Copper Coins

 Chapter 34: Stone Zhang (II)

    The tiny dragon that had spent all day coiled around Xuanmin's wrist, which had been small enough to climb onto two of his fingers and let its flimsy tail swing out, had, in one instant, transformed into this. Anyone would need some time to process.

    As Xuanmin took in the enormous dragon's head, which alone was half as tall as him, then peered behind it at the body, which had filled the entire courtyard outside, his already blank face turned fully slack. 

    Xue Xian's head did not move. He stared at Xuanmin and saw that the monk's usually composed face was now displaying a complex, unreadable expression. 

    Xue Xian squinted at him, then sneered. "Are you pretending to be calm?"

    Xuanmin glared back. This beast may have changed form, but he still spoke in that same voice. 

    "Are your knees buckling from fear?" Xue Xian lifted a sharp claw and jabbed Xuanmin in the back.

    As though jabbing him would persuade his knees to genuinely buckle.

    "You don't seem to have fully awoken from your slumber," Xuanmin replied mildly.

    There had been that brief moment of astonishment, and there had been some unfamiliarity, but to say that Xuanmin had been stupefied, or dumbfounded, or flabbergasted would be nonsense. In all the years Xuanmin had been alive, he had still never experienced stupefaction.

    As Xue Xian studied Xuanmin, he realised that he really could not find any trace of surprise in the monk's face. Soon, his huge head fell upon his claw with a dong–– sound, and, spiritless, he complained, "Bald donkey, you're so boring. I've never met anyone like you."

    Having failed in scaring the person he had wanted to scare, and still not discovered what Xuanmin looked like when taken aback, the beast suddenly felt dejected. Even the joy and rage from finding another of his bones had been significantly dulled.

    Idly, he moved his claw to the unconscious short man. The white sword in the man's hands seemed to feel Xue Xian approach, and fell out of the man's hand. Xue Xian nudged it back to him.

    As he discovered what had been carved onto the sword, he felt his anger return.

    What the hell was this? 

    He was too furious to even look at the sword anymore. His claw flashed with heat, and the bone sword, as though suddenly melted by fire, slid upwards into the palm of his claw and disappeared, leaving only a cloud of steam that billowed slowly into the room.

    But once he'd absorbed the sword, Xue Xian felt a tinge of regret––

    That heat followed his veins and slithered all the way back to his spine. The feeling was extremely uncomfortable, and, with it, the extreme bloatedness that had temporary abated returned with a vengeance.

    But this time, his head was far too large. He could not toss nor turn, nor could he edge closer to Xuanmin's hand to cool himself down.

    He tried to fight it, then gave up wordlessly began to squirm his upper body.

    In the blink of an eye, Xuanmin suddenly felt that every conceivable part of his body was compressed against the dragon's –– Xue Xian was folding his long body around Xuanmin, bringing the monk into the fold.

    "Why are you squeezing me?" Xuanmin asked.

    Condescendingly, Xue Xian glanced at him, then turned his face away again. "Help me cool down. If I burn up, I'll be taking you with me too."

    It had been fine when Xue Xian had only been a small creature, since the scorching pain had only affected Xuanmin's hand, but now that the beast was as big as a house, and twisted tightly around his whole body, Xuanmin felt as though he were wearing seven or eight layers of overcoats, and surrounded by fireplaces, and with a mattress pressing down on top of it all...

    Basically, the feeling was unbearable.

    Xuanmin's gaze fell upon the wrapped clothes that he still clutched in his hand, and happened to meet eyes with Xue Xian. 

    They looked at each other.

    How great it was to be naked! 

    Xue Xian rested his sprawling head and thought about it happily. Before, he had been too confused to pay much attention –– all he'd wanted had been to feel something cold against his skin, and the respite had felt like grasping just the right straw. He hadn't had the brainspace to worry about whether or not he'd been wearing clothes –– in any case, he wasn't in human form. But now...

    Who gives a fuck? It's hot, and I'm not human, Xue Xian thought to himself. No longer bothered, he nuzzled up against Xuanmin again.

    Xuanmin stewed.

