[SPECIAL: My Name is Chao Mian!]
She had reached the eleventh month.
The girl was now an apex predator. And she was beginning to notice how strong she'd become.
She stared in awe as her spear-form hand stabbed clear through a meter-wide shoot of bamboo. With a giddy noise, she returned to her elaborate camp, dragging her golden stag carcass alongside her.
And then, a growl.
"(... was that an earthquake…?)"
Her breath was caught in her throat. A creature capable of making a sound like that had to be massive, but she hadn't caught a glimpse, a paw print, not a remote hint of anything so large in her nigh-year of living in that area.
She turned on a dime.
"...!?"
Staring her down amongst the bamboo shoots was a "tiger." Its size far eclipsed a normal tiger, and its deformed, grotesque face lacked any of the typical striped beast's regality; even the marking on his head spelled it out, quite literally; the "Demon" character, as if it were proud of its true wicked identity.
The short and simple of the matter was, this beast took offense to the girl's success. Its title as Zenith of the Food Chain was being threatened by a small child that was inside its mother's womb about 2500 naps ago, one that now had the audacity to make it share.
The child wasted no time. She grabbed the small stone dagger in her makeshift belt, drawing a roar from the striped spirit that tore her eardrums and almost paralyzed her.
"(I… I can't fight this thing…)" She looked over its dozen-meter height and length, with jaws that could swallow a bull whole. "(It could meet me face-to-face with one stride forward… if it attacked me right now… if I let it make the first move… Then I'll…)"
So she fled.
She was MUCH faster than her small legs had any right to be thanks to her countless trips up and down those accursed steps. What's more, the evil spirit had given her a head start.
On the downside, the evil spirit was STILL giving her a head start. If she ran for any longer, no matter where, it would catch her. So she ran up, hiding in the foliage above; not a heartbeat reaching out for another sky-scraping shoot, only for it to begin falling down as well. It took her biting down on her own tongue to not scream during the descent back down to the ground. The dead THUD accompanying her landing was paired with the oncoming shadow of the hungry ghost, it landing without a sound and leaving no prints as it stalked its handiwork, in search of the vermin that'd fallen. After a harrowing moment, its head swiveled, and it darted towards her, tearing its quarry out from the fallen bush and thrashing it wildly, tearing it apart to satiate its ravenous hunger before walking off with the carcass of the giant ape.
All the while, concealing her presence, beneath dozens of shoots still biting her bleeding tongue, hands over her mouth with uncovered and rage-fueled eyes, was the girl. She crawled back to her camp, only to find it utterly destroyed. It was no accident, no, each claw marking had been done with a palpable spite the likes of which no ordinary beast was capable of wielding. Tears fell, as her face curled and twisted in a blind fury, before her own blood-curdling roar echoed throughout the forest.
The beast ensured that living anywhere above ground was no longer feasible, for any loud-enough noise immediately sent it toward her location. It stripped the forest of all resources but the most bare essentials; she was forced to either consume poisonous berries that sent her stomach into hard knots of dizzying pain or die of starvation, and collecting the morning dew from the grass and fallen leaves staved off thirst.
A day came when she, after fashioning a spear from stray bamboo shoots and roots, caught it unawares from above. Lining her shot with an estimate of the heart's location, she cast her weapon down at it like an arrow from heaven.
"(... WHAT!?)"
It bounced harmlessly off the tiger's demonic hide. One ear-splitting bellow, a forest-splitting swipe, and a hundred-meter fall later, she was back in hiding with one less functional arm.
Amidst the sound of distant digging and growls, the child's face twisted with a foaming, shaking grimace.
"(I'M GONNA KILL THAT THING…)"
It was no longer a matter of returning to that door, taking back the forest she'd earned her place within, or even survival.
"(IF IT KILLS ME, I'M GONNA KILL THAT THING…!)"
The beast had thoroughly fucked with her, and she wanted payback.
As it began digging for her in time, she tunneled further underground, further fortifying her fingertips in the process. As she persisted, she'd found pre-existing tunnel systems, more and more evidence that was not the first one to undertake the task of killing the beast; etched drawings of which she could barely make out gave vague hints of its strengths (one such illustration showed a spear bouncing off it, to her annoyance.) Human remains – she found five complete skeletons and more fragments – also haunted the tunnels.
She studied a badly-drawn carving much further down that showed it sprouting blood over what looked like bamboo spikes.
"Bamboo can't pierce its hide… did this person lose their mind down here?"
She glared at the image for a while longer.
"... wait… they're not piercing the HIDE…"
She got to work.
Using the beast's digging attempts as pits, she popped in and out of them, collecting the broken shoots littering the forest floor and propping them up before covering them with loose earth and sticks.
As she operated, she ran into a smaller beast that'd been living in such a manner for years.
