Breaking the Iron Wings

Breaking the Iron Wings


 * Beijing, 1908

His first memory was of mulberries. He could still picture the delicate clusters swaying in the breeze, framed by a latticework of branches and pale leaves that cut the sky above into squares of iron gray. The night rain had stripped off some of the berries, and they lay scattered along with gossamer gobs of silkworm nests on the ground. He held one between his fingertips before placing it in his mouth. There was only bitterness, the sting of disappointment, and he spat continuously to rid himself of the taste.

"First-son," his mother called. He could hear her clipped steps and the rustle of her silk robes as she picked her way through the garden on bound feet. Aware of the mud-stained state of his jacket, Cang Du stood perfectly still under the mulberry tree, as though remaining motionless would shield him from detection. Jiamei spotted him regardless, and her brow furrowed. She marched across the garden and took him by the ear.

"You know that your father is coming, and this is where I find you?" she asked. Her tone was sharp, tense, but not unkind. "Come, quickly, you must change your tangzhuang before he arrives." Cang Du resisted at first, but he was at last led back to the house, where his mother entrusted him to Yu Lan, one of her servants. As the old maid’s rough hands helped into clean clothes, scrubbing at the dirt and grass stains on his face, his mother instructed: "Make sure you address him respectfully, and only if he speaks to you first."

"But I don't want to talk to him," Cang Du protested.

"He is your father, first-son. You must." Her tone, while firm, conveyed horror that her son should be so willful. "Come, quickly now."

Cang Du dragged his feet as he followed his mother to the front of the house. They passed through corridors that opened to the central courtyard, the innermost parts of the house closed-off by paneled windows. A slight breeze filled the silk curtains that hung between the patio’s ornate, carved-wood pillars, and he could still recall the faint sound of chimes that gossiped from the eaves of the courtyard.

Cang Du's father stood amidst an entourage of servants and porters, surrounded by the crates, luggage, and the other accouterments of travel. Even so, he seemed to float above the frenetic chaos, somehow removed from it all. Hands folded in his sleeves, he smiled easily at whatever a silver-haired man next to him had said.

"Welcome home, husband." Cang Du's mother bowed to the proper depth as she greeted him demurely. His father looked up, and while his expression did not change, there was something that hardened behind his narrowed eyes.

"My wife, Feng Jiamei, and son," he explained to his guest. The man acknowledged them with a brief nod. "This is master Li Hong, from the delegation."

"We are honored to have you as our guest," his mother continued, maintaining her formal tone. "Won't you stay for tea?"

"That would be much appreciated," he agreed, "Although your husband and I have unfinished business left to discuss." His steely gaze turned upon Cang Du, who shrank reflexively behind his mother’s skirts.

"Come now," his father said, interrupting the unpleasant silence, "I have something for you," he told Cang Du. He motioned to one of the servants, who brought out a narrow wooden box. He slid open the lid, revealing a gleaming set of die-cast pewter warriors. Fumbling with his small hands to balance the weighty gift, he selected one of the horsemen and held it up for examination.

"A handsome set. A Qin dynasty replica?" the stranger, Li Hong, asked his father.

"It is," he replied without looking at the man. He placed his hand on Cang Du's head. "Well? What do you think?"

What Cang Du thought was that his father's hand seemed heavy—there was ice beneath his touch—and that his constantly smiling eyes, so narrow that they were nothing more than slits, reminded him of a snake that had just snatched up its prey. Yet his father did not seem to be looking at him. Rather, it was as if finding only emptiness, he stared straight through him. Cang Du's fingers tightened around the model, clinging to the soft metal as he gaped at his father, speechless.

"Do you like it?" he asked after Cang Du made no response.

"I..." he started, but found that his words caught in his throat before he could form them.

"What he means to say is that he is very pleased, and grateful that his father should be so thoughtful," Cang Du's mother cut in. She reached up to finger the silver hairpin she wore without thinking, a habitual gesture.

"I see." His father's permanent smirk widened ever so slightly.

—鐵—

Upon his father's suggestion, the four of them moved to the reception hall. Jiamei dutifully served the men tea from blue and white porcelain gaiwan. The china clattered against the wooden serving tray, and wisps of steam curled into the cool, humid air. Cang Du peered cautiously at the stranger seated across from him. The man perched stiffly on the edge of his chair. His starched white collar stood in stark contrast against his midnight blue changshan, and his silver brooch, an ornate pentacle, glittered in the dim light.

At first, the majority of the adults' conversation was lost to Cang Du. He cradled the box of soldiers in his lap, tracing his finger along the inscribed characters that he could not yet read.

"Now," Li Hong began, tapping his fingers on the arm of the chair, "As to the nature of my visit, it is high time your son began his training in the spiritual arts."

"With all due respect, most honored guest," his mother interrupted, "The child is not yet five years old."

