Blueprint for Immortality: a Crafting Xianxia

Booker wasn’t sure how fucked he was until the last member of the group rounded the corner. It was the lanky apprentice with the shaved blonde hair, the one he’d dropped Zheng Bai’s name to in the library.

Their eyes met. The asshole smirked.

Booker didn’t like his odds, so he didn’t make any sudden movements and tried to keep things on a calm, even tempo. “Greetings brothers and sisters.” He said.

“Fuck you.” The foremost novice simply swung his fist at Booker’s chest.

But he was sixteen, and no cultivator. Booker simply caught his fist, stepped forward, and twisted it behind his back, tripping the boy to his feet and applying pressure to the arm so he was locked in place. “Do you want to tell me what this is about?”

“Zheng Bai… You owe Zheng Bai!” The boy gasped out.

Booker kicked him aside and jammed back with his elbow as another boy tried to jump him from behind. The jam pushed his elbow hard into an oncoming face, and there was a soft but gristly crunching sound as Booker felt fragile bone break.

“Ugh.” He grimaced, kicking the second boy’s feet out from under him. “Sorry about that.”

As the two of them lay on the floor he glanced about, waiting for another attack to come. But the group had lost their cohesion. They no longer trusted that they could easily overwhelm him. Which wasn’t to say they were cowards – they’d just realized the essence of the situation.

He might be a cripple, but they were just novices with no cultivation either. And in terms of the situation, he had two years on any of them. Not all of them were good fighters, either – most had been bought in by their silkpants families.

“Zheng Bai wants that recipe!” The cultivator shouted.

Booker’s grimace twitched violently. These idiots…

Then this isn’t even a real attempt to send a message.

His gaze swept up to the lanky apprentice. “Are you serious? You come after me and you bring children?” Booker spat out. “You’re a cultivator, so act like it!”

The lanky apprentice’s face reddened, and he let out a furious shout as he simply blurred down the hallway towards Booker. If he’d wanted to kill Booker in that moment, he could have. But his fist stopped an inch short, sending Booker staggered back into the wall by the force of the wind alone.

“You cocky shit.” He followed up with a jab into Booker’s guts. He had checked the punch early, stopping its momentum, but the blow still folded Booker double and sent the air rushing out of painfully closed lungs. As Booker coughed and choked, the boy grabbed him by the throat and slammed him against the wall.

“You didn’t come to kill me…” Booker spat out.

“I might still do it anyway.” The boy’s face was twitching, his lip hitching up with spasms of rage. “Zheng Bai says if you ever use her name again, she’ll cut your fucking tongue out!”

“But… you didn’t come to cut my tongue out, either.” Booker repeated.

“No, you prick. I came to tell you…” He leaned in close. “Zheng Bai wants your new recipe. If you don’t bring it to her in three days, we’ll fucking castrate you and drown you in the river.”

He dropped Booker, then grabbed his arm and twisted it behind his back viciously, pulling until the ligaments strained and the joints were twisted backwards to their capacity, nearly coming out of their sockets. “Now fucking scream!”

“Dipshit… Zheng Bai… won’t get shit if I don’t have my arm… and Greenmoon… wants that recipe… too…” Booker groaned, biting back at the pain searing through his twisted arm. “You think… you break my arm… you slow him down… you think he’ll stop at whipping you? Fuck… You’d be fucked both ways.”

“Elder brother!” Wei Qi shot forward, skidding to a halt on his sandals beside them. “He’s not kidding! Instructor Greenmoon’s temper is viciously short with this project. He said that if we didn’t have it done soon, he’d expel me! What do you think he’s going to do if you delay us by breaking this cripple’s arm? And if you’re in with criminals, don’t you think they’ll do worse?”

“Cripples are brittle.” The boy sneered back, but he must have thought better after a second, because he slowly released Booker’s arm and let him pull free. “Is the message delivered, prick?”

“The message couldn’t be clearer, although I think beating me up was your own idea.” Booker agreed slowly, rubbing his arm. “I hope you got paid well to deliver it.”

