The Heavenly Hound's Master – Chapter 8 – Outward Flesh Interlude [3.2k Words]
Gui Rouha was a hard man to define.
And that suited him perfectly well.
He had been sitting by the low desk in his relaxation chambers, a space painstakingly tailored to suit his needs. Sober tones and absent decorations allowed the eye to wander to the one exception: the calligraphy scroll written by one of his most admired artists that hung over the double sliding door. There were no windows to let in the perennial street bustle of the Jade Hive, and oil lamps were set at every corner, perfectly adjusted to cast a dim penumbra that turned his multiplied shadow into a blur on the walls.
Barely any distraction, nothing other than the words written by one of the most dexterous brushes in the Empire:
His own.
Of course, scarce few knew that fact. One of the advantages of being born to become the head of the Alchemists of the Outward Flesh was how… encouraging the family was when it came to him spreading his wings and tasting different walks of life.
Literally.
He had learned to adjust his gait to copy his older cousins before he was taught any of the clan's arts. At five years old, his ability to imitate accents and speech patterns had earned him sincere, and rare, praise from the former head of the clan, his grandfather.
Everything had been useful. Not easy, yet still worth pursuing, if only for the chance to spend a few weeks at a time living lives other than his, selling scrolls crafted with the fine, steady hand of one who could take hold of his nerves and turn them into the envy of any surgeon.
It still tasted like ash.
The envy of any surgeon.
That… that was one of the things he wished others understood. His clan, the Rouha, men and women trained since birth to understand their bodies as the works of art that nature carelessly neglected to curate…
They could have been so much more.
Physicians and surgeons, yes, because crafting one's body allowed an understanding of the medical arts that the words of sages gone by could hardly convey. But that was only the beginning. The merest drop of ink of the volumes upon volumes of wasted potential that the history of his family so eloquently proclaimed.
A battle scar that cut short a promising soldier's career? That was trivial to take care of. Bleeding out after a duel with a rival? Why, why would anyone do that when they could not only mend, but shape the very veins that blood now fled from? Why pretend at a nonexistent weakness just to—
Gui Rouha was a hard man to read.
He worked hard at that, blanking every expression he didn't mean to employ. He had, at one point, cut off the nerves in his forehead with but a thought, convinced that any wrinkling of his brow was a weakness for rivals to exploit.
His grandfather had… disciplined the habit out of him.
But he now was the clan head.
And his forehead was as smooth as he pleased.
He flicked the small gong sitting atop his table and waited for the note to dissipate. Before it did, his cousin Zhong stepped through the door with the humble hunch of a servant not as trusted as he would like to be.
Gui had to suppress a smile at that. It was not a great effort.
"Chrysanthemum and licorice," Gui said.
Zhong bowed and exited the room. Mere minutes later, he came back with a tray laden with all the paraphernalia that a proper tea ceremony required.
Gui nodded, absentmindedly grateful, and started the abbreviated, private version of the ritual.
He paid no mind to his cousin's departure, barely looking up when the doors slid close once again. He, instead, brought up his left arm, sniffing through the hanging silk sleeve to cleanse his sense of smell before pouring the hot water over the leaves and discarding the first wash. The scent of the damp medicinal herbs mingled with tea was invigorating enough, despite the mix having been formulated to soothe inner fire.
He poured the water a second time, and this time he did not discard the mix, but rather served it on the tall, sniffing cup before transferring it to the shorter one meant for drinking.
And so, once again, he inhaled.
Chrysanthemum blossoms, licorice, and tea. Bitter and sweet aromas, yet tastefully subdued. Mingled.
He despised the mix.
The only time he ever drank it was in this one chamber. Usually, he would have much preferred a rosebud concoction, but…
But there was meaning, here.
Meaning in forcing his face into a peaceful, contemplative half-smile. Meaning in softening his gaze, letting more of the aroma flow inside him with a third breath. In relaxing ever so gently his grip on the tall cup before setting it down and taking the drinking one.
