Author's Note:
Hello! I've watched Forbidden Kingdom many... many times. It is one of my favourite movies, although China doesn't like it much but... China has been beefing with America so I say meh to China and American crits of this movie. I like it.
Anyways, this fiction was inspired by the moment where Jason wakes up and finds Lu Yan and Golden Sparrow gone. The qquestion is where did they go. My corrupted mind initially thought, they were doing something but of course my rationale mind was like, Lu Yan and Sparrow don;t seem to be the type. So this is my explanation of where they went. It also adresses the issue of the White Witch seemingly knowing Sparrow (at least to me it seems like they know each other).
Enjoy!
The Jade Pin
The screaming has stopped. The stomping of hooves, the high rising smoke, the shouting of soldiers has stopped. The darkness of night has stopped, only to be replaced by the bright sky of the morning.
"Mother!" I shout for the umpteenth time and like the previous times, I receive no answer. I know I cannot stay at the bottom of this well for much longer. I must climb out or risk my death. My small hands grasp the rope and I begin climbing out of the bucket that my mother had used to lower me down into the well.
Not even halfway up, I already feel my arms begin to burn with exhaustion. I look down at the water beneath. I cannot stay there! I ignore my tired hands and continue up the rope. My hands begin to blister from the rope burns but I make it to the top.
My breath catches in my throat as I look out at my home... as I look out at the burnt houses and the dead bodies laid out across the streets I played on just yesterday. I leap from the well's mouth, lest my grief weakens my grip.
I walk about the destruction, tears streaming down my face while I wail for my mother and father to take me away from this horribleness. I stop when I spot a familiar dress on a woman laying face down in the mud. Running to the woman, I collapse at her side.
"Mother?" I call out again.
My trembling hands wonder to the arrow embedded into her back. The arrow is exquisite, its shaft is carved with an intricate pattern and it is crowned with a small gem and the feather of a rare bird. I know who this arrow belongs to from the texts I had read with my father.
"Jade Warlord." The man who my father opposed was the very man who killed my mother.
I wipe the tears from my cheek and it is then that I stop crying. For I know that if I want to avenge my mother, my father and all the people they ruled I had to cease being a crying girl who hid in a well while her people were being slaughted. I had to cease being the pampered girl of a governor. I had to cease being myself... to achieve vengeance, she must become something else.
/
She stares at the starry sky as her male companions snore peacefully. Sighing to herself, she turns over. Sleeping next to a tree is the Seeker of prophecy, Jason Tripitikas and next to the dead fire was the Drunken Immortal Lu Yan.
Giving up on trying to sleep, she walks over to the sleeping Immortal and shakes him gently. "Wake up. Wake up."
In his slumber, Lu Yan turns over, showing his rear to her before passing gas loudly. She scowls before shaking him again, this time he stirs into the waking world.
"Sparrow? Why do you wake me?" He begins feeling out on the ground, most likely for his elixir, wine.
She reaches the gourd first and hands it to him. ""She has a request to ask of the Daoist Immortal."
"Ho ho, don't you think I'm too old for you, child?" the immortal says before tipping the drink into his mouth. She smiles and leans in conspiratorially closer to her. "I say you should go for the Seeker," he nods at the sleeping foreigner, "I see the way he looks at you..."
"She wishes that you check the authentic of this," she shows Lu Yan a jade pin.
Lu Yan takes it from her and inspects it. "What is it?"
"A Jade Pin said to be able to kill Immortals," she says carefully as not to scare the very Immortal she speaks to. He does not show fear. Does he trust her already?
"I hope you are not suggesting I test it by killing myself."
"She does not!" She takes the pin back. "The Immortal has lived long and knows many things, therefore, he must be able to test it."
Lu Yan gazes at the full moon. "I may have a way.
Town of Lanterns
She followed Lu Yan through the forest. Light filtered through the tall trees from the sun rising in the horizon. She watched as he took a drink as he stumbled on.
"The Daoist has not told her where they are going," she feels herself becoming annoyed the longer she followed the stumbling man.
"We are going to the river."
"Why?"
Lu Yan stopped and she almost crashed into him. He turned to her.
"I thought you wanted me to test if your jade pin was the real deal," he said.
"Is that what the drunk is going to do?"
"Hey, stick to Immortal Drunk, it sounds better than just... drunk." Lu Yan turned on his heels and resumed forward.
"Can the Immortal Drunk tell her where he leads her?"
