Mo Xixi Vs Filly the Foal - II

Mo Xixi emerged like a demon. He was nearing all too fast, and in a stance for close-range fighting, seemed to be going for a killing blow. They were at arm’s length.

With a sudden turn of his right wrist, Filly pushed the lever-action downward, letting the weight bear down, and swung it in an arc. As it did, the lever forced itself open, and a spent casing ejected from the side.

He’d reloaded a lever-action with one hand and, in one continuous motion, tried to fire again.

Tchk.

Mo Xixi’s hand thrust through the air.

The rifle did not fire.

—Phoenix Finds its Rightful Nest

What?

His rifle had jammed. A lever-action had jammed! As his eyes trailed down, in a moment of infinite confusion, Filly saw that his bullet’s casing was stuck in the rifle’s breech. Short moments later, he realised how.

Mo Xixi had struck the ejected case mid-air and hit it into the gun’s open breech before it had the time to even load another bullet. It was a feat in the realm of absurdity, a demonstration of his superlative mastery of all things Kung fu.

Filly had no answer to this. The power of 4000 years of Chinese bull-shit had exceeded his imagination.

Impressive. Was his sole thought.

—Tie Shan Kao: Iron Mountain Lean.

Mo Xixi tucked his arm and drove his upper body into Filly like a freight train. The force sent the cowboy up across the opera hall, straight into the wall upon which it was built. Cracks formed against the old wood. Rays of afternoon light poured in, illuminating the space like a flashlight; their bodies casting long, life-like shadows across the whole hall.

Filly coughed blood; his lungs wheezed as he tried to breathe, ribs like little internal daggers, sticking and poking where it hurt most. Clumsily, he stood back on two hooves and realised his rifle had been knocked away when he was.

The weight of his holster bore down on him. Filly’s hand neared it, an impulse away from the draw. Mo Xixi was no different. He had his spear raised above him, clearly intent on throwing. The only consolation was that it was with his left hand, seeing as his right wrist hung by loose sinew and muscle.

“It’s just like the wild west, Filly. Two men at the precipice.”

For a moment, the opera house became an afterthought, and Mo Xixi was back in his childhood. He stood again in that time-old house, seated next to the windowsill, listening as his mother recounted poems from the Tang dynasty (for all his educated countrymen knew Tang dynasty poetry was the height of all Chinese poetry).

Mo Xixi did not get it at first. The lesson had continued for hours, and its value waned on him. His gaze was on a flower outside; it was a single pink peony, thriving in a pocket of dirt between concrete. It was past season, and it felt out of place, amidst the smog and smoke of the city.

It should be dead… He smiled. But it isn’t. And that pleased him all the more.

His mother did not smile back, instead turning her attention towards her clearly unfocused son.

“What is the point in learning this?” he would ask, looking at the poetry.

And his mother, holding a short piece of bamboo (used often for pointing and seldom for beating), would reply.

“Poetry.” She thought. “Poetry is the distillation of beauty.”

“Distillation… Like alcohol?”

His mother raised the piece of bamboo; her eyes realised something. “Like alcohol.” She agreed, lowering the bamboo, and realising a chance at teaching her son. “Yeast eats sugars. And heat eats away at the excess water, leaving the good alcohol left. That’s just like poetry, it’s the distillation of life’s ugly parts into what lies before you.”

Mo Xixi nodded and continued with his lesson. Unbeknownst to his mother, those words had resonated with him. Beauty. Beauty. That did have a nice ring to it. He mouthed those words: beauty…

In the year he lived in, beauty seemed like such an uncommon thing. The skies had lost their lustre, becoming a sheet of smoke and lights. The streets were crowded and busy, littered with dirt and dust. Steel, glass, and concrete were the architectural commodities, and anything but had been deemed inefficient or unprofitable.