"By that I age I had already mastered my spiritual weapon. I killed my first Hollow at age seven. That is no excuse."

"But such talent is to be expected from a master such as yourself. Not everyone is so skilled." Jiamei tried to flatter him, but her tone grew defensive. "I'm sure with the proper training his latent powers will manifest."

"Yet with nothing to indicate the existence of these 'latent powers,' so who would be willing to teach him?" he asked. When his mother did not respond, Li Hong scoffed, "Surely not you, a woman." He turned towards Cang Du's father. "Cang Lu, have you no interest in teaching your own son the sacred arts?"

Cang Du's father waved his hand, brushing aside the man's accusation. "If he has no talent, then it can't be helped," he replied, as if discussing the weather. His mother's faced blanched. She bit her lip and stared hard at the floor in front of her.

"Please, don't judge him so harshly. He does possess a little power," she mumbled apologetically.

"Then show us," Li Hong demanded. His mother looked at her son before glancing towards Cang Lu, pleading for her husband to intervene. His expression did not change, except for a slight curl of amusement in the corner of his mouth. Jiamei nodded to herself.

"Very well." She stood and smoothed out the creases of her skirt, as though by doing she could erase the lines between her brows as well. "Come," she said to Cang Du. He set the box on the chair behind him, where it was soon forgotten, and followed his mother into the open courtyard. Jiamei took him by the hand and bent down so they faced each other at eye-level. "You remember everything I told you, about forming your invisible bow?" she asked. His eyes widened, and he nodded. "Can you show me again now?" The softness of her tone was strained, and Cang Du looked past her to Li Hong and his father, somehow grasping the gravity of his mother's situation.

Without a word he extended his hand and concentrated. Soon his arm became heavy. Motes of blue light gathered around his fingertips, swirling as they emerged in midair. He frowned, his breath coming shorter and harder as he extended his will to the ambient wisps of spiritual energy around him. It was a difficult task, and he began to shake. Then, he felt his mother's hands on his shoulders, steadying him, guiding him.

But his hold over his own will faltered, and the energy in his hand burst into a thousand particles of light. The remnant energy skittered through the air before vanishing. His mother breathed in, sharply, and he felt the tips of his ears burn with the shame of disappointing her. He looked up, hoping for an explanation of what he had done wrong.

"First-son, your father is calling you," she told him instead, and only then did he hear his father's voice. His mother pushed him towards Cang Lu.

"Can you tell me what is standing next to me?" His father had cupped his chin in his hand with characteristic nonchalance. Confusion crossed Cang Du's face. He hesitated, searching for a hint to the answer he knew his father wanted to hear.

"There is nothing standing next to you, father," he answered. Satisfied, Cang Lu leaned back in his seat.

"Inexcusable," Li Hong exclaimed. "With the noble clans on the brink of obsolescence, this... apathy towards your own progeny's spiritual development is appalling." the man's glare shifted to Cang Du's mother, who cast her eyes down at her feet. "Furthermore you have allowed your wife to bear the responsibility of his training. Do you wish to toss aside the integrity of your bloodline?"

“That’s none of my concern," Cang Lu answered with a sigh. "The fate of the clans is dependent upon their own strength or faults, as is my son's. The weak will always submit to a greater power. You cannot ignore the simple fact that the clans have become a decrepit, aging man, much like this country itself: Plagued by imagined diseases that have been realized through ignorance." He paused to drink from his gaiwan, and Li Hong's face flushed red. "That is to say, should the clans cease to exist, the question of pedigrees and bloodlines is, ultimately, irrelevant."

"You would do well to remember your place, Cang Lu. You are already treading a thin line with the delegation–such words could be considered treasonous to some." Li Hong's voice shook with a smothered anger, and he shut his eyes. "I believe I've overstayed my welcome," he said. He rose, bowed stiffly, and turned to leave. But then he paused, clasping his hands behind his back.

"You should know," he said. "That I intended to offer my services as an instructor to your son," he said, "But no doubt your own insolence has already poisoned his young mind." He allowed his father one last chance to redeem himself. "Farewell," the Li Hong said as he strode out into the courtyard. Jiamei cast a panicked look towards Cang Lu, who would not be swayed.

"Wait!" she took the initiative herself to follow after him, leaving Cang Du and his father alone.

At first neither of them said anything. There was still the skeletal whisper of the chimes, and in the stillness the sinking sun cast sidelong shadows across the floor.

"Come here," his father said at last. Cang Du did not dare disobey. His father took his chin between his fingers and tilted his face up, staring into Cang Du's eyes and turning his head back and forth, as if examining a strange specimen of insect. Then he released him, having found nothing of interest. "Tell me child, can you see it now?" he asked, his tone heavy with boredom.