"KUH…!" she hissed in unison with the hairy, hand-sized spider that'd bitten her hand in defense of the burrow she'd nearly bulldozed through. Empathizing with the feeling of a larger predator trampling one's hard-earned home, she backed up, letting the colored critter scurry into it. And tired as she was, she decided to watch the golden animal at work.
The floor of its ramp-like burrow glittered with translucent linings, and as they abruptly shook, it suddenly dashed out, flipping open a small, dirt trap door in its advance.
"Ho—h…"
It dragged back down a small mouse, and hesitated once it saw the glinting, enamored eyes of the man-cub that really should've succumbed to its bear-vanquishing venom by now.
Said man-cub suddenly dashed past it. For some reason, it felt compelled to follow the little anomaly. To its subtle shock, she'd begun tunneling in and out of the earth, using bamboo thatching disguised by dirt and mud as her own trap doors, splitting spare thatches for string with which to both control the doors and use for methods of tracking movement. For a week, sustaining herself with the confounded berries that went down easier and easier the more she forced herself through them, she'd terraformed the world beneath that which was taken from her.
The day came where she'd emerge, just as the tiger demon finished a meal of four-horned bull.
"HEY! DUCK-FACE LOSER KING!"
It turned from its meal with such intensity, guts flew everywhere.
"I AM CHĀO MIǍN! YOU'RE A TRESPASSER IN MY DOMAIN! LEAVE, DEMON, ELSE BE RETURNED TO HELL WITHOUT A SUTRA!" The tarantula that'd found itself on her head hissed in encouragement, rearing its body upward.
The yaoguai let out a furious roar, angered by the child's audacious threat as she stared it down without the fear her eyes once held. It reared itself back, before lunging at her full-force.
The dirt beneath the girl then gave way, and she fell between dozens of green spikes, before retreating into a hole. To her horror, the tiger had turned itself over in mid-air, crushing the bamboo trap into useless fragments with its steel-like upper hide.
"(Of course…!)"
She recalled the tunnel drawings, their context.
"I hate being right…!" She raced through the tunnel system in hopes of trying another approach, only for the sound of lacerated earth at her heels and bellows that preceded tons of dirt falling all around her to signify the end of her underground strategy. Elbowing a trap door open, Mei darted out into the open, and the yaoguai exploded from beneath her, a volcanic eruption of dirt and stone shrapnel sending her flying. Rolling along the ground, a massive chunk of her plan having gone up in a cloud of dust, she stumbled back onto her feet before sprinting through the forest in search of her failsafe.
"(There!)"
Mian spotted a massive shoot, still carrying the wound she'd given it with her own hand. Reaching into said wound, she pulled out four string heads and rushed up the trunk-like shoot; she didn't have to wait long for her target to follow. All she needed was for it to align with one of her bamboo missiles, and the yank of a string would send a stalk right into the beast's exposed gullet.
It stopped just short of the first.
"(What're you doing now, you stupid shit cat? Your paws won't reach the base unless you get closer…!)"
Unbeknownst to Mian, the demon knew that she knew better than to run up something she'd seen it obliterate before. It began sniffing the ground, before pulling out a long, sharpened stick of bamboo.
Mian's eyes widened in horror. It noticed the small thread around the spear's tip and yanked the whole thing, yoinking the child off her perch by the hand. Suppressing a scream, she cut the thread with a swipe of her free hand, before smacking several emerald poles and crashing across a familiar set of stairs, rolling down a dozen before stopping, several hundred steps away from the bottom.
"All of my traps…" She hacked up dark blood. "Like it was nothing…"
Shock, terror, pain all rendered her a shivering mess on the stone steps, until a jolt of sharp pain atop her head brought her back to sanity. Her hand raised to meet something furry and hissy.
"You?" Mian brought down her hand, the golden tarantula frantically hissing on top of it before crawling back onto her head. Her loose gaze drifted back down, to see the yaoguai slowly advancing up to her.
"(I've come too far to throw everything away!)"
She unsheathed her stone dagger.
"(I've got to land something on its underbelly. That's my only chance at killing it!)"
As her last-ditch plan was formed, she placed every ounce of her resolve into the blade. For a split second, it glowed.
The evil spirit continued to approach slowly, covering tens of steps in slow, cautious strides, its belly dragging across the ground, readying for a pounce that would never come. It had no reason to rush; it would simply eat her alive, nothing more or less.
"(... it's useless. It already knows I'm aware of its weakness… it won't allow me the chance.)"
Her spirit waned, and her posture began to slump.
"(I'm going to…)"
Her teeth grit.
"(How much time have I spent walking up and down these stupid steps?)"
She started squeezing her dagger's hilt again.
"(Way longer than you've spent leeching off this land, you pest…!)"
It suddenly splintered.
"(If I just LET you kill me here, then it was all for nothing!)"
The beast began growing erratic, as if something noxious and unpleasant was in the air.
