a post-cyberpunk xianxia epic
4 MONTHS AGO. Lin opened his eyes; he took his first breath like he was waking from the dead, given life by an errant sunbeam tickling the glinting tracers inlaid upon his cheek. He felt as though he’d barely slept. He was in and out of consciousness the whole night through; he was in and […]
4 MONTHS AGO. Ren Fei was a studious child. He came early to the Tian estate to do extra reading before his lessons with Yuhui. He found the Tian library far more calm than the study at his own family’s home and relaxed at one of the calligraphy desks, absorbed in the epic held in […]
Ma Xushu heard his brother and Feng Quan’s perpetual bickering in the courtyard of his family’s manor before they ever came into view. He sat beneath a small overhang of juniper carpet, an emerald umbrella made from sharp foliage attached to two gnarled trunks twisted by nature and the slow progression of time. In his […]
Ren Fei took a careful pace through the Northern edges of Beichen forest, navigating the foothills that crept along the side of Yunji just a few miles shy of the mountain pass. Despite the full body ache he suffered, that water mirror boy suddenly disconnected from his ability felt confident in the day that lay […]
Gao Suilian was rarely ever up before half past eight and always rose with the unapologetic insistence of her militant father. He, trained by a life lived between Yunji and the conflicts Luanshi raised him for, always rose at dawn and banged around their shared home with little consideration for things like beauty sleep or […]
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 […]
“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 […]
“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 […]
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 […]