Again Cang Du looked desperately for whatever it was his father had wanted him to see. The wind brushed through the curtains, and the light in the room wavered. At last he saw a pale, translucent hand resting upon his father's shoulder. He gasped and drew back. There was a man standing at his father's side. Ghostlike, his presence was almost smudged out entirely, but Cang Du was able to follow his hand to his shoulder, up to his chest where the glint of steel revealed a chain protruding from where his heart should have been. The shadows shifted, and the apparition vanished.

"Well now, I suppose you aren't completely worthless." There was only disinterest in his voice, and Cang Du knew that, at that moment, his father ceased to see him at all.

—鐵—

The next day, Feng Jiamei called Cang Du to the gazebo in the center of the garden. She sat at a small table beneath the pavilion’s shade, attempting to ward off the sticky heat of early summer with a paper fan. Yu Fan poured them tea, and the smell of jasmine melded with the cinnamon fragrance of cassia trees and the salt of his own sweat. He was still breathing hard after chasing a grass snake across the garden. Having already forgotten his toy soldiers, he planned to make the snake his pet. He was displeased that his adventure had been interrupted for—of all things— tea. Once he had taken the first few, scalding sips and had calmed himself, his mother motioned for Yu Lan to set a chessboard on the table between them. She set the pieces in silence, and Cang Du watched her with sudden curiosity. He was so absorbed in what his mother was doing that he almost spilled his tea.

“What is that?” he asked.

“It’s a game called chess. Do you want to play?” He nodded eagerly. “But I doubt you're old enough for this game. You must be very patient.”

“I am old enough!” Cang Du assured her, and he willed himself to stop fidgeting in his seat. His mother raised an eyebrow, but said nothing as she finished setting up the board. Despite his young age, Cang Du was able to grasp the rules with surprising acuity. He copied his mother carefully as she slid the smooth, round tiles across the board. Yet he could not best her, and his face scrunched in consternation after his mother’s pieces hedged in one of his own.

“First-son, it is time you began your shenglian training,” she said quietly, interrupting them. “Master Li has agreed to instruct you as soon as you become spiritually aware. Until then, I will continue teaching you the basics.” Cang Du finally looked up, and his dark, thin eyebrows pushed together quizzically.

“Here, show me your hand,” she told him. She placed a chess piece in his open palm.

“The universe is divided into two forms of energy: the positive yang,” she said as she traced the inscription of the piece’s character with the tip of her finger, “And the negative yin,” she turned the tile onto its reverse side, which was blank and smooth. “Together this duality forms the basis of all existence. Do you understand, first-son?”

Cang Du considered the question for a moment before he shook his head. His mother continued.

“Everything in the world has its equal and opposite counterpart: right and left, dark and light, male and female, and most importantly, spiritual and physical,” she elaborated. “Do you see now? We live in the physical world, but the spiritual world is there, all around us.” She replaced the tile on the board. “Most people live in only one world. They cannot see that another, spiritual realm is there alongside our own. But some can perceive the flow of yin and yang and guide this spiritual energy in all of its forms. They are able to see both physical and spiritual matter.” Her hold on his hand grew firm. “I am one of these people, and so are you, first-son. Even though you cannot yet see spirits, there is power within you.” She seemed confident of the abilities Cang Du was apparently oblivious to himself. He felt even more ashamed for having disappointed her the day before.

“Is it a good kind of power?” he asked, and thought of his father.

“That depends on how you use it,” his mother said. “Which is why you must train in the sacred arts as soon as possible.” She took the thin chain that hung around her neck and placed it over his head. “This once belonged to my father… your grandfather,” she told him. “And perhaps it even belonged to his father. It is very old.” From his mother’s expectant gaze, he understood that something was supposed to be there.

“What is it?” he asked, not wishing to disappoint her.

“It is a spirit-forged pendant, said to have come from the afterlife itself,” she explained. “It cannot be seen by normal humans, only by those who are spiritually aware.” She placed the invisible object into his hand. Cang Du thought he could feel a subtle, familiar weight, and he concentrated on a single point in the center of his palm, tilting it back and forth in the light. In this way he was able to see, briefly, the outline of a small, rectangular steel object. “Carry it with you always. It will eventually become the focus for your powers as a Quincy.”

Translucent and shimmering, he began to make out the pendant’s details. There was a dragon and tiger in their eternal circle engraved on the front, their proportion and detail displaying expert craftsmanship. The reverse had two characters, although he could only read one.

“What does it say?” he asked.

“Rèn lì,” his mother seemed pleased as she answered, “it means ‘indomitable spirit.’”

—鐵—

The humidity of the day sweltered into pressing, stagnated heat as night fell. The air seemed to hum, and it was impossible for Cang Du to sleep. Tossing and turning, he at last threw off his sheets and decided to find someplace cooler to rest. Maybe the garden pavilion.