He lifted it up to his lips, the fine porcelain, almost as thin as calligraphy paper, brushing his bottom lip with as much gentleness as a dagger in the night.
Gui Rouha closed his eyes, his mind solely focused on the touch. On the pressure of his fingertips, the weight pulling down on his wrist, the scent of chrysanthemum and licorice wafting over perfectly fine tea leaves.
His whole self was touch and scent.
They echoed.
And, in that moment… something was cut as swiftly as the nerves on his forehead.
Free of the peaceful façade, he set the cup back down as he wrestled the tendril of intent that had haunted him ever since he first discovered the violation that had been branded on him. It was a subtle fight, as any undue strain, any noticeable effort, would mean his sure defeat.
'Four ounces move a thousand pounds.'
That was the key. Not to oppose the strength of an unfathomably superior opponent. Not to let her know that she was even fighting him to begin with.
But to redirect. To guide.
To take the connection between his senses and the labyrinthine mind that so easily hijacked them and attach it instead to…
Another cousin.
Not Zhong, of course. He had his own role to play in this trite, cumbersome farce.
Rather… Chang. Chang, his grandfather's favorite grandson. Chang, who had no backing in the clan once the unfortunate came to pass.
Chang, who sat in a room buried beneath the central building of the clan's compound, as deep as they could dig without arousing suspicion.
Chang, who sat in a room bare of all decoration save for the one calligraphy scroll hanging above double sliding doors.
Something slid off Gui's nape, the cut connection finding the channel of meaning he had painstakingly carved between him and his cousin. It quickly found its new resting place, seamlessly connected to the invisible scar on Chang's own nape.
And so, Gui flicked the small gong beside the tea tray once more.
"My lord?" Zhong immediately asked as soon as he opened the doors he had been waiting by.
"Today, I shall be a merchant," he said.
Zhong nodded and stepped back, disappearing for the brief moment that it took him to retrieve the ostentatious robes selected to show off the wealth of somebody who was new to it.
Heavy brocade, ornate layers, and thick silk rustled as Gui changed; his posture straightened not in self-assuredness, but with the need to proclaim to the world his success. That he had made it. That he was, finally, one of the chosen ones.
Zhong waited patiently as he crafted this familiar persona. He had traveled his birth province wearing it more than once, the perfect bait for bandits that had grown too brash to remain unchecked.
"That will be all, Zhong," he said with a broader smile than Gui Rouha would ever direct at a family member.
His cousin nodded and walked away, vanishing like the ghost he had been trained to become, and the head of the Alchemists of the Outward Flesh walked unaccompanied through his holding, taking as indirect a route as possible before he crossed the gate at the back of the compound where solicitors and providers came daily to ply their trades or try and secure the clan's services.
He stopped being the merchant after five streets.
Three layers of brocade were discarded and hidden under a flat paving stone at the end of an alley, and a single black cloak was procured. His back bent forward, and his brow wrinkled with age and feebleness, his unsteady hand too proud to grasp a cane, but obviously needing one.
This was how he crossed to the lower rings of the Jade Hive.
He took one of the dragon boats that regularly fell down the channels between the noble and merchant quarters, then detoured toward the cable-hanging carriages meant for cargo and men who could've easily been cargo themselves. It took him almost an hour to reach his destination at the lower ring of the Hive.
He was not in a good mood when he finally did.
The small house was not a cabin by dint of its location within the city limits, but the ramshackle, dilapidated location would have delighted any hunter or lumberjack to ever find themselves in need of a temporary refuge to berate.
"I should hope there's good reason for this meeting," he said as soon as he went through a door painted in red by an optimistic hand that had been betrayed by the decades gone by.
"Well met, honored Rouha," the man waiting inside greeted him.
It almost made Gui smile.
"Well met, yes. And well dragged out of my own home to what I hope isn't a waste of time. What do you want, Jinyan?"
The man sitting by the lone table in the middle of the remaining room amid crumbled inner walls would have surely reeled, not that long ago, far too used to being pushed around by the elders of the clan he nominally led.
But Zimo Jinyan was, as well, somebody who had learned to pretend to be what others expected of him.
