Book 3: Chapter 27: An Army of Demons Made Nice |
Hu Shui stood on the roof of the CoolSpear Gang's warehouse and surveyed her empire.
Empire was generous. It was more of a collection of bruised egos, shattered doors, broken bones, lots of recently waking unconscious people, and nine separate banners that had been torn down and replaced with a single one she'd designed herself. Pale red cloth with a hammer stitched into the centre by Long Ti's shaking hands. The stitching was crooked and the hammer looked more like a mushroom if you squinted.
Hu Shui absolutely loved it.
The Red Steel Hammer Sector of the Hu Clan stretched across seven blocks of the inner slums in a jagged territory line that made no geographic sense and followed no strategic logic. It followed the path Shui had taken over the course of forty-eight hours as she crashed through every gang headquarters between the western wall and the river district like a boulder rolling downhill and picking up speed with each building it flattened.
Nine gangs that amounted to about one thousand seven hundred men and women based on Long Ti’s calculations… Which were suspect if she was to be asked about them.
All the leaders of the gangs had thought themselves untouchable within their little kingdoms of mud, blood, terror, oppression, and stolen coin.
Shui frowned deeply.
She hadn’t been planning this when she had taken down her first gang. If anything, she already had enough forces to make it to the auction house and come out unscathed for the most part with the old beggars help and his entire sect. Yet… it only took seeing one atrocity after another before she could not stop herself. Her anger had gotten the best of her, much to her great displeasure and the likelihood of getting in trouble.
Much bigger trouble than being late by Ancestor.
Hu Shui closed her eyes.
It had been a few years now, but the pyramid of skulls that begged for release from their suffering and agony was still fresh in her mind.
It would not leave her.
She looked down at the arrayed forces before her in order of when she conquered them.
The CoolSpear Gang had been first. Fao Wen and his lieutenants had folded like wet paper the moment she walked through their doors. That had been the easy part. The hard part had been convincing them to help her with the other eight major gangs within YellowHearth City, which hadn't actually been hard at all because Fao Wen's alternative was experiencing the Red Miasma a second time and the man's hands still hadn't stopped trembling from the first exposure.
The Iron Talon Brotherhood fell second.
Their leader, a wiry woman named Shen Mei with poison-tipped daggers and a reputation for gutting people who looked at her sideways, had taken one look at the red miasma pouring through her compound's windows and surrendered before Shui finished crossing the threshold. Her forty-three members followed without a word. Each one a trained assassin and the forms of poison that few had access to antidotes for.
The Jade Serpent Syndicate was next.
Two hundred members spread across multiple buildings connected by underground tunnels. The red-and-white-haired beggar had sealed the tunnel exits while Fao Wen's CoolSpear members blocked the surface routes. Shui walked in through the front door and the Jade Serpent's leader, a fat man named Pao who sweated through four layers of silk, fainted before she opened her mouth.
His second-in-command surrendered on his behalf.
After that was the Broken Fist Collective. Fifth was the River Rats. Sixth was the Black Nail Gang, whose leader had the distinction of being the only person to actually swing at Shui during the entire campaign. His fist stopped a couple inches from her face when the pressure from her Liquid Core made his arm lock at the elbow and shoulder simultaneously.
He hung there, suspended by his own frozen muscles, eyes bulging and veins standing out on his neck like rope under tension.
Shui had leaned forward and tapped his nose with one finger and he had crumpled.
Hu Shui had been adamant that it had could not be classified as fighting no matter what Long Ti tried to say.
The Gilded Knives were the best at trying to escape, but the old beggar was faster.
The Ash Walkers and the Stone Tide Crew were the strongest cultivation wise.
Each one fell faster than the last because word travelled ahead of her like a flood warning. By the time she reached the Stone Tide Crew's compound near the eastern slum border, their leader was already standing outside with his weapon on the ground, his banner in a pile, and his hands raised above his head. His entire gang lined up behind him in rows, heads bowed, and waiting for the Red Demon to arrive.
Shui had been almost disappointed. Almost.
The red-and-white-haired beggar had handled the fighting.
All of it.
Every single exchange where blades were drawn and Qi flared and bodies needed to be put on the ground without killing them.
Shui hadn't thrown a single punch, kick, headbutt, or hammer swing much to her great displeasure. She had been looking forward to making people suffer for the crimes they had committed, but the law her Ancestor had set superceded her anger. Worse yet, she hadn't needed to. The old beggar moved through cultivators like wind through tall grass, breaking their stances and dropping them with strikes even Shui struggled to keep up with..