“I’ll be learning from Zheng Bai’s own apprentice.” He said gleefully. “I can finally get free of this suffocating bullshit, sucking up and scamming for these idiot instructors.”

“I hope you realize Zheng Bai isn’t any more concerned for your well-being. You’ve just traded one form of toadying for another.” Booker said, giving him a dark look.

“What do you care?” The apprentice sneered.

“Elder brother, you can beat my ass on behalf of a criminal dog and you’ll still be the one who ends up dead if that same criminal decides to slit your throat. It’s simply not a good bargain for you to be fighting me.” Booker said. “I’m sorry for looking down on you, but you’re a stupid motherfucker and someone’s got to show some concern.”

“You–” The disciple’s fist rose–

Booker didn’t step back. “I’m getting tired of you pricks. And right now, I know you can’t harm me, because I’m more valuable than you. So what? Is your day ruined if a cripple doesn’t flinch with fear when you walk by?”

The boy’s face colored in with red, dumb fury, totally unable to speak for a moment until he closed his mouth and spat through gritted teeth. “You talk big now but you’ll bow to Zheng Bai and I’ll be there to watch.” He turned away, and then spun around again, “And who do you think you’re talking to like that, you cretin!? Like you’re any better!”

Booker didn’t say anything in return.

As the boy turned and walked away, Snips detached from his collar, lifting off in a flutter of bright pink wings. The lanky apprentice had been so distracted he’d never noticed Snips’ poison claws touching at the back of his throat.

Would Snips’ poison have killed him? Possibly – but probably not quickly. And he’d definitely feel the sting, no matter how I distracted him. If he reached up fast enough – that would be Snips crushed to a pulp…

It would have been another mess on my conscience, but what a shitheaded dolt.

Sighing and rolling out his back, Booker brushed back his hair and turned back to Wei Qi. To his surprise, the boy immediately ducked his head down, bowing his forehead against a folded double-fist, and apologized. “Sorry, elder brother! I know I should have kept my mouth shut, but I was worried he’d act before he considered the consequences!”

“No, I understand–” And you even try to spare my pride, by pretending my safety wasn’t ever in doubt. You’re a good kid, Wei Qi. Rubbing the back of his neck, Booker said. “You did the right thing, I just shouldn’t have needed your help. In the future, let me deal with the consequences of things on my own, no matter how bad it gets. Do what’s best for you.”

The least I can do is avoid dragging you into this mess. It’s got a shape, and that shape is a spiral.

Today I’m worth more to them alive. But as soon as the recipe is complete, they’re free to attack me for it, and Greenmoon loses any incentive to help me instead of silencing me.

“I understand. I hope I didn’t make a fool of myself.”

“I only think better of you for stepping in where you didn’t need to. But it’s absolutely my place to see this through, without bringing you into it.”

“If you don’t mind me asking then–” Wei Qi finally lifted his head. “How bad is this? I heard a name, and I worry for what that name might mean for my own future.”

Right. It might become his problem whether or not I want it to. So, I owe him some explanation.

Booker let out a sigh. “I did buy the pills Hu Bao accused me of using. But I had second thoughts, so I threw them away. The person who sold them to me, though, she wanted me to become an addict, dependant on her. I guess she’s decided I still owe her.” That was the closest he could give to the truth, and the most useful information he could offer to Wei Qi.

Wei Qi nodded slowly. “Truly, we are punished too much for simple mistakes.”

Booker held back a humored smile. He didn’t know how true it was – Booker hadn’t even been Booker when he’d made that error. “That’s how it feels sometimes. Then I remember how much of a mistake it is, going to a drug-dealer like her and letting her sink her teeth into me…”

He shook his head. “Be careful junior brother. Especially about getting dragged down by other people’s business – none of what you heard today concerns you, if you’re lucky, so do your best to put it into a corner of your mind and think as little of it as possible.”

Once more Wei Qi nodded, and Booker left.

