Demonic Tribulations - Chapter 69 preview (Patreon)

Chapter 69 – Tou He

Tou He hesitated over the robes he would wear, finger touching the storage ring he wore on one hand. The only one he wore. No point in having more since his litany of possessions was small. He had only five sets of robes – a luxury – in three styles. Two pairs, in the cut and form that the demons commonly wore. One had been sent to be washed, the other still folded in his ring. Another pair were the traditional robes of a sect Elder of the Verdant Green Waters. Black with green trim, serious and denoting his position. The final were the ones he was most comfortable wearing, orange robes that flowed over the shoulder. Markings of a monastery and a religious order he had long ago been dismissed from, and yet, still felt connected to.

As he hesitated, Tou He checked on the exterior. Noted that the watcher was still there, hours after his arrival. He had attempted to hide himself in the alleyway, away from direct line of sight of most. That allowed him to keep watch on the front entrance, and the small patrol at the back kept the back safeguarded.

It was their presence the reason why he hesitated over his clothing options. That, and the lack of company. Late into the night now, his companions should have returned. A deep foreboding filled him, clutching at his innards and sending little shivers through his body, causing the hairs on his body to rise up.

He made his decision, dressed and sat down, facing the doorway. Pulled out his prayer beads and began to cultivate, quietly, knowing that whatever information he might gather mattered little in the face of what was to come.

He cultivated and he waited as the stars spun and the moon rose.

Until the knock on the door that he had been expecting arrived.

At least they were polite.

***

This was a day of surprises, it seemed. His escort delivered him to a palanquin and then, the palanquin diverting not from the small fort that held the local garrison or the local jail was another.

It made Tou He a little less trepidatious about their future, a little more uncertain. He had rough plans for what he thought might have happened, but to find it turned away, for the watchers and the escort not to come from the local government but another threw him off.

Rather than spiral thoughts and plans further with so little information, the idle gossip of the escort offering him little new information, Tou He waited. Letting the wooden prayer beads slide over the edge of his fingers, worn and callused by countless hours repeating the same task He did not chant, though the words thrummed in his mind.

A simple request of blessing from the Buddha. Over and over again, till only the sound of the chant, the flow of his breathing and the spiral of chi from the surroundings entering his meridians, coursing through his body before they entered his dantian could be felt.

Eventually, the palanquin delivered him to his destination, a private dock a little way down and offset from the river. They passed by guards who blocked traffic before he was brought to the walkway, to allow him to ascend to the massive floating restaurant tied off to the side. Red lanterns shed yellow and red lights all across the brightly illuminated vessel, music from a small orchestra and the clatter of plates and hushed voices drifting down from above.

A waiter met him at the top, guided him up a couple more levels, passing by guests who preservered at their selective blindness, even as Tou He, without mask or wrap and in his orange robes moved pass them. The guards behind him were perhaps part of the reason they kept silent, not even daring to gossip about his presence yet, or perhaps it was just that kind of place.

Certainly, if he was an expert on marriages, lust and the passions of the young and old and between and amongst genders that there were just a few too many mismatches for it to be anything but a place of discretion.

Finally, he was at his destination. Doors were slid open and Tou He stepped inward, prayer beads held in one hand idly as he regarded those within.

Biamin, seated near opposite the entrance, chopsticks raised as she held a clear piece of jellyfish sighed at spotted him. “Did we not speak about discretion? Those robes…!”

“Are comfortable. And I had believed you captured, our ruse over before it had begun,” Tou He said, gently.

Not far away, her wolf lay, gnawing on a massive bone that must have come from a monstrous creature for it was the size of the, already large, wolf’s head. Tou He eyed the bone, tried to imagine how big it must have been. Even a femur – the largest bone in most animal bodies – would still make this a story tall at least. Maybe more.

Certainly, Biamin’s companion had now been successfully bribed.

“No one will speak of it. Or of your presence. You have my word on it.” Long, languid words, drawling. Tou He had noted how the group were a little younger or a little older, filled with old soldiers that had been injured and discarded but the man before him should have been in the army by now. Early thirties – if looks could be trusted, which with cultivation, it could not – but with the bright eyes and sorrowful wisdom of many more years. Healthy and undamaged enough to serve, certainly.

“And whose word is that?” Tou He asked, still not having stepped deeper into the room though the doors behind him had slid shut.

“You may call me… Anur.” Anur gestured to the open spot next to Minsci, the rouliguo curled up around his tail and lazily patting a highly distended stomach.

“Is he okay?” Tou He could have pulsed his aura to search the man, but it would have been rude.

“The idiot overate.” Biamin sighed. “His kind can go into torpor for a while, digesting everything if that happens.”

“My chef outdid himself, I must admit. He was quite happy with your friend for fixing his beloved stove,” Anur said.

Glancing back and forth, noting that Biamin looked mostly at ease, Tou He finally chose to take a seat before the man. He was putting together clues even now, the way his escort had moved, the reactions of passerbys and those below. Nearer now, he could sense the man’s cultivation base too – a mid-tier Core Formation cultivator. At least, so far as he chose to showcase himself.

“So, you run the local underworld,” Tou He stated.

“How bold and forthright you are.” Eyes drifted upwards to Tou He’s shaved head, then to the orange robes. “Will that be a problem, venerable one?”

“I have left the order many years ago.” Eyes drifted to the succulent piece of roast meat on the table. His stomach growled, sending hunger pangs into him that Tou He ignored.

“Please, eat. I have made this promise to your friends, but I make it you too. Eat, be safe. So long as you sit around this table and are a guest of mine, you will come to no harm.” There was a timbre to the man’s voice, a certitude that meant that this was more than words, but a cultivation promise.

Guarantee enough, even for a more suspicious person. For Tou He, who was inclined to accept his word anyway, it meant that he did not wait. Picking up chopsticks and empty bowl, he dug in.

“Tell me, how did you find us?”

“Easy enough. We have been watching for strangers for a while. When a new rouliguo arrived, looking for precious and rare materials to help with his journey and handing out empire coin and stone, I was alerted. It did not take long to trace him back. Then, there was the magic man that appeared, to save a boy that did not need saving, but who moved so fast and his biamin companion and her companion too.

“Even in this city, such sights are not usual. It did not take long for my people to find you all, or listen in on the conversations of the biamin, who was speaking more in one day than a clan would in a month.”

Biamin winced, small spots of red blooming n her cheeks. Tou He, crunching through the crispy and fatty skin of the creature – the taste somewhere between duck and pork – was content to et the man speak. He seemed particularly effusive after all.

“It was, of course, a matter of time before the local commander and his guards heard of this. I had to make a decision, of course, but it was not a hard one. A matter of some small diversions, of paperwork disappeared and messages lost. Your presence will not be spoken of – at least, not for a while.”

“And what do you want for all this? Will you tell us now?” Biamin said, cooly.

“Why, the very same thing that you wish.” At the silence from the pair, punctuated from the slight snoring noise from Minsci, Anur added. “I want to kill the Emperor too.”