It was 605 years since the birth of Confucius, and Yuan Baisheng was six years old. She’d finished her work – helping out Auntie Guiying, who wasn’t her aunt and she wasn’t allowed to ask about that, while her mother was out of the village on some business she wasn’t allowed to ask about – and been given leave to run and play until the evening. As long – as ever – as she didn’t go anywhere near Secret Mountain. So she had spent a good hour thus far running around the forest being a wandering hero and a goddess and a princess and a butterfly and an ogre, and she was in the process of being the most beautiful soldier in the Celestial Emperor’s army when she suddenly realised there was a very large huntsman spider nearby, rearing up on six of its legs to point its two front legs accusingly at her.
Baisheng knew that well-brought-up little girls were terrified of spiders, and so she had done her best to be scared of them when the opportunity arose, but she never really had known why. She looked around her, and when she determined that no one else was going to find her being so improperly unfeminine, she hunkered down into a squat, and looked the spider over. Big and fuzzy, she determined. Nasty looking fangs, but then, tigers had nasty looking fangs, and they were the noble kings of the wild beasts. Big bottom. That would be embarrassing. Did the other animals tease it for that?
“I’m not scared of you!” it said. “I’m not scared of you even though you’re too big! I’ll fight you! I’m a big strong spider and I’ll fight you if you don’t leave me alone! I’ll bite you and you’ll be poisoned! You can’t beat me even though you’re so much bigger and stronger and scarier than me! I’m very strong and venomous! I’m not scared of you at all!”
“I don’t want you to be scared of me,” Baisheng said. It was the first time she’d ever heard an animal speak to her, but there were a great many things she hadn’t seen in the world. Presumably worldly little girls in the cities, the daughters of mandarins and parliamentary eunuchs (Baisheng, as yet, saw no reason why parliamentary eunuchs wouldn’t have daughters), spoke to spiders all the time. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
“Really?” The spider lowered its front legs a little, and then rose them back up full force. “You can’t trick me! I don’t listen to giants! I’ll fight you! I’ll bite every ankle you have!”
“Do you bite ankles a lot?” Baisheng asked, settling down to sit on the forest floor in a way that would absolutely devastate her dress’s cleanliness. Still, Auntie Guiying would only yell at her in the future, which was essentially another country.
“Hundreds! I’ve bitten hundreds of ankles on hundreds of giants! And they’re all dead! I killed and ate hundreds of giants! I’m very, very strong and not scared of you at all!”
“Well, I don’t want to get bitten. That sounds hurty. So I guess I’ll go over this way, and you can stay over here, and then you don’t have to bite me and it doesn’t matter that you’re not scared of me.”
“Y… Yeah!” the spider responded, and the moment Baisheng turned away, it raced off into the undergrowth, where it hid until its heart stopped pumping haemolymph so rapidly throughout its body.
Baisheng never told anyone she had spoken to a spider – not because she was keeping her amazing power secret, but because she was not exactly sure it was an amazing power. After all, surely everyone spoke to spiders at some point or another. And Auntie Guiying was so much more concerned about how her dress had gotten so dirty, it seemed rude to bring it up.
It was 612 years since the birth of Confucius, and Yuan Bainsheng was thirteen years old. Her mother was in the village much more often these days, and that meant that Baisheng had an absolutely abysmal lack of free time. Half of her day, it seemed, was spent on reading, writing, figuring, and calligraphy – even a village girl, mother stressed, had to be educated – and half of her day was spent helping mother run the butchery, whether that was breaking down the carcasses into various smaller cuts to sell to households, or delivering the orders to their houses, or keeping the books to make sure all the money was accounted for, and half of her day was spent on training in the martial arts, and that came to three halves of a day, which didn’t leave any day left for her own activities. It was enough to cause a young girl significant stress.
So when mother said to her, that afternoon, “Spend an hour on your kicks before you do your calligraphy tonight. You can use one of the deer carcasses as a target; Heaven knows it could use the tenderising,” Baisheng disgraced herself, her family, Heaven, and Confucius by speaking back to her mother.