Careful to avoid alerting his mother's sharp ears, he slipped out of his room and tiptoed through the hall. The only sound was the whisper of his bare feet across the stone tiles and the incessent chirp of crickets in the courtyard. He thought he was alone, but froze when he heard the low murmur of human voices. Tilting his head to one side, he listened to the distinctive pitch and soothing timbre. One of the voices belonged to his father. Curiosity at last won over his caution, and he crept closer.

"What's wrong?" his father asked in a smooth tone that Cang Du had never heard him use before. "Why refuse me now, after all these months?"

The pale moonlight that cut into the house revealed his father's figure and that of another pressed against one of the wooden pillars. He narrowed his eyes, and in the darkness somehow more clearly percieved the half-invisible form of the ghost from before. The man's features, while pallid, were still handsome and strong, but his Soul Chain was disturbingly short.

"It's not that I..." Cang Du could hear the embarrassment in his voice. "But under the same roof as your... as your family," the ghost stammered. When Cang Du's father did not respond, he added, "It would not be honorable." There was a moment of silence, and Cang Du's father slipped his hand around the ghost's neck.

"As always, your adherence to decorum is admirable. It is something I have always appreciated," he said it as though sincere, but Cang Du heard the falsity in his voice. "There exists no love between me and my wife. The marriage was arranged. She understands that I'm only trying to help you. You must find peace in order to pass on."

The ghost still seemed torn over the decision to accept Cang Lu's affections, but his eyes burned bright: Desire. Desperation.

"Have you forgotten?" his father asked.

"I have not forgotten." They leaned towards each other, tentatively fitting their mouths together. He saw his father slide his tongue into midair, but then there was the ghost, half-translucent, masking the act, and Cang Du felt a strange guilt alongside his interest. He should not be there.

Cang Du turned back the way he had come. He carried with him the uncomfortable impression that his father had known he was there all along, and imagined his father's half-lidded eyes smirking at the secret that Cang Du had suddenly been made privy to. Heart pounding, he stopped himself from sprinting past his mother's room. But then he noticed that the door was ajar and sensed that something amiss. Confused, he pushed the door open to confront the muffled sobs.

His mother knelt in the center of her room. Her back was turned away from him, and her narrow shoulders drooped with tiredness or defeat. Softly, as if she was a ghost that would disappear at the slightest movement, he approached her.

"Mother." She looked up at him, tears staining her cheeks. She held her silver hairpin clasped between her trembling hands in her lap. She did not speak, only reached out towards him, and Cang Du allowed her to pull him into her arms. She cried into his chest and stroked his hair, rocking back and forth as she comforted herself by holding him tight.

"I love you, so much. I will always love you. No matter what happens. Always remember that."

And eventually, he fell asleep.

—鐵—


 * 1916

Cang Du's family estate was liquidated in the spring. A small party of men in crisp, black suits had arrived from the bank, and with a thin sheet of parchment informed Feng Jiamei and her son that her husband had agreed to sell all personal assets: to pay for “debts accrued after the fall of the Manchu government and the loss of crucial investments.” Summer withered into fall, and fall was swept away by dry winter. In the end they had been allowed to keep the house, but the December wind coursed through empty corridors and bare rooms. Aside from the few, basic possessions necessary for the maintenance of life, Cang Du had managed to keep some of his father's alchemical books, which he studied in secret when not occupied with his normal schoolwork. The books provided his only form of instruction in the spiritual arts, and he poured through them greedily.

One morning came gray and cold, with flecks of white falling from the sky. As usual, Cang Du rose early from his threadbare mattress on the floor, stretched, and began to practice the combat exercises he had been taught by Li Hong. He found that, in the absence of a master’s instruction, his concentration had improved as he was determined to succeed despite his odds. Some days were harder than others, and he often found that only willpower alone would allow him to conquer his own, growing body. That day, his stiff muscles protested as he forced them into motion, but with each kick he chipped away at the temptation to stop until it was forgotten entirely.

Afterwards, he doused his face with ice water and buttoned the stiff-collared, formal black tangzhuang of the perceptual government school he attended. He paused when he saw himself in the cracked, round mirror above the washbasin. His thick hair hung between his eyes, making them seem darker, and his jaw was tense, with his mouth set in a firm, serious line. He tried to relax his features but failed. Cang Du often felt years older than his actual age. But more concerning was that, each day, the vanishing smoothness of boyhood began to erase any trait that he may have once shared with his mother. Instead, his eyes continued to narrow as he aged, coming to resemble those of his father. It unnerved him.

His thoughts were interrupted by the sounds of Yu Lan rummaging through the kitchen as she prepared breakfast. She and her husband had been the only servants who had stayed on after the bankruptcy. He smelled steaming rice and hot sesame oil, and his stomach growled. Before immersing himself in his customary early-morning studies, he went to the coop behind the kitchen to check for eggs. The chickens scattered as he approached: Something had spooked them.

