a post-cyberpunk xianxia epic
With his knees in the dirt, stray strands of rust-colored sunbleached hair falling into his face from where it escaped his braid, Lin leaned down to kiss his royal lover. He’d drug Yuhui across the ground with his whirlwind hello, scraped him through the mountain woods with his violent I missed you so, but now, […]
Chen dropped his traveling pack on the floor once he was able to stand full height, shimmying past the low ceiling in the entryway of the loft. “Ah, the wall’s gotten worse,” he said of the space where Laike’s cat slept, that small area scratched to smithereens by furious claws. “You should make her wear […]
“I brought you back some things that I found in my travels.” Chen looked aside to Laike as they strolled back toward the group of buildings the Luanshi sect called home. The morning mist long ago dissipated under the intense gaze of the sun and now the forest was clear—sepia and viridian, grey and gritty […]
2 YEARS AGO. The moon crested over Yunji at midnight. Chen’s window was cracked to the cool mountain air, a kaleidoscopic array of colored glass muted in the dim light of the boy’s half empty room. A lantern burned on his empty desk. The Luanshi sect was fitted with electricity, however the boy born of […]
2 YEARS AGO. “I’m not going to go easy on you,” Chen said as he walked into the center of the sparring ring at Laike’s side, voice hushed like the disclosure was something of a secret shared between them. This would be one of the last matches in which the older disciple would partake—in a […]
Laike was conspicuously absent from breakfast. He refrained from attending Xueyu’s morning training exercises. This wasn’t in itself alarming—occasionally Xueyu’s lead disciple needed time to himself on specific exercises—however, Laike was also absent from his studies with the Heart of the Mountain, missing his daily dose of historical transcription, calligraphy, incantation, and prayer recitation. When […]
The path from the cultivator dormitories down toward Luanshi’s inner gates was quiet. The morning rendered the compound in reality’s details instead of the dreamy phosphorescence of Jiling’s swarm. Still, their surroundings were beautiful. Nature reclaimed every old world surface: ivy on rebar, morning glory blooming on pitted slabs of cement. As they walked, Jiling […]
“I can’t believe I won.” Yuhui’s excitement from the sparring match was electric, tracing his muscles and running rampant through his bones. He looked down to his open palms suspended before him, eyed his fingers like they were not the chaos-wrapped digits that he was born with, like they were a competent man’s hands rather […]
PRESENT DAY. The mist was heavy on Yunji the following morning, hanging like a milky specter over the jagged landscape. Craggy precipices too shallow for anything but birds were the only sight to break through from afar; the morning blanket rested plushly atop the heads of wind and elevation molded evergreens that thrived on weaving […]
“You’re really beautiful like this. You look like you’re wearing the night with your hair like that.” The older boy’s head turned askew, as if the angle would alter the majesty he greedily took in. “I don’t normally get flustered, but you’re really something special, Laike. Sometimes I have these moments when I’m looking at […]