The Blue Dragon: Chapter 12 (Patreon)

-- CHAPTER 12: Ziyi --

****

“Jade?”

The identity of the young woman standing before me was unmistakable. She was exceptionally tall for a Chinese woman of this era, with a lithe and linear figure save for her proportionally oversized breasts. She had the same narrow eyes slanted upwards at sharp angles, bright-green irises, well-defined cheekbones, and a wide mouth with supple lips that I already knew would look amazing wrapped around my rod.

And yet she looked younger than I remembered, which made sense given that it would be another eleven hundred years or so before we met in the modern age. Well, another eleven hundred years until she met Aksel. Instead of her slinky catsuit or sleeveless dress, this version of Jade was dressed in baggy shanku peasant clothing: loose pants and a long-sleeved shirt. With her smudged face and lack of modern makeup, she looked more like a skinny teenager right now than the haughty woman that Rae had mocked as “not half-bad for forty”.

Those narrow eyes sharpened and she abruptly took a step backwards away from the lantern light. Her arms went up into a fighting stance, and she hissed warningly, “Who are you?!”

“Jade, it’s me,” I stated placatingly, holding one hand up. But I had to bite down on the urge to say ‘Aksel’, given that of course this version of Jade wouldn’t have even met Aksel yet. “I’m Liu Kang.”

“No you are not! Liu Kang is dead! And stop calling me ‘Jade’. My name is not ‘Jade’!” she spat, backing up another step.

“Right… right.” I winced. “You know, I never did get your real name in my time.”

“What are you talking about?!?”

“You and I… we…” I began, gesturing back and forth between us. Did I tell her I was a different guy from the future instead of the man she clearly knew? Seemed a pretty fast way to get bitten by her venom-laced fangs. Wincing, I took a deep breath and stepped forward into the lantern light to give her a full look at my face. Holding my hands up defensively, I insisted, “I AM Liu Kang.”

“Prove it!”

“Well it’s not like I’ve got the guy’s driver’s license on me.”

“What?”

“Uhhh… Uhhh…” I fumbled, closing my eyes and taking a deep breath while trying to think of something clever very, very fast. On a sudden whim, I held up my right hand, snapped my fingers, and produced a floating blue ice shard in the air.

Jade’s eyes got BIG, the whites dimly visible even in the shadows. Her arms dropped from their defensive stance as she gasped and then covered her mouth with both hands. “It IS you!”

“Surpriiise…” I held out my hands in my best Han Solo ‘aww shucks’ impression.

Jade quickly walked up to me, grabbed my wrist, and started pulling. “Come with me.”

****

“So you don’t remember anything?”

I silently shook my head rather than open my mouth and potentially spill any of the yummy food Jade had made for me, feeling thankful that years of SoCal living while eating Asian fusion foods like nigiri sushi and udon had given me at least passable chopstick skills. The two of us sat on uneven wooden stools at a cramped table in a small single-room cottage on the outskirts of the city where the fences were made of wood instead of stone and the roads were dirt instead of paved. The only illumination came from a single oil lantern on the table. And Jade assured me that police patrols this far out were exceedingly rare.

“You don’t remember the battle? You don’t remember dying?” she continued. “You don’t remember… me?”

I swallowed and gestured with my chopsticks at the young woman in front of me. “I recognize your face, although I don’t remember your name. I’m sorry.”

“Ziyi. My name is Ziyi.”

“Ziyi,” I repeated and then gestured at my bowl. “Thank you for this, Ziyi. It’s delicious.”

She snorted and shook her head. “Now I know you aren’t Liu Kang. He always hated my cooking.”

“Then he was a man of poor taste.”

“‘He’ was a man?” Ziyi’s eyes narrowed. “So you admit you are not the real Liu Kang?”

I winced. “I admit that I am not the same man you remember. I have none of his memories or experiences.”

“Then who ARE you?”

I set down my chopsticks and sighed. “I want to explain, but I don’t think you’ll believe my story.”

“Try me.”

I shrugged and said plainly, “The Liu Kang you knew is dead, but I’m one of his descendants. I don’t know how and I don’t know why, but I’ve traveled back in time from the future to take his place - and apparently his body. Well, a version of his body. The real Liu Kang’s body is still buried wherever you left him, and the magic that brought me here created a new body for me in his image.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You’re right. I don’t believe you.”

“I can scarcely believe it myself, but that’s what the talking gecko said.”

“Talking gecko?”

“What up, homegirl?” Dong greeted while materializing on my right shoulder. “Amazing titties, by the way.”

Ziyi squealed in horror like a tween girl surprised by a massive spider, and she leaped to her feet, knocking over her stool and adopting a defensive fighting position.

“Yo… yo… chill baby girl,” Dong urged, gesturing with both hands for her to calm.

“WHAT IS THAT?!?” she howled, looking back and forth between me and the blue gecko on my shoulder.