"I'M NOT GIVING YOU SHIT, YOU UGLY, PATHETIC LOSER!" Mian screamed with ear-splitting effort, something bright blasting off of her. She leapt off her position, dagger in hand, toward her killer. As if acknowledging her – but more-so in natural response to eyeing down such a hostile force – the tarantula atop her head shot its hairs into the eyes of the beast, sending it into a pain-induced frenzy as it clawed at the air.
White underbelly exposed to the world.
Mian was going far too fast to notice. All she focused on was pointing her weapon forward.
Therefore, the sound of venomous blood splatting across the steps came as a shock to her.
Speaking of shock, Mian crashed head-first onto multiple stone steps and onto various other body parts all the way down. She felt nothing as her adrenaline crashed through the clouds and all the way to Heaven.
She was on the very bottom again. Just like that day, exactly one year from then.
So just like then, she climbed.
In some vain hope that, maybe this time, that door would open.
Maybe she could have some of that fish he'd gone on about.
That big, dead tiger carcass didn't look half as appetizing. She gave it a passing glance, as she kept stumbling up.
Water. He'd have to have water, too.
And something soft to sleep on. Maybe.
And something to stop the bleeding. Maybe something to ease the pain, as well.
The dawn sun had inexplicably risen high in the sky one moment, then fell past the clouds another.
At a random point in time, she suddenly realized how close she was to the top. From then on, she seemed to be walking in place, gaining no distance despite all her effort.
She reached out, before falling down a few. And she began to crawl.
And crawl.
And crawl.
And stood.
She'd finally made it to the top. She channeled every ounce of energy into her fist one last, desperate gesture.
She knocked. Loudly. Once.
To no response.
Her face crinkled.
But she'd tried. She had that.
A wave of warmth washed over her, and she fell back, accepting what came next.
She fell into someone's thigh.
"Ha? You're still alive? That's odd."
She had a long blink.
"Damn it… whelp, guess I don't have much say in it anymore. Darn, why'd the loud one have to-"
Black.
Mian woke up under a blanket. An exceptionally-comfortable one, something like a mother's embrace after a cold day outside. Her dream of a soft surface to sleep on had been crushed, but that was more than fine. Even the pain had started to dissipate.
Her eyes adjusted to her new surroundings. It looked on the inside exactly the way it did from those steps: run down. The feeling of decay was absent, apparent with a further inspection; the physical warmth, the haphazard paint jobs, the meticulous patchwork… it was being held together with care. Though the temperature was a bit harder to explain.
In any case,
"(I made it in.)"
A small smile began to curl.
"(I made it in!)"
She tried springing up in excitement, and immediately recoiled to the ground in a guttural whimper, as if someone on the ceiling had shot her.
"Dammit, you're still too sore to move?"
She found the remark stupid. After all, she'd only been out for a few hou-
"You've been out for a week now. Aren't kids supposed to heal quickly?"
Oh.
She lifted her head to look forward.
Meditating before her was… actually, it took her a moment.
"(Pretty…)"
Meditating before her, generating an authentic life energy in the process, was someone exceptionally beautiful. Fluttering through the air and all around them like tendrils was outrageously long, jet-black hair.
"(Did a couple save me?)" she asked herself, curious concerning the deep, smooth voice she'd first heard telling her to kindly go away, and was now complaining that she couldn't regenerate like a demon. "(... of course. That's why the door finally opened. This woman showed me mercy!)"
And then, the stranger turned.
… It was certain now. By face alone, she could tell they were a wo-
"Oh well. You're well enough to TRY standing, at this point."
"yip!"
-MAN. A MAN.
"Ha?"
"So you managed to off that tiger ghost once-and-for-all. I'd thought a monk or at least a roving demon hunter had finally decided to do their damn job, but no, it was the child."
The hermit used his qi to wrap his hair into a looped ponytail at the back of his head. Standing, he was remarkably tall; not an ogre's height, but one head and shoulders above a great many men. He was also clad in a black and indigo… hanfu, curiously. A quju variant, specifically; one that she'd see in fantasy artworks worn by nobles, not mountain hermits. It was strung tightly on the arms, and its "second dress" was gone completely, revealing shaolin-esque wrapped pants.
The man took a leaf, rolled it, bit down on one end, and ran his thumb over the other at a speed that escaped Mei's now-honed eyes. "Dey ushe my le'ers to wipe wi'h, I jus' know i'."
"That monster wasn't new?"
The man took a drag off the vegetation. "It only appears once a positive qi starts overtaking the air. I guess it's like the smell of dung to us. Or maybe your scent was so strong, it started to mind."
Mian glared.
The man glared back.
"That wasn't a joke. You stink. Go out back and bathe. I won't talk to you any further until then."
"I don't have clean clothes."
"Tch…" The woman-faced man stood up, and went out back.
"Hey, mama."
"Kshhhhh…"
"Yeah, yeah, I don't like it, either. Just spin some stuff for me, and I'll find a small peng next time I go out."
"Hsh!"
