“YOU!” Jing-Ting Ye roared, his voice echoing amidst the shattered timbers. “You… musical deity! You humiliated me! You will pay for this insult with your very essence!” Baili Han ground his boots into the shattered floorboards. The boy was a fool, a walking catastrophe of ego. The boy ignored the dozen Judicature magistrates drawing their blades, ignored Baili Han entirely, and gathered a violent vortex of thunderous Qi around his fists. The tavern air soured into ozone, copper light glaring off overturned jugs as patrons scrambled under tables. “The Thunderclap Sword!” one of Baili Han’s subordinates yelled, recognizing the signature technique of the clan scion. “He’s lost his mind!” Jing-Ting Ye’s entire body became a conduit for the storm. His tattered robes billowed, his hair bristled, and a sword of compressed azure sparks coalesced between his palms. It hummed with a sound like a thousand angry wasps, each vibration a promise of obliteration. His target was clear, absolute: the blind musician, Luo Yin, who stood unmoving amidst the chaos, his head tilted slightly as if listening to the cacophony with serene interest. The glowing blade shot forward with a deafening screech. It formed a streak of concentrated fury aimed directly at Duanmu Ci’s chest. The air screamed as it tore through, leaving a shimmering afterimage of blue. The raw power of it was enough to make Baili Han instinctively flinch, even as his mind raced to intercept. But it was already too late. Jing-Ting Ye was too fast, too consumed by his rage. Duanmu Ci, however, merely raised his erhu. His fingers, seemingly languid, danced across the strings. No music emerged, not a recognizable melody. Instead, his rosin-coated bowstring drew an invisible character in the air, a swift, fluid motion that only his Qi sense could truly perceive. The brushwork for ‘Redirect’ (轉) took shape unseen, a silent command woven into the local Qi. The surging bolt, mere inches from Duanmu Ci’s tunic, wavered. It didn’t explode, didn’t dissipate. Instead, as if striking an invisible, resilient surface, it veered sharply. Not upwards, not downwards, but to the left, with an unnerving, almost deliberate grace. The radiant lance slammed directly into the squad of magistrates clustered to Duanmu Ci’s left. Screams tore short as the bolt detonated. Wood splintered, stone cracked, and the air filled with the acrid smell of ozone and burnt flesh. Several guards were reduced instantly to charred silhouettes against the plaster. Others were flung backward, limbs twisted at grotesque angles, their frames twitching as residual sparks crackled through marrow. Baili Han, shielded by his own formidable Qi barrier, was still thrown back, crashing into a support pillar with a grunt, his hair singed, his face a mask of shock and fury. Jing-Ting Ye, staggered by the skewed arc of his attack, watched the thunderhead wipe out the Judicature ranks. His eyes, wide and uncomprehending, searched for his target. Duanmu Ci remained upright, bow resting quietly on the strings, framed against the smoking ruins of the magistrate guard. The young heir’s sneer collapsed into numb, gaping disbelief. It was in this moment of pure, petrified chaos that Bao Jin, who had been cowering under a overturned table, spotted his chance. His gaze, usually wet with sniveling caution, narrowed with sharp, desperate cunning. He lunged out, grabbing a broken stool leg, its jagged edge splintered and sharp. Jing-Ting Ye, still fixated on Duanmu Ci, his senses overwhelmed by the aftermath of his own technique, never saw him coming. The stool leg connected with a sickening thwack against the back of Jing-Ting Ye’s head. The youth's eyelids fluttered back, the remaining sparks died with a hiss, and he dropped face-first into the smoldering splintered cedar. The inn went silent, save for the groans of the injured and the patter of falling dust. Every eye, from the cowering patrons to the stunned Baili Han, was fixed on Bao Jin. The grave-robber stood panting, the broken stool leg held like a trophy, his face a mixture of terror and bewildered pride. He’d actually done it. He had felled the prized scion of the storm sect. Baili Han pushed himself off the pillar, his eyes blazing. His frost-hardened Qi flooded the floorboards. “Foolish grave-robber! You’ve sealed your own fate. And you,” he snarled, turning his gaze, sharpened by fury, back to Duanmu Ci. “Heretic! No more games. I’ll rip you from that stolen body myself!” Duanmu Ci, ignoring Baili Han’s threats, moved with an almost leisurely grace. His bow, still coated in rosin, scraped against the erhu strings once more, a quick, almost imperceptible flick. This time brought no sound and no outward ink mark, yet an acrid curtain of soot erupted from the horsehair, rolling outward in a choking wave. The calligraphic stroke for ‘Smoke’ (煙) smothered the room, blotting out every silhouette beyond arm's length. The smell of scorched earth and damp ash clawed at the throat. “To the sewers!” Duanmu Ci’s voice, calm and clear despite the chaos, cut through the obscuring haze. He grabbed Bao Jin by the arm, pulling the still-gaping grave-robber toward a discreet trapdoor beneath the counter, known only to those who frequented the black market inn for illicit dealings. Baili Han roared, his voice muffled by the smoke. He lashed out with a torrent of Qi, attempting to disperse the blinding cloud, but it clung stubbornly, an unnatural shroud. Casks shattered and joists splintered behind them as the lead huntsman tore blind through the gloom. Duanmu Ci, guided by his Qi sense through the swirling, suffocating grey, easily found the concealed lever. The trapdoor groaned open, revealing a dark, fetid tunnel below. He shoved Bao Jin through first, then dropped down himself, the sound of their descent swallowed by the rising fury from above. The trapdoor slammed shut, plunging them into the echoing darkness of the underworld. They splashed through the knee-deep muck, the stench of stagnant water and waste overwhelming. Bao Jin stumbled along, still gripping the club, muttering about divine melodies and blasted youths. Duanmu Ci, however, was silent, his Qi sense meticulously mapping the twisting passages, guiding them deeper into the labyrinthine gloom beneath Jiange. After what felt like an eternity, they reached a dry, relatively clean alcove. Duanmu Ci leaned against the damp stone, his erhu held loosely. Bao Jin, finally feeling safe enough to stop, began to babble, “Master Luo, that was incredible! That thunder, then the fog! And me! I flattened that brat! Did you see his jaw drop? Or… well, you couldn’t. But it was gold!” Duanmu Ci didn’t respond. A soft, wet cough wracked his frame, startling Bao Jin into silence. The blind man doubled over, his body shaking violently. Bao Jin watched, horrified, as a thick stream of black blood, dark as ink, trickled from Duanmu Ci’s lips, staining the front of his simple robes. It pulsed with a faint, internal glow, like dying embers. “Master Luo! Your… your blood!” Bao Jin stammered, his bravado instantly evaporating. “Are you hurt? Did that strike…?” Duanmu Ci slowly straightened, wiping the black ichor from his mouth with the back of his hand. His Qi sense, usually a pristine landscape, was now a fractured web, riddled with agonizing tears. Bending an assault of that scale with a single invisible glyph, then summoning dense soot, had fractured the stolen vessel. The meridians, already weak and unaccustomed to such power, were tearing themselves apart. He felt the internal rupture, the slow, agonizing unraveling of his borrowed essence. The body of Luo Yin, the blind musician, was failing him. “Three days,” Duanmu Ci rasped, coughing into his palm. “This shell lasts three days.” Bao Jin froze, mouth slack, staring at the black smear on the stone. The cold, damp air of the sewers suddenly felt impossibly colder.

Symphony of Fools