“That’s Dong,” I stated slowly, likewise gesturing with both hands for her to calm down. “He’s an avatar of Qinglong.”

“WHAT?!?”

“He is the essence of the Great Azure Dragon,” I continued, wracking my brain to try and remember everything Jade had said that night in the Four Seasons Presidential Suite when Dong had first appeared. “He is a guardian spirit reincarnated on Earth in the form of a simple cave gecko.”

“You… You are… You are…” Two fingers of Ziyi’s left hand pointed back and forth between me and Dong. “I can’t… I don’t…”

“万事开头难,子仪” I told her, not really understanding where the words came from. They simply felt… right. And only a moment later did the English translation really register in my head.

Everything is difficult at the beginning, Ziyi.

She promptly fainted.

****

Not knowing how long Ziyi would stay unconscious, I decided to pick her up and carry her over to the cottage’s bed. She remained out cold while I picked her up, but her eyelids fluttered open right when I was lowering her down onto the bed, and she instinctively reached up to clutch me with both arms around my neck to keep herself from falling.

“It’s alright. You’re alright,” I reassured her when she stared up at me with wild eyes from only inches away. I continued to hold her in place for another few seconds until she started to relax. And only then did I gently lower her down on top of the bed.

She removed her arms from around my neck and set her head down against the folded blanket that served as a pillow. She took deep breaths to calm her racing heart and kept glancing over from my face to the now-empty spot on my right shoulder.

“Was it…? Did I imagine…?” she asked hesitantly.

“No, you didn’t imagine him.” I reached up to tap my shoulder. “He tends to come and go as he pleases, so he’s not always there. Or maybe he’s there but he’s invisible, or… You know what? I don’t actually know. Nothing about Dong makes sense to me.”

“Dong?”

“He’s an avatar of Dōngfāng Qīnglóng, the Azure Dragon of the East. So he told me to just call him ‘Dong’.”

“I see…” she said slowly, with an expression that clearly stated the opposite.

I found myself studying this version of the woman I had known back in my own time. Although I’d only met Jade a few days ago, we’d spent so much time together since then that I thought I’d started to get a handle on her personality. But while that version of her had been condescending, aloof, and a bit world-weary after more than a millennium spent witnessing the great conflicts of the Middle Kingdom and beyond, this version of her seemed even younger and less mature than me.

They say, “Asian don’t raisin”, meaning that Asian people didn’t wrinkle and it would always be hard to discern an Asian person’s true age, so I had no idea how old Ziyi really was. Given her hui shapeshifter heritage, she could’ve been hundreds of years old already despite having the appearance of an eighteen-year-old girl. But there was something in her eyes - an innocence that had not yet been fully eradicated by a life of hardship spent being an outcast yaoguai, always on the run - that made me think the eighteen-year-old guess was more accurate than not.

“Enough about me and the mystery of how I got here or why there’s a talking gecko who occasionally appears on my shoulder. Let’s talk about you for a minute,” I suggested. “What’s going on in your world right now? What goals are you trying to accomplish?”

Ziyi looked puzzled. “Goals?”

“It’s just… I don’t know why I’m here - why I’ve been transported to this specific place at this specific time - but Dong told me that it is my destiny to be here, which makes me believe it’s my destiny to help you in whatever task you’re trying to achieve.”

“You really don’t know?”

“I don’t even know how I’m speaking Mandarin right now. Back home, I only spoke English. Maybe a little bit of Spanish. Yo quiero Taco Bell.”

“What?”

“Nevermind.”

Ziyi took a deep breath and then sat upright, crossing her legs and leaning forward with her elbows on her knees. She looked up at me and explained, “Well, Liu Kang and I were trying to find… Wait, what is your name? And please do not say ‘Liu Kang’. As you said: the Liu Kang I knew is dead.”

“Well I suppose you can call me Chezhou.”

“Chē… Zhóu…?” Ziyi turned the words over in her mind. Separated out, the English translation of her words in my head came up with ‘wood lathe’, and she gave me a puzzled look. “It is an unusual name.”

“Best I’ve got.”

“Well… Chezhou… Liu Kang and I were tracking the great Sword of Baihu.”

I arched both eyebrows. “The ancient relic of Baihu, the White Tiger of the West?”

She looked surprised. “You know of it?”

“I know of it, but not much else,” I admitted. “I have no idea what it looks like or how to tell it apart from any other sword.”

“In truth, I don’t know exactly what it looks like either,” Ziyi admitted with a sigh. “Liu Kang knew what it looks like. He wielded it once. But the sword is too powerful to be kept for long, and he returned it to its hiding place once his task was complete.”

“I’m guessing that the sword didn’t stay in its hiding place.”

Ziyi shook her head grimly. “Warlord Zhu Wen found it. How much do you know of him?”

“Uhhh… Let’s just assume I know nothing of him.”