    Just because Xue Xian had spent six months hanging out among humankind did not mean that he had learned how to be human. Dragons may be divine, but they are ultimately still animals. He thus had an innate sense of self-indulgence –– if he was hot, then he needed to get cool. He'd think of other things later.

    He felt highly self-satisfied. But then he caught a glimpse of Xuanmin again.

    There it was again! If Xue Xian was not hallucinating, there was another flash of that unnatural expression across Xuanmin's face, so fast that he would have missed it if he'd blinked. Next, Xuanmin frowned...

    Frown...

    The bald donkey didn't have a very wide range of expressions. If he touched something dirty, he frowned; and if he encountered an annoying person or an inconvenient situation he also liked to frown...

    Basically, anything short of absolute abhorrence was met with a frown.

    Suddenly, Xue Xian felt woozy again. The feeling was akin to a string of tiny spiders scuttling out of his chest in a neat queue, sinking their prickly legs into him.

    And with it, that raging, boiling heat seemed to quickly die down –– it was no longer as unbearable as it had been just a second ago. Xue Xian loosened his grip on Xuanmin, giving the monk some space to breathe again.    

    The dragon's unexpected act of magnanimity and self-consciousness was intriguing to Xuanmin, but he discovered that Xue Xian had begun to look down at the unconscious short man on the floor.

    Perhaps it was because the immense body bestowed a natural sense of oppressiveness, or perhaps it was because dragons' faces could not show emotions as well, but now that Xue Xian presented himself seriously, instead of coiling himself around someone's hand, he emanated an alienating aura, one that repelled others.

    He did now look far more like a dragon.

    "Not hot anymore?" Xue Xian asked mildly. And as he hated to speak, he immediately brought the topic back to the matter at hand: "There's no other movement in the room. I think he's the only one here. But he fainted, so we can't speak to him."

    Xue Xian grunted in agreement. Without another word, he summoned another rumble of intense thunder, which he sent to land on the patch of floor between the man's legs. The entire ground shook, then split open, sending cracks running all across the room.

    With that, the man spasmed, then woke up screaming. "Mercy, mercy! –– I'm only a common stonemason, I already did everything you asked me to do, I won't tell anyone, but please don't kill me, I––"

    The short man was none other than Stone Zhang.

    He had let out the explosion of words without so much as opening an eye –– it seemed that he had prepared the speech a long time ago.

    But when he came back to his senses and saw that a real live black dragon was staring down at him, he suddenly trailed off and forced himself to come to a stop. His face turned green.

    "Don't stop. Keep talking." Xue Xian's tone was as cold as a winter river.

     As he spoke, yet another magical bolt of thunder came down from the heavens. The white lightning stopped in its tracks halfway down, hovering directly above Stone Zhang's head.

    Terror-stricken, the short man knew not to delay anymore. "I, I, I was speaking nonsense, none of that was directed at you! I was simply being chased by moneylenders to repay debts for several months I had no choice but to lock myself in my house and I learned how to cast a simple spell from a Daoist I only wanted to avoid a terrible calamity and buy myself some more time I only hope that these two great wizards will show some mercy and let me go!"

    "Who are you trying to trick?" Xue Xian sneered. "Who casts a spell to avoid moneylenders?"

    Stone Zhang quivered all over, afraid to respond.

    "Let me ask you this. The dragon bone that you had been using as a sword. Where did it come from?" Xuanmin suddenly asked, reminding Xue Xian of the fact.   

    "Dragon bone?" Stone Zhang appeared genuinely shocked. He repeated, "Dragon bone?"

    He met Xue Xian's eyes, and seemed to want to piss again.

    To think that he had somehow, in all ignorance, managed to take a real piece of dragon bone home, and had even worked on it, had shaved it down into the shape of a sword and carved designs on it...

    Oh god... He was going to die for this!

    As Stone Zhang's eyes rolled to the back of his head and he felt himself become faint again, he heard a cold word of warning: "If you close your eyes now, don't assume you'll ever open them again."

    Stone Zhang froze.