Mian returned to her initial thought. Maybe on the other side of that door was a dwarf with a voice like feminine honey. Beneath that monstrous hissing, of course.
She waited all of a minute.
"Here, you needy thing. Now go. My nose is going to fall off."
Mian blew a raspberry and went out back.
Said "out back" was like an oasis. Before her was a body of water of which she couldn't decide on calling a "large pond" or "small lake." The light shining from the one cluster of bamboo gave it a heavenly glow, and trees of fruit somehow able to survive so high up surrounded the lake.
"Wow…" she gazed, enchanted. The spider taking residence on her head felt inexplicably mighty, letting off a brave hiss. Mei, unlike any other six year-old girl currently inhabiting Earth, giggled at the sound. "It's awesome, isn't it, buddy?"
The golden tarantula slowly turned itself around, taking it all in, before shrieking itself off of her.
"Hm!?" She pivoted around.
Greeting her, stagnant on the side of the house, was a four-meter spider.
Faced with such a sight, there was no six-year-old girl in the universe with a mouth that wouldn't emit the sound that followed:
"KYAAAAAAA—!"
The door to the out-back slowly creaked open. "Mama, are you okay?"
The spider gave a deep purr.
"Alright. Scared me for a moment." He glared toward the loud child who'd been reduced to two angry eyes above water. "Something as loud as you shouldn't exist, y'know. You could've hurt her."
"'HER'?"
The woman-faced man scowled. "What? Is it immediately a demon because it's big and it scares you? Typical kid…"
He patted the large arachnid who, upon further inspection, looked almost divine. The multi-colored markings upon its… her… black thorax and abdomen looked less to warn or attract, like other animals of similar color – ones Mei had come to know personally, one of which now called her hair home – but more so to declare. Like the robes of an empress.
"The air is better over here, even better than it is down below. Maybe it's due to the weird plants, I don't know. In any case, it allows crawling animals to grow stronger. This old girl right here… well, her presence to them is like if a god descended to our plane and decided to eat someone at random. Compared to insects and peng bird, the taste of human disgusts her. Especially one as feeble, rank, and poisonous as you."
"Rank?"
"You've been eating those berries, correct? Of course, that's why you haven't died from starvation once that demon started tearing through the ecosystem. If one is crazy enough to stomach the pain and keep eating, they become immune to all manner of poisons and venoms, even becoming toxic themselves. Thus, you're poisonous. Maybe even venomous, I've never tried."
"(he ignored me…)"
He picked a fruit, one resembling a large, turquoise plum. "I won't be able to tolerate talking to you for very long without something yummy. If you're done before the water clock hits 12, maybe I'll share."
Mian opened the door, now in a black silk combat duan da.
The woman-faced man VERY audibly sucked his teeth. "You're ALREADY starting to piss me off."
"You said you'd share."
"I said maybe."
"Share." She glared resolutely at him. "I've never had one of those."
He stared at the spiced slices, before sighing. He extended his hand, and Mian cautiously received it, as if shocked that he'd grant her so many kindnesses in one day.
"... thank you."
She then began eating like a ravenous beast.
"Don't eat that too fast, or you'll-"
Mian covered her mouth.
"-GET THE HELL OUT OF MY HOME BEFORE YOU OBLITERATE MY FLOOR!"
Mian shot out the front door, let out grotesque sounds, and walked back in with a cough and a rub of the mouth. She settled back down beside the tall man.
"Hm. You called yourself Chǎo Miǎn, right?"
Mian stiffened up; she'd never given the stranger her name. "Yes."
"Pfft. The Heavens sure hit the nail on the head. Still, look at you. Your head's fat and round like a plum, and you're puny. Xiǎo Méi fits you better, so you're Xiǎo Méi."
She went red like a plum. "My name is Chǎo Miǎn!"
"I don't care."
She scrunched up, as if preparing to hurl an insult, but her throat wasn't doing so hot. She dropped the issue.
"Why did you wait so long to help me?" she asked, beginning the lightning round.
"To see if you were worthy of becoming a Shadow Spider."
"What's a Shadow Spider?"
"A very strong bodyguard that does nasty things to people that threaten their ruler."
"We protect rulers?"
"Who's we?"
"Us. Shadow Spiders."
"You aren't a Shadow Spider yet. Not close."
"How?"
"Where does the Lower Sea of Qi reside in the human body?"
"..."
"Can you or can you not cast the Golden Cutting Qi Threads?"
"..."
"How many Sky-Leaping Generals have you slain?"
"..."
The spider atop Mian's head started dancing, trying to avoid being fried to a crisp by the sudden heat influx.
"You're worth training. That's all you've proven to me. I could just as easily kill you and let this cursed fist die with me."
"... what cursed fist?" the girl asked, completely brushing over the threat of death over the hint of further strength.
"... you… you're not well 'up there,' are you?"
Mian started opening her mouth.
