Interlude: Song Yuelin (Patreon)

Good luck was something Song Yuelin never put much stock in. It wasn’t good luck that saw him enter the service of the Southern Dragon King, nor was it good luck that his skills were appreciated by that man who raised him to higher heights and higher duties. Good luck did not have him stumble across lost treasures, he did not stumble. If he found something lost it was because he knew where it was. Good luck certainly never helped him accomplish his missions, or refine the lethality of his powers.

Nor did Song Yuelin place any blame on bad luck. There were faces for his failures. It was his enemies’ exceptional cunning or overwhelming force that defeated him. It was the incompetence of his planning and staffing that bungled his schemes in the dark. It was his own limits that threw him into qi deviation or forestalled his progress.

That wasn’t to say Song Yuelin did not acknowledge luck. For himself it had no bearing, but even he could see when others were affected by the best and worst of it. He had seen the pathetic rise and mighty fall by the merest of margins. He had seen genius bloom, wilt, then rise again as phoenixes. Heavenly phenomena that brought paradise and desolation through little but the movements of the stars. Every member of his lord’s family who was blessed to share his blood.

Indeed for all that he himself did without it, Song Yuelin had lived well-enough to see many examples of fortune and his opposite. Despite this detachment from Heavenly Chance there were still moments when even Song Yuelin himself could do not but say he was favored by fate.

The first instance was when he was born for that is when a man will spend most of the luck he will ever receive.

The second instance was when a certain rat-faced manager sent a letter detailing the strange behavior of Lord Chen’s Youngest. While he did have authority over such letters the fact it ever reach him to be read was such a twisting feat of bureaucratic mystery that he scarcely imagined it could ever be replicated. That it led to him discovering two individuals blessed by sheer astronomical fortune could perhaps be its own separate luck but Song Yuelin preferred not to quibble over details like that.

The third instance was quite embarrassing for Song Yuelin because it hadn’t happened yet. It was a little bit of fortune he was hoping would be pushed toward a later date in the future if fate would be so kind. He wouldn’t argue too much about when in the future though, Song Yuelin was nothing if not accommodating.

These three instances would all be considered good fortune in Song Yuelin’s own humble opinion. Had they been the end of it he would be a rather content man. The Heavens did like to play their tricks however and so Song Yuelin was sent a fourth instance of luck although this one he could confidently say was quite rude and perhaps not so good. Had he the means he would certainly file a formal complaint to the Heavens for this. As it stood he was charging this bit of bad luck to Young Master Chen’s and Lady Lan Fen’s accounts.

After ruminating on the nature of the luck in his life Song Yuelin pushed away the fiery skeleton of what had once been a barracks he had been buried under. The soldiers who once occupied it had long since vacated the burning building though many of those soldiers soon found themselves vacating their mortal coil with the help of the Empire’s elite Cloud Dragon Guard.

Each Guard is an expertly trained Liquid Meridian weapon, screened for their talent and loyalty, and taught the secret cultivation methods of the Imperial family. The Cloud Dragon Sutra they practice turns their qi into fluffy white clouds that allow them to fly under the own power without the use of a treasure and far before the Star Core realm. This cloud qi can also be easily combined together to create a variety of useful cloud formations. In the Imperial Capital for the birthdays of young princes and princesses, these cloud formations would take the form of a bunny or a particularly ugly dog.

Unfortunately for the Not-So-Secret-Anymore Secret Chen Family Port the Cloud Dragon Guard were in a less festive mood when visiting and instead flew in as a literal Cloud Dragon that dropped flaming meteors on their first pass around the port setting alight their defenses and most importantly, the ships they were meant to escape on. On the second pass the cloud dragon dropped the contingent of Guards within its belly who flew down with clouds beneath their feet and used their silver spears to skewer the twice-disadvantaged land-bound sailors of the Chen family. On the third pass the white dragon became a stormy grey and struck with blue lightning any defender getting uppity about not dying.

The skilled Liquid Meridians would die, and could hope they might bring an enemy down with them. The unskilled Liquid Meridians would be captured alive, bound in clouds, and carried into the cloud dragon so that they may donate their liquid qi for the prosperity of the Empire.

Song Yuelin naturally would not stand around and do nothing while all this occurred. This was the Empire after all, not the Lan family. Dealing with so many Cloud Dragon Guards would be a difficult task even for him so he instead set his sights on dismantling the cloud dragon. It wouldn’t be a permanent solution but while the Guard was reforming a new one it would give time for their men to flee, either to the mountains or sea depending on their preference.

Of course by the time he slit the throats of a half-dozen Cloud Dragon Guards who thought they lived for too long and reached the cloud dragon the bad luck that orchestrated the Chen family’s biggest accounting error in 40 years revealed himself by shooting out of the cloud dragon like some demented falcon and slamming Song Yuelin into the barracks he was now picking himself out of.

For once in Song Yuelin’s life, failure and misfortune shared the same face.

“Greetings Chen dog,” Prince Shen Jianyu said. A luxurious red feathered cape drifted behind him keeping the Imperial Scion afloat in the air. His hands casually in his pockets, he gave Song Yuelin a toothy smile. For all that he looked washed out, Shen Jianyu was handsome. Unfortunately, he had an ugly smile, which even being handsome could not awkwardly smooth over, and so he just looked weird.

“If I say goodbye will you politely leave?” Song Yuelin said, brushing the char off his head.

“I do believe the Imperial family has said goodbye to the Chen family multiple times now.” Shen Jianyu clicked his tongue and shook his head.

“Well when you do it there’s more killing and fire involved, maybe if you were more agreeable about it there’d be better results.”

“I don’t think Chen Qitao and the word agreeable have ever co-existed.”

Song Yuelin conceded the point and flashed his daggers to his hands. Their cruel edges dripping with liquid shadow.

“Speaking of Chen Qitao was that really his spawn you were with?”

Song Yuelin furrowed his brows. “You were following us.”

“I was observing you ever since you left the city like a frightened squirrel yes.” Shen Jianyu nodded. “I saw you lose your little charge too it was the funniest thing I’ve seen all year.”

“It seems I’ve fallen prey to a simple flush and catch.” Song Yuelin sighed. Even if it were Shen Jianyu he wouldn’t be able to defend himself in front of Lord Chen when he returned. “Appearing to temporarily cancel the Exams was just your way to scare us out.”

Shen Jianyu cocked his head. “It’s permanent though? As soon as I was told to hunt you rats down in this place I was planning to cancel the Exams.”

“You would cause so much aggrievement amongst your subjects just to hunt us?”

“Don’t flatter yourself.” Shen Jianyu chuckled. “If I just did as I was told without causing trouble then other annoying people might start getting the idea I can be used.”

“I see,” Song Yuelin said. “To borrow a phrase from my Young Master-” His knives hummed and began to flitter. “You’re a dick.”

“You can post your complaint to a sword and send it to the neck that wears the crown, I couldn’t care less.” Shen Jianyu’s liquid qi dripped from his body like blood and formed hundreds of red spheres that fanned out behind him. “I have to thank you for being incompetent enough to lose your little master. If I captured a child of Chen Qitao then my Imperial Father would be happy.” The blood-red spheres shuddered and opened to reveal eyes containing ghostly white pupils. The hundreds of eyes blinked simultaneously at Song Yuelin. Shen Jianyu did not remove his hands from his pockets.

Song Yuelin set a small goal for himself to force his hands out first.

Liquid shadow spilled out and engulfed him.

“So much for my vacation,” he sighed.