He was terrifyingly good at violence for someone who spent his days begging for coins.
As strong as Senior Zhong Da and his lovely, and can’t hurt a fly if she tried, wife, Wu Xui.
The CoolSpear Gang facilitated everything else that required numbers including blocking exits, herding runners back into the kill zones, carrying unconscious bodies to collection points, and most importantly, making sure nobody escaped to warn the next target before Shui arrived.
Fao Wen had thrown himself into the role with the desperate enthusiasm of a man who understood that his continued existence depended entirely on being useful.
Also something about Long Ti teaching them and guiding them toward success after a tongue lashing or another while she had been in punishment.
Now all nine stood behind her while she surveyed the near two thousand individuals sprawled down below.
Shui dropped from the warehouse roof and landed in the centre of the courtyard that had become her command post. The impact cracked the stone beneath her boots and sent a ripple of dust outward that made the nearest gang members flinch backward. Long Ti stood to her left, clutching a ledger he'd been using to track names, numbers, and territory boundaries. The red-and-white-haired beggar stood to her right, arms folded into his rags, his trademark smile replaced by something flat and unreadable.
Before her, arranged in a line that stretched the width of the courtyard, stood one thousand seven hundred men and women based on Long Ti’s horrible arithmetic.
Nine clusters with nine banners piled at their feet.
Their leaders dropped down from the elevated position and hurried to stand at the front of their respective groups, each one bearing the fresh memory of what happened when they said no.
Fao Wen. Shen Mei. Pao's second-in-command, a thin man named Dui who kept glancing at his unconscious boss being propped up by two subordinates. The Black Nail leader with the bruised nose. The others whose names Shui had already forgotten because there were nine of them and she was twelve and had better things to remember. Including the faces of the few who had been caught in the action of certain crimes she planned to not let escape.
They would learn well enough their roles and purpose soon enough.
Each one destined to be used by her hands and her purpose…
Like cake ingredients.
Shui walked down the line.
Her boots clicked against stone and hammer rested across her shoulders, Mr. Mo Mo's presence a low hum that pressed against the ambient Qi of the courtyard and made the air taste like iron and ozone. The pale red banner with its crooked mushroom-hammer hung from the warehouse wall behind her, catching the late afternoon breeze. No one dared to comment on it because she had approved of it and loved it very much. She made that clear and obvious.
She stopped at the centre.
"Prepare for battle!"
One thousand seven hundred pairs of eyes locked onto her. Spines straightened, shoulders squared, heads snapped to attention, hands found weapons, hilts, hafts, grips, pommels, anything solid to hold onto.
Shui grinned. "In a few days, I shall go to the auction house and I'm going to sell Qi Stones!"
Silence met her. The kind of silence that happened when a large group of people all had the same thought at the same time and that thought was; What?
Hu Shui began to laugh. It started as a giggle, climbed into a cackle, and peaked at something that bounced off the warehouse walls and echoed through the surrounding alleyways. Her head tilted back, hammer shifting on her shoulders, red miasma leaking from her frame in wisps that curled around her feet like affectionate snakes. She loved every moment of it. From the banner to the nine tough looking individuals that shivered like little kids when she decided that they were being mean and needed a thorough thrashing to not be that mean anymore.
No one questioned her.
No one questioned why she would sell Qi Stones at an auction house.
No one questioned why this required one thousand seven hundred armed cultivators to prepare for battle.
No one questioned the logistics, the strategy, the timeline, the reasoning, or any decision she had made in the past forty-eight hours.
No one questioned anything at all that she had decided on.
The nine leaders stared forward with expressions that ranged from rigid acceptance to the thousand-yard gaze of men and women who had looked into the abyss and discovered the abyss was a twelve-year-old girl who laughed like that.
Shui's laughter faded into a satisfied hum.
She bounced on her toes twice, hammer swinging, and then spun on her heel and marched toward the warehouse interior. "Long Ti! Get me the maps of the warehouse district! I need to plan!"
Long Ti scrambled after her, ledger pressed to his chest, and legs pumping.
The one thousand seven hundred stood in formation and waited.
Nobody dared to move until the Red Demon was out of sight.
Then, collectively, they exhaled in relief when she was finally gone.
