Chapter 175 - 176: Dumplings Forever, Terms and Conditions Apply

Chapter 175: Chapter 176: Dumplings Forever, Terms and Conditions Apply

"On three," Daniel said.

Yun Xi was already walking.

"That’s not how a race works."

"Mm."

"You have to wait for the count."

"Mm." She did not turn around. A small paper bag swung from her fingers. "One."

"You can’t just start at one!"

"Two."

Daniel swore, cracked his neck, and ran.

He ran the way he had run at the gorge’s mouth, only more so. The wind hit him like a wall. The cliffs on both sides became grey ribbons. His boots barely touched the stone, and every stride ate ten meters of road. The speed was glorious. Somewhere inside it, a small, delighted voice in his head said: One hundred and twelve. One hundred and twelve. I am a god of speed.

He passed her in about four seconds.

He saw her out of the corner of his eye, small and grey and walking at an ordinary pace, with her hands tucked into her sleeves. Then she was behind him, and then she was a speck, and then she was gone.

Daniel grinned and ran harder.

Three hundred meters later, the seventh gate rose out of the mist.

Yun Xi was standing in front of it, eating a dumpling.

Daniel skidded to a stop in a spray of gravel. He stared at her. He stared behind him, at the empty road. He stared at her again.

"You’re slow," Yun Xi said.

"I passed you."

"Did you?"

"I *saw* you. You were behind me. I felt the wind."

"Mm." She popped the last of the dumpling in her mouth and brushed her fingers off on her robe. "There’s a gate."

She was right. There was.

It was a tall, plain arch of grey stone, with a low bench set into the rock on one side. On the keystone, three words were carved in worn letters.

WHAT DO YOU OWE?

"Oh, I hate this one," said Daniel.

"WHAT DO YOU OWE?" said the gate, in a voice like a very tired accountant.

"A lot of things."

"NAME THEM. PAY WHAT YOU CAN."

Daniel sighed.

"I owe Lyra an apology," he said, "for dropping an arch near her head. I owe Brick Head a very large hug. I owe Fluffy a carrot cake, and I owe Cheeky a proper thank-you for the boots. I owe Su Wan dinner."

"DINNER?"

"It’s complicated."

"DEBTS ACKNOWLEDGED," said the gate, sounding faintly amused. "PAY THEM LATER."

The arch rippled. Beyond it, the road stretched on.

Yun Xi had been watching him with an expression that was not quite a smile.

"What?" Daniel said.

"You owe a lot of people."

"Is that a bad thing?"

"No." She tilted her head. "It’s just a lot."

"And you? What did you tell the gate?"

"Nothing."

"It let you through with nothing?"

"I don’t owe anyone," Yun Xi said, simply. "I have never had anyone to owe."

Something quiet and strange settled in the air between them. Then she turned and walked through the arch, and the moment broke.

Daniel looked at his own hands for a second.

Then he ran after her.

---

The eighth gate was not a gate.

It was a building. A long stone hall, three chambers in a row, each with a heavy iron door. A single plaque stood by the first.

THE GATE OF THREE FACES. ONE TRAVELER. THREE TRIALS. THE SWIFT CHANGE SHAPE.

Yun Xi stood at the door with her hands in her sleeves.

"I’ll go first," she said.

"I’ll go faster."

"You don’t know what’s inside."

"I never do. It’s my best quality."

She almost smiled. Then she stepped through the first door, and Daniel stepped through a heartbeat after.

The first chamber was a long, high room, lit by torches. At the far end stood a wall of ten bronze bells, each the size of a dinner plate, each moving on its own rail, up and down, back and forth. Written on the wall above them:

RING THEM ALL. NO MISS.

"A shooting gallery," Daniel said, and drew both Golden Jacks.

The bells were fast. Moving, weaving, changing direction with no warning. A normal marksman would have taken a full minute.

"Mana Bullet," said Daniel.

He fired.

The first shot punched into the center of the first bell, and it rang out clear and bright. He fired again, and again, a bullet for each bell, one mana each, ten shots in a bright stuttering rhythm. Bell. Bell. Bell. Bell. The last bell, the tenth, was the fastest, zig-zagging along the highest rail like a startled bird.

