Alice

The needle flew from Granny Meng's finger, soaring silver and true.

The immortal's palm rose carelessly to block the needle. There was a slight ping that echoed through the shell of the greenhouse. The needle carried only a whisper of Granny Meng's qi, but when it ricocheted, that was enough for the shattered glass on the floor to rattle and shake.

"You want to fight me, Dao Mother?" Kong Fu sounded incredulous. "Very well. Heaven’s will shall bring you enlightenment."

He drew his palm back, and suddenly he was beside Granny Meng, towering over her. The palm strike looked slow, almost exaggerated. It was aimed at her heart.

Granny Meng raised her hand above her head with deliberation and then lowered it to meet the palm strike with an outstretched middle finger. There was no sound, but the shockwave from their clashing qi was instantaneous and unforgiving.

Alice threw herself onto Daoist Liang yet again as the blowback blasted shredded plant parts and chunks of dirt past them. Alice blinked. The colors in the greenhouse suddenly seemed more saturated and bright.

I'll be waiting...

"Such a talented junior," said Kong, his voice distorting and rippling to resemble Alice's own. "To comprehend in a single glance-"

Until the sky falls down.

"-the nature of the Dao Mother's Fingers of the Falling Sky."

He was smiling at her. Alice didn't like that.

“Though even the blind could see the power of the Star-seeking Palm."

Kong pushed.

There was a squelch as Granny Meng's bench sank deeper into the loam of the greenhouse's dirt floor. Her hand was colored a pallid shade with both age and strain, Her nails were bloodless and white. She shook.

"I have never understood why the Dao Mother does not cultivate our own Skybound Scripture more diligently." Kong pushed harder, and the bench sank deeper. Granny Meng trembled from the strain.

"Don't you know what sort of lineage our Skybound Scripture has? Anyone who cultivates it would know of its many discontinuities - would notice its disquieting aphorisms that start profoundly - only to end with something banal to motivate the student. Everyone knows that the quality of the scripture is too good to be from this lower-"

Granny Meng's forefinger flicked upwards to join her middle finger and its force blasted Kong back a step.

"Oh?"

"Kong Luming was correct in her judgment of you. Despite your talents, you are ungrateful, shortsighted, and treacherous."

"Better than you, Dao Mother. Both you and the Widow are one and the same - weak. That's why I’ve ascended while you wear white in her memory."

He drew his arm back once more and whipped it at Granny Meng, so quickly this time that Alice couldn't see the motion - she could only feel the displacement of air, could only feel the glass flying as Granny Meng blocked it, this time with her own palm - a mirror of Kong's technique. The cracking sound of the impact hurt Alice's ears.

Granny Meng smiled. "Luming taught me the Star Seeking Palm when she and I were both outer disciples, Kong Zhixin."

"Do not refer to me by that name," spat Kong. Where their palms had met, there was heat, there was off-white light - a corona had formed, a halo that obscured their fingers.

"For how much you revere the Skybound Scripture, you still never found the courage to demand it in full from the woman who named and raised you. And still you skulk here, dressed in the skirts of our disciples, ever causing trouble for them. You fear the Sword Fairy."

Abruptly, Granny Meng's fingers opened and grasped at the immortal's, pulling him forward instead of pushing him back. Her other hand flashed with the silver of a needle - it was aimed upwards and outwards.

It traveled through the air and looked like a sure hit. But even as it was about to embed itself into the soft of Kong's throat, without any noticeable change to his Story, the needle swerved past him and flew out of the greenhouse into the distance.

There was a sudden hesitance from the old woman that Alice disliked very much.

"Fate?" Granny Meng queried.

Kong chuckled "Are you surprised by my control over this aspect of the Scripture?" He turned to Alice. "This sort of power could be yours, little one."

Alice didn’t like that at all.

“You just have to follow me to the Unending City. It is the fate of those who have the talent to swim upstream, Chow Mulan.”

“You want to kidnap a disciple of the Ascending Sky in front of this old woman?” Granny Meng thrust both palms forwards.