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The office on the warehouse's second floor had belonged to Fao Wen until approximately a few days ago. Now it belonged to Shui, which meant the desk was covered in sketches of cakes she intended to bake, a half-eaten meat bun Long Ti had procured from somewhere and which tasted like mud, different maps of the city she'd stolen from the other gang headquarters, and a single silk pouch of Qi Stones that pulsed with enough concentrated energy to make the wooden desk groan beneath its weight.
Shui was studying the maps when the knock came.
A polite rap against the door.
"Come in!" she shouted without looking up.
The door opened and the red-and-white-haired beggar stepped inside. He closed it behind him with a soft click and stood there for a moment, hands tucked into his rags, sharp features arranged into a deep frown that seemed to come with old age. Shui prayed that she didn’t look that grumpy when she grew older. His trademark smile was absent and had been missing for most of the past couple days, replaced by a tightness around his jaw and eyes that darted toward exits more often than they used to.
"Lady Shui."
"Hmm?" She didn't look up from the map as her finger traced a route from the slum border to the warehouse district, then doubled back, then tried a third path that went through the noble quarters.
"A word in private, please, Lady Shui."
Shui glanced at Long Ti, who was already backing toward the door with survival instincts. He slipped out and pulled the door shut behind him. His footsteps retreated down the hallway at a pace that suggested he wouldn't stop retreating until he reached a different building entirely.
Shui looked up at the old beggar. "What is it? I’m a very busy person that has a lot to do."
The old man pulled a chair from the corner and sat down across from her. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, red and silver hair falling across his face. His fingers laced together and squeezed. "I need to understand what you're doing."
"I'm planning the auction house operation, obviously."
"Before that." His eyes found hers and held. "All of this." He waved one hand in a circle that encompassed the warehouse, the courtyard below, the nine gangs, the one thousand seven hundred bodies standing in formation, and the pale red banner with the crooked mushroom hammer. "What is this?"
Shui blinked at him. "The Red Steel Hammer Sector of the Hu Clan. I told you already."
"You told me a name. I'm asking for a reason."
Shui's brow furrowed. She set the map down and crossed her arms, leaning back in Fao Wen's chair, which was too big for her and made her look like a child sitting in her father's seat at the dinner table. Her feet didn't touch the ground. She swung them twice before answering. "They were hurting people."
The beggar's laced fingers tightened. "Who was?"
"All of them! The gangs! Every single one!" Shui's voice rose and her arms uncrossed so she could gesture at the window overlooking the courtyard. "You saw what the Iron Fang did to Long Ti! They beat him up for walking through their territory! An old man! And the CoolSpear Gang was celebrating taking over Iron Fang territory so they could do the same thing to even more people! The Jade Serpents ran protection rackets on families that couldn't afford rice! The Black Nail Gang—" She stopped and her nose wrinkled. "—I don't even want to talk about what the Black Nail Gang did."
The beggar studied her for a long stretch. His jaw worked side to side. "So you conquered nine gangs because they were mean to people."
"I didn't conquer them. I fixed them." Shui's chin lifted. "Now they work for me and I told them to stop hurting people. And they stopped! Because I'm in charge and I said so and nobody argues with me because I'm the strongest person here and also the nicest."
"The nicest."
"Yes!"
"Lady Shui." The beggar's voice dropped. "They call you the Red Demon."
Shui's face scrunched. Her lower lip pushed forward and her eyebrows drew together until they nearly touched. She looked away from him and stared at the wall where someone had hung one of the pale red banners. The crooked hammer stared back at her like a judgment she hadn't asked for.
"That's not fair," she said in a quieter voice. "I didn't hurt anyone. I didn't even fight! You did all the fighting! I just… stood there and looked scary so they'd listen."
"You collapsed forty-seven people with your Qi pressure alone in this very building."
"They're fine! They woke up!"
"After four hours."
"Still fine! It’s not like I broke any limbs or kidnapped their families."
The beggar exhaled through his nose as he unlaced his fingers and pressed his palms flat against his thighs. "I'm not arguing morality with a twelve-year-old. I'm asking you a practical question." He leaned closer. "What happens when your Ancestor finds out?"
Shui's feet stopped swinging. The chair creaked in the silence.
She audibly gulped and couldn’t hide the panic. Her eyes went distant for a half second, pupils contracting, and then she shook her head hard enough to send her hair whipping. "He won't be mad. I'm helping people! That's what he wants us to do. Be good. Be righteous. Protect the weak. I'm protecting the weak! The gangs were the problem and now I'm the solution!"
