Chapter 12The Wound that Binds

“Guards, ready your weapons!” The guard in front shouts. The other dozen or so guards move into an angry martial arts stance, and their sais light up, showing an even angrier glow. “We won’t let you harm our town!”

Zobito’s eyes widen and she leans forward to stare at the glowing forks. “Fascinating… your sais are glowing with Celestial qi. How are you able to harness the power of Celestials?”

I pull her back. “Umm… not now Zobito. I think we should go.”

“That yaoguai has a hostage!” The tallest guard, who appears to be their boss, takes a step forward and barks his command. “Don’t be scared, little girl. Men, attack!”

I shout. “Look! It’s Móyuān!”

The guards’ faces freeze in a brief moment of fear. They look around in different directions.

“We really need to go.” I pull Zobito’s arm to get her to run in the other direction. “Zobito, run!”

“Yes, as you wish.” I see the lights in Zobito’s eyes dim. She turns and we run together toward the woods.

My legs frantically sprint as fast as I can. My lungs hurt as I gasp the cold air. I turn a few times, and see the guards inch closer and closer to us.

“Why is that child running away from our rescue?” I hear one guard shout.

“Is she with the yaoguai?” Another one barks.

“Maybe she’s an accomplice, a Fox Spirit?”

“She’s wearing strange clothes. Yes, she must be a Fox Spirit!”

Um, rude! Judgy guards… leave my fashion choices (or the lack of) alone.

We enter the woods. I see the boss guard’s chainmail glow. Suddenly, he leaps onto a large tree, and then his legs launch himself right in front of us. Zobito and I grind our feet into the ground to halt. Before we can look for a different direction to run, the guard charges toward us.

Zobito’s eyes light up like amber.

“Look out!” Her voice hums throughout the woods. She plants her feet into a graceful stance, waves her arms to meet the guard’s charge, she grabs onto his arm, effortlessly pivots side ways, and pushes him into the crowd of guards running towards us. The other guards catch their boss before he falls.

I see a downhill slope to the right, and a wide river running at the bottom.

“Zobito, this way!” I shout at Zobito. She nods, and we keep sprinting through the woods. I try to sweep away the twigs in my face with my arms, a few hard leaves cutting my skin as I charge through them.

I turn quickly and see more guards, their chainmails and sais glowing even angrier, and more of them launch. Some high up in the tall trees, some in the dense woods to our left and right, they’re trying to surround us from all directions.

Suddenly, two guards leap toward us from both directions, they plant their feet, pivot, and swing their burning forks at Zobito.

Zobito ducks her body. The guard whiffs, loses balance. Zobito’s legs rotate into a sweep, and the guard falls down on his back. The second guard swings his sai, Zobito takes one step back, and then two steady steps forward with two palm strikes thumping the guard’s chainmail. The guard loses balance and falls.

“Sorry.” Zobito apologises to the collapsing guards.

“Sorry, not sorry.” I gasp and shout back at Zobito. “Let’s keep moving toward the river!”

Zobito nods, and we hurry down the steep slope. The storm before has wetted the surface, so I start to half run, half slide, tumbling down the muddy slide. I turn my head left and right to look for guards, my eyes can barely see a few dark green movements behind the thick bush, but I can hear them rushing and rustling through the…

SWOOSH!

“Look out!” Zobito alerts. She quickly rolls over and covers me like a shield. I peek over her shoulder and see flaming forks zipping through the bushes.

We lose balance, and tumble and roll faster and faster down the slope like a barrel. I can’t tell what’s up or down.

Finally, I feel our rolling motion slowing down. Zobito gave me a gentle nudge and, with miraculous finesse, I exit her embrace and find myself… running forward? I feel super dizzy, but I try my best to keep running and wobble back in a straight line. I look beside me, and Zobito’s still rolling forward. Suddenly, like an acrobat, she pushes herself into the air with one hand, carries her momentum forward with several backflips, and stops ahead of me on the pebbled riverbank.

There! We made it in one piece at the bottom. Zobito and I keep sprinting toward the river. I can hear the crashing roar and see the rapid flow not far ahead. Perfect.

“Zobito!” I try to raise my voice above the deafening river. “Carry us across the river!”

Zobito nods, her back plates open and let off two bright crimson lights, six ethereal dragonfly wings shoot out and she launches herself in mid-air. Zobito swings around quickly, her arms scoop me up, and flies me across the river.

“A flying yaoguai?” the boss guard shouts, “men, aim your homing sais!”

I feel a red heat behind us. A few more sais darting toward us, Zobito rolls like a corkscrew mid-air dodging.

“Yes!” I shout, as Zobito touches down, making a smooth landing on the other side’s riverbank.

I try to catch up on my breath and turn to look back at the guards. Across the wide river, I can see them coming out down the slope one by one sprinting, and halting at the edge of the river. They look at us with disbelief.

I wave at them on the other side. “I think we won the race! GG, and byeee!”

“Stay there, you coward demons!” the boss guard barked. He squats into a stance, waves his arms in a circular motion as his sais and chainmail glow brighter, and brighter. He moves in this motion a few more times, gradually faster, and suddenly stops to take a deep breath. He holds for a brief moment, and lets out a loud scream. “NGGGHH–GRAAHH!!”

I can see the other guards looking intently at their boss, with both respect and awe in their eyes.

The boss guard keeps holding his scream until his entire body glows up like a small sun, pulsing with blindingly bright energy.

“KYAAAHHH!!” He continues to scream, a bit too long. What the heck is this, a power-up scream?

Suddenly he clenches his fists, pulls his arms back, bolts toward us, and leaps over the river like a catapulting fireball.

“Get a taste of my special technique!” The boss guard announces in a higher pitch voice, flying mid-air above the raging river. “Nine Suns Demon Slaying Style: Heavenly Fire Drop Kick!”