Peering inside the dank, dusty interior of one of the boxes, Cang Du spotted the speckled scales and black eyes of a grass snake curled around the batch of eggs, its stomach swollen by the one it had swallowed for its own meal. With certain impunity, he reached out, his hand moving faster than the eye could see, and grabbed the snake behind its head. For a moment he hesitated and considered releasing the animal in the garden. But as he stared into the dark pits of the snake's eyes, his own hardened. He crushed its skull and tossed the body on the compost heap.

As Cang Du turned back towards the house, he felt an electric shiver of awareness run down the length of his spine. He stopped, extending his senses to probe at the distant disturbance. The spiritual presence was layered within the atmosphere, so faint he wondered why he had noticed it at all. Then, he registered a shock as he recognized whom the aura belonged to.

It was his father.

Evidentially, Cang Lu had returned to Beijing. His presence could be sensed coming from the south. Cang Du started to wonder why he had come before he willed himself to ignore it.

However, when he later joined Yu Lan and her husband at the table for breakfast, Feng Jiamei was missing.

"Where is my mother?" he asked. He watched as Yu Lan’s gnarled hands dipped into the rice bucket. She portioned out a serving for him, her husband and herself before answering.

“When I woke her she said she wasn't hungry." Cang Du frowned. He took one bite of rice, and the food tasted like ash to him. After a moment's deliberation, he stood and left the table.

He found his mother in her room, awake and combing through her long, silk-smooth hair. She stared into the distance and did not seem to hear him when he entered the room. Her gaze was focused on the silver hairpin on the table in front of her.

"Your father gave this to me on our wedding day," his mother said wistfully, as though aware that he had been there all along. "And I thought, then, that perhaps he…" She shook her head. For the first time, Cang Du examined the object more closely. With two thick prongs adorned with a delicate pair of doves at its base, their wings spread in iron flight, set above a cluster of day lilies, it was a pretty thing, to be sure, but disappointingly ordinary. He sensed that it was more fragile than it appeared.

"He is here." Cang Du felt obligated to tell her.

"I know. I was always able to sense him." She turned towards him, and he saw that her eyes were bright with unshed tears. His mother reached for his hand, and he allowed her to take it. "He won't come," the corners of her sad smile turned down as she struggled to maintain her composure. "But I don't mind anymore." She lied. "I have you."

—鐵—

It was not hard to track his father through the tangled mass of three million Soul Ribbons that comprised Beijing. Those with supernatural powers stood out above the common rabble of spiritually blind humans, like beacons that shone in the crowded city. Cang Du's path led him past the entrance to his school, and he paused before its high stone gate. If he turned aside now it would be a normal day. He would attend classes, deliver the evening papers through the foreign district on his route home, return to his studies, and forget that his father existed at all. But his mother's words echoed in his mind. He took to the sky.

Sliding his feet along the currents of spiritual energy coursing through the air, Cang Du soared over faded rooftops and climbed to the level of the clouds. While it was reckless to use his abilities in broad daylight, he doubted anyone would be able to see him from his position. Far above the streets, he followed the snaking green thread of the river past the Forbidden City, the golden roofs of the immense compound rising above the dust of the surrounding buildings. As the sun rose higher into the snow-swept sky, the immensity of the city began to impress upon him. He crossed the market districts, then turned his steps towards the south railway terminal where his father had no doubt arrived.

Cang Du found him exiting a two-story teahouse, a crowd of business associates flocking around him. He was not surprised that one of the men was even Japanese, and less surprised to see the man clinging to his father's arm in a coy, suggestive manner. Seemingly unaffected by the bankruptcy of his estate, Cang Lu's changshan was as elaborate as he remembered. He walked with entitled grace, swinging a black cane from his wrist and trading banter with the other men. They squeezed through a narrow hutong before entering a wide plaza, and Cang Du swallowed his reservations as he willed himself to step out and confront his father directly.

"Cang Lu!" The voice that called out was not his own, and Cang Du jumped back, startled.

Li Hong, in his solemn, long robes, swept out and approached his father from the opposite end of the plaza. Compared to Cang Lu's perpetual youth, the man looked worn and faded. Dust swirled in his wake, and he too was surrounded by a small party of men. Quincy, Cang Du noted, like him and his father.

"Master Li Hong, what a pleasant surprise, I did not expect to see you so soon after setting foot in Beijing."

"Trust me, this will be the furthest thing from pleasant," Li Hong snapped.

The last time Cang Du had seen Li Hong had been that spring, when he had told him he would no longer be able to teach him because of the disgrace the Cang family had suffered. Now, Cang Du's face burned with the reminder of his shame and anger.

"May I ask what the occasion is?" Cang Lu asked.

"I believe you are already aware of the circumstances you are in. The slight you committed in betraying the delegation is one not that is quickly forgotten."