Ziyi’s expression soured as if tasting bile that had risen up the back of her throat. “He is a liar, a rapist, and a traitor.”

I narrowed my eyes. “You know this from personal experience?”

“Thankfully, no. But his reputation is already legendary. He even rapes the daughters of his own generals.”

“And those generals stand for it?”

Ziyi grimaced. “He is the most powerful man in the kingdom, and they dare not move against him. Zhu Wen has always been bloodthirsty and capricious. He was a former rebel against the Tang Dynasty, but he betrayed his own leader and was rewarded by with the governorship of Kaifeng. The Tang emperors had become weak after nearly three hundred years of complacency, so control of the empire came down to a struggle between Zhu Wen and the Tang general Li Keyong.”

“And Zhu Wen won.”

“With the Sword of Baihu he did. Zhu Wen defeated Li Keyong’s armies in battle. He murdered the Tang emperor and all of the Tang heirs. He slaughtered the senior Tang officials, threw their bodies into the Yellow River, and installed his own governors. He moved the capital from Chang’an to here in Luoyang, and he proclaimed himself the new Emperor Taizu of the Hou Liang Dynasty.”

I nodded slowly. “So he probably keeps the sword with himself at all times.”

Ziyi shook her head in the negative. “Not at ALL times. I told you that the sword is too powerful to be kept for long. When close by, it drains the life force of its wielder, so Zhu Wen must keep the sword in another location far away from himself when he does not need it.”

“Like right now, when his dynasty has already been established and he is not currently at war.”

“He is not currently at war, but there have been many recent… skirmishes. His new dynasty is only a year old, so he has needed to call upon it many times.”

“Do you know where it is right now?”

Ziyi nodded again, but then her face fell. “At present, the sword is under heavy guard on the highest level of the Tian Tang, the Heavenly Hall. It is impossible to get there without being killed. But…”

I waited when she let her voice trail off, pursing her lips and staring off into the distance. But when she didn’t continue, I took her hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze.

Ziyi swallowed thickly when she turned to look at me, fresh moisture in her eyes. She studied my face as if unable to believe what her eyes were telling her, and I didn’t need any special empathy to realize she was remembering the real Liu Kang.

“It’s alright if you don’t want to talk about this right now,” I told her gently.

But she shook her head, clenched her jaw, and sat up straight. “Liu Kang found out that Zhu Wen was riding out towards Shanxi, which is controlled by the Jin Empire under the rule of General Li Keyong’s son, Li Cunxu. Zhu Wen brought the Sword of Baihu with him, of course. We waited until after their battle at the border, which ended in a stalemate. Zhu Wen does not have enough soldiers to conquer and hold new territory. It is enough for him to keep what he has. With his army weakened and weary, it seemed a good time for us to sneak aboard the carriage holding the sword and try to steal it.”

I grimaced. “I assume the attempt failed.”

Ziyi was pale as she closed her eyes, the lowering eyelids pushing out the accumulated moisture into twin streams of tears that rolled down her cheeks. Rather than answer me directly, she turned her face away and bowed her head in sorrow.

“I’m sorry.” I squeezed her hand again. “You must have loved him very much.”

She shook her head in the negative. “Liu Kang and I were not lovers. He was…” Her voice trailed off again as she contemplated how to finish that sentence. In the end, she took a deep breath and finished, “He was a man dedicated to his mission and nothing else.”

I pondered that, reading Ziyi’s face. I got the distinct impression that she had been attracted to him, only to find that her interest was unrequited.

“I owed him my life,” Ziyi continued. “It can be hard living as… well… living as an outcast.”

I noticed the way she blushed while hesitating at the end of that sentence, as if she’d almost said something she didn’t want to say. Arching an eyebrow, I finished for her, “It can be hard living as a Mangshan pit viper shapeshifter?”

Ziyi’s eyes popped open wide, clearly surprised that I knew.

“I told you I remember you,” I said with a wink.

“You also called me ‘Jade’,” she stated skeptically.

“Well, that was the fake name you gave me when I met you.”

“When you met me… in the future?” she asked dubiously.

I nodded.

“Exactly how FAR into the future?”

I waggled my head and thought about that. Part of me figured I should be completely honest with her, but another part of me wondered how much I should really tell her. It might blow her mind to contemplate being alive for another thousand years, and I worried I might somehow screw up the timeline if I told her that. Like, would she be more reckless in her life and put herself in danger if she believed she was destined to continue living well into the twenty-first century?

“I don’t think the year itself is important,” I stated slowly. “What IS important is that I know exactly what you are and that I completely accept you as you are. Completely.”

I also couldn’t help but think of all the sex we’d had while Jade was in her hybrid form, and a silly little smirk spread across my face while I momentarily ogled Ziyi’s curvaceous figure.

