Demon Sect 1

I couldn't sleep Monday evening, so I ended up writing about half of this on my phone. It's an idea for a Cultivation project I've been toying with for a while, and it's inspired by the anime trope of two people being forced into an accidental marriage - often by some cultural misunderstanding - in the first episode as complete strangers. It's likely to be a bit more humorous than either Guild Mage or Faerie Knight, and probably slightly spicier. I won't be writing it on any sort of schedule or posting to RR anytime soon, but it may get new chapters as I have the time and inspiration or need a break.

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Chapter 1: The Woman Who Fell to Earth

Ping was halfway to the town of South Bend when his wife fell from the sky.

She wasn’t his wife yet, of course.  She’d come down like a falling star, and left a crater four bu wide in Old Man Chen’s paddy, just north of where the sea road turned west around a great jutting rock all the local children referred to as the sleeping giant.

Ping shouldn’t have stopped his father’s ox cart. His older brother, Bo, wouldn’t have stopped the cart, but Bo had been pressed into service in the sect war seven months earlier. Thus, instead of a plodding, incurious older son, a son who would sooner eat plain rice every day than try growing a bit of garlic in the patch of dirt next to the house, Father had been forced to send Ping. Ping, who had surreptitiously planted the garlic as soon as it was clear Bo would not be coming back. Not soon, at any rate.

Ping stopped his father’s cart, leaving Chong the ox to indulge his perpetual idleness along the side of the sea road, and scrambled through the muddy paddy to see precisely what had fallen from the sky. A star, he thought, because it was still smoking at the bottom of the crater, and anyway what else had any business falling from the sky?

Zhao Meng, the town blacksmith, said that the iron from fallen stars was the strongest metal in the world, prized even by the great Sects. If Bo had stopped their father’s cart, it would have been at the thought of selling such metal, and the wealth such a stroke of fortune might bring to their family.

Ping just wanted to see a fallen star.

Instead, at the bottom of the crater, he found a woman.

She was dressed all in blackened metal plates, with a helm that concealed most of her face, and both she and the armor were covered in mud, but she was clearly a woman all the same, from her delicate nose to her graceful cheekbones, to the long lashes on her closed eyes. She was the most beautiful person that Ping had ever seen.

He knelt beside her, pulled her helmeted head into his lap, to keep her mouth and nose out of the paddy-water, and shouted in her face.

“Hey!” Ping yelled. “Hey you, Star-woman! If you can hear me, say something!”

Her eyes fluttered open, and Ping was entranced. Rather than the dark, muddy brown of every farmer’s daughter he had ever met, the color of the soil they all spent their entire lives working, the woman’s eyes were a brilliant, bright amber, nearly orange, laced with streaks of a deeper crimson that elevated from her pupil like fire.

“Hide me,” the woman croaked, her voice deeper than he had expected. It reminded him of how Old Man Chen had ruined his throat with years upon years of smoking a pipe.

“I can put you in the back of the cart, with the rice,” Ping said after thinking a moment.  “But that armor will stick out. No one around here wears black armor with spikey bits.  No one who lives here, at any rate.”  The Sect armies marched out again as soon as they had whatever they had come for.

The woman said nothing and closed her eyes, but immediately her armor vanished as if it had never been anything more than a dream, leaving her in robes of silk brocade. Beneath the muck, it looked like a pattern of bright crimson on black.  Ping supposed it was natural that a star-woman would have magic armor, and he thought it polite not to say anything.

Anyway, fine brocade wouldn’t do either, so he pulled the outer robes off her and pressed them down into the mud, as deep as he could. Hopefully no one would find them any time soon.  By the time Ping picked the woman up and carried her over to the cart, she was left in only a white under robe that was the softest, finest cloth he’d ever felt — and, perhaps, the filthiest.

Thankfully, Ping was strong from years of working on his father’s land, and the star-woman was small and not very heavy at all. He might have said she was delicate, for unlike the farm wives with their arms nearly as thick as that of their husbands’, this woman’s limbs were graceful and well shaped. But, no, she was no bird, either, for all that he was much larger than her. There was a compact, wiry toughness to her body that Ping would never have believed if he hadn’t felt it himself.

He got her into the back of the ox cart, wedged between two bulging sacks of rice, and she hadn’t died yet, so Ping got the ox moving again. He and Chong mostly stayed moving for the remainder of the morning, plodding along at their slow pace, with only the occasional bit of yelling and cursing required to maintain forward motion.  The green karst mountains reared up to either side of the road, which was flat and straight and had been cut by the Heaven Wind Temple Sect so long ago that no one could quite remember.

Thus it was that, while he reached South Bend  later than he had planned on, he was not, precisely speaking, late.

The town was constructed along both banks of the Pearl River, with arched bridges of bluestone connecting each side.  The narrow streets were paved with bluestone as well, while the buildings were nearly all brick.  Ping had once heard that there were well over five hundred households in total, of which only six could be considered families of substance.