"Sure Shot."

The bullet curved in the air like it had changed its mind. It struck the last bell dead center, and a ring like a cathedral chime rolled through the hall.

[Mana: 261 → 250]

The iron door at the far end swung open.

Yun Xi was already standing in front of it.

"How," Daniel said, "do you keep doing that?"

She did not answer. She simply walked through.

The second chamber was dark.

It was a long, low hall, silent as a crypt, lined on both sides with enormous stone statues. They were men in armor, kneeling, heads bowed, hands resting on the pommels of great stone swords. Between them ran a narrow aisle. A plaque at the entrance read:

THE GUARDIANS SLEEP. DO NOT WAKE THEM.

"Easy," Daniel whispered, and activated Shadow Step.

[Skill activated: Shadow Step. Duration: 10 seconds. Cost: 5 MP.]

The world went soft and grey. His body blurred into the dark like a stain, and he slid down the aisle without a sound, his Keen Sense sweeping the room. There were thirty sleeping guardians. Each one breathed, a slow, hollow sound like wind through a cave.

He was halfway down when he heard the shouting.

"Move! Move! He’s ahead of us!"

"I’m *moving*, you idiot, you’re the one who’s slow!"

Daniel looked back.

Two Golden Dragon disciples had come through the first door at a dead run, clearly taking the hall at full speed. They did not have Shadow Step. They did not have caution. The lead one was sprinting down the aisle with his sword drawn, and as Daniel watched, he tripped on a loose stone and crashed into the nearest statue.

The statue’s head turned.

Slowly, with the sound of grinding rock, the stone guardian opened its eyes.

"Oh no," said the disciple.

"Oh *no*," said his friend.

Thirty statues woke at once.

Daniel stood in the shadow of an ornate pillar and watched the two disciples scream and sprint back toward the door with thirty stone knights thundering after them. Their golden armor rattled. One of them lost a boot.

"Good luck!" Daniel called, in a voice they could not hear, and saluted.

The Shadow Step faded with two seconds to spare. He stepped through the far door without a sound.

---

The third chamber was empty except for the door.

It was enormous. A single slab of black iron, thirty feet high and ten feet thick, set into the far wall, with a plaque beside it.

THE DOOR OF MIGHT. OPEN IT.

Yun Xi stood in front of it with her hands in her sleeves, looking up.

"It weighs one hundred tons," she said.

"I noticed."

"I could walk through it. But I want to see you do it."

"See me do what?"

She said nothing. She stepped aside, politely, like a girl making room on a bench.

Daniel looked at her. He looked at the door. He took a deep breath and cracked his knuckles, one at a time, and thought of every nobleman who had ever sneered at him in a tavern.

He stepped up and put his palm flat against the iron.

Strength: 131.

He drew back his fist.

"Hey," he said. "Is there a rule against punching?"

"THE GATE DOES NOT CARE," said a distant voice.

"Excellent."

He punched.

The sound was beyond sound. It was a physical thing, a white shockwave that blew through the hall and out the far side of the building. The iron door did not so much open as leave. It folded in the middle, tore from its hinges, and flew twenty meters into the gorge on the other side, spinning, until it hit the cliff with a crash that sent a cloud of birds into the sky.

Dust drifted down.

Daniel shook out his hand. It was only a little bit swollen this time.

"Ah," he said. "I like that."

Beside him, Yun Xi was staring at the broken doorway. For the first time since he had met her, she looked genuinely, honestly surprised.

"You hit it," she said.

"That’s what you do to doors."

"Most people try to *open* it."

"That’s where most people go wrong."

A tiny, tiny laugh slipped out of her, as if she had not meant to let it go. It was quiet and bright and over almost before it started. She covered her mouth with one hand. Her eyes were very wide.

Daniel felt something in his chest do a small, stupid flip.

[Affection Level: Unable to read.]

[Partial signal detected: Curiosity. Amusement. Interest.]

Three words, Daniel thought. Last time it was one.

"Race?" he said, with a bright, wicked grin.

Yun Xi’s laugh died. Her expression went flat. But her feet shifted. For the first time, she was not standing like a girl on a morning walk.

