“I told you already, he can’t do much if you just pick him up.”

“But his shadowless kick has more strength than a hundred tigers!”

“And you have more strength than a thousand of his kicks.” 

Yet another light-hearted debate had ensued with Mei-Yi and Yong-Liang. Partly as a distraction from the events of the previous day. The auxiliary policeman had been turned over to the villagers, to meet a most awful fate. Mei-Yi considered breaking his back by snapping him in half to literally hammer in how spineless he was, but Xue-Yu decided against it. But a village had been recruited into the noble cause. The elder had promised that within a month, every man and woman would be disciples of the Society. The invincibility ritual to harness the power of the gods had been demonstrated by Yong-Liang, and before they left they ensured the basics had been mastered, both in ideals and those ideals in practice.

“Doesn’t matter how ‘strong’ I am, he’s versatile. He’s mastered all five animal forms, you know. He’d probably crane kick me out of existence.”

“He’s mastered six, actually: turtle form. Once he sees you, he’d probably hide under a rock or something.”

Mei-Yi’s little band had refused an extravagant feast out of humility, much to the soldiers and Ao Ling’s dismay. They did, however, accept a hand-sewn flag with four monumental Chinese characters on them: “support the Qing, exterminate the foreigner.” After paying respects to the dead (not the foreign devils of course), they were back on the path to Beijing. The magistrate’s palace was on the same path. 

“Yeah, but he can flick rocks like a foreigner’s gun!”

“Won’t do much against you.”

“Sure. I’m only human, you know.” 

Yong-Liang rested himself on the pillowy flesh of Mei-Yi’s thigh as both he and Mei-Yi knew who would be the victor in a hypothetical battle with Wong-Fei Hung. Mei-Yi was just trying to be humble, since she still admired Wong-Fei Hung as sort of a childhood idol. The default for conversations between the two was now Yong-Liang sitting (or in this case lying) on Mei-Yi’s leg as she sat cross-legged. Taking a pebble out of his pocket, Yong-Liang placed it behind his bent middle finger, and with surprising power, flicked it at Mei-Yi’s hand.

“Hey!”

“See? Won’t hurt you in the slightest.”

“Let’s be honest, Yong-Liang, I doubt you can flick stuff as well as he can.”

“No matter. You’ll just step on him, and then it won’t matter how hard he can do anything.”

Yong-Liang shot a quick glance at the vast form of her feet. Her massive toes, tipped by hefty slabs for toenails, gently flexed in and out subconsciously. Glistening with a thin layer of sweat, her foot’s silky curvature dampened by little bits of dirt and mud. 

“Once we swing by the magistrate, you ought to get some nail polish. It’d look good on you.”

A flushing influx of red entered Mei-Yi’s face.

“You think?”

“Yeah. Li Huang told me nail polish was invented in the Dong dynasty.”

“Pretty sure it was the Zhou dynasty. Meh. What color?” 

“Red, for the Society.”

Leaning back comfortably, Yong-Liang’s triumphant smirk suddenly disappeared. He turned to look down at Stanislaus pouring Tong-Pao a refreshing, steaming cup of tea. 

“Mei-Yi, what do you think of Si-Tan-Ni-Si-La-Zi?” 

It took a moment for Mei-Yi to recognize this rough transliteration as the name of the foreigner.

“Oh, that guy? Well, he’s decent, I guess. For a foreigner anyway.” 

Yong-Liang did not seem to agree.

“Really? Look how hairy he is! He’s just as devilish as the others, I’ll bet! Probably just faking it to backstab us later.”

“Well, only Xue-Yu’s been around foreigners a lot, so I can’t really…”

Yong-Liang was actually angry now.

“By Tang Zang’s faithful steed, Mei-Yi! These people destroyed my village, my home, and your village too, and that’s what you say?”

“Yong-Liang, I know some of them might be pretty bad, but I don’t think all of them are.”

Mei-Yi’s attempted apologism did not have the convincing teacher-esque drone of Xue-Yu, despite her booming voice.

“What about the innocents? You know how many children the dwarf devils bayoneted in Manchuria? What about the hairy ones? They raped entire villages, Mei-Yi. Full of defenseless civilians!” 

“I know, I know, but-”

“It’s Xue-Yu, isn’t it? Just like that policeman. Brainwashing people with their foreign black magic.”

“Quit it, Yong-Liang!”

“Is there a problem?”

Xue-Yu (and everyone else really) had overheard this conversation.

“Hou Yi’s bow, of course there is! You’re the problem, you secondary devil!”

Mei-Yi physically recoiled at hearing this insult. 

“Okay, Yong-Liang, that’s enough, I think-”

“You think blind violence can solve China’s issues, you impudent young pup?”