"To the river," Yu Lan looked up at the moon, slowly fleeing the morning sky. "We need to get there before the moon sets."
"She understands," she nodded.
"May I ask," the Daoist asked after some time, "where did you get the Jade Pin?"
"That, Daost Drunk, is a long story..."
/
She looked down on the town from her high peak atop a building. The streets and the shops were all alight with lanterns with different insignias on their surfaces. She jumped from roof to roof, heading for the most populated areas of the town. She stopped when she reached a crowded area with something that caught her attention.
Her ears picked up the feint sounds of a pipa. She scanned the area, looking for the musician. There was a flash of white from the corner of her eye, causing her to whip her head to the side.
Nothing...
She narrowed her eyes at the empty roof adjacent from her before returning her attention back to the area below. That is when she spotted the pipa player, an elderly lady who sat on the floor. Most did not pay attention to the grey haired woman but some were kind enough to throw in a few coins into her straw hat.
She leapt from her high perch and landed on the ground below before making a bee-line for the old street musician. She stood before the woman who stopped playing to look up at her.
"Fei Liu?" she says to the musician.
The old woman smiles and reaches for her straw hat. The old woman flicks the straw hat at her, coins scatter onto my face, blinding me. Her legs her swept out from under her feet, making her land painfully on the ground. Wasting no time, she gets up and chases after the feeling old woman who places the pipa onto her back by the strap around her shoulder.
The street musician may be deceptive but old age makes her slow, making her chances of catching up better. She quickly closes the gap between her the musician. The old woman stops beside a donkey. The old woman pats the donkey's rear, causing it to kick back.
She stumbles back, dodging the hooves that would have sent her head rolling off her shoulders, and falls on her back. She sits up in time to see the donkey ride away with the woman laid across the mule's back. The musician gave her a peace sign and a wink as she rode away.
She will not let this woman get away. If she truly is Fei Lu, then she must not escape her!
She chases after the musician on the galloping mule. Unlike the old woman, the mule was much faster than her, opening up the gap between them. She stopped and took a side route, if she could not catch up to the mule in a straight line, then she would take a shorter path.
The street the mule was galloping on was singular with no adjacent roads big enough for it to use, however, the narrow alleyways was big enough for her to traverse through and catch up to them. She took a left, then a right before skipping over a trash can before taking another left.
The exit was close and from the galloping she heard, so was the mule and its rider. She came out as the mule passed by and flipped over its back, snatching the woman, who was now seated on the mule in a riding position, off. Twisting in the air, she softened the old woman's fall by lacing her body between the street musician and the ground.
The old woman began pathetically beating on her. She rolled the woman onto her back and withdrew her short sword which she pressed to the old woman's neck, which made her stop her struggles.
"Why did Fei Lui try to run away from her?" Now that the old musician was subdued and her mule watching in confusion, she could ask her questions.
"I'm-I'm not Fei Lu." the old woman said. "You are mistaken child."
"The old woman cannot fool her!" she said. "She knows you are Fei Lui. You are the right age, you play the pipa and travel on a mule. You are Fei Lui."
"Fine. I will lie no longer!" the old woman said. "I am proud of my birth name and I shall die embracing my identity. So do it, slit my throat!" The woman exposed all of her neck to the blade.
She withdrew her blade from the Lei's neck. "She is not here to slit your throat but to ask you for your assistance."
"Then you better ask quickly," a woman with hair as white as snow said, appearing from nowhere, "for I came to plunder and slit throats."
"Who are you?" she asks the white haired woman.
"I am Ni Chang, who are you, girl?"
"Golden Sparrow," she says.
"Golden Sparrow, be weary of this woman." The old woman says. "This hag has been hunting me down across the land."
"Hmm... I find it funny that such an aged crow like you would consider me a hag," The woman says.
"That's because you've been hagging me!"
"Give me what I want and I may leave you in peace."
"What is it that you want?" she asks, breaking into the two women's conversation.
"She wants a weapon that I have, that is capable of killing an immortal."
She whips her head to the woman after she says this.
Her action causes Ni Chang to laugh. "I see you are after the same thing, Sparrow."
"Why am I not surprised!" Lei Fui throws her hands up in frustration.
"She seeks the weapon to kill the Jade Warlord for murdering her mother and father," she says.
"Ah, so you're an orphan seeking vengeance." Ni Chang says.
"Why do you want it?" Fei Lui says.
"As a back-up plan," Ni Chang says. "I wish to build an alliance with the Jade Warlord in order to obtain the elixir of immortality."