They slammed into Kong’s chest, throwing him back ten feet. He crashed into a well-manicured bush laden with unripe berries. The bush had already caught a storm of glass from the shattered windows - now those shards tore into the immortal’s robes.

Moisture. The air was warm and it smelled of wet earth, of mud, of flowers. Expanding from the apertures of Granny Meng’s left hand was a golden glow. Surrounding her right hand was a film of liquid - water.

A Classic of Rain and Sun, whispered the silkworms.

Kong stumbled to his feet. All traces of humor were gone from his face.

“You are wounded,” Granny Meng decided.

“Not by you,” spat Kong.

“Isn’t this an ironic situation? Between the three people in this greenhouse, there is perhaps a single set of whole, undamaged meridians. Your Yang Qiao and your Dai are fully ruptured. You have lost your stance in the world and you have unresolved experiences.” Granny Meng sneered. “Your Principle has been wounded. We have a word for your kind in this humble realm you so disdain - Paper Immortal.”

“Proof that I not only survived censure, but refutation in turn. And, unlike the Widow, I’m still alive!” Kong surged to his feet, murder in his eyes. He was fast, faster than Alice’s eyes could track - all she heard was the buzzing of his Story as his palm met Granny Meng’s hastily raised elbow, blowing her - and the bench she sat on - several feet back.

The qi she held in her hands flickered and then went out.

Granny Meng slumped to her knees on the floor.

“Pathetic,” spat Kong. He turned to Alice. “You, too, are wounded. I am no healer, and I can make no promise to cure you, but I-” he pointed at the stripe of his wrist, “am an elder of the Imperial Truth Sect, and we have some of the best healers in all of creation. When you arrive at the Unending City as my student-”

“She is not going anywhere with you.” There was a surge of qi, colored by Principle. Granny Meng sat upright,more needles flying from her fingers. The needles missed their mark, but she had followed directly behind them to reach the immortal. She struck at him with the bone of her thumb.

It looked inevitable, for her thumb to sink into the side of his head, but right as Alice imagined the pink spray of blood and brain matter, right as Alice imagined the sickly squeal of displaced flesh and the soft wet thump of Kong’s body collapsing to the dirt, Granny Meng’s thumb stopped short.

Alice narrowed her eyes - did Granny Meng have reservations about killing?

Granny Meng’s qi exited underheel and she pushed off the ground to disengage with a smart hop backwards. She didn’t look away for even a moment.

From the way Kong’s eyes narrowed with a glint of concern, Alice was sure he too thought Granny Meng should have scored a decisive blow on him. Still, there wasn’t a trace of hesitation as he bent forward, tucking his chin to duck his head under the imminent threat of her hands. He drew his foot back like a soccer player taking a penalty shot.

Alice didn’t see the kick in motion, but she did hear it lap the speed of sound in a lashing crack, and she did feel the insistent, inevitable pressure driving her back from twenty paces away. The remaining shards of glass between Alice and the fighting cultivators were blown back by the shockwave.

Granny Meng’s open palm came down in a frantic slap. The air around the hand shifted in waves and rippled with qi that flooded from her apertures. Alice understood it - not quite a shell, not quite armor, something that wasn’t quite glass.

The tip of Kong’s foot collided with her qi-coated wrist. There was a sharp crack as her hand bent back at an unnatural angle followed by an even sharper sound of glass shattering. The hand whipped past her, pulling Granny Meng with it.

Her lower body collided with the edge of the bench’s stone slab, seating her with enough force that spiderweb cracks bloomed outwards from the point of impact.

That wasn’t nearly enough to slow her down. As Granny Meng and her bench skidded across the floor, her other hand jerked forward and caught the corner of the bench, digging knuckle-deep into the stone as if it were made of butter.

The whisper of her Story grew louder as she threw her qi not against the force of the strike she’d caught, but at a right angle, redirecting the momentum to pull the side of the bench into a hard turn.