"No. No more questions." He walked over to a corner, walked up the corner, and rested his head on the ceiling; in simpler terms, as far away from Mei as possible.
"I'm tired now," he yawned. "When I wake up, I'm going to subject you to tortures and cruelties beyond the lowest worlds of samsāra. Feel free to walk out until then, you're clearly well off on your own. Or at least get some sleep, I don't care."
Before Mian could question any further, the man was out.
"(I slept for a whole week.)" She pouted. "(Your big words don't scare me. Bring it!)"
Eleven years later, Mian would begin to believe that she'd damned a friend to a life of suffering.
Until then, she would not know such a deep regret as she would during the years to come, denying that extra sleep.
"If you fall, you'll diiiie~" Her now-master blandly taunted, as she continued struggling up the borderline-smooth mountain side for six hours amidst frigid, tearing, hundred-kilometer winds.
"Good," he said, as Mian stared at her numb finger teary-eyed, having "stood" atop them for a week. "You're alive, for some reason. Now we can start adding weight."
Mian looked at him, silently pleading for him to admit he was joking.
He wasn't.
"HM-"
Mian's master chopped her on the side of the neck, sending her away.
"Horrible form. That's another weight."
Mian returned to him with genuine hate in her eyes, veins crawling across her sword-form fingers. She lunged at him and was, again, swatted.
"Too much emotion. More weight."
Out on the tallest height of the steps where air was the thinnest, Mian's master stared over her, the girl's eyes closed and her hands formed in a mudra.
"(Ok…)"
Her stomach slowly rose and fell, in a steady, consistent rhythm.
"(Ok…)"
Inklings of an aura began to steadily rise.
"(Ok…)"
And it suddenly popped, as her head fell in slumber.
Mian's master proceeded to axe-kick her in the head.
"NOOOOO!" Mian cried, bursting into both consciousness and tears.
"That was another week of sleep, runt. Shame."
"Spread your feet across the ground."
"Ok…"
"Not good enough."
Mian began to sweat and strain.
"Is that as far as you can do?"
Mian nodded, and her master rolled his eyes. "You stretch like a boy…"
He then went behind her. "Now then…"
"M-MASTER!?"
"Shut up. Do I look like a pampered statesman to you? Just keep your posture." He turned around, grabbing a water and leaf-filled kettle and a cup. "I'm just going to brew some tea. If you disturb me, no food for a week."
It sounded simple. Horrible, but simple. She'd keep that position until he was done brewing, and then it'd be over.
Miani's master proceeded to take a seat.
.
.
On her.
"GYAAAAAAAA–"
"I'VE ALREADY SPILLED MY TEA YOU STUPID BRAT!"
"This dummy is filled with thorns from out-back, lethal enough to bring down a dozen elephants if one was left in the road. The only safe areas are pressure points. Strike them too soft, and thorns will fill the area. Understood, Méi?"
"M-Miǎn…"
"I don't care, Méi."
Mian gulped. She'd been studying acupuncture points rigorously, but hadn't slept for… a year, yeah. Death had skipped her over.
"If you do well enough, we'll start describing the point and its effect. There, if you get it wrong, the dummy will start 'fighting back'."
Mian gulped harder.
Mian's master then walked away from the dummy.
Mian breathed decently for the first time in a while.
And then the dummy started moving on its own.
Mian couldn't even swallow the lump of fear, she just started coughing.
"Begin," he waved his hands, as the dummy took off into the trees. Mei suppressed her urge to burst into tears, before jumping off after it.
Mian's master diddled his fingers through the air, as his protégé's screams polluted the tranquil forest.
Down below, Mian's master sliced into a mountain plum. He carefully poured the juice into a cup and swirled it with his tea, before drinking it.
"Keeee–h!" Licking his lips, he set down the cup and picked up a pointed cut of plum, before tossing it behind him like one would a knife.
A distant "GAH!" rang out.
"You allowed your intent to slip out!" he yelled. "You also failed to move with the wind. It loudly crashes against you!"
Mian, pinned through the shoulder to a boulder by an actual wooden cup, pathetically banged it with her fist.
"Faster!" Mian's master demanded, parrying her wooden jian strikes with his own, striking her with enough force to cut into her. Mian kept going, all the same.
"Not enough balance!" Mian's master declared, smacking Mian in the face with his bamboo spear through a gap in her defense, before slamming her head into the ground. Mei grabbed her own once more, and charged him.
"Sure-Ly-You-Can-Do-Bet-Ter-Than-THIS!" Mei's master sent one hilt of his wooden butterfly daggers into his successor's face and another into her temple, going for an additional attack. But it was parried in an instant, and Mei's own daggers soared into the side of her master's neck. Mian collapsed in a panting wreck soon after.
"... You… actually…"
Mian looked up, eyes holding a glint of optimism. A dagger-pointed shoe promptly sailed across her chin, sending said glint shooting off to join the stars above.
"... Let your guard down after one successful attack. Again."