His entire body lights up, bright flames circling his flying kick, blending in his battlecry.

I pick up a river stone and throw it at his forehead. Bullseye! Right between the eyes!

The boss guard loses composure instantly, he drops into the river like a ragdoll, we hear a loud hiss as his flame gets completely swallowed by the rapids.

“Help!” The boss guard cries, flailing his arms in the crashing waves. “That yaoguai’s underhanded dark arts got me!”

The lackeys are staring at their distressed boss, frozen in disbelief.

“Dude! Use your ‘Flopping Wonton Soup Style’!” I shout back at the guards. “Go save your boss, you dummies.”

Then, one by one, the guards move around like headless chickens, some running along the river, and a few jumping into the rapids to swim toward their boss.

“Ok, that was weird.” Zobito and I turn and walk away from the river. “Where to next, Zobito?”

Zobito’s glowing wings contract into her closing back panels. Her voice quietly hums, but I can hear in my head clearly over the river’s crashing waves. “It seems Magnolia Corner is a no-go. Let’s find me a disguise, and head for the town of Tiantan to the south instead.”

“Ew! Gross! Are you talking in my head?” I shout back as goosebumps run down everywhere. Is this what people call telepathy? It’s so weird to hear voices in your head that aren’t yours.

“Oh, I am sorry to startle you.” Zobito’s soft voice echoes in my head again. “Yes, like all Celestials, we can speak to each other with our thoughts.”

We continue walking away from the river and into the thick bamboos grove. The sound of the screaming guards fades as we walk deeper. The wind is blowing above, whistling, as the tall stalks sway and clack.

I think I hear a crow caw faintly above, I turn my head up and around, and all I see are the dense swish-swashing bamboo leaves. I look back down at Zobito… her arm! There’s a long cut along her right forearm.

“Ack! Zobito! Your arm.” I gasp just above my breath. “Are you ok? Did one of those flying forks get you?”

Zobito stops and lifts her arm. Her eyes briefly scan her arm with a cool, quiet beam and then turn to me with a few dim blue blinks. “Yes, one of the sais struck me when we were descending from the slope to the riverbank.”

I walk a few steps to take a closer look. The edges of the cut are slightly melted, and through the middle, the deepest part of the wound, exposes glowing fibres that look both botanical and mechanical.

We both stand there for a moment, the bamboo grove’s gentle creaking the only sound between us. I reach out without thinking, my fingers hovering just above her wound, not quite touching.

“Does it hurt?” I ask, as I feel my heart squeeze like a lemon for a moment. “You saved me. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I did not want to worry you.” Zobito sighs, her eyes turn to me, emitting a dim warm glow. “Do not worry. I do not feel pain.”

I can hear my own heartbeat slowing down from the chase. We’re both catching our breath—me from running, her from… something else. “Ok, I get it, robots don’t feel pain. But… something else bothers you, isn’t it?”

Zobito’s head drops down for a moment, the bamboo grove’s creaking and tapping holds with her silence, she slowly turns back to me, and her eyes pulse again with floating stars.

“The mortals have discovered how to harness Celestial qi. I saw it in the guards’ chainmail. I felt it in the flying sais.” Zobito hums, her voice low and concerned. “I was only dormant for a hundred years. What happened in the world?”

“So… folks here never had those magical armour and homing forks?”

“No. Only Celestials could command this power.” Zobito continues. “No weapons on the surface world, metal nor stone, could touch us. Only the yaoguai’s power of Shadows can threaten our constitution.”

“What’s wrong, Zobito?” I ask quietly, because it’s not fear or pain that troubles her, it’s sadness.

“I do not understand this world anymore.” Zobito sighs, as her stardust swirl even slower. “The look in the townsfolk eyes, the hostility of the Imperial Guards, the people I am destined to protect, the purpose of my existence… They feared me.”

“They don’t understand you. Those guards are a bunch of cringey manchildren.” My hand holds hers, and the other over her wound. “You protected ME. You risked yourself to save my life. That’s big.”

Zobito’s eyes widen, her stardust rise and glows brighter.

“Thank you, Maiden Peach.”

“No, thank you.” I nod, and look back into her starry eyes. “Now let’s go find you that disguise, and we’ll figure out a way to educate them fools.”

We continue down the long path laid with dry leaves, rustling beneath our steps. I hear the occasional owl hoots and crickets hush as we tread into their personal space. The grove feels like an endless corridor, I have no sense of direction outside of these bamboos, and I simply follow behind Zobito trusting her to navigate us to Tiantan.

I can sense some critters around—a frog’s wet croak in the distance, the last few straggling cicada calls winding down, and… are those fireflies? I squint my eyes toward the tiny glowing dots floating around a pile of large boulders, luminating in different hues—turquoise, red, yellow and white, just like the stardust that orbits around Zobito.

“Hey, are those fireflies?” I tip-toe up to tap on Zobito’s shoulder. “Your world’s fireflies sure are bright, and they’re out during daytime?”

“They are not fireflies.” Zobito turns toward the glow. “Let’s investigate.”

She crouches lower, and slowly moves toward the boulders. She looks cautious, so I follow behind her carefully, holding my breath to not make a sound. The dense bamboo muffles distant noises, wrapping us in a cacoon-like quiet, now as still as the giant ancient boulders before us.

As we move right before the glow, the floating dots aren’t startled, they stay floating in place, and we slowly move around the boulder to try and see where the glow is coming from.

There, a person… lying still against the boulder, wearing a long white robe with detailed golden patterns. Taking a nap, maybe?

I point my finger to signal a hush to Zobito as I quietly move in front of her, slow and quiet, to take a closer look.

“ACK!”

I jump! The birds scatter frantically.

“SKELETON!”