Goddamn nobodies. Zheng Bai wouldn’t have been stupid enough to send a bunch of kids, so it’s safe to say this was their own idea, and she just told them to deliver the message.

But it’s a real problem for me.

If I go to Greenmoon immediately with this problem, he’ll definitely protect me – it’s just that protection will be a disciple watching over me, and keeping me from doing anything interesting. I’ll be fully in Greenmoon’s pocket then. Not where I want to be.

No, I have to do something to shake Zheng Bai…

Or better yet, catch her out and give her to the enforcers. She’ll probably have friends among them, but the Sect won’t let those friends shield her if she’s caught stealing from the Sect’s pockets. That’s one rule the Sect will always enforce – the rule of the inside against the outside.

I just need to use that against her…

— — —

Booker made his way down to the courtyard by the gates, where the pillar of request tokens swung clanking and clinking like wooden bells in the wind. The medicine sellers were there as always, and today they had some entertainment, a small ring sketched in the sand where spirit beasts fought. They were the weakest kinds of spirit beasts, small insects, birds, and amphibians, but they brawled with an inhuman degree of stamina that kept the fights brutal and exciting.

But Booker didn’t have much of a taste for blood these days.

He just figured that going here directly was his best chance of avoiding an uncomfortable encounter. The very same lanky, blonde-haired apprentice he had just finished brawling with usually hung out here, palling around with the medicine sellers.

That meant Booker’s best chance of carrying out this transaction without interference was to head right here, before the lanky fuck composed himself and came back.

“Oh, you look fresh from the fight!” One of the toadies called.

Instantly Caihong’s head was up, abandoning the fight and searching around for this new source of amusement. Booker held up a hand and a rueful grin.

“Did somebody finally decide that mouth of yours was too big?” She asked, grinning broadly.

“Didn’t you teach me I should be more talkative? Share my secrets before you drag them out of me?” Booker replied.

“Mmm, not the lesson I would have taken away from it.” She replied, lips pursed.

“Maybe that I should stop playing with sharks, then?”

“Maybe that.” She agreed.

“Sorry, I seem to think I’m one of them.”

She cracked a faint smile at that. “What are you here for?”

“I want beast blood. Good quality beast blood, the best you can get. I also want the ingredients of a Treasure Sensing Pill…” He took out a small list and handed over. “Ah, in case this catches your famous curiosity, I’m just trying to brew up a spirit beast.”

“Hmm… Sixty liang, at least, and the more you can give me the better quality beast blood I can give you… And it will take a while.”

Booker glanced sideways at the fight taking place beneath their feet. A two-tailed black scorpion was driving a massive mouse with an axolotl’s delicate fleshy gills towards the edge of the ring.

“How about I throw into the ring and bet you a hundred liang?” He gestured at the duel. “And if I win, you make this job a priority. I need my things tonight”

“Hmmm…” She twisted her hair around a finger, considering. “Make it fun.”

“Without killing either of them.” Booker clarified. Sensing the time was right for him to make his appearance, Snips was crawling out of Booker’s bag and up his arm.

“Now that’s a bet.”

He held up his hand, letting Snips caper back and forth atop his palm. “Think you can do it, little guy? Think of it like… like a training run.”

Snips bobbed left and right in a rhythmic dance, flexing his claws up.

“Thought so.”

He stepped towards the ring, balancing Snips on his palm, and then sent the little mantis off with a flick of his wrist, launching Snips high into the air where his pink wings could blaze like a halo around him and send him swooping down into the arena.

The fight was just reaching its crescendo – the mouse backed against the wall of feet surrounding it, the scorpion closing in – when Snips descended like a bullet, crashing full-force into the mouse and knocking it aside.

Instantly the scorpion shot forward, two tails plunging down. Snips turned and parried them with the back of one claw, knocking away the night-black stings as the force of the tail-strike lifted the scorpion’s kicking back feet off the earth, curling its body like a bow bent back to fire.

Instantly the crowd’s attitude had gone from the tight-breathed anticipation of the kill to roaring in surprise, in outrage, and in excitement.