“I don’t want to spend any time on my kicks!” she protested. “It’s all pointless anyway! I’m not a monk or a warrior! Why do I need to waste half my life on learning to fight when I’m never going to?”
She realised it had been a bad idea before the words had left her mouth. Mother had never been the calmest person Baisheng knew, and since she’d stopped going out to whatever duties Baisheng still wasn’t allowed to ask about, she’d seemed even more highly-strung. She’d once slapped Baisheng for walking too loudly. Baisheng knew that she had to respect and honour her parents, as that was a child’s duty, but it was sometimes very difficult to do.
Baisheng had her mind on her failure to restrain herself, and her memories, and how much she didn’t want to spend an hour kicking a dead animal, and none of her brain was in that moment, at that time. So when mother narrowed her eyes and brought her hand around to slap, nearly ten years of training kicked in all at once, and Baisheng’s arm snapped up in a perfect block.
Her mother looked at her, and her eyes softened.
“All right. Half an hour,” she said, with the air of great magnanimity. “And then I will tell you why I have you practice as hard as you do.”
Baisheng’s calligraphy was terrible that night, as her focus was on what her mother was going to tell her. When mother rang the dinner bell, she barrelled down the stairs, and ate her rice bowl at world-record pace. She washed the dishes without being asked, and came back to find that her mother was holding up a giant golden orb weaver spider, settled on her palm as if posing, and entirely unworried.
Baisheng was still untroubled by spiders, and found this one fascinating. Surely any normal spider would be running away, possibly leaving a nasty bite in its wake. Yet this one stood with the calm stolidity of a statue.
Mother took up a cup of wine in her free hand, drank it down all at once. “I have told you not to ask why we call Guiying your aunt,” she said. “It is…” She shuddered and set her cup down. “Daughters are meant to obey and honour their mothers,” she said. “Obey and honour me by believing what I am about to say, no matter how unnatural.”
Baisheng nodded, slowly. “I will,” she said, though she wondered just how unnatural this story could be.
“Guiying is not your aunt,” mother said, “but we say she is, because it is easier, and less troublesome, than the truth. The truth is, this might well be your aunt.” She held up the orb weaver, who stepped backwards on her hand to steady itself. “Or more likely a great great niece. The family we left behind does not live long. But this is our family. The spiders that live in this house are my bloodline, and yours.”
Baisheng had nothing to say. Mother set down the spider and spoke something to it; it skittered away, into a corner, and disappeared.
“It was not easy for me to become human,” mother said. “I had to spend almost all my time cultivating my energy, and my life was fraught enough; I had to spin my web, to find my prey, to avoid the bigger animals that would kill me to eat me or without even knowing they had done so. But I knew I wanted more of life. I deserved more of life. I struggled. I grew. I mastered my qigong. And one day, when I awoke, I was so much more than I had been. I saw the world through only two eyes. I had earned humanity.”
“Mother, do you…”
Mother cut Baisheng off, raising her hand sharply. “No questions. I need for you to believe me, daughter, and nothing more. Yes. It was not easy for me to become human. It took great effort, and a life of virtue… and even then it was unlikely. But… No. Then I found my other family. There were some others here who were not always human. They became my friends. We discussed how we had ascended, and how this rare and special thing had happened with unusual frequency here. We learned it was because of Secret Mountain. Auntie… Guiying told you about Secret Mountain, didn’t she?”
Baisheng nodded, then shook her head. “Only that it… it’s very dangerous, and I should never go near it.”
“Wise. There has been a, a wicked temple there. A coterie of sorcerers.” She raised her hand again, though Baisheng knew she hadn’t made a sound. “Yes! Sorcerers. You can believe I was born a spider, you can believe in sorcerers. They had used their magic for decades in this place. They had used their magic to defy the law of Heaven, and to make things that could not happen, happen. And their magic had marked the land, and so things that cannot happen here, happen. Which meant that I and my friends could become human. The magic made it so that the change could happen, do you understand, daughter? But because the magic let the change happen…” She brought her hand down, suddenly, and hit the table, making her wine cup jump. “It could do it again. It could make us change back.”
