Beware Of Chicken

“Indeed,” Nezan said, glaring at the battlefield further away from the house. “Even in death, these bastards make a nuisance of themselves.”

“Indeed, but the method my grandson is using to deal with them is quite brilliant,” Gramps said, turning from stoic general to doting grandfather in an instant. He seemed…genuinely proud of me for this.

All I did was apply the scientific method.

“We’re seeing which of our Qi does the most damage to Demonic Qi the fastest, and in what combination,” I explained. Time, Qi use, Qi type…every variable I could think of plotted out and quantified the best we could. I wanted this shit out of my damn lawn. “Right now, Tigu’er’s Ghost Hunter Arts and Big D’s Lunar Qi are the best at destroying the physical body—that destroys a big chunk of the impurities. But the solid impurities are not the only ones—some are a kind of liquid, and others a miasma or gas that lingers in place. Me and Meimei do best at clearing out the liquid, while Yun Ren seems to do the best with the gas—at least before he gets too tired to keep going. So we’re trying a multi-stage approach, instead of us just slowly grinding it down by throwing Qi at it. Which does work, but some people are naturally better at removing the solids, liquids, or ‘gas’ part of the impurities by themselves, which seems to be generally why it takes so long for individuals to deal with all three at once on their own.”

Nezan looked suitably impressed.

I just wanted something that worked if this ever happened again.

We restarted our experiments not long after, and we were watched by some of the members of the Shrouded Mountain Sect.

They all still looked listless and demoralized. They were certainly a sorry sight… but I couldn’t say I entirely blamed them. They had been through the wringer.

I’d give them a little more time… but eventually they would have to leave. I just hoped they would have some kind of hope to hold on to soon.

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Shenhe meditated upon the recent revelations with Summer’s Sky in her lap, quelling her Qi deviation.

Yun Ren was right.

She could not give in to despair. The sect needed fixing—and someone needed to be the one to fix it.

That someone…was going to have to be her.

As soon as she thought that, Shenhe felt an insistent pull. She sat back down and let Summer’s Sky direct her Qi, pulling it into the blade.

When she opened her eyes, she was in a mountain valley in the height of summer; And before her was a woman.

Zang Wen. The person who Shenhe had spent so long hating. The person she had blamed for everything. The person who was innocent of all her crimes, beaten and tortured for finding the sect’s dirty past.

She smiled at Shenhe, reached forward, and took both her hands.

“Hello, little crane. Would you like to have some tea?” Wen asked.

“Yes please…Auntie,” Shenhe whispered.

Wen pulled her into a hug. It was warm.

They talked about nothing. They talked about everything. They went from drinking tea to walking through the valley, to her aunt giving her pointers, imparting all she had learned into Shenhe.

Under that summer’s sky, for the first time in her life, Zang Shenhe truly felt at peace.

When she opened her eyes again…the once cloudy storm-grey burned brilliant blue.

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Editors: Massgamer, Plasma Regulators, Brandon “Philosophysics” Zhang-Leong