As soon as its back legs reconnected with the ground, the scorpion shot forward and engaged using its gripping claws. Snips flashed back and came back around in a perfect aerial loop do loop, dodging up over the claws and flinging himself down onto the creature’s back, capturing both tails with his claws and hanging on so they couldn’t curl in enough to prick at him.

The scorpion froze. Even its dim insectile brain could register the threat. One move… And its tails would be ripped off.

“Tao, get him!” Somebody shouted. An instant later, Snips was being flung back and sent tumbling across the ground.

The mouse had made its way back onto its feet, and spat a line of briny water with great pressure.

With a flicker of pink and purple, Snips flicked his wings clean and shot back into the air. He spun once, twice over the battlefield, shots of pressurized water plunging up and arcing aimlessly overhead. The scorpion’s owner was shouting orders, telling it to defend its previous opponent, and the beast was scuttling back to guard the mouse – the only one of the two who’d proven they could even hit Snips.

But the problem, as ever, was that they were simply too slow.

Snips rocketed past the scorpion’s guard and slammed into the mouse with the knees of its bent, skinny legs, sending the mouse tumbling over and over. Before it could get back to its feet, it had been sent rolling away from its only defense, the scorpion.

Snips advanced!

His claws flashed up, and cut through the air where the mouse had been a second before. The mouse scurried back, terrified to its wits end.

Snips advanced once more… His claws flashed up and scythed down into the ground, barely avoiding decapitating the hopping mouse.

The mouse shivered from head to toe.

Snips advanced one final time, wings expanding out in a buzzing halo, claws lifting up to catch the midday sun…

The mouse turned tail and shot back up its owners leg, as the outraged boy shouted– “Tao! You coward!”

But Snips was already turning towards the second half of the fight. The scorpion, dark-bodied and low against the earth, born forward by a tide of scuttling legs.

A tail shot for Snips’ throat. There was a lighting fast parry, the inner blade of his claw striking directly against the tail’s poisonous, endoskeleton-covered barb.

There was a distinct cracking noise, so loud it could be heard over the crowd. The sound of chitin armor against chitin blade.

The tail was sent flying back, and the scorpion stumbled.

Once, twice, three times– this scene repeated. Sparks flashed as Snips simply demonstrated the overwhelming speed of his parry against the tail’s double-headed offense. There was simply no way, no way at all the scorpion could overcome.

And when the exhaustion of this fact had etched terror and uncertainty into his opponent’s mind–

Then Snips really started to show off. His wings flicked open, vibrating into a blur, but he didn’t take off for any high-flying aerial show. Instead he lifted until his feet were barely off the ground, wings making the dirt shiver and fly up with the whirlwind they kicked up around him.

The scorpion attempted to stab out once more, and Snips simply skimmed away from the strike, dodging left while it went right. The next tail stabbed forward, and Snips performed an even more devastating counter – dodging left, then coming veering back in from the right, countering with a flying strike from its bladed claw.

Sparks erupted. The scorpion was sent flying back, landing and rolling onto its feet –

But even now the show was still ongoing. Snips flickered in a circle around the scorpion, strafing clockwise around it in a blinding fast ring. Even Booker, who prided himself on a sharp eye in a fight, couldn’t track where the mantis actually was within that ring of blurred purple and pink.

And then Snips suddenly solidified out of the blur, slamming into the scorpion from the side. It was sent tumbling onto its back, clumsy armored legs clawing at the air, and Snips dropped from above to land on its exposed underbelly. His claws reached up high, ready for the decapitating strike.

“Stop!” The scorpion’s owner shoved his way free from the crowd, reaching out a hand–

And he himself stopped when he realized Snips was already, absolutely, still. The mantis had come to stop the moment he had the enemy trapped, the killing strike ready.

“Come back.” Booker called, and Snips hopped up, letting the scorpion squirm away as he flew back to Booker’s hand.

The whole crowd was faintly staring, except Caihong and the other medicine seller, who were only exchanging amused looks.

“Can I count on having that beast blood by tonight?” Booker asked.