    His face contorted tragically, he whimpered, "I didn't know that was... I –– I've always been a bit different from the norm, sometimes I can see things others can't. That day I saw a glint of light in the mud, so –– so I couldn't help but dig, and dug up that bone. I thought it looked special and was probably some kind of magical item, so I took it home. They say that good weapons can ward evil, so I... so I turned it into a sword to buy myself some peace..."

    As Xue Xian glared at him, he trembled harder and his voice trailed off to nothing again.

    "Where did you dig it from?"

    Stone Zhang said, "A –– a mountain by the river."

    "Do we have to squeeze it out of you sentence by sentence?" Xue Xian was about to lose his temper. "Do you want me to help trigger your memory?"

    "No, no, no, no thanks..." Stone Zhang stammered, about to cry. "I was led there by some people, and was blindfolded all the way. They only took it off when we arrived. The mountain didn't have a sign, so I really don't know where it is. I only remember that I could see the river from it. The stream was narrow and coarse, and the sound of the current was scarily loud."

    Furious, Xue Xian tilted his head, and the bolt of lightning hanging above Stone Zhang's head came cascading down by him.

    Shaken, Stone Zhang stood as stiff as a board, though tears began to stream down his face.

    "What were you brought there to do?" Xuanmin asked.

    The blood drained from Stone Zhang's face. "They made me carve seven stone locks and two tomb guardians."

    Xuanmin nodded understandingly. From his pouch, he extracted a thin sheet of paper and shook it out in front of the man. "You carved this design?"

    "Yes yes! That's what they made me carve. As I was carving, I felt that this design seemed to have some magic to it. I asked about it and they said it was a good-fortune design, and that it was extraordinarily effective. But, Master, where did you get it from?"

    "Your stone lock," Xuanmin said. "At the bottom of the river. Do you know who the corpses attached were?"

    "Corpses?" Stone Zhang seemed to have no idea what the stone locks he'd made had to do with corpses. Panicked, he shook his head. "I –– I don't know. I only carved some stuff. When that man came to see me, he only said that my carvings are the most effective. I thought some patron from outside the prefecture wanted me to make him something decorative. I had no idea..."

    He paused, then added, "Basically, my life has not been peaceful recently. I think someone is trying to kill me. I've never done anything to harm anyone in my life, but I recalled that one strange commission. So... so that's why I'm hiding."    

    Xue Xian stared at him until the man began shivering again, then coldly said, "Did the person who took you to the mountain leave you with anything?"

    "Thing? What thing?"

    "Anything. As long as that person touched it," Xue Xian said.

    Stone Zhang was about to shake his head when he suddenly slapped his thigh. "Oh, right! Yes!"

    "What?"

    "The black cloth he used to blindfold me. I still have it! I didn't dare to throw it out.." Stone Zhang said.

    Xue Xian grunted. "Good."

    Stone Zhang stumbled into a nearby room and returned with a piece of black cloth that had been put away for god knew how long, and never washed.

    Xuanmin scowled with disgust. He planned to find something to wrap his hand so that he could take the cloth. 

    Seeing him frown, Xue Xian reached out his claw and grabbed the cloth matter-of-factly. 

    Xuanmin stared back at him. 

    Xue Xian did not return his gaze. Instead, he simply said, "Let's go."

    Xuanmin paused. "Where?"

    "Heaven," Xue Xian snapped. Then he turned to Stone Zhang. "Stop shaking. Come with me for a bit."

    Xuanmin said, "If I'm guessing correctly, you plan to return to the Lu compound? Is this how you're going to go?"

    He scanned Xue Xian's enormous dragon body.

    "Oh." Xue Xian had been so furious that he really had planned to go out like this.

    But he was unable to turn back into a small dragon again –– his muscles and bones were still too bloated, and he could not maintain the shrunken form for long. His only other option was his human form.

    Xuanmin lifted the hand holding the clothes and gestured with it.

    Xue Xian yanked the package over. But then his face dropped –– now this was the problem: his massive body wouldn't fit into a private room, so how the fuck was he supposed to get changed?

    God must be jealous of how handsome he was, or else why would he constantly do this to him...