She must have read my wolfish expression because she abruptly stood up from the bed and walked away, muttering, “Don’t even think about it. Whatever relationship you had with ‘Jade’ has nothing to do with ME.”

“Sorry, I’m sorry,” I muttered, turning to follow after her.

“This is serious,” Ziyi stated hotly while whirling back around to face me. “An evil warlord who cares only for power and will violently repress any resistance has possession of the magical weapon that wiped out my village! The people who took me in! Who cared for me! It was MY job to protect them, but now they’re dead. ALL DEAD!”

“So now you want to kill him, to avenge the people of your village.”

She shook her head. “It is not enough to kill him. If I kill him, another power-hungry man will simply take control of the sword and use it to subjugate the people. I must complete Liu Kang’s quest to retrieve the sword and hide it again. Without the sword, Zhu Wen is just a regular man and will be easily disposed of.”

“Seems like that’s where I come in.” I tapped the side of my face. “Your Liu Kang died, and the powers of the Four Auspicious Beasts brought me here to take his place. I am the Chosen One of Qinglong. It is my destiny to help you. It is my destiny to complete the quest.”

Ziyi nodded slowly in agreement and took a deep breath. Her eyes momentarily turned to my right shoulder, and I glanced down at it, expecting to see Dong perched there. But for now it was just me and her, and I looked back to find Ziyi meeting my eyes as she stated with conviction, “Then let us begin.”

****

It was just after noon the following day when Jade and I passed through a familiar gate between very tall, very ancient-looking walls. I was once again dressed in my stolen lanshan formal attire like any other government official, and Ziyi had shapeshifted herself a fashionable high-waisted ruqun hanfu dress suitable for the wife of a government official instead of the rough peasant garb she’d been wearing yesterday doing her parkour escape from the authorities. We both fit right in, and barely anyone looked at us except to briefly glance at Ziyi’s beautiful face (and bountiful bosom).

I couldn’t blame them. I still remembered the feeling of that bountiful bosom in my hands when I’d woken up this morning. The single-room cottage had only one bed, which Ziyi had apparently shared with Liu Kang before without incident. But I wasn’t actually Liu Kang, and I’d done what I usually did in my sleep: I’d spooned myself up behind the gorgeous young woman lying next to me and put my hands on her tits.

Ziyi had not been happy about it when she woke up, and it felt like I could still feel her handprint on my cheek even now.

Moving on.

Only a day after I’d abruptly been transported to this time and place, I somehow felt right at home in the city of Luoyang. Yesterday I’d felt like a fish out of water with no concept of who or where I was, but now everything felt familiar, as if I’d lived here my whole life.

Instead of skulking around town constantly looking over my shoulder for any sign of prison guards in pursuit, I walked the city streets at a relaxed pace, taking in the sights of the bustling marketplace, the hectic flow of traffic from the many bureaucrats traveling to and fro to keep the country running, and the hybrid architecture of ancient city walls mixed with “modern” structures built within the past year or so after the recent war’s destruction.  Money of this time period consisted of qian: round copper or bronze coins with square center holes through them so that the coins could be hung on strings instead of within purses. I had a small purse tucked into a pocket within my trousers, and I would casually stop and pay for food at one of the many street vendors hawking their wares.

Ziyi and I walked through the wide boulevards of the residential areas just beyond of the palace walls where all of the high-ranking government officials lived. Up ahead I could just make out the golden peaks of the Imperial Palace complex, including the Heavenly Hall Tian Tang and the Hall of Enlightenment Ming Tang, which were used for government administration and religious ceremonies, respectively. The towering five-story pagoda that supposedly held the Sword of Baihu was our ultimate goal, but not for today.

Today, Ziyi wanted to do reconnaissance.

She’d been surveying the palace complex the night before when she’d unexpectedly run into me, and her desperate need to figure out who I was had cut short her scouting mission. We were back now to monitor the guard movements, figure out the best ways to get from one side of the walls to the other, and how to get into the Tian Tang without getting caught.

Getting in was actually pretty easy, Ziyi could shapeshift into her Mangshan pit viper form and simply slither around nearly undetected. She’d already done so before to do some scouting within the palace complex and formulate a plan of how to get to the sword. But getting OUT of the palace complex would be a completely different problem, not least of which was because she couldn’t carry a sword while in her snake form.

The Imperial Palace complex had been constructed as a precise rectangle with thick walls built along the four cardinal directions: north, south, east, and west. Each wall had been constructed with a smooth surface to make climbing up them virtually impossible. And each wall had but a single gate that was guarded at all times.

The southern gate was by far the largest and most ornate, the centerpiece of a large public square in which ceremonial festivals could be held. The massive doors remained open throughout the day and the gate was staffed at all times. Most of those entering were government officials or other high-ranking visitors. Still, all those who wished to pass needed proper documentation that would be verified by the palace guards.