"This is not sustainable," he said with a level stare.
Gui allowed himself a sigh.
With every step that he took toward the chair opposite Zimo's, his back straightened as smoothly as the wrinkles on his brow, regaining a youth and vigor beyond what he usually donned publicly. Strength and deftness flowed through his limbs until his center of balance traveled along a perfectly straight line, and his hand was once more the one that had crafted such prized scrolls as the one that he had replicated for his fake relaxation room.
When he seated himself, Gui Rouha was not his grandfather's heir: he was the master of a conspiracy that sprawled the entire Jade Hive, the only man not of the imperial line to have uncovered the dark secret behind the throne of the Wasp.
And he allowed such a man to stare into Jinyan's eyes.
To his credit, the older clan head did not flinch. He looked right back with barely held fury and all that strength of character he had long ago learned not to hold.
Good.
Gui had no use for actual cowards.
"Well?" he prodded.
"You know what I mean."
"Maybe I do, our esteemed Zimo." His voice had mellowed and sweetened into that of the Empress as his throat molded itself into something shorter and tighter, and every word dripped with the same fake cordiality that their monarch had directed at the older man in their latest meeting. Seeing him flinch was good enough compensation for the effort expended. "Maybe I do, indeed. But if I did, I surely would have already reasoned whether or not things are… sustainable."
He let the silence linger. Until Zimo hesitated.
"It's… there are rumors. Even my son has heard of them. We are being too brash."
"Your son. Isn't that interesting."
Another pause. But this one was filled with fury.
"You promised." The words came out with a hiss, and Gui relished in hearing them.
So different. Oh, so very different from the cold tone of a man allowing his heir to die on the ground like a dog. Such a contrast between the lowborn upstart and the pure blood of somebody who had been bred for leadership and intrigue.
This was what a father should be like. This. Ready to watch the world burn so long as his duty was fulfilled. So long as he could protect what he had been tasked to by laws higher than tradition or the Empire's.
Just for this, he would not kill Zimo. Not even after he became obsolete.
"I did. Are you doubting my word?" he asked back, not quite a threat nor warning, but also both.
"… Stop playing with me. I am not so weak that I will forget all this disrespect—"
"Not weak, Zimo. I never said you were that. You, in fact, possess a rare strength most of our peers will never understand… But I do. I do so very much know what it is that you not only can but will do. And I know the reasons why. I know why you won't hesitate to do what some people fear my clan for. I know why you will lower yourself to your elders and take their abuse. I know, my esteemed Zimo, that you are going to play your part with no more than these futile, little shows of protest, so long as your son ultimately benefits. So stop wasting both our time and tell me the real reason for this meeting."
The Jinyan head breathed heavily, his face flushed.
Gui nodded.
And Zimo closed his eyes, reaching up to the opening of his sober, grey robes to take out the pendant hidden within.
Inside of it, there was a caged golden swallow, the namesake for the clan of clockwork artificers. And with fingers as deft as Gui's own, his eyes still closed, Zimo tugged under the gilded contraption, turning and twisting mechanisms too delicate for anyone but the most skilled of craftsmen to operate, until the bird flapped wings made of gold feathers so thin they cut a whistling note through the air even as minuscule bellows filled and emptied, the swallow's beak opening and closing in its mechanical, warbling song.
Gui himself felt part of the effects: the unnatural harmony that the regularity of finely wrought cogwheels carried through the air, instilling the whole room with a serenity that no amount of chrysanthemum could ever offer a disturbed mind.
When Zimo opened his eyes, they gleamed with metal, cold and sharp.
Serene.
"My apologies," he said.
Gui nodded. And waited.
"The Yuhou are growing restless with our demands, but they are still willing to provide us with test subjects so long as I supply them with their new equipment. I don't project their compliance to last beyond the next couple of months, though—less if an investigation starts. I would suggest coming up with some countermeasures to keep them in line."
Another nod, and plans and scenarios bloomed in Gui's mind.