 Chapter 34: Stone Zhang (II)

    The tiny dragon that had spent all day coiled around Xuanmin's wrist, which had been small enough to climb onto two of his fingers and let its flimsy tail swing out, had, in one instant, transformed into this. Anyone would need some time to process.

    As Xuanmin took in the enormous dragon's head, which alone was half as tall as him, then peered behind it at the body, which had filled the entire courtyard outside, his already blank face turned fully slack. 

    Xue Xian's head did not move. He stared at Xuanmin and saw that the monk's usually composed face was now displaying a complex, unreadable expression. 

    Xue Xian squinted at him, then sneered. "Are you pretending to be calm?"

    Xuanmin glared back. This beast may have changed form, but he still spoke in that same voice. 

    "Are your knees buckling from fear?" Xue Xian lifted a sharp claw and jabbed Xuanmin in the back.

    As though jabbing him would persuade his knees to genuinely buckle.

    "You don't seem to have fully awoken from your slumber," Xuanmin replied mildly.

    There had been that brief moment of astonishment, and there had been some unfamiliarity, but to say that Xuanmin had been stupefied, or dumbfounded, or flabbergasted would be nonsense. In all the years Xuanmin had been alive, he had still never experienced stupefaction.

    As Xue Xian studied Xuanmin, he realised that he really could not find any trace of surprise in the monk's face. Soon, his huge head fell upon his claw with a dong–– sound, and, spiritless, he complained, "Bald donkey, you're so boring. I've never met anyone like you."

    Having failed in scaring the person he had wanted to scare, and still not discovered what Xuanmin looked like when taken aback, the beast suddenly felt dejected. Even the joy and rage from finding another of his bones had been significantly dulled.

    Idly, he moved his claw to the unconscious short man. The white sword in the man's hands seemed to feel Xue Xian approach, and fell out of the man's hand. Xue Xian nudged it back to him.

    As he discovered what had been carved onto the sword, he felt his anger return.

    What the hell was this? 

    He was too furious to even look at the sword anymore. His claw flashed with heat, and the bone sword, as though suddenly melted by fire, slid upwards into the palm of his claw and disappeared, leaving only a cloud of steam that billowed slowly into the room.

    But once he'd absorbed the sword, Xue Xian felt a tinge of regret––

    That heat followed his veins and slithered all the way back to his spine. The feeling was extremely uncomfortable, and, with it, the extreme bloatedness that had temporary abated returned with a vengeance.

    But this time, his head was far too large. He could not toss nor turn, nor could he edge closer to Xuanmin's hand to cool himself down.

    He tried to fight it, then gave up wordlessly began to squirm his upper body.

    In the blink of an eye, Xuanmin suddenly felt that every conceivable part of his body was compressed against the dragon's –– Xue Xian was folding his long body around Xuanmin, bringing the monk into the fold.

    "Why are you squeezing me?" Xuanmin asked.

    Condescendingly, Xue Xian glanced at him, then turned his face away again. "Help me cool down. If I burn up, I'll be taking you with me too."

    It had been fine when Xue Xian had only been a small creature, since the scorching pain had only affected Xuanmin's hand, but now that the beast was as big as a house, and twisted tightly around his whole body, Xuanmin felt as though he were wearing seven or eight layers of overcoats, and surrounded by fireplaces, and with a mattress pressing down on top of it all...

    Basically, the feeling was unbearable.

    Xuanmin's gaze fell upon the wrapped clothes that he still clutched in his hand, and happened to meet eyes with Xue Xian. 

    They looked at each other.

    How great it was to be naked! 

    Xue Xian rested his sprawling head and thought about it happily. Before, he had been too confused to pay much attention –– all he'd wanted had been to feel something cold against his skin, and the respite had felt like grasping just the right straw. He hadn't had the brainspace to worry about whether or not he'd been wearing clothes –– in any case, he wasn't in human form. But now...

    Who gives a fuck? It's hot, and I'm not human, Xue Xian thought to himself. No longer bothered, he nuzzled up against Xuanmin again.

    Xuanmin stewed.