"HA!" she yelled, striking a pressure point in the dummy.
Her master landed onto a falling leaf behind her, adding no additional weight whatsoever. "Define."
Mian's thoughts jumbled. "T-th-the-"
Her master balled his fist, then stretched it, then formed several mudra. "Too slow."
The dummy trounced Mian in an absurdly-painful combination move, sending her to the forest floor in a screaming mess.
She was starting to miss the tiger demon. She was too harsh on it. It probably just wanted to play.
Leaping up three steps at a time, his hands bound, eyes closed, and breathing restricted all by thread while donning a 40kg weight on his back, Mei's master made it from the bottom to the front door of his abode. He looked back.
"WHY DO I FEEL BOUNDLESS DISAPPOINTMENT WHEN I TURN THIS WAY!?"
Mian's legs had stopped working somewhere on the 5000th step. She was stealing sleep.
In the dead center of the colossal web that connected the tops of the highest shoots with the ground, Mei was spun into a constantly growing-and-decaying cocoon by the god of crawling creatures. Her eyes had gone completely hollow, and it looked like she'd gone catatonic. Besides the image itself, all that rang in her head was her master's command:
"See it. Hear it. Feel it. Sense it. Only thread."
Tears streamed from Mian's vacant expression, her arm dislocated once again.
"Please… mas… I ca…"
Mian's master continued to circle her. "You've taken much worse, at this point. Stop being a baby. If you fail to repair your arm, you'll continue to train without it."
If he'd only said "You'll die," she wouldn't've found the inner rage to relocate her arm for the hundredth time in thirty minutes.
"Ff… fuck you… leaf-sucking asshole…!" she cursed before grabbing her arm, eyes feral. A sharp, shrill scream followed, as she staggered to the ground. She twitched her fist, and brought up her arm, fully functional once more.
"Acceptable," her torturer nodded. "Now, let's continue."
"... Let's."
Mian eyed the same vats that'd given her warmth a year prior. They were now filled with hot coals for some reason.
"Wh… wha-"
Standing before one of them, Mian's master furiously stabbed into it with his hands in sword-finger state.
"YOU.. WILL… DO… THIS… UNTIL… I…SAY… STOP…" Pain was visible in the man's eyes, and he'd done this before.
"M… master, I-"
"What? Can't? You shred your hands with jade stalks for months, and THIS is what breaks you? You're pathetic. Leave my home."
Mian glared at him. She then approached the coals.
"Kh… khhhh…"
She raised her raw hand.
"Are you still there?" Mian's master called out, stopping as he two finger-gripped a piece of rock, keeping his body supported on the side of the mountain.
"(Shit. This was too far, huh?)"
To his side, Mian continued climbing up the mountain, having gone internal, ember eyes brightly shaking.
"... Oh."
Mian's synapses almost collapsed.
"GA!"
"XUANJI!" She screamed, stabbing into the "living" dummy's chest.
"Define!" Her master yelled on a column of falling leaves, one that his dummy, and protégé right after, bolted across.
"WITH LETHAL PRESSURE, IT CAUSES THE TARGET'S CHEST TO COLLAPSE IN ON ITSELF! IT ALSO SHOVES THE VICTIM'S HEAD THROUGH THEIR ASS!"
Her master grinned. "Alright, you cocky brat, fine…" He formed two karana mudra, and the dummy stopped running, to Mian's maniacal delight, the two engaging in a high-speed duel across falling leaves, each one using the Shadow Spider Fist to its maximum extent.
She was starting to develop a vendetta against anything vaguely neuro-related, but regardless, she continued stabbing the coals.
"RAA!"
The winds swayed violently on the top of the mountain. Yet neither Mian – one hundred twenty-kilo stones hanging off her neck – nor her fuzi wavered; in fact, they both swayed alongside their perches, their finger-stands unbroken. What's more, both were subconsciously cultivating qi threads in their well-earned sleep; the man developed more golden strands, but the girl's shined brighter.
Embers jumped and sparked alongside her eyes.
The two sprinted up the mountain of steps at a superhuman speed in their bound and weighted-down states, stopping on dimes every hundred steps, until making it to the top.
"(...)"
"(Master, are you in my head right now?)"
"(Er, yeah. I forgot to grab rabbit for the stew.)"
Mian grumbled through her mandible-like mask. She sped down the stairs before her master could get to it.
"AAIAA!" she screamed against the heat.
"Have you noticed the 'effect' your diet has had on you, yet?" asked Mian's master as he took out two strands of jet-black, small spear-length hair, lining them up in each hand like one would darts and, once they shined gold, shooting them, striking a faintly hole-riddled target on opposite ends of the tiny center dot.
"How couldn't I?" Mian responded, taking from her now master-length hair two dark-red strands and tossing them in the same fashion. Both of her strands split her master's down the middle.
"Ah. Just checking." He turned to her. "Also, that's really your natural hair color?"
