Chapter 16: Eat Ravenously (狼吞虎咽)
A bell tolled twelve times for midnight over all of Shengtaiguan Park. Daiwen woke at the final toll on the stone altar without a single ache or pang of hunger. They were completely alone. Even the tub had gone, replaced by a clothesline.
Daiwen's spider silk ensemble hung from wooden clothespins, completely cleaned of all dirt and fluids. They dressed slowly, lost in thought.
They had twelve hours to clear their name or they'd be tried and no doubt executed-the same fate the yaoguai had narrowly escaped. They'd had Daiwen and Esquire's help. With the priest vanished yet again, Daiwen had no one.
They slumped against the wall in the doll's corner and hugged their patchwork creation to their chest. They breathed, focusing on the tarp's sticky pressure against their skin. They couldn't afford to have a breakdown. They were on the clock.
Daiwen dropped their forehead against the doll's. Think. They had to think. They couldn't handle seeing Director Cai's corpse again, not right now. That left them with the living.
The first people to arrive on scene had been the young woman and her sex posse. It was the second time that she'd gotten money out of the park. The first had been a complete accident.
Five thousand gold was an inconceivable amount of money to Daiwen, but the young woman had paid it to receive park service in the first place. It seemed unlikely that she'd been inspired to commit a high profile murder out of greed, much less stinginess, but it was possible she'd seen someone suspicious while heading to the green room. All Daiwen had to do was find her...easier said than done.
The park was huge. Worse, the new director seemed far less knowledgeable about the park's records than the former. Not that Daiwen had any guarantee that they'd offer any help at all. They raised their head off the doll. There was only one person who might care more about the park's safety than a personal suspicion that Daiwen was the murderer.
"Yishao?"
They held their breath. There was no response.
"I know you can hear me."
The rooftop gardens had muffled the young woman's call, but the dragoncat had heard her all the same. Daiwen set the doll down and sat up straight on their knees.
"I know I look like the killer. I'm not. I want to know what happened to Director Cai, maybe just as much as you."
The silence stretched on. They were running out of time and options. Daiwen rose to their feet, hands curled to fists. They had no choice but to go for the throat.
"You're the head of security, aren't you? I've seen how powerful you are. But this murder still happened right under your nose," they let the point sink in for several seconds.
"Once the new director realizes you're not all you're cracked up to be, and they will, that's the beginning of the end. Little by little, they're gonna take back everything you've worked so hard all your life to get. And everyone you've ever known and everyone you'll ever meet at this park will know. Your face? Will be eternally fucked."
The door slid open so fast it slammed the end of the metal track. The dragoncat's massive head filled the doorway. They hissed like a knife of glass.
Daiwen clapped their hands over their ears until Yishao had finished. The dragoncat made no move to run off. Daiwen shrugged on their backpack.
"Thank you for your cooperation."
-/-
Yishao the dragoncat leaped from the fifth story balcony into the midnight sky with Daiwen on their back. The wind whipped away their scream along with their hair. Daiwen pressed themself as flat as they could to Yishao's ridged back, their arms and legs squeezing the half-scaled, half-furred body under them in a death grip.
The dragoncat flew over the treetops and park attractions, their paws treading air like water. Daiwen lifted their head just off Yishao's shoulder. The sliver of moon between the clouds dropped down into a perfect copy over the surface of the glassy lake. Yishao flew between the two moons. Despite the fear stiffening their limbs, Daiwen broke into a marvelling laugh.
Yishao took them across the lake over the towering, tropical expanse of Jungleland. They passed a billboard as long as the dragoncat's own body depicting a couple of screaming lovers sinking into a tarpit: 'The Swallowing Tar You'll Never Want to Escape!' Up ahead, a mountain of rattling metal rails rose up under the moon. The screams bleeding out into the surrounding jungle sounded less throe of passion and more primal fear of death. More confusingly, nothing about the death metal mountain seemed to have anything to do with tar-not that anyone in the long, winding queue to the ride minded.
Yishao didn't mind the queue. The dragoncat leaped right over the gasping line of park patrons to a platform by the road of rails. A line of metal carts rattled up to a stop.
The young woman climbed into the cart at the back. Yishao threw Daiwen off their shoulders and into the air. Daiwen yelped. The dragoncat snatched the back of their jacket between their teeth and dropped Daiwen into the cart in front of the woman's. The young woman raised an eyebrow.
"Why is the murderer riding the rollercoaster?"
"I'm not-we're looking for the real…" Daiwen looked down.
The cart was little more than an oversized metal bowl on wheels, but its floor was marked with flowing, magical glyphs much like ancient Tien characters. The glyphs glowed a soft white. A thick sludge tar bubbled up from the floor. It slopped in heavy, ropey strands over Daiwen's feet and legs.
"Eugh."
Daiwen flattened themself to the wall of the cart, sitting in a squat. But the tar kept bubbling up, climbing their legs. The young woman laughed.
"A little tar too much for you, murderer? Better get off now."
"Could I please just ask you a couple questions?"
"You literally could not have picked a worse place."
As though on cue, the tar burst up from its puddle. Daiwen shrieked. The tar splattered all the way to their neck. The sticky, weighty ropes shook like jelly over Daiwen's skin. They expanded out to fill the entire cart. They didn't stop filling there.