For families such as Ping’s, South Bend was the only place to find bakers and blacksmiths, carpenters and masons, weavers and tanners and winesellers.  It was also the only market in which it was possible to sell their excess rice, to one of the two wealthy merchant families that made their home here.

Merchant Haoyu, to whom their family had sold rice since Ping’s father had no sons at all, recognized him immediately because Ping had first made the trip with Bo two harvests before.

“Young Ping!” he said, with a broad grin and a vigorous rubbing of his large hands. Everything about Merchant Haoyu was broad, from his nose to his belly. “Excellent, excellent. I need all the rice I can get, and I shall give you a good price, for all the years I have been doing business with your father. Come, let my men unload your cart, and share a drink of plum wine with me!”

There was one thing, of course, in the back of the cart that Ping did not wish Merchant Haoyu’s men to unload.

“I cannot stay,” Ping said, bowing his head. “I must take a room at Madame Rong’s inn. But I will leave our ox and the cart and the rice with your men, and come in the morning to collect the payment.” He bowed, so that his refusal would not anger the wealthy merchant.

“Yes, yes,” Haoyu said. “Go on then.” Ping, after all, was far less important than the rice — the rice could be sold.  Since the start of the Sect War, every harvest was in great demand for, as Ping had heard the merchant remark before, all armies marched on their bellies.  Two of Haoyu’s men came to take Hong away for some rest and a meal.

Ping hurried around to the back of the cart, lifted the muddy woman — who had not yet awoken — and made his way to the less expensive of the only two inns that South Bend boasted.

The building was two stories high, with walls of the same brick as the homes in the town, with a small courtyard and a common room where Madame Rong and her children served tea and dumpling soup and whatever else they could manage to get together for the travelers who passed up the much nicer Three Cormorants House owned by the Zhao family. Ping marched right up to the bar where one of Rong’s three sons idled, nearly as lazy as the oxen.

“I need a room for the night,” Ping announced, with a filthy, bedraggled and possibly dead woman in his arms.

Rong’s son, a tall man who was already stooped from leaning all day, stared for a long moment. “Who’s she?” he asked.

There were really only two choices, Ping knew: his wife, or his sister. Anything else would be asking for trouble from the magistrates. Of the two, saying the woman was his wife was clearly the more likely to anger her when — if — she awoke, but something inside Ping rebelled at the idea of naming her his sister.

“My wife,” he said, before he could talk sense into himself. “She fell off my cart and hit her head on a stone.”

Rong’s son nodded. “Fifty-four wen for the two of you,” he declared. “Includes a meal tonight and another in the morning.”

Fifty-four copper wen was nearly everything Ping’s father had given him, and it was meant to purchase a new plow blade, but he reached under his coat, removed the leather cord he wore as a necklace, and counted fifty-four round coins with square holes in the middle with no hesitation. He untied the cord, slid the coins off, and dumped them onto the counter.  “I need a bucket of water and a cloth to clean her with,” he insisted.

“My sister will bring it up.” Rong’s son stepped out from behind the bar and led Ping upstairs, down the hall, and to a room with a bed wide enough for three people - or just one Merchant Haoyu. He watched while Ping gently set the woman down, then shrugged and departed. He had his money, after all.

Ping hesitated, but he knew the mud-caked, sodden clothes had to come off, or his star-woman would get sick. She did not wake while he stripped her and threw the underrobe into one corner of the room, and by the time that was done, a knock at the door signalled the arrival of a bucket.

One of Rong’s daughters — a girl with a sallow face and muddy eyes — passed the bucket and cloth through the door, which Ping only opened halfway. As soon as he had them, he closed the door again and this time barred it with the old piece of wood which had been provided to guests for this purpose.  Then, he hauled the bucket over to the bedside, wet the rag, and began cleaning the woman.

She was hot to the touch, and Ping worried that she was already feverish. Or was that just the way that stars were? Perhaps it was normal, and she was hot all the time.

Ping tried to imagine that she was a sick man, while he cleaned her body, and not the most beautiful woman he had ever seen — a plain fact which only became more and more certain as he removed caked on layers of mud, blood and sweat.  Imagining did not help.

Her legs were long and lithe, every part of them smooth and hairless to the touch.  Her hips swelled, practically begging for him to run his hands over her curves. Her chest was small, her nipples pink, and her belly flat, all of which convinced him that she’d never borne a child. Ping did his best to avert his eyes, but it was impossible not to see. He hoped that when she woke, she would forgive him.

It became easier not to lose focus when he discovered just how badly she was wounded. There were a wide variety of minor cuts, scrapes and bruises all over her body which he cleaned as best he could, but it was the star-woman’s left leg that truly worried Ping.

A vicious-looking puncture wound, at the back of the knee, where no armor could  protect, wept foul-smelling pus.  Thin red lines traced outward from the wound, and though Ping cleaned it thoroughly, even he knew that it would require a doctor.