Xue-Yu clenched his fists and stared angrily up at Yong-Liang, who was hurling insults down at him from the safety of Mei-Yi’s leg.

“Better than collaborating with the devils, you dumb cunt!”

“The only ‘devils’ you know of are from your picture books, you mentally deficient egg!” 

Yong-Liang racked his brain for a fitting retort, and then his mouth curled into a cheeky smile.

“Mentally deficient, huh? What about your Imperial Exam test results, you stupid melon?”

The Imperial Exam was an exceedingly hard exam that only the most determined and intelligent of civil servants could even hope to pass. Judging from Xue-Yu’s lowly position as a translator, it was obvious he either did not even take it or completely failed. 

“Oh, you male pubic hair-” 

“Stop it!”

Mei-Yi scooped up Yong-Liang and dropped him on the ground. 

“You two ought to apologize.”

Xue-Yu regained his scholarly complexion once the fuming Yong-Liang was on the same level as him. Yong-Liang’s face contorted in frustration, and for a few moments there was a stare-off, but he finally relaxed at Mei-Yi’s suggestion. Confucian principles placed heavy stress on respecting one’s elders, but his still cross gaze betrayed his ostensibly calm mannerism, however. 

“I apologize for losing my temper, Xue-Yu.”

“Apology accepted. Okay, Yong-Liang. You probably haven’t been around foreigners very often. Let’s go talk to Stanislaus.” 

The way he pronounced Stanislaus as a single word rather than a loose collection of familiar Chinese syllables flawlessly unnerved Yong-Liang, but he nodded respectfully. 

When they walked up to Stanislaus, he flung a little “nee how” to Yong-Liang awkwardly. Though he heard their argument, he hadn’t understood a word of it. Plus, he was too focused on his game of Western chess with Tong-Pao, which he was currently losing. According to him, his apparent Stockholm syndrome grew from an experience he had fighting against the French. Something about camaraderie, and how all men were brothers. Either way, it was all too foreign for anyone to really understand.

“Stanislaus, this is Yong-Liang. Yong-Liang, this is Stanislaus.” Yong-Liang was indeed even more uncomfortable at hearing Xue-Yu speak the foreign tongue, but begrudgingly returned a pleasantry to Stanislaus. 

“Stanislaus, I think you’re finished here,” Xue-Yu watched as Tong-Pao nonchalantly shifted a queen to a more advantageous position, cornering Stanislaus’ king. “You should play Yong-Liang.” 

“We should play Chinese chess, not Western chess.” Yong-Liang took the place of Tong-Pao on the grass, and pushed away the pieces. Yong-Liang poured out a little box full of round pieces with all sorts of esoteric Oriental markings on them. 

Mei-Yi watched Yong-Liang patronizingly lecturing Stanislaus on the use of the cannon piece with relish. Though the great Yong-Liang-Xue-Yu war had ended with a truce, Mei-Yi stared thoughtfully at Stanislaus’ spiked helmet, nestled in the grass. Its martial khaki contrasted jarringly with the soft green grass. Even odder was Stanislaus’ hair. It was literally and figuratively criminal for one to not wear a queue, and Mei-Yi had only seen gruesome heads mounted on pikes disobey this law. Stanislaus’ hair was unsettlingly alien to her, to have the forehead covered with grey hair as opposed to shaven clean, and to lack the signature queue trailing down his back. Li Huang had told her that men in China used to wear a topknot of sorts. Peculiar. She shifted her thoughts back to more pressing matters.

The foreign devils did not offer the indulgence of mercy, even to innocent peasants. What kind of goodwill did she owe to them? But wait, not all foreign devils were so evil. She remembered what Stanislaus had said about the governments and whatnot. But should she take his word for it? Well, she had only met soldiers so far, and hadn’t actually met the non-combatant variety. But someone had.  Mei-Yi reached over and plucked Ao Ling off the ground in a single cursory motion. She thought almost nothing of this simple action, but Ao Ling didn’t. He yelped as his stomach turned over and disjointedly flailed a bit, but eased up after coming to his senses. Mei-Yi deposited him tenderly on her leg. 

“Would you mind asking next time?” Ao Ling felt a little less like a person and more like some curio Mei-Yi found on the ground. Mei-Yi grinned ruefully as a sort of improvisatory apology.

“Sorry.” 

They listened to Stanislaus’ remarks about losing yet another piece to Yong-Liang for a bit. The esoteric sentences he pronounced were jarringly emphasized on nearly every syllable, giving it a guttural and unnatural tone. 

“Your hair is coming along nicely.” Mei-Yi offered a gateway to conversation.