"I was under the impression that my affairs with the delegation had already been resolved." His father's voice hardened to ice. "Unless you mean to say that you're here on personal business."

For a moment they paused, as if each were attempting to stare the other down. At last Li Hong swept his robe to the side, revealing a short, straight-edged jian, which he pulled from the scabbard with expert skill. The blade hummed in the crisp air, and he leveled it at Cang Lu's chest.

"Let's drop the pretense of civility and get straight to business," he said.

"As direct as always I see. You really have no notion of what foreplay is, do you?" Cang Lu smiled—he was always smiling—and motioned for those around him to step aside. They cleared a space around the men, hedging them in a tight arena.

Cang Du realized that he was about to witness a clash between two masters. While he could personally testify to Li Hong's skill, recalling the various times he had suffered the man's blows in their practice sessions, he had never seen his father fight. Still, he knew who would win before the fight even began.

With a yell, Li Hong vanished, rippling across the canvas of the air. At first his father did not move. But then, he raised his hand, calmly, and caught Li Hong's sword by the flat of the blade, forcing the master into visible existence. Cang Lu curled his fingers into a hook, then drove the flat of his palm into the center of the older man's chest. A wall of concentrated pressure bent according to his will, slamming into Li Hong in a singular point. The man stumbled back, regained his footing, and struck again. But by then Cang Lu had drawn the sword concealed in his cane. There was a flash of steel turning through the air, metal struck metal, and for a moment both opponents seemed caught in the momentum of the strike. Cang Lu blurred, and with one, sweeping motion, cut deeply into Li Hong's throat. Blue veins of light pulsated across the man's skin, but his spiritual defenses had not been able to spare him from the hardened, physical steel of Cang Lu's blade. By the time he collapsed onto the pavement, Li Hong was dead.

Cang Lu flicked the blood from the edge of his blade, then drew out a white kerchief and ran it over the sword before replacing it in its scabbard. Li Hong's shocked followers rushed to attend the decapitated corpse while Cang Lu observed them casually. His movements had been supple and gliding, as flexible as a snake. At first, Cang Du had had every intention of confronting his father, but now he felt a chill settle in his core.

And then his father turned, glancing over his shoulder in his direction as if he had known that Cang Du had been there all along.

—鐵—


 * 1920

That morning was quiet, subdued. Sheets of gray blanketed the sky, muting the sound of the first drops of rain that landed on the stone courtyard. Feng Jiamei stood with her hands clasped in front of her, staring at the chimes that hung from the eaves as she waited for her husband. He was there outside on the street, but she did not allow herself to hope. Never for herself, at least.

Cang Lu made his way down the alley that led to their home before pausing in front of the threshold. Jiamei lifted her chin, as always attempting to catch her husband's notice. He entered the main courtyard, folding his hands in his sleeves as he examined the house around him with detached curiosity, as though inspecting a historical relic. Jiamei's breath stalled in her throat. He was alone. No group of politicians or businessmen or delegates accompanied him, no male partner walked by his side. Her heart stirred, just slightly, but she cut off the notion that he might actually look upon her.

"Welcome home, honorable husband," she spoke with all the traditional, demure affectation of a proper wife with bound feet. Was that not what he wanted? Was that not what all men wanted from their wives?

Cang Lu stopped, looked at her from across the courtyard, and smiled.

"Hello Jiamei," he said. Again her heart began to beat fast in her chest, although she willed herself to breath calmly. She was no longer a young girl captivated by heady romance. She was a woman. A mother. There were lines around the corners of her eyes and mouth. She was no longer as beautiful as she once was. No longer desirable. She had nothing to offer him, and knew he would spurn her as he always did. But her heart pounded on, nonetheless.

"It has been a long time since I set foot in Beijing," Cang Lu continued. "And our son?"

Our son?

"Our" did not exist in her husband's vocabulary. It suggested mutual possession. To Cang Lu, either something was his, or it was nothing at all to him. "Ours" was a foreign concept to him, she knew that much.

"He is..." she stammered, her guards and defenses dropping away despite everything she did to keep them up, to shield herself from inevitable pain.

"So, we're alone then?" Cang Lu drifted closer, until they were standing face to face. Jiamei's mouth parted as though she would speak, but at first no words came.

"Yes," she murmured. "Yes we are alone," and her hand reached to finger the hairpin she still wore through her dark hair.

"I understand the past few years must have been difficult for you, especially in my absence." Cang Lu reached out, "You've weathered such changes well, to still wear such finery." Jiamei felt her face burn. Was her husband… seducing her?

"It was a gift from a generous benefactor... long ago," she answered, playing along. He touched the side of her face, and Jiamei almost shuddered from the sensation. She could not remember the last time they had made physical contact. Now it was extended to her voluntarily.