The intensity of her qi grew louder yet again as her qi continued to push parallel to the stone slab, whipping Granny Meng and the bench into a spin. The legs on the bench drilled into the dirt so quickly that the soft earth beneath her began to smoke, blanketing the destroyed greenhouse with a smell close to burnt plastic and closer still to charred wood as the bench dug through the dark soil.

Kong did not wait for Granny Meng to recover. He surged off the ground in an arcing jump until his hair almost touched the skeletal steel lattice that had supported the greenhouse’s glass roof. His body hung airborne for a split second, then balled his right hand into a tight fist just over his heart.

The whispers of his Story intensified tenfold as he slowly straightened his elbow to point the fist at Granny Meng, who had slowed enough for Alice to see her gritted teeth and pained grimace.

Right before Kong’s fist stretched out in full, Alice felt the qi of the world around her - from the surviving plants, from the still-unconscious Daoist Liang, from the sound of her own silkworms - pull towards Kong.

“I’m sure your funeral will be lovely,” Kong assured Granny Meng. Alice rolled her eyes.

The fist opened slowly into a palm, drinking in the streaming qi.

The silkworms hissed angrily. Alice tasted blood.

The palm bulged, almost bloated.

Kong jerked back as if he’d been struck, pulling his hand back and landing on the ground.

Alice swallowed heavily. She tasted iron. Granny Meng finally spun to a halt, taking gasping, heaving breaths.

Kong’s finger traced the too-visible veins on the back of the hand he’d been gathering qi with for a few seconds as it shook and seized, still thick and bloated. He threw her a glare, then stabbed at several points along his arm with the finger.

Alice was too curious to keep her mouth shut. “Are you closing your apertures?”

“I am,” Kong replied, sweat glistening from his brow. His finger found more and more apertures.

“What’s wrong?” Alice asked. She immediately regretted it when Kong’s face darkened. She was reasonably certain that any of the blows he’d exchanged with Granny Meng would have killed her instantly.

His glare intensified and his qi surged.

“Kong Zhixin is angry that his Principle is shallow, vapid, and small, that it is in all ways inferior to one formed by a seventeen year old girl, and that he will shortly lose his life because the Fate he thoughtlessly tried to borrow without permission is too heavy a burden.” Granny Meng sneered at him, clutching her broken wrist.

Kong turned back to Granny Meng and spat on the ground, then withdrew a well-polished dagger from the folds of his robes. Without a hint of ceremony, he brought it down halfway between his wrist and his elbow in a glint of steel.

Alice caught a glimpse of chalk-white bone as blood spurted from the open wound. Kong slipped the dagger back into his robes. There was the whisper of his Story as it surged within him, passing from his core to his meridians. Kong pressed the fingers of his remaining hand against the flesh of his palm.

He brought the hand close to the open wound and opened it. There was a sudden roar of qi. In his cupped hand was a flame burning pale yellow, almost white. He pressed the flame against the wound and shuddered.

The quiet sound of sizzling and the horrible smell of cooking meat filled the greenhouse.

“Twice,” said Granny Meng merrily.

Kong looked up at her, eyes narrow. “What was that?”

“Nothing,” she said. “This old woman is just talking to herself.”

There was a short silence.

“What did you mean by-”

The sound of thunder echoed in the distance. The whispers from Kong’s Story intensified.

Takechallengebecome. It will be mine.

Granny Meng and Kong both turned towards the same direction.

“Someone to the south has parted the clouds,” said Granny Meng. “Open eyes see very far, Kong Zhixin. If I were in your position, I might be worried that-”

“Were you under the impression that I wouldn’t recognize the echo of an Earthly Tribulation? Are you trying to threaten an immortal with the ire of Heaven in the mire of a lower realm?” Kong wore an ugly grin. “Are you so naive as to believe that the divine value mortal lives?”

Granny Meng shook her head. “I am not. But I think there’s a reason you’ve returned to Tianbei. The sort of theft you practice is aberration.” She returned a sneer just as nasty. “If you aren’t worried, why have you shrouded yourself in your Principle? Go ahead, give your vile technique another try and we’ll see who’s right.”

“I have more than enough ways to end your life,” Kong growled.

His qi surged again.