Ao Ling’s hair still had much to improve, though. The front of his head wasn’t shaven clean, so a plethora of fuzzy specks of hair had taken root. The back hair was growing quite nicely, and it hung down in clumped strands from below his skull cap. Li Huang had drawn a picture of a Taiping rebel before, and they wore their hair in a very similar fashion. 

“Heh, you look like a Taiping, Ao Ling.”

“Hmm? Oh, yeah, maybe a little.”

Ao Ling seemed very uncomfortable resting on Mei-Yi’s thigh, but did not make his objections verbal. He constantly turned and shifted, unnerved by this ground of warm flesh. 

“So, Ao Ling. How was your experience in America?”

“I was on American soil for a grand total of an hour, so not that good.” 

“Dang. So how were the Americans?” 

“Typical foreigners. Nasty long beards, no queues, and barbaric mannerisms.” 

“Right.”

Ao Ling rested his face in his cupped hands gracefully like an eagle perching down in a well-deserved state of repose.

“You know… Si-Tan-Ni-whatever his name was… his unit didn’t do anything wrong, right? So, did you maybe…”

Ao Ling smacked his lips, and tried to disentangle his thoughts into a more coherent structure. 

“So, you know, the Pingguan foreigners, they, uh, well, you know what they did, so they deserved what they got. But Si-Tan-Ni-Si-La-Zi’s group really didn’t do anything.”

Mei-Yi gave him a piercing stare, which he couldn’t return. 

“What are you getting at?”

“Just saying, you might have, uhm, accidentally…”

“Hurt innocents?”

The unapologetic harshness of this contrasted greatly with Mei-Yi’s gentle voice. “Y-yeah, that’s what I meant.”

“Look, Ao Ling, I’m not exactly proud of what I did.”

Mei-Yi frowned, a subtle tug at the frayed edges of her mouth. She broodingly rolled her fingers over the embroidered courage symbol on her jacket, surveying the latticed texture. 

“But they tried to kill me. If they could, they would have killed me, most definitely. Or worse. I had to do it.”

“Yeah, I suppose.”

“Think about it. Once we liberate China from the foreigners, that’ll be the end of the foreigners in the Middle Kingdom. Best case scenario for both parties. It’s not all in vain, you see?”

“Then what about Si-Tan-Ni-Si-La-Zi?”

A curt peal of laughter came from Stanislaus, as he had somehow managed to take one of Yong-Liang’s pieces. Yong-Liang reciprocated, and decisively slid his chariot piece near Stanislaus’ king. 

“We’ll see.”

Mei-Yi said no more than that. The melancholy face of Ao Ling turned downwards. To Mei-Yi, he was rather cute. Not like, say, Yong-Liang, but as one might consider a cat. There was a certain instinctual response Mei-Yi had towards his hunched form sitting on her leg, a sort of pity that she must protect this sweet little being, enveloped in his petty bout of sadness. 

“So, how’ve you been doing lately?”

The excessive casualness of this offer of conversation implied it was heavily forced. Nonetheless, it was better than nothing. 

It was also better than the temperament of a haughty man sitting in his study at the foreign legations in Beijing. Surrounded by a very stuffy collection of Western styled furniture and illuminated vaguely by a lamp, it was a very serene location, though its occupant was less than so. 

“Bunglers, bunglers, bunglers! The lot of them! An entire city could disappear and all you’d see would be a puff of smoke!” 

The German minister to Beijing was not in a good mood. His well-coiffed moustache twitched in fury as he skimmed through the telegram. Yet another force massacred, and with the same reports of the terrible beast. A servant walked in, bearing a steaming cup of tea. 

“Careful, Von Ketteler, sir, it’s hot.” The servant spoke with an obviously Oriental accent, slightly mixing his ls and rs. 

With an air of resolution, Von Ketteler immediately snatched the enameled cup. Not heeding the servant’s warnings, he recoiled, dropping it to the ground. 

“You chimpanzee!”

He firmly backhanded the servant, who retreated outside with inaudible mumbles of apology. Sinking back into his chair, he entered a more ponderous state. Why should he be concerned with Chinese hooligans? This wasn’t even his country. Not his fault the Orientals couldn’t fend for themselves. Regaining his composure, (if he had it in the first place) he picked up his pen and began writing a strongly-worded complaint to the Chinese ministry of foreign affairs. He would get their own troops to deal with their own problems. He paused, letting the ink from his gold-plated fountain pen create an ever-increasing pool of ink. No, no. The Chinese would promise to deal with the situation, and then forget about it forever. If the bandits were to attack another foreign force and lose, their force could take the head of the leader. With concrete proof, the Chinese would be forced to apologize profusely, along with giving another hunk of land as an repentant concession. Von Ketteler’s moustache curled upwards as he smiled at this thought.