Demonic Tribulations - Chapter 39 preview (Patreon)

Chapter 39 – Yang Mu

Yang Mu gasped, a hand flying up to her mouth in surprise. She took a step towards Wu Ying, involuntarily and found that there was nothing blocking her movements. So she fled over to him, to grab his arm and hold him tight, dodging around the guard that appeared to stop her with the barest of movements and the lightest of hip bumps.

He tumbled aside, regained his balance and began to lower his polearm, only for his actions to be halted with the slightest of movements. Yang Mu barely noted his actions nor the way a new thread of connection, one of enmity and irritation, formed between her and him.

No, her focus was on Wu Ying who had raised his arms high, allowed her to grab him tight and lowered manacled arms around her to hold her tight. He looked serene, outwardly calm to everyone else but her. She could feel the tension in his body, the way his aura was so tightly controlled. She felt the winds dancing across her skin, accepting her and noted half-heard questions and entreaties from his friends.

“Oh, Ah Ying…” Yang Mu whispered, next to him.

“Do you regret it?” Wu Ying said.

“Do you?”

A shake of his head, and she smiled in return. “Me too. The next life, perhaps…”

A throat was cleared, the clerks before the Grand Minister attempting to restore order. They gestured and Yang Mu felt another dao press upon her, the spiritual pressure from the clerks trying to silence the pair. She almost chose to push it aside, to ignore their entreaties. After all, what else could they do to them?

Good sense and the knowledge that it could be much worst than a swift death kept her silent. That, and curiosity, for they had not been ordered to be removed from the court. In fact, the Grand Minister was busy writing on the scroll before him, before he stamped it with the big red, official seal by his side. The document floated down to his clerk, who took it, stamped it again with his own acknowledgement of the order and then rolled the entire thing close.

A small pulse of power sealed the document and the clerk stood up, holding the document in his hands. He turned, walked to the side and then turned again, not to the front but to the back of the hall. A sudden premonition flashed through Yang Mu, a sense of what was to come, and she clutched Wu Ying even tighter as the clerk walked towards the empty throne.

A few steps from the top, the clerk bowed low and held the sealed document aloft, waiting.

Waiting.

Waiting till the regal figure of the Jade Empress appeared on the throne, a projection across realms that happened with the barest touch of power. Purple eyes roamed over the surroundings, taking in the pair, the Grand Minister and the guards and then turned to the document that was already floating through the air to her.

Empress, not Emperor. Surprise registered in Yang Mu’s eyes, as she tried to grasp the difference. She had planned for the Emperor, considered what she might do. The Empress was an entirely different matter, in some ways more mysterious than the Emperor himself. Their marriage one of imperial convenience, certainly, but the Empress herself a power in her own right.

She gestured with a finger and the seal broke open, the scroll unrolling her his gaze, hanging in the air with but the barest hint of chi. Eyes roamed over the document, even as Yang Mu forgot to breathe and Ah Ying, Ah Ying…

Seemed amused? As though, like her, he had sensed what was coming.

How? He had not ability to tell the future, no dao of connections. Powerful as his dao might be, limitless in its growth, it was also very much a dao of reflection, of the present.

Perhaps he had seen this before, danced this dance once. If so, she wished she understood how he managed to be so certain of himself and the coming moments.

Or perhaps he had achieved that transcendent state of mind, that living or dying in the future, that the concept of ends were of no matter. This life, or the next, it was the same to the unending soul.

If so, she wished she could provide her some of that calm.

“Ascendant Long and… Ascendant Yang. Dao companions in all but cultivation forms.” The Jade Empress stared at the pair and even with her aura and spiritual pressure restrained, Yang Mu felt her knees want to buckle. Only by holding onto Wu Ying – and he in turn, her – were they able to keep to their feet. “You have been sentenced to death. Do you have anything you wish to say?”

Yang Mu tried to speak, tried to clear her throat to utter some words. An entreaty perhaps, though what she could say to change his mind, she did not know. Mercy was not necessarily unknown, but Ying was too stubborn to bend his head.

Like now.

A subtle tightening around her, as that fool spoke. “Naught but that we throw ourselves onto the infinite mercy and bountiful wisdom of the Jade Emperor and his consort.”

“Wisdom and mercy that you have questioned, I see.”

“A good thing, then, that I am not the Jade Emperor.”

“Insolent!” The hissed words from behind had Yang Mu turn to see the red faced and vibrating Captain Mao. He glared at Wu Ying’s back, though he was not the only one. The clerks, the Grand Minister, the guards all were looking surprised at Wu Ying’s daring.

She herself was only a little surprised, mostly exasperated. The damn boy pushed, when he was pushed back. He always had as long as she had known him, even when silence or subservience might have been better.

“A very good thing for all the realms, for yours is a dao that is ill-suited to rule.”

The Empress turned her head to the Grand Minister whose lips curled up. He flicked his hand sideways and Yang Mu felt herself pushed away from Wu Ying by an implacable force. A moment later, Wu Ying grunted and fell to his knees, bowed over by an unseen blow to his stomach, and then forced to his knees. He trembled, though he did not cry out loud.

“You are amusing, and brave. But insolence is not without cost,” the Empress murmured.

The crack of invisible blows, raining down upon Wu Ying filled the surroundings. Yang Mu watched as he writhed, pained grunts wrung from his lips. The beating lasted for a few long minutes, she herself unable to move and not daring to object, lest the punishment be increased.

Eventually, it stopped, his clothing no longer dimpling. He lay on the ground before slowly he pulled himself into a kowtow position, pressing forehead against the floor for a long moment. Then, once again, that fool chose to struggle to his feet.

And more fool her, she was helping him.

“A little more sensible, but not much, your companion. Then again, that would make sense that you both are connected.” A small shake of her head and the Jade Emperess’s voice grew cold. “I could let this judgment pass as it stands. I should, as my Grand Minister of Justice and Chancellor have recommended. To ensure that all future rebels and Ascendants know their place.”

Wu Ying almost opened his mouth, but Yang Mu squeezed him, causing him to grunt in pain and silence himself. He had done enough, and here she could see a glimmer of hope. She would not let him darken that light, not with his insolence.

“But I am forced to ask, why not seek my peaches? Why choose to take Fu Lin’s poor copies, rather than the ones I labour over and provide the Imperial Court?” Her eyes narrowed. “Is my work not sufficiently developed for you?”