The western gate was used mostly by domestic servants who worked in the palace and transportation workers who brought in food and other materials. It was the most heavily trafficked and likewise remained open throughout the day. But all persons and packages were heavily scrutinized by the abundant guards, who were even more strict than the guards at the southern gate.

The eastern gate led to the old river and was only opened as needed for either royal transportation or shipping of large items by barge. We had no way of predicting when such events might occur.

The northern gate, which was physically the closest to the royal residence, was almost never used as all traffic was directed to one of the other three gates. As such, the gate itself was only lightly guarded.

It was that utter lack of traffic and minimal guards at the northern gate that made it Liu Kang’s original plan for gaining access to the palace complex and then getting back out. Well, Ziyi’s snake form could sneak through the multiple drainage areas through the bottom parts of the wall, but a human carrying a stolen sword wouldn’t be able to fit through the drains to get back out. Even if the gate itself was locked, we could gain access to the guard house at the top via stairs and then descend to the ground outside by rope. The real trick was getting in. And for that, Ziyi had a plan.

“Wait-wait-wait,” I said quietly in an out of the way corner where we couldn’t be overheard. “Your brilliant plan is to set a fire in the forest, get everyone distracted, and then use grappling hooks to scale the northern gate?”

“I’ve done it before,” Ziyi insisted before wincing in a way that belied her bravado. “Well, do you have a better plan?”

I smirked. “Actually, I do. I can pretty much guarantee it’ll work. Although I have a feeling you’re not going to like it.”

She frowned. “Why wouldn’t I like it?”

“Ummm… Well…”

****

“Ungh! Ungh! Ungh! Ungh! Ungh! Oh you are so strong! So big in me! I love it! Yes! Yes! Yes!”

Guiying was first wife to the second magistrate overseeing the Jianxi District of Luoyang. She had fulfilled her familial duty and born the master two healthy sons who were presently away at school. But although she was still fairly young and vigorous at the present age of twenty-eight, her wealthy husband had not bedded her for many years now that he had a literal harem of younger women whose tighter vaginal canals had not been stretched by childbirth, and whose tits had never started sagging after years of breastfeeding. So you might say she was more than eager to feel my massive schlong stretching her little-used snatch in ways she had never felt in her entire life. Well, never felt before yesterday, at least.

Yes, I was back at the same house I had visited the previous day, fucking some of the same women I had fucked yesterday. There were only five of them this time - second concubine and her maid were out shopping - and those five had been overjoyed to discover that I’d climbed the wall outside Lianhua’s bedroom with an interest in sharing orgasms with everyone.

Ziyi seemed… less overjoyed. Well, it was hard to read the expression on a Mangshan pit viper coiled up in a corner of the windowsill, mostly out of view. But I still got the distinct impression of Ziyi’s look of disgust at the reckless debauchery in front of her. After a while, she left the windowsill and went somewhere else out of view, perhaps so that she wouldn’t have to continue watching the orgy in process.

In the meantime, I was happy to grab onto Guiying’s wide, child-bearing hips for handholds while I repeatedly rammed my rod into her quivering quim, banging my pelvis off of her bubble butt from behind. And when I instead reached forward to grab her wrists and tug back on them, forcing her to arch her back while I pulverized her poor pussy with my powerful prick, she tossed her head back and screamed her pleasure to the heavens.

“IIIIYYYYAAAAHHHH!!!” she howled in ecstasy as she quivered and came.

As soon as Guiying was done screaming, I grabbed the messy bun of her jet-black hair and shoved her face back down into her own maid’s pussy. Then I raised my left foot onto the top of her bed, hammered the hell out of her tight twat, and quickly brought my balls to a boil.

“Hng-hng-hng-hng-HNG!”

“He’s going to spurt!” Lianhua squealed excitedly.

“I want it!” her maid exclaimed.

“No, I want it!” second wife insisted.

“Rrrraaaauuuugggghhhh!!!” I roared, yanking my dick out of Guiying’s still-spasming snatch and fisting my erection, preparing to blow my load all over Guiying’s back.

But Lianhua grabbed my hips and turned me towards her, parking her face directly in front of my angry purple head. Her maid knelt right next to her, mashing her cheek against her mistress’s. And second wife joined right in on the other side so that the three pretty faces were in a perfect row.

“AAAAUUUUGggghhhhhhhh…” I groaned, my voice petering out as the pressure released. Ribbon after ribbon of sticky semen sprayed out of my spurting schlong, coating the comely countenances of the Chinese cuties with all of my cock cream.

The three of them all squealed excitedly as I lashed them each with generous globules of jism. When I lost power and stopped stroking my shaft, second wife reaching up to take hold of my turgid tool and aim it into her mouth, sealing her lips around my mushroom head to suck out the dregs. Meanwhile, Lianhua and her maid turned to each other, grabbing the other’s head and actively licking up every drop of creamy cum they could reach like a pair of feisty felines.