When Baisheng was eight years old she had slipped on loose mud and fallen into a river. That had been the only time she had heard her mother’s voice hold that much fear.
“I had fretted about it my entire life. But when you were born, I knew I could not allow it. I could not let their magic revert me, and leave you without a family. And, doubly, I could not let their magic revert you. I earned humanity for myself, and I earned it for you. I will not let that change. So… I could not let the sorcerers continue to practice. I could not let them irrigate the land with their magic. I had to let the land recover the natural order and the law of Heaven. I had to drive them away, and to be sure they could never come back… or I had to kill them. And if they lived, I could never be sure they would not return. For me and my family to live, they had to die.”
Baisheng wasn’t sure she did believe any of this, although she tried her best to do so, for her mother’s sake. Still, she followed the tale with rapt attention.
“I learned… No. I did not learn to fight. I always knew how to fight. Living as an animal, if I did not know how to fight, I would have died. I learned how to use my skills in my human body. I learned to trap and kill without my fangs or my webs. I used my qigong, my skills as a spider, my skills as a human. And… I thought it was wrong, it was without virtue, to kill entirely unseen, and I had worked hard to cultivate virtue. So I made sure that, in the end, I matched them face to face. I looked them in the eye. And I told them – I told every one of them – that I am Diaphanous Finality, from whom there is no escape. And then I killed them.”
If this mad story was true, Baisheng thought to herself, it would answer a hundred different questions she had, about her mother and about her mother’s friends. So, perhaps…
“None of those I hunted escaped me. That was how I earned my name, the last thing I told them before I killed them. But… there were three I had not started to hunt, before they were gone. Dragon Eyes Zhang, Lucky Wen, and Liu who Feasts on Hungry Ghosts. Those three sorcerers knew that their fellows were being hunted, and they ran rather than face me. But they live. And I can never be sure they will not return. So perhaps, one day, they will come for me and take their revenge… which I can accept. I have lived for ten times as long as I would have, if I had not ascended. If they return and kill me, it’s a death I’ve long earned. But sorcerers are wicked creatures, who do evil things by their nature… and so to hurt me, they might hurt you. I will not allow that to happen.” Mother’s eyes suddenly focused, seemed to see the real world for the first time since she had begun speaking, and locked directly onto Baisheng’s. “And that is why I make you train. So that if one of those three devils comes for you, you can kill it. As long as I live – or as long as you associate with Auntie Guiying and my other friends – they will think that you are my weakness. When I am dead, you can stop your training, if you wish. But while I am alive, you will not accept the suffering I have earned.”
Baisheng looked back at her mother, and realised, without having to try, that she believed her.
“Right,” her mother said, finally, and picked up the wine cup, handing it over to Baisheng. “Wash the last dishes, then the rest of the night is yours, if you want it. But you should sleep soon. Do not let yourself become ill.”
It wasn’t long before Baisheng went to the shared bedroom in their house, tucked herself in bed, and spent hours thinking about what she’d been told.
Five years later, she went to that shared bedroom for the last time.
“Mother?” she’d called out, going through the shopfront, where meat and carving utensils had been strewn over the place. “Auntie Guiying?” she continued, walking through the dining area, past the broken door. “M…” And then she hadn’t called out again.
Her mother was holding Guiying’s body up to her mouth, as if she was drinking from a bottle, but the neck of the bottle was the neck of her old friend. Her mouth was distorted, her lower jaw nearly gone, and two great fangs protruding instead. She held up Guiying with two hands, but two enormous segmented legs had protruded from her shoulders, and dug into Guiying’s flesh; she stood on her two feet and two more such legs. Her skin was erupting, in parts, revealing yellow carapace underneath. She’d bitten out great chunks of Guiying’s flesh, but there was almost no blood leaking from them. She’d been very assiduous about cleaning that up.