One day, Mo Xixi left his comfortable abode and ventured into the streets of Guangzhou. He went nowhere in particular, just wandering, just searching. It was then, down a particular alley, that he saw an old man being accosted by gangsters. They looked like they were carved from stainless steel, with chrome-plated body parts and old, leather coats.

Mo Xixi stood at a corner, head lowered so as not to draw too much attention. He recognised the gangsters for what they were: cyborgs. Enhanced with modern-age alloys and alchemy that made them beyond human. In this day and age, they were not an uncommon sight and were prevalent in both military and day-to-day life.

The place grew very quiet. Before he could run or consider it, a gangster stepped forth with a knife in hand. Mo Xixi recoiled at this sight. The hooligan yelled something approaching the common speech of carrots.

Then—it happened. Grabbing the gangster’s wrist, the old man flipped the cyborg over… and got promptly jumped by the eight others there.

He didn't stand a chance.

Kick after kick. Punch after punch. The old man became their vent-meatbag for the next five minutes. At the end, the elder was unmoving. Mo Xixi’s eyes fell on him in a gesture of consolation.

“Damn youngsters. At least leave the testicles alone…”

The old man left for the streets. Mo Xixi followed, mouth agape, curious at his rather stable condition. He tailed him until he arrived at his shoddy home. A rundown tower of cracked concrete, coloured like the underside of an old pan.

“You whippersnapper,” said the old man, without turning back. “Do you want my wallet? Is that it?”

Mo Xixi fell to both knees. “I want you to teach me martial arts, shifu.”

“Eh? Did your mother drop you at birth or something? Why would you devote yourself to martial arts? There is no use for these trifles in our time. If you wish to kill, then acquire a firearm. If you wish to be all-powerful, then become a politician."

“I have money.”

“Welcome aboard, my beloved student.”

Mo Xixi apprenticed himself to the old man, training day after day inside his run-down apartment. While his lessons never did come free of charge, the elder did take to him over time, offering food, drinks, and tidbits of worldly advice.

One day, as the old man was particularly drunk, with his belly out and his back against his plastic chair, he asked Mo Xixi a question.

“Boy. I know you come from a good family. So why do you seek me as your mentor? Don’t lie. I’ll smell it if you do.”

“Whatever could you mean, shifu?”

“You know. With your money, you could purchase just about any teacher in Guangzhou. I’m just an old man with nothing to lose. I can’t even beat up kids at my age, let alone a proper master. So why, why me?”

Seeing as he could not evade the question, Mo Xixi spoke.

“Chūn yǒu bǎihuā qiū yǒu yuè, xiàyǒuliáng fēng dōng yǒu xuě. Ruò wú xiánshì guà xīntóu, biàn shì rénjiān hǎo shíjié.”

There are flowers in Spring, and there is the moon in Autumn. Summer has a breeze, and Winter has snow. With no worries on one’s mind, every season has its own beauty.

“Shifu,” Mo Xixi started. “I thought you had your own beauty, that is all. A fragrant flower can bloom even in the unlikeliest of places.”

“Uh-huh. Please don’t tell me this is a love confession.”

Mo Xixi laughed. “Not the type you have in mind.”

“Good.” His shifu wiped at his mouth. “‘Cause… That’d be weird.”

Despite his unassuming appearance, it was obvious that Mo Xixi’s words had struck a chord with him. Without family, love, or a place of great status, the elder could only believe in himself—and now, he had someone else.

“Shifu,” called Mo Xixi, when he saw his master’s lone tear. “Don’t give up on yourself. Please… for my sake and yours, continue to be excellent.”

For the harshest earth can give flower to the greatest bloom.

Mo Xixi held tight onto his spear. Their final exchange, of cowboy and wuxia warrior, would begin.

The hushed breaths of the audience did their part to disturb the quiet—little wheezes and whispers of incomprehension. Filly maintained his silence. As did Mo Xixi. There was nothing more to say; there was nothing more to do; there was nothing else between them but what would transpire—right then—and there.

Revolver cleared holster. Spear cleared air. