Adventures of Fu: Hunting Killers With Dirty Songs, Musing How The World Works

Not much happened with Fu in the last episode so far (here's a link to the previous episode, BTW).

He is merely trying to piece together the martial arts technique he was trying to learn from the book they got from the wannabe-sorcerer's library.

Turns out, it was a technique about resisting magic and demonic forces. It's actually quite useful*, I'd add!

First, however, he went on to check whether it's a reputable source. Or at least semi-reputable, beggars can't be choosers...

 

Jing Junior's statement "you can only learn parlour tricks" about the magic books had deeply impressed our young hero, however. Books are books, and he didn't want to learn the equivalent of parlour tricks, he wanted to learn the equivalent of "thunderous moves shaking the Earth and Sky", if possible, thank you very much! Or at least** the equivalent of "throws that spike the opponent 9 palms in the ground".

 

Thus, he went to the Beggars' Accountant - a former Bowing Dragon Monk, who had exchanged a life in poverty for a life in poverty - and asked him.

 

"What the book says...works, but ain't the best. Go ask him", Senior Han replied, and pointed to Black Fox.

 

The very man Fu is training to defeat!

 

Fu wasn't sure how fine he is with the idea, but Black Fox overheard, and started explaining.

 

"This book works, but it's at least three times as long as it needs to be! Let me explain it in short. Now, imagine a magorast...I like that word..."

 

"I made it up!"
 

"Seriously? That's a good one, you might need to study more..."
 

"Right, that's why I'm studying how to beat magorasts!"
 

"OK! Imagine a magorast is casting a spell. First, imagine the Universe is like a river..."
 

Fu dutifully imagined a river overflowing from its banks and covering the city - biggest place he's seen - with water.
 

"...and the magorast is trying to deflect the current to make it do what he wants. To this end, he puts stones in the water! And you collect your willpower..."
 

"And bash him in the face?"
 

"No! You remove the stones!"
 

"Doesn't that make me a magorast myself? Sounds like doing magic!"
 

"...no, not enough to even start doing magic! Just imagine it, OK? Now stay here and meditate, we'll practice in the afternoon!"

 

Fu did exactly that...
 

Black Fox found him in the same place, not even having left for lunch. The only thing that spoiled the impression of a dutiful student, somewhat, was some light snoring.

The practice didn't go really well, either. Black Fox was shooting magical attacks, but Fu was trying to deflect them with his mind, and to parry them with his hands and mind!

It only became worse when Black Fox explained demons required a bit of a different approach, and compared them to fishes, which are native to the river, but are spoiling the water! Fu immediately decided that these are actually two techniques, which come together!

 

Black Fox, however, thought it clear that this was the same thing, just applied differently...

At the end, Fu finished reading the book, and found it much clearer than the Taoist-derived explanations of Black Fox (it was based on an external style, and thus explained things with simple to follow instructions, even if they took longer).

So now Fu imagines that Qi Resistance (Righteous Beggar Stops The Magorast) works the following way: When a magorast or demon tries to act upon Fu, Fu's righteousness summons a Celestial Censor, who raps the wizard across the knuckles with a ruler, and slips him a host of documents to fill (in triplicate!) if he wants his spell to come off in time.

 

The next day Black Fox kinda let him practice what he was doing, and instead decided to have a conversation. The young noble explained to Fu that gods are at their best when they don't bother you, and just receive their donations without interfering.

"You know, the Celestial Bureaucracy in Heavens is the exact same as the Bureacracy of All Under Heavens", the young Jing joked. 

 

"Yes, Father is a minister, but he's basically getting a post because he was doing the same stuff before, too. So they gave him a post to make sure he's not seen as a different influential person, but as an official of the state."

Fu was unimpressed with such subtlety. Made total sense for him, and why wouldn't an official be subtle?

Basically, it was about half an hour of Black Fox explaining to Fu what's what and how the world works, while they were doing conditioning exercises. (I strongly suspect that Fu's regimen for strength gain counts as a light workout for Black Fox, though).

After that, the conversation passed on to the Jing family. It turned out, Black Fox is quite critical of his family's extreme obsession with power and competence, and believes that most people find his sister, White Fox, to be quite mad.
He actually disagreed, and stated that he finds her to be quite alright, even if somewhat on the angry side.

Black Fox was basically reminiscing, like all 80-years olds do, because he is one (despite looking 25). So Fu learned that they had travelled by boat, and they had survived by using magic to catch fish and to purify seawater for drinking. They were 12 at the time, Black Fox mentioned casually.

After that, Fu suggested we should draw the Four Southern Winds. Hey, they are nasty pieces of work, Fu reasons the sooner we capture or kill them, the sooner they'd stop killing, sacrificing and eating people!

Yes, we're going to be hunting cannibals. How do we do that? By writing obscene songs that mock them, of course!

Well, Black Fox is writing. Fu just suggested writing a song about octopi and implying that octopi are ugly and suck. Remember, the 4 Southern Winds (4SW from now on!) have octopi tattooed on their faces!

And we don't believe in their restraint, either, so we expect them to react violently...

So Fu and Black Fox went pub-crawling. We quickly established a procedure: we ordered octopus, wine and tea (Fu was sticking to tea, Black Fox is drinking - as Fu pointed out, beggars can't really ask for alcohol, too!) and then Black Fox sang his new song. He's really a talented songwriter, and dirty songs are his specialty!

(I don't remember whether the fishergirl, who is the main character of the song, was doing anything raunchy with the octopi, but I think she was just cooking and eating them. They had raunchy intentions, though, according to the text!)

At the same time, Fu was putting his saucer down to collect donations. It was all small cash, but with such nice songs, it still amounted to a nice sum!
At some point, he even suggested he should start paying the bills. Black Fox wasn't having any of it, though. "When I have money, my friends don't pay. Now I've got money!"

Fu is still not sure they're friends, but he imagined drinking buddies is close enough he doesn't need to correct him. Besides, they need to be on friendly terms while hunting the 4SW together - though he believes he's more like the Younger Brother in their relationship!

So basically, after we sang it a couple times, and then went on to another establishment.

After about the fourth inn, Black Fox was visibly drunk. But given his strength and alcohol conditioning, that's not enough to discount him!
 

Some guys attacked us and tried to rob us. Fu knocked out two, Black Fox knocked out two, the one who was shooting at us with a crossbow ran away. I think Black Fox snatching an arrow from the air and stabbing it in the thigh of one of his friends showed how badly outmatched they were!

We let him run, and just shook down the other four. Black Fox had stated that they wanted our money, so they could give us some, instead!

Then we took a handcart to take them to the police precinct...singing about octopi all the way. Before we arrived, though, Fu pointed out that they'd tried to rob us, but then we did actually rob them, so it was a bad idea to file complaints!

Thus, we just told the cops that these guys have been acting rowdy and need to cool down, so they should give them some manual labour for a week. And we told the four guys that if they do the labour, we're not going to file a complaint - and we're not going to beat them any more, either!

It worked out. I suspect the latter argument was weightier, admittedly...

Fu also tried to raise the matter of the money we got tonight, but Black Fox wanted none of it. Though he told me to pay 7 silver to my own Master Hu, who had given him a loan for betting on cicadas.

We visited 14 pubs I think, before Black Fox finally needed to drop on a pile of straw and sleep off the wine - hugging the innkeeper's daughter (in a completely decent way, he was spent).

Fu left him there shortly, assuming the man has a danger sense to rival any ambushes, but after being scolded by Master Hu (who received his 7 silvers, and admitted that this is like the 10th times Black Fox is paying this particular loan - he remembers about it when he's drunk, it seems!), the beggar warrior returned dutifully to the inn and drank a cup of wine. Then he kept watch over the sleeper, only stealing some sleep on a table, but mostly being an alert watchman.
 

Or, presumably, more alert than Black Fox himself.

Black Fox rose in the morning, no hangover - I think some pills are involved - and we went training again.
 

He also admitted that he believes he's paid off his debt, but he also believes Master Hu has forgotten. So he keeps paying it off in order not to gain a bad name! It's hard enough to avoid that when you have a sister like White Fox, and when you're a halfdemon, it's not worth it for some 7 silver!

Fu, who was instructed not to disabuse him of any notions about having a debt, fumed a bit internally, but the loyalty to a friend is nothing like loyalty to a master!
So he just said that he's paid it, and that Black Fox should pay it one last time, in front of witnesses, if he wants to avoid any issues. Even if Hu forgets, the witnesses won't, Fu pointed out.

But then the Jing family is so rich, none of them gives much thought to money. Jing Xiaomei, as her brother explained, is the source of that: she's training alchemists to heal people under the auspices of Ministry of Magic, and they're doing concoctions to pay off for their training! Those are being sold. So the Ministry is the only one who isn't asking for any money from taxes and the like!

Well, it's also funding the lifestyle of the Jing family, and you've seen how worried Black Fox is about money. But at least they're not asking for money from taxes!

"That's why my dad was best pals with minister Chen!"

"Who?", answered Fu, who doesn't keep track of current ministers' names, much less of former ones.

"The Finance minister, the previous one! Your buddy, Blue Monkey, is his son, actually!"

"...Oh, so I've beaten the son of a noble, twice? Good. He needed a lesson. And he was still stupid, and rude towards your sis, when she was trying to save his useless ass!"

We discussed this a bit, and Black Fox explained that Xiaomei was very close friend with the sister of Blue Monkey, who thought this is "corrupting his sister's energy" (due to Xiaomei being a half-demon, not due to her being a woman...which actually corresponds to the ancient prejudices, where two women having sex was seen as mostly a non-event - demons, however, are serious business!)

That was apparently why she was on top of his shit-list, and he had refused to take his medicine on account of it being prepared by the White Fox!

I mean, he was blaming the whole of Jing family for his father being executed, and him, his mom and his (bigger) sister being sent in exile, right before they were captured by pirates...

Fu knew Blue Monkey had been captured by pirates, but not about his other family members having been captured as well. And worse, those weren't freed, unlike him... there were no traces of them, pure and simple. Someone*** had bought them. They can't find out who.

Fu wishes them all the best, but he knows he can't help there. He doesn't speak the languages spoken in that part of the world, and isn't all that good at finding info.

"Well, Xiaomei has been a bit of a heavy....heavier case ever since Blue Monkey's sister disappeared," Black Fox mused. "So she still feels guilty about it."

"I can't speak to that. But I'm sure she did everything that was possible in order to find her...and that part about corrupting anyone's Qi also seems like bullshit. I mean, you've said she still has her human part of her soul. This means she has killed no humans - and demons don't count! So she's fine, in my book."

"Well, she can make a man pray to be allowed to die. She did that for a sorcerer who was feeding his pet demon with children. He preyed for death for a month..."

Fu nearly threw out - not because of the torture implied, though, but because he find hurting kids abhorrent.

Then he shrugged, and answered.

"I'd probably just kill this man, quickly and brutally, because he deserves no mercy. But although I'd make it hurt, I'm not going to have the patience to make it last a month".

"Well, she couldn't kill him. Some human finally gave him a mercy blow, after this time, and she allowed it. So it's not her - and such cases became less when his fate was known..."

"Then it was a good deed!", Fu exclaimed. "She's a virtuous xia in my book, even if her methods are painful! And Blue Monkey is being stupid. I'll beat him more to teach him common sense! As for your Xiaomei, I'm sure she wouldn't corrupt anyone's qi...well, not like she'd be interested in a beggar in the first place, so one might say it's easy to speak for the likes of me - but putting my money where my mouth was, in the completely unlikely event that she was interested in one like me, I'd see no obstacles!"

Then he waved his hand, realizing how it might have sounded...

"Sorry, I didn't meant to imply any untowards intentions towards your sister! I just hate people who make pronouncements like this, about things that could never impact them - so I got carried off! Please forgive me! It's obviously impossible for a beggar to have such intentions towards the Emperor's aunt!"

"Your bigger problem would be your lack of tits", Black Fox mocked me. "That's what my sister wouldn't like about you, but what if you're a beggar?"

"...you mean, apart for being smelly?", Fu smells his own collar. "Beggars. Nobles. The two shall never meet, it's so unequal she could as well be a goddess!"

"Nope, not in Xiaomei's case. She judges people for themselves, and you are a xia. And she ain't the only one, actually. What if your ancestors did a favour to an emperor and got lands? What if your grandfather passed the exams, if you can't pass them? Seriously, my friend, you'd just need a bath to get a noble girl - one that was interested in men, you know."

"Eh, now you're just mocking me! With all due respect to your age, but I don't think you really understand women, you know? It's easy for you, you're noble, powerful and rich. It's not as easy for the likes of us!"

Remember that Black Fox is a known womanizer?

"You really shouldn't have said that! Now I just need to prove you wrong!"

"I honestly don't think even you stand a chance...", Fu shrugged. He's not really chasing girls, because what would a girl want in a smelly beggar? Other than being left alone?

In return, Black Fox told him about the time when the Two Foxes grew up with their mom in the Demon Lands****, it was quite nice living, lots of running in forests, until their grandmother took over - after someone killed their mom.

And their grandmom is a real bitch who wanted to teach the kids to kill to make them stronger!

Except they're half-demons, if they kill a man, ever, they stand to lose the human parts of their souls. Which threatens them with torments in hell!

So, they're really focused on never doing that. However, someone else doing that for them is obviously fine. As is torture...which explains why White Fox is feared despite having killed zero humans.

She doesn't hesitate with killing demons, though. To the point that she cut off the head of her own granny!

Half-demon, half-human, but demons are fine? Well, Fu ain't about to argue!

"She killed her granny?", Fu asked again.

"Killed? Oh no, she's so old and powerful a head lost isn't going to kill her! But we took the head, because otherwise she'd have recovered too fast, and that would've been...problematic. That's when we left by boat. Remember, I told you about the trip? We were also carrying her head!"

Two kids, one boat, and the head of an ancient fox demon. That's Black Fox's idea of a family trip, I guess! Oh, wait, except they had no food!

More like "family survival camp", then.

"So anyway, we lost the head in the ocean during a huge storm. Since then, the foxes have been doing just fine without a queen! Nobody tells them how to live, they decide it together, and if anyone goes to war against them...you have no idea how many of the strategy manuals have been actually written by a fox!"

"Sounds like something that would work for foxes, not humans!", Fu opined. I mean, nobles suck, but not having anyone in charge? How does that fit the doctrine of the Five Relationships? Someone would need to be in charge in this society, too, what's the difference if those people don't hold a title?"

On the other hand, all the talk about Xiaomei lead to Fu adopting a new name for himself. Fu the Falcate Spear!

How come? Well, Black Fox pointed out in that same conversation that his sister is really like a sword: straightforward, you must take care not to cut yourself, for it's sharpened all over, and one must take care to keep it pointed at the enemy!

Fu said that he himself is like a spear: not likely to cut the owner, but one must keep it pointed at the enemy - and he added, he's a bit...crooked? Hooked? Bent? Bowed? Twisted? (Neither word quite fits, so I picked Falcate, admittedly after checking in a dictionary. Funny, I didn't know it's a word in English! Ah well, at least Black Fox would be familiar with ancient words... And I'm sure there's a more convenient word in Chinese - one that you can call both an implement, and a man. There is in Bulgarian!)

"Why Falcate? You're quite straightforward?"

"Master Wu calls me that. He says I get to a conclusion quickly, and it's hard to dissuade me..."

"Sounds straightforward to me!"

"But he also says if I get the mistaken conclusion at first glance, it's real hard to dissuade me, too!"

"Oh...yeah. There's that", admitted Black Fox, probably remembering trying to teach Fu the basics of the defensive technique!

*It gives you +10% per level in the Warrior skill. Fu is getting +40% even now, as soon as he manages to add it to his style, and might get up to +60 from it before three years have elapsed.
 

**The former is not quite possible in the system, the latter is.

***Amusingly, we all know who, except OOC: it's Hoi, my third character.

 ****That's the equivalent of saying "when I was growing up as a young devil in Mordor..."