There was only a single doctor left in South Bend since the second had left with the army last spring.  The man who remained was named Fang Zixin, who it was said could bring life to someone who had been dead three days. Ping didn’t believe that, but he did know that when his youngest sister, Yu, had been pointed the wrong way to be born, Doctor Fang had turned her. Now, Yu was a healthy girl of nine years.

Ping did not have enough money to pay the doctor, but that would change when he met with Merchant Haoyu in the morning. Of course, doing so would leave his family with hardly anything to show for their labors.  Still, they would survive - without a doctor, the star-woman would not.

Ping looked down at the woman’s delicate hand. The only thing he had not removed from her body was a ring on her third finger, a ring made of some strange black stone. There was writing, as well, engraved into the stone, and it burned red like banked coals. Ping could not read it.

Surely a ring such as that would be enough to pay the doctor?

However, he could not simply take it from her finger while the star-woman slept. That would be theft. If she woke, he could explain to her what was needed, but she had shown no sign of stirring the entire time he had worked to bathe her.

A bustle from outside the window broke into Ping’s thoughts, and he walked across the small bedroom to look outside.  There was a troop of armed men. Ping recognized the color of their banners: the white and blue of the Heaven Wind Sect, the same banner under which his older brother had marched away.  They must have come to buy more food from the merchants, for there were hardly any young men left to fight.  When Ping turned back to the woman, her eyes were open.

“Lady Star!” Ping cried out. “You are awake!”

“Where am I?” the woman demanded. “Who are you?”  She struggled to sit up, and clutched the blanket to her when she found that she was naked.

“I am Tian Ping,” he introduced himself, and bowed to show her respect. “You are in a room at Madame Rong’s inn, in the town of South Bend. I have cleaned you as best I could, Lady Star, but the wound in your left leg looks very evil.  There is a doctor who could see to it, but I am afraid I do not have enough money to pay him.”

“No doctor,” the woman gasped. “The soldiers I hear marching outside. What color are their banners?”

“White and blue,” Ping answered, approaching the bed and kneeling down next to her. “They are Heaven Wind Temple soldiers, Lady Star.  But if your wound is not treated, I fear you will lose the leg.” In truth, he feared she would die; but it was perhaps best not to frighten her so badly.

Faster than Ping could believe, the woman’s hand shot out and grasped him by his hemp coat.  She pulled him close to her, and whispered urgently, “Hide me. Do not let them find me.”

Ping frowned. “They are just passing through the town,” he assured her. “They will buy rice from Merchant Haoyu, and try to recruit more men, but they are no danger.”

She shook her head, tossing her fine black hair across the coarse pillow, and released him before allowing herself to fall back. “They are hunting me,” she insisted. “Don’t let them find me.”

It was disconcerting to have such a beautiful woman begging him for help, but as Ping cast a quick glance about the room, he didn’t see what he could possibly do. There was no furniture other than the bed, no closet, no chest or wardrobe to hide her in.

“They have no reason to come up here, and the door is barred,” Ping assured her. “You have nothing to fear, my lady.”

The woman let out a short, bitter laugh. “They are already on the stairs.  Can you not hear their boots?”

Ping frowned: he’d noticed nothing. He rose from his place next to the bed, walked to the door, and put his ear against the wood to listen.

There it was - the tromp of boots in the hall, and then a man’s rough voice - not at their door, but at a room closer to the stairs.  

Ping carefully backed away, until he was at the lady’s bedside again. “We will be silent,” he decided. “We will pretend not to hear them, to be asleep.”

The woman struggled to sit up again, and the thin blanket fell away, exposing her nakedness.  “I won’t die in bed,” she declared. “I’ll die fighting. Tell them that I forced you to help me, and perhaps they will let you go.”

This time, the pounding came on their door.

“Open, in the name of the Heaven Wind Temple!”

Ping froze, a cold fear rendering him completely unable to think.

“Break it down,” the gruff voice commanded, and then the door rattled on its hinges against a crashing impact.

The star woman had now thrown the blanket back entirely; she tried to stand, but her wounded leg would not support her weight, and she fell.  Before he could consider what he was doing, Ping lunged forward and caught her in his arms, so that she did not reach the floor. The feeling of her body pressed against him made his heart pound. 

No, he would not take advantage of a wounded woman. He would—

The door crashed again, and Ping heard a sharp crack. The next strike would break it down.

He set the star-woman back down on the mattress, let go of her long enough to rip his coat off and then, with his chest bare, threw himself onto the bed, wrapped her in his arms, and caught her shocked lips in a kiss. 

With a final crash, the door burst open, and two soldiers stormed in. Ping turned to them, a naked woman in his arms, and, summoning every bit of outrage he could muster, demanded, “What in heaven's name are you doing, interrupting a man and his wife?”