a post-cyberpunk xianxia epic
Tian Xiaoxu was slower than the wildfire rumours that spread from his wager’s spark. Even as he walked from the Ren estate back to Skyline Manor, he heard the noise of his actions chatter past him in whispers and bits: spoken as story through the open doors of a teahouse, replayed by children in the […]
Yuhui waved goodbye to his brother before passing through the gates enclosing the Ren manor, glancing back briefly to view his own house from below, that palace perched perfectly upon the skyline. He wasn’t envious of the task his older sibling was going to see through but, at the same time, he wasn’t quite looking […]
There was blood splattered on the pavement leading up to the mansion in which the Feng clan made their home. Afternoon rolled in and now the courtyard was quiet, peaceful in the hours after so much noise and a night’s worth of ragged howling. It was bare except for that tell-tale evidence of lashings left […]
The morning was still dim when Tian Xiaoxu rose. He had little time or desire for breakfast—not when it was such a momentous day for his young brother. The crown prince dressed quickly, as plainly as he could to spite the elegance of his wardrobe, and rushed to rouse his sibling. “Come on, Yuhui,” he […]
“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, […]
Laike’s brisk return to Yunji before dawn saw him with no time to catch up on the sleep he’d lost to Tian Yuhui’s trap, so Laike went about his day without delay instead. When the sun rose and draped the mountain in mist, Xueyu found his favourite disciple practicing archery on wooden targets hidden in […]
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 […]