for yourself how well first contact went. Sci-Fi: I will be very forward here, I WILL bend the rules of physics in order to add in parts of the plot and there WILL be parts that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Theme: It will be a brooding story talking about the futility of pe… Just kidding, it’s mostly wholesome stuff to be honest here. Alien: The aliens themselves will… actually why should I tell you, you have to go and read it to find out what the aliens are though I will draw a few things here and there to aid in the process. Extra tidbit: If you are a grammar nazi or someone who really wants a realistic scifi story... this story is probably not for you at all. Anyways, that’s pretty much all I can say before I spoil something major of the plot itself, the story is slice of life so make sure that type of story is what you like because I am terrible with anything else as I found out, anyways, have a good time everyone and good luck to the other Writathon participants.
8 158fanboi | taekook
Taehyung is a "fanboi" of BTS, because "fanboy" is too mainstreamthis is cringy aka don't read it 『Completed』
8 202Naruto- Neglected Prodigy
This story is about Naruto. In the begin he had nothing now 10 years later he rich. Neglected by his family than turning rich. Naruto still love them but will they love him back. This is a High school Story.Naruto x Saki《FemSasuke》Note: I don't own Naruto. Masashi Kishimoto does.
8 143