It should not be hard to sway the head of the clan in charge of the capital's sewers. They were upstart nobility at best, and far too scared of losing their position. The mere threat of a scandal was what had them on the verge of reneging on their one-sidedly profitable deal with the Jinyan clan, and so, a spot of blackmail would be enough to turn their fear from an inconvenience to an asset.
"I will take your silence as confirmation that this matter will be dealt with. Now, we also need to—"
An explosion rattled the red door.
Then another one.
Gui turned and ran, mind racing through a catalog of techniques, an evaluation of risks, the balance between danger and reward that would determine whether he fought to preserve Zimo's life or abandoned him as he turned into an unremarkable beggar lost in back alleys.
He opened the door with a kick, the ring of an emei dagger already slipped on the middle finger of his left hand, one of the sharp tips of the spinning rod protruding just far enough from his nails to stab and slice.
The sky was alight with colored flame.
And Gui stared.
A few blocks away. This wasn't an attack nor an ambush. Nobody had come for Zimo and him.
The Empress wasn't hunting them.
Not yet, at least.
With an unnaturally steady hand, he pressed slow circles on a spot just behind the center of his hairline, forcefully soothing his frantic spirit as Zimo took place beside him, looking at the ongoing explosions until they culminated on a pillar of fire that roared its defiance to the entirety of this part of the slums, where so many of their operations and other, less tasteful ones, took place.
"That's… a base of the Yuhou, if I'm not mistaken."
Gui blinked at the nugget of information. The implications, and the likely complications in light of what had been recently discussed.
This was not the Empress' doing. Neither she nor her Hands were keen on making a spectacle of their operations, not until they had a signed confession and a soon to be executed criminal to parade around as a warning.
This was… somebody else. Somebody not a part of Gui's plans.
The thought, for reasons he would not understand until much, much later, made him smile.
━❖━
There are two twin chambers in the Rouha's compound in the capital.
One is a prison.
Chang Rouha sits there when he's not in his private chambers, waiting to be called to the room.
Pretending to be a man he isn't.
A man he doesn't understand.
His mastery of the family's technique has been crippled, turned to a sole purpose rather than the fluidity of flesh he once commanded. Now, Chang can only become a single person. He can only don a single face, one he has twisted into so often that it gets harder to become Chang once more every time he does it.
Every time he puts on the robes his cousin Zhong brings him before he walks to the sober chamber with a single scroll hanging from the wall with a message he has branded in his heart:
'The people are arrogant toward love, but obedient to awe-inspiring majesty.'
Fei Han's words. A decrying of Confucius's admonition to rule by virtue. A reminder that affection is passing, and that more… forceful methods are required to keep in line those who would rebel or sin against the Empire.
Awe-inspiring majesty… it may as well have been spelled 'fear.'
And that fear is what keeps Chang Rouha sitting by a low desk, regularly taking a sniff of his dutifully refilled cup of chrysanthemum and licorice tea. Enduring the extended ritual of hours and hours of fake meditation in a chamber where no one can see him, no one can watch him be his horrifying, monstrous cousin going through the motions of humanity.
Chang Rouha takes in the scent of pure, white blossoms, the acrid notes of a cooling fragrance that softens with every breath.
And there's no perfume he has ever hated more in his entire life.
━❖━⧫━❖━
And we finally get a glimpse at… quite a few things, honestly, but I'm not sure I should be pointing all of them out.
Anyway, next time (https://www.patreon.com/collection/2019062?view=expanded) we will go right back to whatever happened with Wu, Xia, and their unintended voyeur. But not before yet another character makes their debut in the story. Look forward to it!
As always, I'd like to thank my credited supporters on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/Agrippa?fan_landing=true): aj0413, Crimson Grave, LearningDiscord, Niklarus, Tinkerware, Varosch, Vergil1989 Crossover King, and Xanah. If you feel like maybe giving them a hand with keeping me in the writing business (and getting an early peek at my chapters before they go public, among other perks), consider joining them or buying one of my books on https://www.amazon.com/stores/Terry-Lavere/author/B0BL7LSX2S. Thank you for reading!