She was standing like a runner.

---

The ninth gate was five hundred meters away.

It stood at the end of a long, straight, white road, bright in the afternoon sun, with a cheering crowd of examiners and disciples gathered at its feet. Daniel could see the arch from the doorway of the eighth gate. It was tall, plain, gleaming. Above it hung a banner.

THE NINTH GATE. THE FINISH.

"One," said Yun Xi.

"Don’t—"

"Two."

"*Don’t you dare*—"

"Three."

They ran.

She was fast. That was the first thing he learned. She ran barefoot, bent low, her hair whipping behind her, her plain robe clinging to her shoulders, and she was not a girl strolling along a gorge anymore. She was a blade. Her feet barely seemed to touch the stone.

But he was faster.

Strength 131. Speed 112. He pulled ahead by ten meters, then twenty. The crowd at the finish line was a blur of colors. He could hear Fluffy screaming something in the distance, a high, joyful, incoherent noise. He ran with everything he had, boots hammering, lungs burning, wind ripping at his cloak.

Two hundred meters from the line, he glanced back.

Yun Xi was gone.

His heart dropped. He looked left. He looked right. He looked at the empty road.

And then he looked forward.

She was standing in the middle of the road, fifty meters ahead of him, a few steps from the arch. She had her hands in her sleeves. She was looking straight at him, calm and unhurried.

"You’re slow," she said, though he could not possibly hear her at that distance.

He heard her anyway.

Daniel did not slow down.

He had just figured it out. The trick. Not the how, not the why, but the shape of it. She did not run faster than him. She simply arrived. Wherever he looked, she was already there, as if the road folded in on itself to make room for her.

*She isn’t faster,* Daniel thought. *She’s just always ahead.*

And there is exactly one thing in the world that is faster than that.

Fifty meters. Forty. He could see her face now, the plain brown eyes, the small, patient curve of her mouth.

Thirty. Twenty.

She stepped back, toward the arch, a polite, small step, as if inviting him in.

Daniel looked past her, at the threshold of the ninth gate, a line of white stone not three meters beyond her shoulder. It was in plain sight. It was clear. It was there.

"Blink," he said.

[Mana: 250 → 240]

The world flickered.

He appeared on the other side of her with a faint pop of displaced air, one boot on the white stone line, the other already across. He stumbled, caught himself, and stood upright inside the shadow of the arch with his arms spread wide.

The crowd erupted.

Behind him, there was a long, long silence.

"THE NINTH GATE IS CROSSED," said the arch, in a voice like a great bell. "FIRST: DANIEL BLACK. FORTY-SEVEN MINUTES, NINETEEN SECONDS."

Daniel turned around, slowly, grinning like a fool.

Yun Xi stood two meters away, just short of the line, with her hands still in her sleeves. She was staring at him with her mouth slightly open. The lines of her face had gone entirely blank.

"That," she said, "is cheating."

"Is it?"

"You teleported."

"I’m allowed."

"THE GATE DOES NOT CARE," said the arch, with what sounded suspiciously like glee.

Yun Xi looked at the arch. She looked at Daniel. And then, slowly, a smile broke across her face. It was not the tiny ghost of a smile from before. It was an honest-to-goodness grin, wide and startled and bright, the kind that makes a person look their real age.

"You win," she said. She sounded breathless. "I’ve never lost a race."

"Hold on to that feeling," said Daniel. "It’s very educational."

"I thought I was fast."

"You are fast. You’re just not *instant*." He took a small bow. "I believe you owe me an answer."

She stopped smiling, but not completely. A little of it stayed in her eyes.

"One question," she said. "Any question."

Daniel opened his mouth. He had a lot of questions. Who are you? What are you? Why did the Guardian bow to you? How do you walk and arrive before I run? And, he had to admit, a very big part of him wanted to ask something else entirely, something with the word *single* in it.

He looked at her, standing barefoot in the sun with the paper bag in her hand.

"On the plaque," Daniel said slowly. "At the third gate. It said your companion was ’sleeping.’ What is your companion?"

Yun Xi went very still.