Daiwen gasped as the tar sludged into their clothes, their underwear. The heavy, gluey mass pressed hard against their skin. It groped the soft flesh of their breasts, thighs, and ass. The tar tightened over every covered inch, squeezing their clit, cunt, and anus in a mercilessly intimate grip.
Daiwen yelped and squirmed in the block of tar. They couldn't budge against the heavy black mass. Their writhing only made the tar grip down harder, crushing another gasp from their chest. Their clit twitched under the pressure. Their holes bent inward.
"Oh, fuck," they rasped.
"We haven't even started moving," the young woman cackled.
A loud whistle drowned out Daiwen's pathetic whine, but they were stuck backward, facing the young woman. She bit her lip at their half-pleasured predicament.
Daiwen flushed to the tips of their ears as the carts rolled and rattled up the side of the metal mountain. The vibrations travelled straight from the joined cart and tar into Daiwen's core. They jumped at the visceral jolt up their trapped cunt, but the heavy tar kept them firmly in place.
The carts pitched over the side of the mountain. Daiwen's groaned turned to a scream of raw terror as the sudden vacuum of gravity tried to rip them out of the black sludge. Their skin, their clit, ground against the tar.
-/-
Explicit encounter on AO3
-/-
Despite her experience, the young woman was hardly in a better state. Fortunately for her, she could afford to have her four favored shifters lift her gently from the metal bowl in which she'd left her own little puddle of slick. She pointed at Daiwen but addressed the shifters.
"Them. Get them too."
"Yes, Countess Gao (杲)."
The turtle-shelled humanoid scooped Daiwen up in their bulky arms and carried them off the platform with the countess. The four shifters took the two of them away from the ride and through the tropical forest to the base of a jungle treehouse. They stepped into a large hollow at the base of the mossy, towering tree. Magic glyphs glowed soft white in the wooden floor under them.
The circle of woode directly below their feet lifted off the floor. It took them leisurely up the trunk. Long glass windows embedded on the bark kept the flowering vines and night sky nearby. The lift slowed to a stop in a large, low-ceilinged living room.
The shifters took off their shoes and helped Daiwen and the countess remove theirs. They set the two on green-cushioned, wicker couches on opposite sides of a low, wooden tea table. A wicker fan turned rhythmically overhead.
The snake-headed shifter kneeled on a matching cushion at the head of the countess's couch. The tiger kneeled at the foot. The red-fathered and shelled shifters left for the kitchen.
Daiwen sat up on their couch, their strength returning much faster than usual. A floor-to-ceiling window followed the curve of the living room overlooking bright green treetops and a little canopy garden's worth of vibrant, foreign flowers. Fireflies, something they did recognize, flitted in the darkness between the trees.
"That mouth's gonna to catch flies," said the countess.
She pushed herself up to a seat just as the bird and turtle shifters returned with a steaming clay kettle and tea set. They poured bright, crystalline green tea into six clay cups. Daiwen nodded in thanks before taking a sip.
"So you're not the real murderer."
"No."
"What's your name?"
"Daiwen."
"What do you want to know, Daiwen?"
"Did you see anything strange when you went to the green room?"
"It's hard to say what anyone's gonna do when they're orgasmed out of their mind. So yeah, there was a lot of strangeness on the way up but nothing out of the ordinary."
"How about anyone coming out of your room?"
Countess Gao snorted, breaking into a laugh. She elbowed the bird and turtle shifters beside her. They snickered. The mocking laughter trickled down to the snake and tiger.
Daiwen blinked in confusion, face burning with shame.
"Wha-"
But they couldn't get a word in edgewise until the countess straightened up and wiped her eyes.
"Who are you?" she asked. "How'd you even get in here? I mean, you're obviously too ignorant to be a conman. Are you some accidental assassin?"
The impoliteness was almost more shocking than it was insulting. Almost. Daiwen vented their bristling anger with a deep breath. They launched right into the story of the priest and the spirit gates before the countess could drop another insulting word.
"So, no. I was just at the wrong place at the wrong time and got framed by whoever wanted the director dead. Or the killer. I don't know if they're the same-"
Countess Gao yawned. She stood up from the couch in a languid stretch. The shifters stood with her.
"Thanks, that was really boring."
"Wait, you didn't answer-"
The countess rolled her eyes and held up a hand.
"Look, Daiwen, it's not healthy to be sitting this long. I'm gonna go...get refreshed. You, however, are free to sit here and wait until I'm done."
"How long will you be?"
"Oh, I don't know. An hour? Two? My friends are on strict orders not to let me tap out until I can't lift my own head."
"But the questions will only take a minute."
"If you think you can get me there any faster, you're welcome to lend a hand. Toodles."
The countess gave Daiwen a finger-waggling wave and turned to the bedroom. The shifters shrugged behind her, the animal faces plastered with shit-eating grins. They followed after her, leaving Daiwen at the tea table.
Daiwen growled behind the wall of their clenched teeth. They knocked back the last of their tea and tromped after the countess and her sex posse. For once, the countess said nothing. She only held one hand out behind her, a victorious smirk on her lips as their little fingers liked.