a post-cyberpunk xianxia epic
“Every shadow is a door; no matter where you are, I’ll come for you,” Laike teased, lascivious with his bolstered confidence. He was running his hands beneath that robe becoming more and more displaced with his agitations, modesty’s blush replaced by a hunter’s dirt streaked red, bruising in the afterglow. “I’ll come for you if […]
The night was a tarry spread of naught across Yuhui’s floor, a deep midnight draped like an echo of the infinite gaping eternal in its soft-spectrum spread with similar shades sliced in measure, varying degrees barely differentiable from each other by the sight of naked eye. The moon was out but the cloudcover was hungry, […]
Jin’s bedroom sat above his workshop, but a little more in line with the original house. It was a drafty thing, window screens full of patchy holes filled with kite paper and wanted posters. A few panes of rippling glass remained, but most of them had fallen out and the Hua family lived a meager […]
“AH—” Li cried out as soon as the scalpel bit into the flesh of his back, into the meat so close to the nervecenter of his spine. “F-FUCK—” It was worse when the inlayer dug in, when the extraction process replaced the incising. The dire importance of stillness kept in the way he held his […]
The sun was high overhead, just beginning its descent to the other horizon when Tian Xiaoxu came to disturb his brother’s silent retreat. Ren Li hadn’t given him many details but when one younger brother was bothered, the other usually matched. If Xiao knew anything at all, it was that Tian and Ren moods were […]
“Yes, you,” the old woman confirmed. “Come here.” Hua Ruizhi stepped up onto a short riser to lean over the counter displaying her bizarrely sorted collection of florals before she pointed at a stool. For all the strange objects stacked and clustered around the entrance of the shop, the interior smelled overwhelmingly of flowers rather […]
Leaning against a low scrap-metal outcropping in a salvaged wall, Jin gestured to the knee-high padded bench-table in the middle of the room—a makeshift setup somewhere between examination table, drinking lounge, and bed. “Strip and sit. Lemme see what you got.” He paused. “…Sir.” With a nod, the noble began to remove his clothes, fingers […]
Fanxing’s northern end was held by the bend of a river which streamed down from the mountains beyond the city’s outer limits, rushing waters always dotted with specks of light like pearls. The river’s edges diligently sought new land to swallow and spread, erosion kept at bay by hand stacked stone walls all along the […]
Ren Li rose with the silent song of the sun. By the time the heavy flecking of velvet night succumbed to the pastel crescendo of new morning, he was already taking tea; he was reviewing his schedule for the day; he was making notes based on anticipations and rendering clockwork from time not yet passed […]
The Ren family, devoted allies of the Tian clan, lived nearby Skyline manor, close enough that their children spent their entire lives running from mansion to palace and back again. This morning was no different. Fanxing’s streets were greeted by a bright eyed youth of nineteen who woke every morning with a grin and a […]