    Just because Xue Xian had spent six months hanging out among humankind did not mean that he had learned how to be human. Dragons may be divine, but they are ultimately still animals. He thus had an innate sense of self-indulgence –– if he was hot, then he needed to get cool. He'd think of other things later.

    He felt highly self-satisfied. But then he caught a glimpse of Xuanmin again.

    There it was again! If Xue Xian was not hallucinating, there was another flash of that unnatural expression across Xuanmin's face, so fast that he would have missed it if he'd blinked. Next, Xuanmin frowned...

    Frown...

    The bald donkey didn't have a very wide range of expressions. If he touched something dirty, he frowned; and if he encountered an annoying person or an inconvenient situation he also liked to frown...

    Basically, anything short of absolute abhorrence was met with a frown.

    Suddenly, Xue Xian felt woozy again. The feeling was akin to a string of tiny spiders scuttling out of his chest in a neat queue, sinking their prickly legs into him.

    And with it, that raging, boiling heat seemed to quickly die down –– it was no longer as unbearable as it had been just a second ago. Xue Xian loosened his grip on Xuanmin, giving the monk some space to breathe again.    

    The dragon's unexpected act of magnanimity and self-consciousness was intriguing to Xuanmin, but he discovered that Xue Xian had begun to look down at the unconscious short man on the floor.

    Perhaps it was because the immense body bestowed a natural sense of oppressiveness, or perhaps it was because dragons' faces could not show emotions as well, but now that Xue Xian presented himself seriously, instead of coiling himself around someone's hand, he emanated an alienating aura, one that repelled others.

    He did now look far more like a dragon.

    "Not hot anymore?" Xue Xian asked mildly. And as he hated to speak, he immediately brought the topic back to the matter at hand: "There's no other movement in the room. I think he's the only one here. But he fainted, so we can't speak to him."

    Xue Xian grunted in agreement. Without another word, he summoned another rumble of intense thunder, which he sent to land on the patch of floor between the man's legs. The entire ground shook, then split open, sending cracks running all across the room.

    With that, the man spasmed, then woke up screaming. "Mercy, mercy! –– I'm only a common stonemason, I already did everything you asked me to do, I won't tell anyone, but please don't kill me, I––"

    The short man was none other than Stone Zhang.

    He had let out the explosion of words without so much as opening an eye –– it seemed that he had prepared the speech a long time ago.

    But when he came back to his senses and saw that a real live black dragon was staring down at him, he suddenly trailed off and forced himself to come to a stop. His face turned green.

    "Don't stop. Keep talking." Xue Xian's tone was as cold as a winter river.

     As he spoke, yet another magical bolt of thunder came down from the heavens. The white lightning stopped in its tracks halfway down, hovering directly above Stone Zhang's head.

    Terror-stricken, the short man knew not to delay anymore. "I, I, I was speaking nonsense, none of that was directed at you! I was simply being chased by moneylenders to repay debts for several months I had no choice but to lock myself in my house and I learned how to cast a simple spell from a Daoist I only wanted to avoid a terrible calamity and buy myself some more time I only hope that these two great wizards will show some mercy and let me go!"

    "Who are you trying to trick?" Xue Xian sneered. "Who casts a spell to avoid moneylenders?"

    Stone Zhang quivered all over, afraid to respond.

    "Let me ask you this. The dragon bone that you had been using as a sword. Where did it come from?" Xuanmin suddenly asked, reminding Xue Xian of the fact.   

    "Dragon bone?" Stone Zhang appeared genuinely shocked. He repeated, "Dragon bone?"

    He met Xue Xian's eyes, and seemed to want to piss again.

    To think that he had somehow, in all ignorance, managed to take a real piece of dragon bone home, and had even worked on it, had shaved it down into the shape of a sword and carved designs on it...

    Oh god... He was going to die for this!

    As Stone Zhang's eyes rolled to the back of his head and he felt himself become faint again, he heard a cold word of warning: "If you close your eyes now, don't assume you'll ever open them again."

    Stone Zhang froze.