"She does not understand. If Ni chang wishes to build an alliance with that devil, then why would she seek the weapon that could kill him?" she says.
Ni Chang giggled, covering her mouth before looking at her with stern eyes. "Let me tell you something, Sparrow, men are untrustworthy. The knife you use to prepare their dinner will be the same knife you will need to stab them in the heart with when they betray you. Now will you give me what I want, old woman, or you will not live to regret it."
"What you want is a family heirloom, the last thing I have left of them." The old woman gritted whatever little teeth she had left and clenched her fists. "I would never give it to you!"
"If you will not give it, I will take it!" NiChang withdrew a whip. It unfurled to the ground.
She steps forward in front of Fei Liu. "She will not let you hurt her."
Ni Chang winds her whip back and flicks it forward.
She does not fear for the distance between the whip and her is too great. To her surprise, the whip's tendril extends. She raises her hands in defence and the whip winds around her wrists, tying them up.
"It seems you did not recognise that my whip is made of Duwong hair, which has the ability to extend." Ni Chang says before she pulls the whip.
She is sent flying forward towards Ni Chang who also leaps forward before kicking her into the mule. The whip withdraw from her wrist as she and the mule struggle to getup without hurting each other.
Ni Chang turns her whip to the fleeing old woman. "Now it is your turn, old crow!" The whip binds Fei's legs, she topples over and the whip withdraws.
She and the mule return to their feet before she sends the mule at the white haired woman. While the woman leaps over the mule, she runs to Fei and helps her onto her feet.
"Into the alley!" She says to the musician.
She and Fei Lui run into the alley.
"The witch will surely catch up!" she says to the slow running old woman.
"Do not fret, my mule will but us time!"
True to Fei Lui, the mule turns around and charges for Ni Chang and knocks her away. Allwoing us to escape but we dare not stop for we know the witch still pursues us.
Resonance
Fei Lui looks out of the window.
"Do you think the witch will find us again?" she asks.
"That woman has an uncanny ability to track people," Fei Lui says. "Its best we stay here for a while before we run again." Fei taes her pipa and begins strumming a few notes.
The notes flow and blur into each other, taking her into the distant past, into happier times when the Jade Warlord was just a faraway nightmare that could not harm her or her family.
She shakes her head violently to free herself from the memories. Until the Jade Warlord is dead, she cannot be the girl who enjoys those memories.
"Fei Lui now knows her mission to kill the Jade Warlord," she begins, "Will she give her the weapon to kill the Jade Warlord?"
"No," Fei Lui says.
"But why?"
The old woman stops playing her pipa. "I am not giving you my family heirloom so that you can squander it on a foolish mission!"
She clenches her fist in anger. How dare she call her quest to avenge her parents foolish?
"I see I've angered you."
"How dare you call her mission foolish?"
"Hmm, I'll tell you." The old woman places her pipa on the floor. "75 years ago my parents and brother rebelled against the warlord and attacked him. I was too young and my kung fu still under developed, so I was left behind. My father carried the jade sword, my mother the jade spear and my brother, the jade dagger. Each of these weapons were capable of killing immortal. With them they quickly amassed a giant army and attacked the Jade Warlord. Their rebellion was the biggest to date and it was the biggest to be crushed. Their weapons were destroyed and their lives ended as a warning to all would-be rebels. No one can stop an immortal like the Jade Warlord, not the Monkey King, not my family and it seems not yours too."
"Hmpf, so you do nothing?" She turns away from the woman. "If all you have learned from your family's sacrifice is to be a coward, then you are dishonouring them and keeping their heirloom will not change that."
"How dare you?" The old woman shouted angrily at her. "You do not know me, girl!"
"She knows you better than you think."
The door smashes open into splinters and in walks the witch. "So, this is where you roost."
She looks around for a way to escape. "The window!" she tel;ls the old woman. The old woman takes her pipa and kicks the window open before sliding down along the wall and falling down.
She worries about the old woman and looks out. To her relief, Fei Lui stirs and runs away. She is about to join her when a tendril of hair wraps around her neck and pulls her into the room.
"You have interfeared for the the last time." The witch says before she tries and steps on me.
She rolls out of the way and onto her feet. She blocks the Ni Chang's fast clawed strikes and counters with her own. No one gets a hit through but she feels herself being forced back. She retaliates with a punch the same time as the witch does the same and she and the witch are sent back in opposite directions.