She turned to him, visibly offended.
"YES."
"DYAAA!"
And the coals were smashed into even smaller fragments.
Mian basked in the sun, taking in the warmth on the brisk autumn day.
Her eyes slowly opened.
"(It doesn't matter the extent of which one tries concealing their presence…)"
She suddenly dove underneath long hairs like ultra-thin spears.
"(If it holds a physical presence in this world…)"
She focused. On every feasible presence in the area. Even things as small as bacteria worming through the air.
And for a moment, she made out something. The faintest bit of intent from an old, battered soul.
And it was right above her.
It suddenly crashed down atop her, like a two-meter arrowhead.
The arrowhead in particular smirked. "... Hmph."
"(Then it can be sensed.)"
Its target smirked, holding his pointed foot with two fingers. "... Hmph."
"HAAA!"
Even the flames were pierced, splitting in twain.
A final spark flew into the air.
"Damn you bandits…!" the peasant farmer cried, holding his wounded wife in his arms as cackles to the tune of hyenas encroached around him, his own sword busted on the ground. "What did my eldest son die for, if not to destroy scum like you!?"
"Don't take it personally, pops! Y'know how hard it is findin' a damn thing out here without a soldier breathin' down your neck! Now, man… cough up your coins, or grandma might just lose a few fingers!"
"We won't make it past winter without this bag…"
"WELL TOUGH SHIT, MISTER! It's you or us right now, and there's no way I'm starvin' over two fossils with a foot out the door already!"
The old man held his wife and their savings tightly. "Ghh…! Monsters!"
One of the bandits raised their swords. "Keh! Suit yourself, asshole!"
"No!"
But the blades would not meet its mark. Instead, it hit calloused hands.
"WHA!?"
"A bunch of no-good weasels, more willing to take from others than grow their own living…"
The intervener tore their hands away from the swords, ripping them out of the bandit's hands in the process.
"And you've all brought different weapons. Perfect, I'll send you all to Yama without any issue."
Chao Mian is now 12 years old.
She is also now the sole successor of the Shadow Spider Fist.
"A… a kid?" The bandit staggered back. "A kid just did that?"
A sword suddenly flew into his shoulder, triggering a scream.
"Oh. I thought you'd grab it. I'm not much familiar with my own strength, I only have my master for comparison." She leisurely picked up the other on the ground.
"Speaking of, he's watching me right now. Please fight with some measure of skill."
"SHUT UP!" The bandit ripped the blade out of his shoulder and charged Mei with it. "YOU THINK I'LL HOLD BACK ON YOU 'CUS YOU'RE A KID!?"
Mei smiled. "Should I?"
She seamlessly matched the villain's thrusts and swipes with her own, gracefully weaving through whatever she cared to before ending his life with a deep cut into an artery.
"Sword, used. Life, taken." She pointed to another mook. "You. Gimme your spear, you're not using it."
"T-TCH! GO TO HELL, RUNT!" He yelled, charging at Mei with it. She kicked high into the air, breaking the thug's hands, before jumping atop a spot on his face and then after the spear. Grabbing hold and landing with all due theatrics, the man behind her turned for a second before erupting from the head.
"One of Three pressure points in live combat. Done."
She homed in on a foe that also carried a spear — it was the king of weapons, after all. In her hands, it was more so the god of weapons; in her enemy's, it was a pointed stick. With two twirls of its pole, Mei disarmed her opponent before stabbing into his underbelly, just enough to seemingly only breach the skin. The bandit slowly moved off it before Mei swatted him into another opponent; her victim's eyes began to glow, the qi in his body running haywire before he became a pre-age grenade, taking both he and his friend to Yama's reception hall in an explosion too vicious to leave any gruesome remnants.
"Spear, used. Two of three." She eyed the others, who'd finally caught their bearings, resorting to jumping the small child. She vaulted over one and slid past another before piercing right through the hands of the third, then picking up his daggers and dashing toward the one up front, another goon with two weapons. To her surprise, he parried her strikes and matched her for several more, all while back-stepping; another scoundrel ran beside them and, picking up a spear, attempted hurling it at Mei. She kicked it away and parried a slash in one fluid movement, though her opponent's next move knocked her off-balance for enough time to permit one of his compatriots to run behind Mei with an axe, forcing her to limbo-duck beneath it. Immediately, the dual-swordsman shot his blades down toward her, and his axe-carrying buddy followed suit. Both hit their mark, and Mei's legs jerked up in a grisly manner, compelling the old man to cover his mouth.
"... shoot."
Both men stared in horror, as angry ember eyes pierced their souls behind dark-red hairs with the consistency of steel.
"I wanted to surprise Master with this."
She flared open her rapidly-dilating eyes, and her hair gripped the weapons hard enough to chip them before tearing them out of their wielders' hands.
