-8-
Chinglish.
By TimeTraveller-1900.
-8-
Shenhua returned to her apartment in downtown Roanapur; one of the benefits of her profession was she received more than enough to rent or buy a nice apartment. Nice, being a relative concept in this shithole of a city.
Once she was inside her apartment, she only waved her hands and the anti-muggle wards were put up. After stripping off most of her weapons, dress, and light jacket, Shenhua undid her ponytail and went into the shower. She leaned against the wall of the shower for a long moment as she stood in the cubicle.
Ahhh, that feels good.
She had been killing people all day, and then again she had been truly busy for the best part of two weeks; some of them were people who had been causing problems for the Triad recently, and Mr Chang only had so much tolerance, and she had been in that death trap driven by Leigharch, who had once more been off to Mars with the funny drugs he took, before she had once more gotten involved with the Lagoon company, because Chang had recently hired them for a job, and Chang had wanted one of his best people to protect both them and the cargo.
She wasn't too bothered by her assignment; Chang was a reasonable man and a good boss, and she liked spending time with the Lagoon company, even if Revy sometimes got on her tits with her nickname of 'Chinglish,' like a part of her knew she wasn't what she seemed….
Shenhua had done that, and she had received a nice little bonus, especially when Chang received the cargo. She hadn't discovered what the cargo was, and truthfully she had reached the point in her two lifetimes where she truly didn't care. In her experience, sometimes while it wasn't always so, ignorance was bliss. It wasn't a philosophy that had won her many awards, but still…
Lifting her head, she found herself looking into the slightly steamed mirror lined with trickles of water, but the reflection of a beautiful Asian woman stared back at her. Shenhua had always loved her appearance, and there were many good reasons why she went out of her way to look really good she used her powers to ensure her body and face was kept in top condition while trying hard to blend in with the non-magicals of the city, deeming it far more exotic than her previous incarnation. While her hair was still black, it was long, straight, and manageable compared to her once former messy black mop. Her emerald green eyes were also gone, leaving behind almond-shaped dark eyes, like liquid dark chocolate.
A long time ago, Shenhua was once a guy.
Her original name was Harry Potter.
She had also been a wizard, and her life had always been difficult. When she was a year old, her parents had been murdered by a Dark Lord, and she was shipped off to an abusive home. From there her life was fucked. When she was 11 years old, originally, Shenhua had gone to a magical school, her mind jaded and cynical, prepared to play a part just to get by although if she had to do it again now, she would have done the opposite. She had attended Hogwarts for 3 years before she decided to leave.
Not only were the standards for the school appalling, but teachers allowed not only bullying, but they didn't bat an eyelid when creatures like giant snakes could petrify people although that was a more watered-down capability under unique circumstances that were purely coincidental, like a patch of water on the ground reflecting the powerful killing state back, or something mundane, like a mirror reflecting the image back in the same way, and could kill with a single bite, or soul-sucking wraiths come to the school to find a dangerous fugitive.
Not a single teacher did anything when students were petrified, nor endangered by the soul-sucking wraiths; as Harry Potter, Shenhua had been forced to learn how to fight these creatures. She had been shunned in her second year, just because she could speak to snakes, and nobody did or said anything to stop the bullying.
Not once.
Instead, many of the teachers had decided to follow the students' course and bully her. It made no sense.
But she wasn't stupid.
As Harry Potter, she had played the part, while she hid the way she secretly visited parts of the castle nobody would have wanted her to visit if they knew what they could provide. The Room of Requirement, a room which was outside time and space and capable of providing things like books, scrolls, and so many other things, became a haven. As a child, she had learnt how to be sneaky, and she learnt many difficult, ancient and arcane forms of magic outside of the Hogwarts curriculum.
In her first year she didn't bother stopping Voldemort from trying to steal a magical artefact since she knew it wouldn't make him immortal, and it was during that year her interest in immortality was sparked before ultimately resulting in her current use of essence transfer - the movement of a person's soul and magic into a new body or object, but in her next year she was finding herself investigating the mysterious and terrifying petrifications of some of the muggle-born students. While she was learning more about magic, and how she could get out of Dumbledore's clutches, now she was facing a nasty monster out of a Hogwarts legend.
The legend had it that the wizarding school's founders had founded the school, and enchanted it until it was the school was it that she had known before they had a debate which transformed into an argument; the other founders had no trouble letting students from the non-magical world in, but one of them didn't want them. In truth, the debate was a bit more complex. The founder had argued that they should take children from their non-magical roots to prevent any chance of the magical world being attacked, but history had taken it out of context.
It was discovered she could speak to snakes and she was ostracised without a shred of proof, but she used the time to learn more magic and she came up with more plans and saw more keys to escaping the school.
After she had killed the giant snake, the basilisk, Shenhua had decided to give the school one last chance, also because she wanted to learn more before she went off on her own. Unfortunately, she left with nothing but disgust towards the magical world for its corruption and how they just imprisoned anyone they didn't like.
She left the magical world and she decided to get a new body, a fresh life, and a brand new start. As she had made preparations, Harry discovered she had a piece of Voldemort in her head, and so she had it removed. The soul piece was drained of all of its magic, which in turn drained the magic of his followers and rendered them powerless.
But one of the goblins, one working for Dumbledore, alerted the old wizard to her presence in Gringotts. The goblin was executed, but her faith in them, not to mention her trust in them, was shaken beyond all repair.
Finally, she was forced to kill Dumbledore. It wasn't easy, considering how powerful the wizard was, but she managed to trap him, and several of his followers in a house she had boobytrapped after they'd hunted her down for a few years. Shenhua frowned as the memories conjured themselves back up in her mind, and she recalled how they had lost their magic, and she had lost her own magic, forcing her to make do with muggle weapons from a gun to a couple of knives, which she would use as her favourite weapons in her current life.
With Dumbledore dead, Shenhua had burnt her blast bridges, so she had used essence transfer. She had decided to become a Taiwanese girl - she had spent a lot of time in Asia during her travels, and she loved Taiwan, and so it was logical in her mind. When she was old enough, she was educated in magic, but she had a vicious streak and became an assassin who loved using knives.
She had never liked guns, and she liked wands even less. With knives and wandless magic, Shenhua was able to use weapons that never wore down.
Shenhua left the shower and got into a clean dressing gown. Once she was dried, she grabbed a book and started to read.