"And does this 'generous benefactor' hold designs upon my wife?" he asked, with a smile in the corner of his mouth.

"I... I thought he had lost all interest in me," she whispered as she fought back welling tears. Cang Lu leaned closer, and Jiamei stood perfectly still. If she reached out to touch him, he would vanish before her eyes, a fleeting apparition.

"Appearances can be deceiving," he whispered in turn, and he held her chin in his hand, gently, before he reached behind her neck, as though to pull her close. Jiamei closed her eyes, sure that she was dreaming. She felt his breath on her skin, but his smirk would never reach her lips. Instead he ran his fingers run through her hair before, without warning, he pulled the hairpin from behind her ear.

Her eyes flew open and she stepped back, reeling. Cang Lu was studying the delicate piece of jewelry with the same, detached expression he always held when he looked upon Jiamei.

"Such a pretty, delicate thing. Yet, disappointingly ordinary."

The hairpin had been his first gift to her, given on their wedding day, and because it had been sheer, extravagant excess she had believed it to be the only one given in sincerity. She had clung to it, worn it everyday, to remind herself that once Cang Lu had considered her, had looked upon her with something more than veiled disinterest, had held her even. The first and only time his bare skin had pressed against her own. The first and only time he had loved her.

"I'm sure you know what this means, Jiamei," his voice had turned cold as he began to slip away from her. "Our marriage," he said, using 'our' once more. Why was he using that word again? "Is annulled."

Numb, she watched him walk away, this time forever. She reached out for him, grasping a fleeting image at the end of a dark, shrinking tunnel. Now that tunnel had sealed off completely, leaving her in darkness. And she knew he was gone.

She fell to her knees, and as propriety left her she allowed herself one, hopeless wail.

—鐵—

It was raining by the time Cang Du returned home. He was preoccupied with the continual knot of hunger in the pit of his stomach and irritated by the rain as he ducked through the front door of their home.

Like hitting a wall, he collided with the sensation of a spiritual presence far greater than his own. Cang Du stopped, listening to the constant rhythm of the rain. His father had been there. After four years he had had the nerve to come back. Cang Du felt the muscles in his jaw tighten as he clenched his hands into fists. He strode through the main courtyard with purpose, intending to question his mother about his father's whereabouts. The rain blurred his senses, creating a hazy image of the spiritual world, but he shrugged the heaviness away and stepped inside. The house was shrouded in silence, the only sound the muted downpour on the tile roof.

"Mother," he called out, his voice strained and hollow, echoing off stone floors and bare walls. There was no reply, and at once an overwhelming emptiness rushed over him. He called out to her again, then, with sudden urgency, went to find her himself. He knew where she was, but paused before the door to her room, remembering the first time he had found her in the same way years ago, when he had first learned of pain, of betrayal. The door was open, barely a crack, and Cang Du hesitated as he entered.

His mother was lying on the floor, her hair spread out to one side like a crushed veil. Her eyes were open, dark, and staring up at the ceiling with eerie intensity.

Praying against the worst, he knelt by her side and felt for her pulse. Her skin was cool to the touch and much too pale, but her heart was beating. He wrapped her in his arms then, cradling her head against his chest. She moaned quietly, once. Her breath was heavy and sweet, and he realized that black liquid was seeping from the corner of her mouth.

"What happened?" he demanded. Her head lolled back against his arm, but she made no response. Cang Du's gaze darted across the room to his mother's small, wood medicine chest, which lay overturned in the corner. He took the small, empty bottle from her hand and tasted its former contents, grimacing at the bitterness. Poison. "Who did this to you?"

Her eyelids fluttered, weakly, and she reached up to stroke his cheek, finding it wet with tears Cang Du himself had been unaware of.

"I love you so, very much." He caught her hand in his own. "Always remember that."

"Don't say such things mother." His voice was thick as he fought to speak around the welt in his throat. "You can't leave yet."

She smiled before her eyes drifted closed, and did not hear him as he called out to her again and again.

—鐵—

"Cang Lu!" It was his own voice that rang out this time, strong and resolute. Thunder clapped across the sky a second later. His father stopped, although his back was still turned. Cang Du had found him wandering the political district, not far from their family home. The downpour had driven all human life from the wide, paved streets, leaving Cang Du and his father alone. The sky was as gray as the sheet of rain and stone facades of the buildings around them. Cang Lu stood out from it all, his pale green changshan a splash of color in the gaunt world.

"To address your father by his full name," Cang Lu laughed, "Does this mean you've finally grown a spine?" He turned, hands tucked into his sleeves, and Cang Du felt himself stiffen, even though his father's expression had not changed. Images of Li Hong's bright blood as his head fell flashed through his mind, but he steeled himself. He was stronger than he had ever been, stronger than Li Hong had ever been. Still, when he looked at his father he had the uncanny sensation that he was staring into the gaping jaws of a venomous snake: His own fate loomed before him. Pinpricks of raw, instinctual fear run across the surface of his skin.