And that was only my first cumload.

It took about an hour, but I wound up spurting five times: one for each of them. I almost didn’t pull out in time for the final one, with Lianhua riding me reverse cowgirl while Guiying was eating her out. It simply felt too good inside her, and I’d lost my head a bit to the pleasure. But as the chief lady of the house, Guiying had a sharper mind than I did at that moment, and she was quick to pop Lianhua off my lap and swallow every last drop straight down into her stomach. And thus I found myself spread eagle and stretched out across Guiying’s bed, staring at the ceiling, having nearly forgotten the whole reason why I’d come here in the first place.

But like I said: Guiying had a sharper mind than me at that moment. I was still staring at the ceiling when she sat down on the bed beside me, patted my semi-hard schlong with one hand, and extended her other hand to me holding two crisp pieces of paper.

“I’ve been signing my husband’s paperwork for years. He focuses so much on his government job that he would forget to pay our servants if I didn’t take care of it for him,” Guiying explained while I looked over the documents and ran my thumb over the drying ink.

“Thank you,” I told her sincerely. “I am in your debt.”

“Oh, not at all,” Guiying insisted. “What you have given us is more than a fair trade. Although I must admit that you are spoiling us, with two visits in two days. I must ask that you do not come back tomorrow. We cannot get used to such pleasure every day, or the rest of our lives would be all the more sorrowful for your absence.”

“I understand,” I said while sitting up straight. “Still, thank you very much.”

“But why DO you want to get into the Imperial Palace?” Lianhua asked.

“Shhh, child. You must not ask such things,” Guiying scolded. “Chezhou’s business is his own, and you will not be able to reveal information that you do not know.”

“Thank you for your discretion, Guiying,” I stated sincerely.

The lovely woman leaned in to kiss my lips, and when she pulled back, she winked at me and said, “Truly, it was our pleasure.”

****

I didn’t see where Ziyi had gone off to, but as soon as I dropped down onto the street outside Lianhua’s bedroom, I saw a snake slither off the wall just behind me and then transform into the young woman just before it hit the ground. Ziyi landed in a semi-crouch and then stood up, glaring at me with narrowed eyes and something of a scowl on her face.

“You are nothing like Liu Kang,” she pronounced flatly.

I smirked. “Glad to know we’re in agreement, but would Liu Kang have gotten these?” I held up the two passes in my hand.

Ziyi snatched them out of my hand and inspected both. After scrutinizing them for a few seconds, she nodded slowly. “You actually prostituted yourself for these passes.”

“Well… technically yesss…” I admitted.

She scowled and looked ready to puke. But instead she merely shook her head and turned away. “While I do not approve of your methods, I cannot argue with the results. Let’s go.”

She marched off before I could say anything in response and I quickly followed after. I didn’t need any supernatural insight into women to recognize that Ziyi wasn’t happy, so I caught up to knowing that we’d need to talk.

“Look, I understand that you’re not entirely happy about what just happened, but I did warn you in advance that you weren’t going to like my plan.”

“I know you did,” Ziyi muttered, rolling her eyes and shaking her head.

“You knew all along that I had slept with the wife of a government magistrate and expected that I’d need to do so again in exchange for help getting entry passes into the palace.”

“I did.”

“Then why are you upset?”

“I don’t know why I’m upset!” she hissed. “Just leave me alone!”

I pulled up short while Ziyi abruptly accelerated, doubling her pace. I groaned and extended my hands out towards her in frustration, groaning beneath my breath.

A man walking the other way turned to briefly glance at the gorgeous young woman who had just passed him, and he looked up at me with a bit of smirk on his face. “Your wife is upset with you?” he asked.

“It seems like she’s always upset with me,” I said honestly.

“I know exactly how you feel,” the man replied heartily, and he was still laughing as he continued on his way.

Shaking my head, I hurried to catch up to Ziyi, and once I came alongside her, I reached out to snag her elbow. That got her to stop, but Ziyi merely turned, slammed the two Imperial Palace entry passes into my chest, and then stalked off again, shaking herself free of my grip. I followed after her again, but she turned into a nearby doorway, momentarily stepping out of view…

… and then disappearing entirely. Well, she didn’t disappear, of course. Only because I knew exactly what to look for did I spot the green Mangshan pit viper slithering away in the shadows alongside the wall. And although I followed her for half a block, she went through a drainage grate beneath the wall to the other side where I could not follow.

With no other options, I decided to return to the small cottage on the outskirts of the city. Ziyi wasn’t there, although I wasn’t really worried about her. The shapeshifter hui had survived this long on her own and knew how to take care of herself.

In the meantime, I was hungry after not stopping to buy food on my way back, so I started looking through the cupboards. Refrigerators and microwaves didn’t exist during this time period, but there were some vegetables, salted fish, and dry rice. Along with the ability to speak colloquial Chinese and a sense of familiarity with the city, my magically produced body apparently came with the knowledge of how to work in a 10th-century Chinese kitchen, and I had cooked myself a bowl of fish porridge in about half an hour.