This is where I put in the meaning of the name Guiying. Guess which word in that meaning made me pick the name! For absolutely no bonus points, guess which animal Guiying was!
To one side, an older woman, short, with striking silver hair, and a tall young man beside her, both in ornate and expensive robes. And besides them, standing at two and a half metres, a red-skinned ogre carrying a club, wearing only a loincloth tucked under his potbelly.
“I do have to apologise, Mistress Liu,” the man said, none of them paying any attention to Baisheng. “I had expected my reversion dust to work on all of them, not just the spider – and even on her it’s worked too slowly.”
“Oh, Heng. I think it’s wonderful that it works this slowly. I can see her lose herself by the second.” It was only then that the woman looked to see Baisheng. “Oh, and this is wonderful, too! Is this your daughter, spider? You should greet her home.”
Mother turned, and looked, and her eyes were huge dark saucers, the skin opening around one more to each side, and two high on her forehead. “I ah Diah Fiah,” she said, and it wasn’t simply her fangs that stifled her speech. “No ehay. No ehay.” She dropped Guiying, who fell to the floor like any other carcass, and seemed to race at Baisheng; when Baisheng instinctively dodged to her side, Mother pushed past her, falling down to run on all eight legs, and with surprising quickness, she was gone into the night.
“You should have let me eat her, Liu,” the ogre grunted. “Now she’s out there somewhere, and we can’t track her down.”
“Now she’s any other spider,” Liu responded. “And no problem to us. Would you like to eat this girl, instead?”
“Nah. Too young. I prefer ‘em weighted down with sin.” The ogre put his club over his shoulder. “I don’t wanna stay here any more. Too much reality. If I don’t get back to the Netherworld in the next ten minutes I’ll eat you, Liu.”
“It seems we have to leave early,” Liu said, shaking her head ostentatiously. “Very well, Heng. Maybe you’d like to kill the girl.” She put her hands down towards the ground, palms down, and floated up to rest on the ogre’s shoulder, where he secured her with one hand and walked through the broken wall, away into the forest.
“Well, girl,” Heng said, drawing a showy dao from his side, “you wouldn’t want to outlive your family anyway.”
Baisheng hits her Initiative on 13, as befits not only a spider but a very angry young woman. Heng’s initiative is 9, because he’d really rather be gloating.
Heng had barely managed to draw his dao before Baisheng’s fist was halfway into his belly, knocking the wind out of him and sending him backwards. Her martial shout, full of rage and pain and confusion and despair, hit him nearly as hard.
Baisheng rolled positive 5 and negative 4, for a +1 total; adding to her Martial Arts of 13, that’s an AV of 14 against Heng’s Dodge of 8. If I’d kept up with what I’d intended to do and left him unnamed, a +6 hit would have completely taken him out. As it is, she adds her punch damage of 5, subtracts his Toughness of 6, and deals 5 damage in total.
Heng had not expected the girl to be a difficult target, and was still somewhat dazed when she snapped her leg up to strike precisely where her fist had. He was a little less shocked by the kick than he’d been by the punch, but each strike had a potent impact on his good mood.
Baisheng spends one of her two precious Fortune dice – given that this is three years ago, it’s probably recovered by the current time – on her kick. And it’s a good thing she does, because while she rolls 5 and 5 on her positive dice, her negative die is a 6, which explodes and gets another 4. It’s a washout, +0 in total – but that’s still an AV of 13 against Heng’s 8 Dodge. Adding the kick damage of 6 and subtracting the 6 Toughness, it’s another 5 damage.
“You, you can’t…” Heng started, before he looked at Baisheng, really seeing her for the first time – and realising that he was in no way capable of meeting her on her level. Frantically, he lashed out with his dao, swinging for her neck. Baisheng ducked under his blow, moved inside his reach, and came up to strike his wrist with her palm, hitting just the right spot to make his fingers snap open and send his sword flying across the room, where it stuck in the wall… with an angry martial artist between it and himself.