"I suppose you are here because of Feng Jiamei," his father continued.

"She poisoned herself. After you left." Cang Du's voice was thick with suppressed emotion, but he stated it bluntly. "What did you do to her?" The smile in the corner of his father's mouth faltered.

"Ah." Cang Lu looked up at the rain, as though he had forgotten a minor detail he could not call to mind. "She must have been upset when I took this," he said, and removed an object from his sleeve.

Cang Du's eyes narrowed, and through the pouring rain he saw the delicate metalwork, the tiny spread wings and fragile flowers. It was his mother's hairpin.

"It's a shame, really, that a person's entire existence should be bound up by such a small thing. Love. Hatred. Envy," Cang Lu tapped the hairpin on his lips, which did little to conceal his smirk. "In the end, all emotions are easily-broken promises. Messy, capricious affairs."

"Give it back," Cang Du demanded, his voice dragging out across cut stone.

"I'm afraid that's no longer possible. Whatever fragile bond held me to your mother has been severed completely. No, I cannot return anything to her; there was nothing to give in the first place. But…" he shifted his weight to center himself, spreading out his feet and extending the hairpin as though it were a sword. "I can give it to you."

The challenge in his voice was clear. For an instant, hidden lightning illuminated the clouds above them. Thunder answered a few moments later, and the rain, frigid and hard, began to fall in earnest. It pelted down on Cang Du's shoulders, plastering his clothes and hair to his skin and blinding him. He ignored it as he widened his stance, answering his father's challenge. Cang Lu's spritual pressure was close, palpable, and dangerous. The atmosphere thickened with murderous intent, the rain doing little to dull its sharp edge. Never before had he felt such fear. It gripped him by the throat, settling into his muscles like a coiled spring even as he willed it to the back of his mind. I am going to die. He acknowledged with finality, even as he called forth his spiritual weapon. There was a brief glow of blue energy centered around his wrists, and a moment later three claw-like blades on each hand shimmered into existence. He leveled his left hand at his father while he drew back his right, preparing to strike.

"Ah, soul-synthesized silver. It seems you are not entirely without talent after all, and such a murderous look in your eyes." Cang Lu was mocking him, but his eyes narrowed even further as he met his son's threat evenly. "Before you try to kill me tell me one thing: Why are you so determined? It is only a hairpin. A pretty thing perhaps, but common, ordinary, easily replaceable."

"Things that spent their lives together should remain together in death. That is my belief."

"Ah, monism?"

"Dualism," Cang Du corrected.

"Fascinating. I hope your philosophy has prepared you for what comes after death."

"Go to hell."

Cang Du emerged in the air above his father, having closed the distance between them faster than the eye could see. His form was perfect, his body curled over with unreleased power as he allowed his momentum to pull him down towards his father. He drove his claws towards Cang Lu's throat, and felt as though invisible lines of energy extended and connected him with his target. He knew with certainty that he would not miss.

Cang Lu stepped to the side, allowing his son's strike to carry him through midair. Then, raising his hand above his head, he held the hairpin up, and it glinted as delicate droplets of water were flung from its tip. Cang Du's eyes widened. In the next instant, the hairpin blurred with the motion of his father's downward strike.

In that instant, had he wanted to, his father could have killed him. Cang Du wasn’t surprised by that fact. Instead, he accepted it with distinct passivity.

Searing pain cut across the corner of Cang Du's mouth as a blade of energy meant to slice through his skull, drove him into the ground. He did not remember the impact, only that one second he was staring at his father's gleaming teeth through his wide grin, and that the next he was staring at a small pool of his own blood. The rough texture of the pavement where his head lay stood out in jagged detail as the world spun beneath him. His claws had disappeared. He could not move.

Cang Lu stared down at his son, then turned to leave.

"Did you… at least love her?" Cang Du managed to gasp.

It was a long time before he answered.

"I will admit that perhaps at one time I was attracted to her. Perhaps I pitied her even. But I never loved her. And you and I are cut from the same cloth, are we not?"

"No," Cang Du resisted, spitting blood. "No I'm different than you."

Cang Lu stared up at the sky, and sighed. "Allow me tell you the secret to strength, since you seem to be so painfully lacking in it. Strength is contrast. To destroy that is to become nothing. Reliance, love, is weakness. If you lack determination—the will to succeed, you will die. But a will that is iron… that is strength. But I suppose you already know that."

Cang Du watched the image of his father fade into the distance for the last time, swallowed by the silver haze of the rain. He had left something lying a short, unreachable distance from his fingertips. Through his shrinking vision he saw his mother's hairpin, noting calmly that one of its prongs had snapped in half.

It was fitting, he thought, that it should be broken.


 * End.