    His face contorted tragically, he whimpered, "I didn't know that was... I –– I've always been a bit different from the norm, sometimes I can see things others can't. That day I saw a glint of light in the mud, so –– so I couldn't help but dig, and dug up that bone. I thought it looked special and was probably some kind of magical item, so I took it home. They say that good weapons can ward evil, so I... so I turned it into a sword to buy myself some peace..."

    As Xue Xian glared at him, he trembled harder and his voice trailed off to nothing again.

    "Where did you dig it from?"

    Stone Zhang said, "A –– a mountain by the river."

    "Do we have to squeeze it out of you sentence by sentence?" Xue Xian was about to lose his temper. "Do you want me to help trigger your memory?"

    "No, no, no, no thanks..." Stone Zhang stammered, about to cry. "I was led there by some people, and was blindfolded all the way. They only took it off when we arrived. The mountain didn't have a sign, so I really don't know where it is. I only remember that I could see the river from it. The stream was narrow and coarse, and the sound of the current was scarily loud."

    Furious, Xue Xian tilted his head, and the bolt of lightning hanging above Stone Zhang's head came cascading down by him.

    Shaken, Stone Zhang stood as stiff as a board, though tears began to stream down his face.

    "What were you brought there to do?" Xuanmin asked.

    The blood drained from Stone Zhang's face. "They made me carve seven stone locks and two tomb guardians."

    Xuanmin nodded understandingly. From his pouch, he extracted a thin sheet of paper and shook it out in front of the man. "You carved this design?"

    "Yes yes! That's what they made me carve. As I was carving, I felt that this design seemed to have some magic to it. I asked about it and they said it was a good-fortune design, and that it was extraordinarily effective. But, Master, where did you get it from?"

    "Your stone lock," Xuanmin said. "At the bottom of the river. Do you know who the corpses attached were?"

    "Corpses?" Stone Zhang seemed to have no idea what the stone locks he'd made had to do with corpses. Panicked, he shook his head. "I –– I don't know. I only carved some stuff. When that man came to see me, he only said that my carvings are the most effective. I thought some patron from outside the prefecture wanted me to make him something decorative. I had no idea..."

    He paused, then added, "Basically, my life has not been peaceful recently. I think someone is trying to kill me. I've never done anything to harm anyone in my life, but I recalled that one strange commission. So... so that's why I'm hiding."    

    Xue Xian stared at him until the man began shivering again, then coldly said, "Did the person who took you to the mountain leave you with anything?"

    "Thing? What thing?"

    "Anything. As long as that person touched it," Xue Xian said.

    Stone Zhang was about to shake his head when he suddenly slapped his thigh. "Oh, right! Yes!"

    "What?"

    "The black cloth he used to blindfold me. I still have it! I didn't dare to throw it out.." Stone Zhang said.

    Xue Xian grunted. "Good."

    Stone Zhang stumbled into a nearby room and returned with a piece of black cloth that had been put away for god knew how long, and never washed.

    Xuanmin scowled with disgust. He planned to find something to wrap his hand so that he could take the cloth. 

    Seeing him frown, Xue Xian reached out his claw and grabbed the cloth matter-of-factly. 

    Xuanmin stared back at him. 

    Xue Xian did not return his gaze. Instead, he simply said, "Let's go."

    Xuanmin paused. "Where?"

    "Heaven," Xue Xian snapped. Then he turned to Stone Zhang. "Stop shaking. Come with me for a bit."

    Xuanmin said, "If I'm guessing correctly, you plan to return to the Lu compound? Is this how you're going to go?"

    He scanned Xue Xian's enormous dragon body.

    "Oh." Xue Xian had been so furious that he really had planned to go out like this.

    But he was unable to turn back into a small dragon again –– his muscles and bones were still too bloated, and he could not maintain the shrunken form for long. His only other option was his human form.

    Xuanmin lifted the hand holding the clothes and gestured with it.

    Xue Xian yanked the package over. But then his face dropped –– now this was the problem: his massive body wouldn't fit into a private room, so how the fuck was he supposed to get changed?

    God must be jealous of how handsome he was, or else why would he constantly do this to him...