Empress Rising: The Hunt

Chapter Nine

I whirled around at the sound of a girl's voice. Cloaked in shadow, Wendi Tian stepped through the open door. My thoughts jumped to Wang's confession that she'd run away from him.

Good grief. I really hoped Wendi wasn't about to consult me for love advice. The closest thing I had to a boyfriend was the pile of textbooks Ye Ye kept trying to marry me to.

Wendi's eyes stared at the spear in my hand. For a moment, I swear they flashed red.

"You shouldn't be here," I said, coughing and casually hiding Fenghuang behind my back. Maybe Wendi would think it was an elaborate backscratcher. "Wang's looking for you."

"You were at the Chinatown festival last night," Wendi accused in a distorted, croaky voice.

I blinked. "Whoa. You okay? You sound...sick. And old."

"You are the one who slayed the nian dragon. You are the Heaven Breaker."

My heart skipped a beat. I backed away until the backs of my knees hit Xi Wangmu's altar. My palms grew sweaty around the shaft of my spear. "H-how did you know?"

Wendi tossed her head back and growled. "You should be more careful where you slay your demons, mortal. You never know who might be watching." She fixed her eyes on me, and I froze. No longer was her expression sweet and innocent. A sinister change swept over the girl's face, elongating her nose, coloring her hair from black to a fierce red. Her eyes flashed with a menacing red color, too.

"Wh-whatever it is you're doing, stop it. Stop it now," I said, backing away with shaky legs. "I do not like that. Nope. Do you hear me? That is not good future Chinese wife behavior."

A snarl contorted her face. Her now cracked, dry lips pulled back to reveal a set of gleaming fangs. A reddish orange layer of fur sprouted over her body. With one last convulsion, a set of not one, not two, but nine tails burst out of her backside. Wendi landed onto the ground, paws first, now a fully-fledged fox thing. A huli jing.

I'd once heard some of the other boys call Wang's girlfriend a fox, but I was pretty sure this wasn't what they'd meant.

I reacted with remarkable calm, considering the situation. "Holy bejeezus!" I screeched, silently apologizing to Buddha as I flung his nian gao at Wang's former girlfriend.

The creature dodged the rice cake like a public school food fight champ, swiping her razor-sharp claws at me. A horrible screeching noise rang in my ears. I wracked my head for what I knew of the huli jing. It hoodwinked men by transforming into beautiful women—and it could only be killed by slicing off all nine of its tails.

I retaliated by raising Fenghuang in front of my face, though my trembling hands didn't let me swing down properly, and the sharp blade only managed to slice off two of its nine tails before the fox leapt out of the way. Of course at the moment it mattered most, Ye Ye's teachings had flown out of my head.

The fox lashed out with its remaining tails, which I managed to avoid by leaping onto the Jade Emperor's altar and knocking his bowl of grapes to the ground. "Sorry, dude," I said. "They don't call me Heaven Breaker for nothing."

The huli jing leapt onto the other side of the altar, lashing out with its tails. Fenghuang swung through the air and lopped off three with ease, but one of the tails sliced across my cheek before I could back away in time, leaving a sharp sting.

The creature bared its fangs, eyes red as fresh blood, hissing and gloating at me. A pink tongue darted out as the huli jing licked its lips.

But Fenghuang was warming up in my hands. Now that I was accustomed to its light weight, the spear felt incredibly easy to maneuver in my grasp, like an extension of my arm.

"Eat this!" I leapt forward, toppling Nezha's bowl of rice onto the ground and slashing my spear at the demonic creature before me. Two more tails sliced off and flew through the air, landing on the ground and dissolving with a hiss. Four to go.

The nine-tailed fox was cornered, and we both knew it. But that seemed to only fuel its anger. It whipped its remaining tails at me, and I had to contort my body into a painful position to avoid being sliced.

And then, suddenly, four darts flew through the air above me, each one hitting its mark, slicing off the huli jing's tails. With a wail and a hiss, the tailless demon writhed on the floor. Then it shriveled away into nothingness. Its soul was whisked away in the air, melting through the roof.

"Huh?" I spun around to see that my savior stood just inside the entrance. She was an older woman with long black hair piled onto her head in a high bun, held up by gold jewelry. She wore a long-sleeved white shirt and a floor-length, shimmering blue skirt the color of the ocean. White ribbon floated around her, held up by nothing that I could see. The woman's outline radiated light.

A deity.

The goddess waved her hand through the air, opening a bag strapped to her side. The darts zipped inside. She casually flicked off some dust that had settled on the hem of her glittering blue dress. "You'll need to be more careful from now on," the goddess warned. "The power of Fenghuang will attract many enemies—demons and deities alike."

I gulped and lowered the spear, hiding it behind my back, like that would fool any potential adversaries. "Who are you?" I said.

"You know me as Hun," the woman said in an ethereal-sounding voice, "but in my true form, I am Mazu, the sea goddess."

I'd been wondering why Mao's niece hadn't shown up to the banquet. Turns out, Hun had been busy—being a goddess. Stranger things have happened.

"Okay," I said, somehow sounding calm even though every inch of my brain was screaming. "Sea goddess. I take it the doctor thing didn't work out?"

After I knelt down to the goddess and paid my respects properly, Mazu helped me to my feet. "When Buddha heard your prayer, he sent me here to attend the banquet and leave. But there are some real problems in this place." The sea goddess cast a suspicious look around at the ruined altar. "We need to talk," she told me.

"I'll say," I said with a weak laugh.

"But not now." The sea goddess pointed out the golden doors. "Now, we have bigger problems."

My eyes followed her gesture. The shouting reached my ears before my eyes processed what was going on. A huge gang of men holding weapons surrounded small, familiar shed.

My home.

My family.

*****

A/N - Freaking Wendi Tian. Did you know it's a trope of Chinese literature/fantasy that the pretty,  seductive women are actually fox spirits or other demons in disguise? So sexist, right? 

(Although idk, being a sexy fox spirit sounds frickin awesome HAHA)

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