She gets up but so does the witch. Ni Chang winds her whip back flicks towards me. This time she is prepared and sidesteps the extending tendril before stepping on it, stopping its movement.
"That will not work on her again!"
Ni Chang smirks before whpping her head around. To her surprise, her whit hair extends much like the whip and wraps around her wrist.
"Ahh, did I forget to mention that my hair is also Duwong hair?" She pulls her hair and whip, off-balancing her and sending her stumbling forward. Ni Chang floored her with a combination of a kick and a punch.
"Now," she rears the whip back, "you die!"
Before she can send the whip, the tendril is stopped. Ni Chang looks back at Lei Fui, who holds her whip.
"I will not let you hurt her, witch!"
"Ah... so the cowardly woman returns." Ni Chang forgets about her and focuses on attacking Fei Lui.
Fui Lei holds her back for a while but she is eventually knocked on the ground.
"Now, give me the Jade weapon!" Ni Chang threatens.
"Leave her!" she shouts as she kicks the witch off Fei Lui, sending er hurtling out of the window. She looks down at the woman. "You came back to help her." She offered her hand.
"Yes, I realised you were right," Fei said as I pull her to her feet. "I was not honouring my family by being a coward. I do not want to run anymore." Fei looks out at the window.
She nods at her. They both run and jump out the window where they land on the street, facing the Ni Chang.
"Together, we can defeat her." Fei Lui says before taking a fighting stance.
We both attack her from different sides. Ni Chang sends her hair at Fei Lui while her whip comes for her but she dodges by spinning over the whip. Fei Lui is hit with the hair and stumbles back. I bring my foot down for a kick but Ni Chang blocks her foot.
She uses her short sword to cut herself free of the whip. She flips over, leading with the kicking foot but the witch leaps back, however, Ni Chang did not account for the whip tendril still attached to her foot, which hit her over the head and sent her stumbling back.
She frees her foot from the rest of the whip as Fei Lui attacks the witch. She joins her and before long, Ni Chang is driven back by two fists to her chest from Fei Lui.
Ni Chang is undeterred and retaliates. She and Fei struggled to match Ni Chang's quick claw strikes and are each hit and sent hurtling back.
She and Fei Lui slowly returned to her feet.
"It is done," Ni Chang said. "Two orphans, one a baby and the other a fossil, could never defeat me." The witch made to run at us but a mule appeared between and kicked her through the wall of a building.
Fei Lui laughed. "Good job, my mule!" the old woman rubbed her mule's head. "Come, let us go before she gets up."
She nodded and joined the old woman on her mule. They rode out of the town of lanterns onto the forested area beyond. The mule stopped at a fork in the road.
"This is where she will have to go her own way," she says as she gets off the mule.
"Were you serious about killing the Jade Warlord.?"
She nods.
"Hmm... I too will do all I can but I suspect that this would be more useful in your possession." The woman threw her pipa at her and she caught it before Fei Lui rode away like the wind.
"Wait, she...!" She sighed as she saw the woman rdie into the horizon. There was no way she could catch up to her.
She looked at the pipa in her hands and at the top a green pin caught her eye. She took it and turned it over in her fingers.
"Could... Could this be...?"
/
She and the Drunken Immortal made it to the river.
Lu Yan produced a bowl and filled it with the water.
"Is the Immortal going to use chi magic to test it?"
"It is more of a natural remedy than magic," Lu said as he held his hand out.
She gave him the Jade pin.
"Tell me, does the moon shine on its own light?" Lu said as he dropped the pin into the bowl of water.
"No, the sun borrows the moon its light."
"Yes, it resonates with the sun's light much like the river resonates with the sea's water. " Lu produced a small gourd of steel. "And much like how vinegar resonates with the taste of wine." She pores the vinegar into the bowl.
Lu Yan raises the pin to the moon, which has almost set.
"Using these ingredient, I can see if the aura of this item resonates with power." Lu says.
They wait as the moon speeds under the horizon but nothing happened. For a moment, she feared that the Jade Pin held no power. But then it began to glow a green light.
Lu smiled at her. "It will kill an immortal." He handed her the glowing pin.
The pin's light faded in her hands. "She thanks you, Lu Yan."
She bundles her hair and secures it with a pin.
"Let us return to the Seeker and my wine." Lu Yan walked away back to the direction of Jason.
She smiled at his back, wondering if the boy would be able to free The Monkey King as the prophecy predicted.
"Whether the boy can, she will get her revenge on the Jade Warlord."
The End