She ran up to the lumbering axeman in a freakishly-abnormal way identical to a two-legged spider, and in a fear-induced adrenaline rush, he lashed out with a quick vertical cut that Mei literally swatted aside, breaking the weapon entirely. She then ran up the axeman.
"You're annoying," she said to his face. "Die." She jammed her hands into his throat; the struck pressure point only accelerated his death. She then threw one of her daggers at the swordsman, who caught it by a hair.
"Duel me. I've got one more requirement, and I think you're cool."
The man responded by running with the dagger.
"And there goes my respect." She formed a single karana mudra, and then gripped her hand into a fist before yanking it backward.
The dagger proceeded to cut into the former swordsman's hands by the hilt, before shooting straight through his heart and into Mei's hand.
"... mrm. That's a bummer." She threw down the daggers, and turned to the old man. "... are you…"
With tears of what she could only assume were gratitude, he nodded. "What horrid times we live, where even children take life without a second thought…!" he wiped his face with a swallowed sob.
"... I would've liked a 'thank you' more…"
The geezer helped up his wife, and hobbled back onto the road.
"... wait, you're… hurt…"
The man couldn't hear her muttered concern, and continued on his way. For a moment, her head lowered in a frustrated dejection. Then she shook her head like something was on it – no, not this time – and vanished.
The two walked up the steps.
"I saw it all. You may have failed one, but considering everything else, I won't hold it against you. I expected that to take weeks, but I suppose spiders do bring fortune at night."
"..."
"Though your training isn't quite complete, you've met the criteria I once had to. As in, you've surpassed all but one test, and yet you aren't as conditioned as I'd like. That's natural, but in terms of skill, you've surpassed what took me eight years in five. From here, I'd say you're about ready to find a-"
"Praise me."
"... what?"
Mei turned to her teacher with a pouting, ambivalent face. "I did good today. Praise me."
"... look, don't get full of yourself just because-"
"I'm not. I'm still nowhere near you, or mastery." Mei's head landed on his elbow. "But you've never said anything nice about me. So do that."
A confused, almost-embarrassed expression inched across his face.
"Ghh… uh… g-good… job?"
The ambivalence left her. Now Mei was just pouting.
"Good job, who?"
He gave an annoyed groan. "Good job, Miǎn."
"Why's it so hard for you to say something nice to me?"
Her master gave her a look, before rolling his eyes with a sigh.
"My master taught me that praise was for pets and weaklings. She praised me whenever she felt like mocking me."
The pout left her. Her eyes slowly gathered light as she smiled.
"It's OK to praise me!"
"... you look ridiculous."
"Say, Master… how old were you when you took your first life?" Mei asked, asking the dark question with such ease that it stunned the spider sage.
"... I was sixteen."
"How did your master react?"
"She called me a child. Chastised me for getting so worked up, despite being a man."
"... why?"
"... hmph, why not," he muttered to himself as he took out a leaf, rolled it, stuck it into his mouth, and lit it. "I cried."
Surprised erupted across his successor's face. "Was it an innocent person?"
"Not in the slightest. They were a former servant of that Immortal Phoenix Emperor in the North, and claimed this mountain as their home. Even still, they took life without thinking, innocent or not. They did awful things like pluck little orphan boys off the street and torture them for almost a decade, out of curiosity."
Mei got visibly angry. "That's awful… why'd you cry over killing someone like that?"
"... The weight of a life, I guess. Of all the weights forced upon me by my master, that one was the hardest to bear by a margin."
"Did it… ever get easier for you?"
"In the same way one grows numb to the cold, I guess. My victims live on, beneath my eyes. All I need do is close them, and there they are. Never stopped me from doing my job, but it was never a painless process. Hell, they used to clutter my home, the ghosts of those I've slain."
"What changed?"
"..."
Her master's eyes got just a bit bigger, then shrank back down. Just enough for Mei to notice. "... Not sure."
.
"Mei, what did YOU feel?"
Mei turned to him.
"Closer. To my goal."
A female's smaller and flexible build, unfathomable skill, small stature, and a malleable, relentless, merciless mentality. Mei had become the absolute perfect Shadow Spider.
"..."
But something was missing.
Yo! OP Here!
Mrr Crithmuthsce! I had this entire thing on the backburner for a no-bullshit year and just went "there is literally no better time to release this." So here, a kinda present chapter and a Xiaomei gaiden. Man, I just kinda released that Valentine's Day chapter and stopped being festive point-blank. Not really an explanation for that, life happens. I'm sorry.
This gaiden not only holds relevance for the new chapter, but actually helped inspire new ideas for it! Stay tuned and stuff.
Also, the reason I didn't make the beginning of Zinco's chapter a gaiden was because he wasn't in the flashback. He failed to meet my arbitrary criteria that I'll forget in a week and break anyway. Fool. 14,000 words as punishment.
I bought Lost Judgement for $18. It kicks ass, as expected. Will hopefully finish it before my leave ends.
So yuh. That's about it. See ya, and Happ Hillidudes!