Heng rolls boxcars! A 6 and a 6 cancel each other out but mean that the actual roll will be either extremely good or extremely bad. Heng rolls +3 -1, getting +2 all in all… adding his Martial Arts of 8 is in no way capable of hitting Baisheng’s Dodge of 13, which gives him a critical fumble and means his sword goes away.
Baisheng had known, had even believed, for years now that her mother had been a transformed animal. Now, though, having seen her half-reverted form, she felt it, even in her bones: she was a spider’s daughter. If she held her mouth like this, she could feel the memory of fangs. When she turned her gaze, she could feel six other eyes moving with her. And deep inside, around her belly, she could feel the memory of her spinnerets. She drew the energy out of them, up into her arms, into her hands, and coiled chi like a web, and she span to Heng’s right and struck at him, trapping him in her web.
Baisheng spends 3 chi points on activating her Web ability, and gets a mediocre roll of +3 -2; still, we’ve established that Heng’s Dodge isn’t great. AV 14 against Dodge 8 gives an Outcome of 6, so that’s six shots during which Heng will be facing a -3 to all his AVs. Baisheng used her Web on shot 4, and Heng acts now on shot 3.
She knew she’d caught him. His hands moved like every inch took a thousand years of effort. His steps were short as he tried to get away from her. And, most notably – most satisfyingly, to the predator that had awoken in her – she could see the total terror in his eyes. He looked past her to the hole in the wall his boss’s ogre had left, and ran for it with desperation.
Heng’s Move is 6. It’s respectable. Baisheng’s Move is 7. It’s one more. And while it’s almost the end of the first Initiative sequence, Baisheng can act on shot 1, before time’s up.
Heng thought he was running with the greatest and most desperate focus he could, but he was, in the end, a human. He didn’t have the deep instincts of a prey animal that allowed them total focus and total adrenaline when they evaded a predator, the way a mouse would run from a tarantula. And so, when he heard the shout from behind him, he couldn’t help but turn and look, as Baisheng brought his own dao around in a horrific arc…
Baisheng spends her other Fortune die. Both of her positive dice roll 6s and explode, giving her a total result of +6+6+4+4-4. Adding her Martial Arts AV of 13, and subtracting Heng’s Dodge AV which is now 5 due to his three points of webbed Impairment, the total Outcome of her attack is 24. Adding her sword damage of 8, subtracting his Toughness of 6… normally he’d have to make reasonably easy death checks at this point, but since he’s meant to be an unnamed character anyway I’m cashing him in.
She stopped, as Heng’s head fell to the ground behind her, the rest of his body taking another few seconds to collapse. She breathed. She looked up to the sky – it wasn’t raining. It should have been raining. She opened her hand, and let the bloody dao fall beside her. She didn’t cry, not then. There was too much fire in her blood for her to cry. When it burned out… well. That would be the future. And the future was essentially another country.
She didn’t know how long it had been when the two men walked out of the forest, one wizened and small and resting on a staff, the other tall, with outrageously yellow hair and a pair of bizarre goggles covered in dials. She didn’t pay attention to them. Her world was still on fire.
“Ah, melt and catch fire. We’re too late, Chang,” said yellow-head.
“Destiny does as destiny does. We would never have arrived to stop her.” The old man walked up to Baisheng, and settled his hands on his staff. “I am sorry for your loss, Yuan Baisheng.”
That much broke through the flames. Baisheng looked down at him. “Do you know me, sir?”
“We kind of know about you,” said Goggles. “Mostly your ma's hooks with the early Wheelies, but also, we know that Ghost Eater Lau scragged your life with a wickedness. And we figured…” He extended his hand. “Perhaps you’d like to scrag back.”
After a long moment, she took it.
Thank you for coming along on this portion of Dreaming Memories of the Dragon Fists. Next up we’ll check out Ou Di before doing something contemporary that might have choices involved.
