Poison City

 

Only around forty minutes after Luoshan Zi left, someone knocked on the door of the temporary apartment of Gloria and her friends. Gloria went and accepted it. Following the instructions left by Luoshan Zi, she got the delivery without an issue - it was a stack of large envelopes, tied together using a red ribbon.

 

“Thank you for doing business with Chef Tang’s Noodle Shop.” The delivery man was young but still looked experienced: “Please be advised that this is the final delivery of this Take Out Delivery request, for anything more you would need to contact our shop again. Hope you enjoy your delivery, and may you put everything to good use.”

 

“Thank you.” Gloria nodded at the young man before closing the door.

 

It was three envelopes stacked together, all of which were of similar thickness. For this many years Gloria had dealt with the noodle shop, this was by far the biggest pile of intelligence from them yet.

 

“Can we take a look?” Tae Kuo asked.

 

“Just don’t damage anything, we should be fine.” Gloria shrugged: “She asked us to accept it, so she must be okay with sharing that intelligence with us.”

 

Even so, Gloria was the one to cut open the envelopes with her fingertips so that she could save others the liability. Inside the first envelope was a map, cut into nine smaller portions and folded up. When put together, it became a very detailed blueprint of the deserted underground tunnel. The big map showed electric circuits, stairs and platforms, and even post for guards and

 

The second envelope contained another map - a smaller one, but with some additional pages and notes on where the guard posts were, how to spot them when entering from the main entrance, and where their blind spots could be.

 

The third envelope contained only files - a stack of dossiers on different mythic martial art artists. All of them noted the last confirmed day of sighting - these were missing kung fu masters from the past, and none of them seemed to be the upright kind. Some of them were assassins, some of them were gang leaders, some of them were spies for the city or the community collective, and some of them were leaders of some evil underground clans, and many of them fell into more than one category.

 

“This is - this is a lot.” Sue frowned: “And so much detail! Holy crap how efficient are they?”

 

“Apparently extremely so.” Ouyang Turner sighed and shook his head: “This can’t be cheap.”

 

“Let her worry about that.” Gloria smiled: “And if her plan works, the noodle shop would owe her more than she owes them.”

 

“Okay - there’s a lot of guard posts here.” Sue frowned as she stared at the second map on the ground while holding a dossier in her hand: “And looks like not a lot of them are temporary. How did they even get this?”

 

“I guess many posts might be from before.” Tae Kuo shook his head: “Two of the official reasons, at least the ones released to the public, was that it did not pass some public hearing and the project’s running out of money. So if they were expecting sabotage, they would have something like that built in. ”

 

“But if this map is accurate, then no one would have any opening going in there. The entire entrance is covered by at least three lines of fire.” Sue pointed at the entrance location on the map: “Unless they - they have smoke bombs or something.” 

 

“Maybe her old friends could get some for her.” Gloria shrugged. This was indeed an issue, when Luoshan Zi came back she would surely raise it.

 

“Wait.” Tae Kuo walked up to the second map: “These guard posts - they’re not - not without a plan.”

 

“What do you mean?” Ouyang Turner and Sue asked at the same time.

 

“They’re in specific ritualistic positions, if I’m not mistaken.” Tae Kuo pointed at a few guard posts near the entrance, and three further into the tunnel: “I - I don’t know what this arrangement is for. But it looks awfully like a talisman - ”

 

“Some kind of evil repelling talisman?” Sue asked.

 

“Yeah, but it would require - it would require some material in it for it to work, like cinnabar, blood ink, or jade or other gems.” Tae Kuo shook his head: “Or if they’re going big, then at least a few trees, wooden pillars, stone pillars, buddha statues - ”

 

“Or people?” Gloria narrowed her eyes.

 

“I like and hate that your mind went there.” Tae Kuo let out a long sigh while scratching his face: “But - I don’t think it’s very likely. Because this is likely a defensive ‘talisman’, so it should be from a time earlier than the abduction of the sages and scholars. I am not sure they would have planned everything that far ahead. So - I guess what I’m trying to say is - these spots might not be occupied by actual people - guards, but are positions where some kind of blessed items are placed.”

 

“That’s a good thought.” Gloria nodded: “And it would be great if it were the case.”

 

“This guy - ‘Jade Falcon’ Wang Duan. Master of Falcon Claw and the Cloud Walker’s Oath Style.” Ouyang Turner frowned at one dossier in his hand: “I think I’ve heard of this guy. Wasn’t he still on the wanted list a few years ago? Oh yeah - head of the ‘Predators’ gang, kinda on the nose name - and an elder from the now defunct ‘Green Ridge Clan’. Last confirmed public appearance was five years ago. Has anyone heard of him?”

 

Everyone else shook their heads, including Gloria. She was quite well acquainted with the scene, but still had not heard of the names. It must be really old, or deliberately obscured. The style of mythic Kung Fu, on the other hand, was familiar.

 

“‘Hands of Hellfire’ Luxing Ke, head of the ‘Crimson Abyss ’ gang, traitor to the now defunct ‘Flaming Cloud’ clan. Master of the Hellfire Palm Art and Amber Meditative Methods. Last confirmed public appearance seven years ago.” Turner Ouyang frowned as he picked up another dossier: “‘Purple Scorpion’ Yun Lusong, former elder from the ‘Scorching Rainbow’ gang. Master of Nine Stings of Purple Scorpion Fingers Art. Last public appearance six years ago.”

 

“I’m back. Open up.” Luoshan Zi’s voice came from the other side of the door.