She looked at him for a long time, and the grin faded into something quieter, older, stranger. Then she held out her left arm, gently, and drew back her sleeve.

There was nothing on her wrist.

No bracelet. No mark. No creature. Just pale skin, and a very faint shimmer in the air, like heat rising off stone.

"My sister," Yun Xi said, quietly. "She is asleep. She has been asleep for a very long time." She let the sleeve fall. "I am carrying her to someone. I have not found him yet."

Daniel’s mouth had gone dry.

"Him?" he said.

"That is a second question." The grin crept back, very small. "You only get one."

"Then I’ll save the other one for later."

"Which other one?"

"The one about whether you’re single."

Yun Xi stared at him. A very faint flush crept across her cheeks.

"That is a *terrible* question," she said, in a strangled voice.

"I know. I’m saving it."

She said something under her breath that might have been a curse. Then, to his astonishment, she walked past him through the ninth gate, shoulder brushing his, and said without turning around:

"Dumplings, Daniel Black. You still owe me dumplings."

"I won!"

"You *cheated*."

"The gate doesn’t care!"

"I do," said Yun Xi, and walked away with her ears, he noticed, going slowly pink.

---

POV Switch: Su Wan

Su Wan crossed the ninth gate eleven minutes later, with sweat in her eyes and Lyra panting beside her.

The first thing she saw was the board.

It hung high over the finish line, a great sheet of golden light, ten names stacked in glowing script.

1. Daniel Black. 00:47:19.

2. Yun Xi. 00:47:21.

3. Long Tian Zhao. 00:58:44.

She read the third line twice.

Long Tian had crossed forty minutes after the others, limping, with a red handprint still swelling on his cheek. He stood at the edge of the crowd with his jaw set and his eyes burning, surrounded by silent disciples who would not meet his gaze.

Beside him stood Heng Bao, who looked worse.

Nobody was talking to them.

At the center of the finish line stood a ring of excited people, and in the center of the ring stood Daniel Black with Fluffy attached to his ankle, Cheeky inspecting his hand, Mittens holding a clean cloth, and Brick Head crying happily into his shoulder. He looked like a man being mobbed by a very small, very loud army.

He looked up.

He saw her.

Daniel grinned. It was small, and crooked, and entirely unashamed, and for one terrible heartbeat, Su Wan felt something in her chest give a little lurch.

*I will kill him,* she thought, to remind herself.

It did not feel as certain as it used to.

[Affection Level: Su Wan: -6%]

She walked past the cheering crowd without looking at it, her braid swinging, her face perfectly composed.

She did not notice that she was smiling.

---

POV Switch: Daniel

"Mr. Black."

Daniel looked up from the scrum of friends.

A grey-robed examiner stood in front of him, a silver star glinting at his collar. It was the same one from the gorge. He looked deeply, personally tired.

"Yes?"

"Elder Jian will see you now."

The noise around them went quiet.

"Now?" Daniel said. "I haven’t finished flirting."

"It was not a request."

"Can I at least change my boots?"

"No."

"Can I eat something?"

"No."

"Can I say goodbye to my fan club?"

"MASTER!" Fluffy shrieked, hanging off his arm. "MASTER IS THE BEST! WHO IS THE OLD MAN?! FLUFFY WILL BITE HIM!"

"Please don’t bite Elder Jian," said Daniel.

"Fluffy will think about it."

Lyra was looking at him, eyes narrowed, arms folded. "What does he want?"

"I don’t know."

"Is it about the arch?"

"Probably."

"Is it about the slap?"

"*Possibly*."

"Is it about the door?"

Daniel considered this. "...I don’t remember anything about a door."

Behind him, in the distance, a faint ringing began, the sound of a huge iron slab still settling somewhere deep in the gorge.

Paul closed his eyes. "He’s going to be disqualified."

"He won first place."

"They’ll take it back."

"They can’t take it back," said Daniel. "I’m very humble."

He followed the examiner across the finish line, into the great white shadow of the ninth gate, hands in his pockets, whistling. Behind him, the crowd rippled and whispered, and somewhere in the middle of it, a very small girl in grey stood alone with a paper bag in her hands and her ears still pink, watching him go.