SU TANG (素醣)

  Day 4, 5th Month of the Lunar Calendar, 6000th Year of the Yun Dynasty, Shuishang Province, Huadu Sect

  Lucidity lapped in and out like tidewater over the sandbank of memory. Sometimes, driftwood briefed an appearance. At other times, it took whole coastlines with it. The only constant thing was the sea of red.

  It was not the warm red of wine or a poet’s passion. It was dark. Viscous. It had eyes. Beady, unblinking things that stared from the depths. It was hungry and it licked the shore with feral delight, then roared with satisfaction as it swallowed everything else into its frothing black throat.

  A thing like that didn’t just haunt dreams; it marked territory.

  I opened my eyes.

  And it vanished.

  But I knew better than to think it had left. It was waiting, always, just beyond the line of consciousness. The moment I let my eyelids fall, it would be there again, dragging me down with it.

  So, I kept my eyes open.

  These days, it was almost normal to wake in places I didn’t recognise, to the clinking of unfamiliar medicine bowls, rustling linens that didn’t belong to me, and distant voices speaking too softly for me to understand. The clothes I wore had changed again, and not by my own hands. I supposed I should’ve felt violated, that some stranger had undressed me. But that notion barely registered. Hard to care about modesty when every breath felt like it had to claw its way up my ribcage with bloodied fingers.

  Pain had become my new pulse.

  A strange one, too. Not the sharp bite of a wound or the dull throb of overuse. This was a kind of pain that gnawed from the inside out, like something had nested in my chest and grown teeth. Perhaps this was what Xiao Wu had felt like in his last moment.

  I tilted my head and stared at my arm. The single black line that had once traced a neat path down the middle of my forearm had now cracked and forked, spreading like lightning. Each jagged streak looked like a countdown etched in ink.

  How poetic.

  Ha.

  Ha.

  Ha.

  “How are you feeling today?” Qi Qi appeared soundlessly at my side, a lidded ceramic cup in her hand. It was the sort of entrance I had come to expect from her.

  Not good, I wanted to say. Instead, my throat made a noise somewhere between gravel shifting and a dying animal’s whimper.

  She didn’t flinch. Just set the cup down and pressed a palm to my forehead. “You’re an idiot,” she declared. Her tone was dry but somehow her honeyed voice sweetened her words.

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  Thanks for the compliment.

  “You never listen.”

  That’s fair. I didn’t. Not when being stubborn got me this far, and not when obedience never once saved anyone.

  Our eyes met. Hers were cool, clinical, unnervingly still. She could say something like ‘you died’ and make it sound like a beautiful compliment. But I’d known her long enough to tell that this was how she cared.

  Her beauty was a trick of nature. If her eyes had been a hair farther apart, she’d look uncanny; if her lips were fuller, she’d be distracting; if her brows thinned, she’d seem aged beyond her years. But instead, everything landed at the exact calibration of pleasing. Like someone had drafted her face with a compass and a slide rule. She didn’t need powder or rouge. Even her hair arranged itself obediently without pins. She was too perfect.

  “I should update you. The Crown Prince has relieved you of service.” Straight to business, as if I weren’t half-dead and sweating into a borrowed bedsheet.

  He finally did it. I supposed I should’ve felt something—resentment, indignation, even relief—but mostly I just wanted to turn over and face the wall. But my body didn’t agree to that movement. It refused even that small rebellion.

  So, since I couldn’t close my eyes without witnessing a bloody scene, I stared at the ceiling. For minutes. Hours.

  I wasn’t sure.

  Until another face swam into view. Soft around the edges.

  Familiar.

  Unwelcome.

  “How long has she been like this?” he asked, voice low.

  “Since she woke. But I wouldn’t expect much, not after everything.” That was Qi Qi, as always: clinical, efficient, and vaguely insulting.

  “And physically?”

  A pause.

  “Let’s speak somewhere else.”

  Another pause.

  Then his face again. Closer this time. “I think you’d like to hear this.” I found his hand wrapping around my own. “Squeeze my hand if you can hear me.”

  A simple request. It should’ve been an easy task.

  But my fingers might as well have been carved from driftwood.

  Still, I focused, dragging every frayed nerve toward that one effort. My pinkie twitched. Barely.

  But it was enough.

  “She knows,” he said. Like that meant something.

  Qi Qi appeared near the foot of the bed. Usually, she hovered peripherally like a spectre. But this time, her voice was clear and decisive. “Su Tang needs rest.”

  It was the first time I’d heard her speak directly on my behalf. Predictably, his hand left mine. I curled my fingers, trying to catch the heat he left behind.

  Then he asked, quietly: “Where do you really come from?”

  “Su Tang was born from a flower, as are all alchemists of Huadu Sect.” Qi Qi answered in my stead, even though the question was quite obviously directed at me.

  Right. That old tale. A flower. It was easier to believe that.

  The Crown Prince nodded once. “Then I only have one question.”

  “Please.”

  “How old is Su Tang?”

  And there it was.

  The question.

  Not about my skills. Not about my methods. Just my age. He was sharper than I’d given him credit for. It figured that now—when I could least defend myself—he’d see through me.

  If he knew how old I was, he could piece together the story I had suspected in my mind.

  Qi Qi didn’t answer. Not immediately. She could’ve lied. She could’ve told the truth. Instead, she said nothing.

  Silence is a language too.

  “I see,” the Crown Prince said at last.

  “What do you see?” Qi Qi’s voice curved with faint amusement. A trap, of course.

  He replied softly, “You already know.”

  “Then don’t waste our time,” Qi Qi answered, curt as thunder.

  I wanted to laugh. I wanted to shout. I wanted to ask what he saw.

  But my voice had packed up and left days ago, and consciousness followed soon after.

  The sea of red was waiting.

  And this time, it smiled.

  ***

  Su Tang…

  Where are you?

  Su Tang~

  Come to me~

  You owe me. Are you going to pay it back?

  What?

  Silly girl… do you think you can hide?

  Come to me~

  You owe me.

  I don’t owe you anything. Let me go!

  Why won’t you let me go?

  Why don’t you sleep?

  Sleep, sleep, sleep~

  Like a good little girl~

  Stop it! I don’t want to sleep.

  What are you?

  My my…what am I? Who do you think?