“You can…” Caihong admitted. “That’s an impressive spirit beast.”

“I know, right?” Booker grinned, reaching down to scratch delicately at Snips’ wings. “If he keeps showing off like this, people will forget the Iron Cripple and start talking about the Iron Mantis.”

She snickered, and Booker bowed a brief goodbye, Snips imitating the motion from his shoulder.

— — —

Today was a good test run… Snips can definitely do it, I just hate to put the pressure on Wei Qi…

But I can at least take care of his request before dragging him into this…

With such thoughts in his head, Booker was walking through the hallways of the Sect, until he came to the courtyards where the cripples dwelled. He was lucky to have his own apartment, a privilege of being chosen as an alchemist’s apprentice. Novices and cripples without an apprenticeship dwelled in long barracks rooms, with no more personal possessions than what they could fit inside a wicker chest at the foot of their reed pallet beds.

Some of the barracks were tolerable: others were like small fortresses, where anyone who entered without a good reason was likely to be badly hurt, if not killed. The situation within was simply so violent that anybody who didn’t quickly learn to be a fighter and a thief would be torn apart: a crude evolution left entire barracks as wild spaces within the sect’s walls.

The cultivators paid no attention, because they could ignore these rules and territories at will.

As Booker opened the door to one such dormitory room and stepped inside, unfriendly eyes watched him from all corners.

Among the cripples, a dormitory is a tribe, and the whole tribe is ready to defend itself from outsiders. They have so little left that they’ll fight brutally against anyone trying to take anything else from them – the fact that the property might have been stolen in the first place doesn’t matter.

But I’m not here to fight.

At the end of the dormitory, he found the man he was looking for. “Tong Chen!”

The man was sitting on his bed, one leg bent against the reed mat and one pulled up, against his chest, right arm hanging over the knee. His face was craggy and pockmarked. “Brother Rain, the Iron Cripple…”

Booker couldn’t help but notice the sneer in his voice.

“What do I owe this pleasure to?”

“Instructor Greenmoon has told me to look after my junior brother, Wei Qi. And Wei Qi says you have something that belongs to him.” Booker wasted no time in saying. “I don’t care why or how it was taken, only that it comes back home. I’ll pay a fair price.”

Tong Chen paused, and then said, “Do you know what you’re buying?”

“I’m not sure you know what you’re selling.” Booker replied. “Why don’t you show me? Let me see how bad the damage is. If you’re really holding anything, it can only add weight to your side of the scale.”

Tong Chen fixed him with a suspicious glare, but slowly reached back and pulled a set of folded papers from behind his reed bed. It was cheap paper, grainy and heavy with the slats of individual reeds still faintly visible where they’d been overlaid to form the uneven pulp. Booker took them and read.

Immediately, Booker furrowed his brow. It was a set of complete nonsense characters, written in the same way as the palatial script that the Mountain Sect favored, but completely alien in actual composition. The only thing he recognized was Wei Qi’s tidy and unassuming handwriting. It was mindbending, trying to take in a foreign alphabet that looked just barely familiar enough to unsettle you.

After a moment he folded the paper, pinched the crease clean again, and went to put it into his pocket.

Tong Chen shot to his feet. “What are you doing!?”

Instantly the air of the stifled dormitory turned chilly. People were rising from sitting on their beds, and knives were starting to slip out of sleeves.

“You don’t know what this is. It’s in code. Therefore, it’s worthless to you, no?” Booker replied calmly.

“Brother, you can piss yourself silly but it won’t make it rain. This–” Tong Chen ripped the paper back out of his hand. “This is valuable, and I know that because it’s in code! And because the boy panicked so hard when I stole it – you should have seen him. Of course, you can refuse me any consideration. You can say I’m a lump of stone who could never solve this – but would you say the same to the enforcers?” He waved the paper about, flaunting it. “They’ll solve it, happily, or beat the answer out of the boy. And I’ll be remembered when his secrets come out.”