I took my meal at the small table and sat on the slightly crooked wooden stool, wearing the same clothes I’d worn yesterday and pondering my present existence. I still felt a deep-rooted sense of belonging to this place - the language, the culture, the lifestyle - as if some part of me had truly lived a couple of decades here as Liu Kang. But I wasn’t Liu Kang. My name here was now Chezhou. And at the same time, I hadn’t forgotten anything about… well… about Aksel’s modern life.

In Santa Monica, Aksel would’ve kicked back on his leather sofa, streaming videos on his 4K widescreen QLED TV while reading articles on his iPad and DM’ing hot Insta-babes on his iPhone. He would’ve used internet apps to order meals from local gourmet restaurants to be delivered to his front door, arranged for his dry cleaning to be picked up, and done some online shopping for trendy new clothes.

The air in Santa Monica would be filled with the sounds of a thousand cars on the crowded urban streets, thousands more people walking by, and the ocean waves crashing on the beach.

Here everything was quieter. No electronics to hum. No gas engines to putter. The occasional domestic animal mooing or oinking or clucking, perhaps. Wooden wagon wheels digging through ruts in the dirt roads. People still walked and talked nearby, but their voices were different, the language was different, and the topics of conversation revolved around the basic necessities of survival instead of Taylor Swift’s latest concert tour or two-party politics.

I wondered when I’d go back.

I wondered IF I’d ever go back.

Dong had informed me that this was a closed loop, that I was always meant to come here to this time and this place, to set in motion events that would later shape the future.

But he’d never promised me that I would return.

How long would I be here? Another few days? A few weeks?

A few years?

The rest of my life?

Was I destined to remain Chezhou until my death, never to return to being Aksel again?

I didn’t know.

I suppose I could’ve sat there pondering the nature of my new existence for hours, but Ziyi returned to the cottage just then. She was so silent that I didn’t even notice her entrance, and I only looked up when she started scraping the scoop ladle around the porridge pot to start filling herself a bowl.

“Thank you,” she stated graciously while taking her seat next to me, holding up the bowl for emphasis. But she didn’t look me in the eyes and instead kept her focus on her porridge as she began to eat.

She didn’t speak to me. She didn’t even look up. I gave her space, patiently watching her eat. I couldn’t help but find myself staring at her beauty, looking at a face that must have been so recognizably familiar to Liu Kang and thus felt familiar to me, and yet remained slightly different from the one Aksel remembered.

“Stop looking at me like that.”

I blinked and pulled my head back, momentarily startled. Ziyi set her spoon down inside her now-empty bowl and glared at me with a sort of bug-eyed challenging look, her green irises smoldering.

“Looking at you like what?”

“You know what I’m talking about.”

I blinked twice. “Actually… I don’t.”

“I’m not like one of those round-heeled sluts at the magistrate’s house, you satyr.”

I held my hands up. “I never--”

“You were,” Ziyi insisted. “You are not the first man to stare at me like that. I know what it feels like to be… to be ogled.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to stare at you like that.”

“But you WERE staring at me like that. At the very least, you were thinking about HER, about your ‘Jade’ from the future. And I told you, whatever relationship you had with HER has nothing to do with ME.”

“I know it doesn’t.”

Ziyi squirmed in her seat, looking decidedly uncomfortable. She got a faraway look in her eyes, staring blankly at the wall. A moment later, she screwed up her face and shook her head, scowling and clenching her eyes shut as if she could physically block her view of whatever she happened to be thinking about at that moment.

“FIVE women!?” she exclaimed in mild disgust. “Really? What kind of animal are you?”

I blinked twice again. “Um, what?”

“Okay you DID tell me you wanted to meet with the wife of a government magistrate that you had bedded to ask for Imperial passes, and you DID warn me that you would likely end up bedding her again, but you did NOT warn me that you were going to bed FIVE of them!”

“Is THAT what this is about?”

“FIVE! Over and over and over again! For hours!”

“Well, it was a lot closer to just one hour before--”

“That’s not the point!”

“Are you really angry at me for having sex with all of them?”

“I don’t know!” Ziyi picked up her bowl and slammed it on the table, shattering the porcelain on impact. “他妈的!”

“Whoa! Whoa!”

“Iyah!” Ziyi stood up from her seat, knocking over her stool and pacing away.

I reached out to grab the broken pieces, careful not to cut myself on the jagged edges, and started putting them into my still-intact empty bowl.

“What was it like?”

“Hmm?” I looked up in surprise to find Ziyi hovering over me, that bug-eyed glare back on her face.

“With me. In the future. What was it like? Was I good? I had to be good at it for you to look at me now like that. I must have been good. Right?”