"You're a twelve-year-old girl who just took over the criminal underworld of an entire city district in a few days."
"And?"
"And your Ancestor explicitly told you not to fight."
"I didn't fight! You fought while I supervised!" Shui jabbed her finger at him. "There's a difference!"
The old beggar rubbed the bridge of his nose. His red and silver hair swayed as he shook his head once, slow, the motion of a man who recognized that the argument he was having existed in a logical framework he could not access because it had been constructed by someone who operated on rules that bore no resemblance to the ones governing the rest of reality.
"I'm a savior," Shui said. She crossed her arms again and her chin lifted higher. "I saved Long Ti from the Iron Fang. I saved the families the Jade Serpents were extorting. I saved the merchants the River Rats were robbing. I saved everyone in these blocks from being hurt by bad people doing bad things. That's what I did. That's what the Red Steel Hammer Sector is for."
She paused.
"I'm not this Red Demon everyone keeps calling me. I’m the Red Spirit Angel… Princess Angel… No! Im the Great Queen Spirit! Or was it Great Spirit Queen?"
The beggar looked at her for a long, long time. His sharp features softened by a fraction and the tightness around his jaw eased. His eyes settled on her face and stayed there. He saw a girl sitting in a chair too big for her, feet dangling, arms crossed, lower lip jutting, defending herself against a title she didn't want with the absolute conviction that everything she'd done was right because the people she'd done it to deserved it and the people she'd done it for needed it.
He also saw the Red Miasma curling in faint wisps around her ankles without conscious as though it was ambience. She had elite control, yet that didn’t matter for someone as strong as he was. The leaking pressure of a Liquid Core cultivator who hadn't learned to fully contain herself yet and is likely being taught how because he could see the foundations of a legend forming before him.
The old man sighed and leaned back in his chair.
He pulled a coin from his sleeve and rolled it across his knuckles. The familiar motion kept him stable. It was a comfort of something predictable in a situation that had abandoned predictability somewhere around the second gang headquarters.
"Fine," he said.
Shui's eyes brightened. "Fine?"
He nodded. “You're a savior. The Red Steel Hammer Sector is a force for good. The gangs are reformed and the streets are safer. The people are now protected." He caught the coin between two fingers and pointed it at her. "But the auction house plan is going to get you killed. Get Long Ti and all one thousand seven hundred of your new friends killed, and then your Ancestor is going to find out about everything and the resulting catastrophe will make the frozen Greater Dao look like a light breeze."
Shui's brightness dimmed ever so slightly, but it refused to go away. “I have a plan!”
"Your last plan involved conquering nine gangs in couple days."
"And it worked perfectly!"
The coin vanished into his sleeve. He stood and walked to the door, pausing with his hand on the frame, and looked back at her over his shoulder. His smile returned like a loving grandfather. "You remind me of myself when I was young, Lady Shui…” He turned away with a distant look. “Your plan worked perfectly… Yes. Yes, it did…" he admitted. "That's what scares me, Lady Shui."
He turned and left.
Shui sat in the too-big chair and stared at the closed door. Her feet resumed their swinging and the silk pouch of Qi Stones pulsed on the desk beside her maps and cake sketches and the half-eaten meat bun that tasted like mud… Long Ti would be sad if she didn’t finish it, even if he didn’t quite understand that she couldn’t eat such terrible food. Something about her growing tall and strong with a still developing body.
She reached over and patted Mr. Mo Mo's handle.
The hammer hummed back.
"We're doing good things," she whispered. "Right, Mr. Mo Mo?"
The weapon spirit's warmth spread through her palm and up her arm. The one constant in a world that kept calling her names she didn't deserve.
Shui nodded to herself and pulled the map closer. The auction house route needed work. A few possible approaches, two fallback positions, and she still hadn't figured out where to station Fao Wen's lieutenants for maximum coverage of the exits.
She picked up the meat bun and took a bite. Nearly gagging and puking, but she made sure to finish it.
Below her, one thousand seven hundred men and women milled about the courtyard under a pale red banner with a crooked hammer that looked like a mushroom. None of them knew who or what the Hu Clan was, but all of them knew what the Red Demon could do. And every single one of them had decided, independently and unanimously, that following her orders was significantly preferable to the alternative.
Even if it meant they had begun to serve a faction they had never heard of.
A Hu Clan of Demons.