“Elder brother, I never accused you of being a lump of stone. No, I’ve given you respect and attention from the moment I’ve entered the room, which is how I’ve noticed you’ve been trying to trick me into telling you more about what these papers are from the word go.” Although there were still people standing between him and the door, Booker only shrugged. The sense of being surrounded made the hairs on the back of his neck buzz with a nervous tension, but he refused to turn back and look at them directly. “You don’t act like a man who’s satisfied to be ‘remembered’ by our friends the enforcers…”

At ‘our friends the enforcers’ someone behind him snickered. Booker felt the mood loosen.

“And I get it. Wei Qi probably pissed you off before you stole from him, yes? What did he do?”

“He flirted with my sister.” Tong Chen said. “Bastard made it seem like her ship had finally come in, then got cold feet.”

“Tchh. Kids these days.” Booker shrugged. “I know you’d prefer to rake him over the coals a bit, but trust that I’ll get my due out of him if you pass this debt to me. The enforcers won’t give you a fair share of what you’ve found, but brothers with the same brand should always pay each other fair, no? Give me the papers. I’ll hold his leash, and you can be satisfied he’s run ragged without having to satisfy yourself on whatever tiny payout the enforcers would share with you.”

Tong Chen tilted his head, chewing at the edge of his lip like he still wasn’t satisfied. He glanced past Booker’s shoulder at one of the other men, and said, “Like a little patriarch, isn’t he? He comes in here and thinks all problems can be solved.”

The crowd chuckled.

One of them stepped forward, testing Booker’s attention with the sway of a knife in his fingers. Snips shifted in his bag, and Booker held the lid of the bag down to keep him from escaping into the tense situation.

“I want one hundred liang.” Tong Chen said, grinning.

“Well that’s bad news for me. I don’t have a hundred liang.” Booker shrugged again. Admitting I have a hundred liang on me right now, would be like inviting them to stab me and see if two hundred falls out. No, they’d actually consider it a matter of pride to steal from me, if I’m stupid enough to deliver it.

“Wrong answer.” Somebody called.

But Booker was still looking Tong Chen dead in the eyes.

This guy… He’s just bored. He might have his reasons for hating Wei Qi in particular, but he’s always on the lookout for someone to jerk around. That’s why I have to be careful; I can’t seem like an amusing victim.

I’ll do well with him as long as I’m a valuable friend.

“I know where you can make more than a hundred liang.” He said. “In fact, I know where you can make a few hundred liang so easy it will feel like a joke.”

Tong Chen didn’t seem impressed. “Then brother, feel free to tell.”

“The Pearl Gambling House. Tomorrow, my team will be playing for the first time. They won’t lose.” Booker said in a tone of cold confidence “You can believe me or you can have your doubts, but be at the Gambling House. See if I told you anything but the truth.”

Tong Chen’s head tilted. “And what do you think the truth is worth?”

“It’s worth a lot, if I keep cutting you in. Come on, I’m offering you a free taste. Just be at the gambling house and pay attention to the money changing hands. At the end of the night, just ask what you think of my words then, and whether I’m a friend worth having. I think you’re going to see the light.”

Booker could feel the pulse of the room, and it was getting slower. He’d given them a reason not to pick a fight, and that seemed to be what they were waiting for. It was no mistake that he’d given the whole room the tip on the gambling house – he was playing to the audience as much as Tong Chen.

Seeing hesitation on Tong Chen’s face, Booker sensed his opportunity and turned. “I’ll be going now. Think about what I said.”

And he stepped forward, the other cripples parting to let him pass after a moment of hesitation.

They let him out through the door, and Booker continued walking until he was out of sight before finally letting out a sigh, and brushing a hand through his hair, straightening it. Snips escaped his bag the moment he lifted his hand, buzzing onto his shoulder, while even sleepy Froggy was poking his head up from the depths of the satchel.

“Sorry guys, I’ve been looking for a way out of this, but…” But it kills too many birds with one stone. “It looks like you’ll have to fight tomorrow.”

And the hard part will be doing it without killing anyone.