“I… I… uh… you… Umm…” I stammered. “You’re asking if--”

“Was I good at sex?”

“Well… I mean… yeah, of course. Like you said, for me to be looking at you now like that, you must--”

“How long were we having sex together? Are we together? Are we married?”

“What? Married? No.”

“But we’re having sex a lot.”

“I’m not sure I should be telling you stuff about--”

“Are we or are we not having sex a lot?!”

“I mean… that kind of depends on your definition of ‘a lot’.”

Dong suddenly popped into existence on my right shoulder, chuckling as he explained, “Oh they’re bumping uglies every chance they get. This guy is a total sex addict, and Jade is absolutely in lo--”

“THANK you, Dong!” I interrupted. “That’s enough! You can go away now!”

“Bro. C’mon. I’m only complimenting the both of--”

“GO AWAY, DONG!”

“Fine, fine. I’m going, I’m going.” The little gecko snapped his fingers and vanished in a puff of blue smoke.

Ziyi moved her attention from my right shoulder back to my face. Her arms were folded across her chest, and she stared at me with a pensive look. “Do I get my scales under control?”

I blinked twice. “Um, what?”

“While we’re having sex. Am I able to do it without… uhhh… well…”

“Without your scales appearing?”

She bit her lip and nodded nervously.

“Well… yes. I mean, to answer that question plainly: yes, you can have sex without your scales appearing.” I frowned. “Are you unable to have sex without your scales appearing right now?”

Ziyi paled, winced, and turned away, a few tears already trickling down her cheeks.

“Hey… hey…” I quickly stood up and instinctively reached out to hug her, but she immediately recoiled and darted a few steps away with her hands up defensively with both palms out. I likewise held my hands up to show that I wasn’t a threat and remained where I was. “I’m sorry. I didn’t… I didn’t know that was an issue. To be honest, I rather like your scales. We actually have sex in your hybrid form more often than while you’re completely human.”

“‘WE’ don’t have sex AT ALL,” Ziyi corrected coldly, that challenging glare back in her eyes. She took a step forward and then growled, “I’VE never even had sex AT ALL!”

My eyes popped open wide.

Ziyi’s eyes popped open wide, and she clapped both hands over her mouth in shock that she’d said that.

“Ummm… okayyy…” I muttered into the awkward silence that immediately followed. “I didn’t know that. And yes, I totally understand that you and I don’t have sex at all and I’m sorry if I keep staring at you the way I looked at Jade and I one hundred percent know that she and you aren’t exactly the same person and I can’t conflate my memories with her with my experience here with you and there’s nothing to be ashamed of being a virgin and I’m sure there are some further details about your concern with controlling your scales but I understand that those details are probably very private and you don’t have to explain anything to me about them but if--”

“Oh will you please just shut up!” Ziyi interrupted hotly, clamping one hand over her eyes and turning to walk away.

“I’m sorry,” I muttered lamely.

“Just leave me alone, Chezhou.” She came to a stop facing the wall. It was a cramped single-room cottage, so she couldn’t go very far.

“Right… right. Umm… I should probably go for a walk.”

“That would be a good idea,” she said, waving dismissively without turning back to look at me.

Grimacing, I took a deep breath and went over to the door. My ears burned, my mind was racing, and this conversation was the last thing I’d expected to be talking about right now. Part of me wanted to get out of that cottage and away from the awkward situation as fast as humanly possible, but the other part of me wanted to stay there, talk to Ziyi, and do whatever I possibly could to help her.

So I hesitated before pulling on the latch and opening the door. I left my hand on it, turned to look back at Ziyi, and started to say, “I just want you to know that--”

I didn’t get any further in that sentence. The door suddenly blasted inward, knocking me flat onto my back across the dirt floor of the small cottage. Pain radiated across my face and chest, along with the heavy weight of a massive paw.

You read that right: a massive paw. There was a huge black dog on top of me, growling and dripping sizzling hot droplets of drool onto my chest.

And the dog was on fire.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Prologue & Chapter 1: The Ax Effect: https://www.patreon.com/posts/102225387

Chapter 2: Santa Monica: https://www.patreon.com/posts/102437478

Chapter 3: The Zellij Fountain: https://www.patreon.com/posts/102691018

Chapter 4: Euhemerism: https://www.patreon.com/posts/102919819

Chapter 5: The Fremont Troll: https://www.patreon.com/posts/103191700

Chapter 6: Jade: https://www.patreon.com/posts/103443053

Chapter 7: The Blue Gecko: https://www.patreon.com/posts/103699709

Chapter 8: Yaoguai: https://www.patreon.com/posts/103978374

Chapter 9: Rome: https://www.patreon.com/posts/104213388

Chapter 10: Seeing Sights: https://www.patreon.com/posts/104466709

Chapter 11: Liu Kang: https://www.patreon.com/posts/104728056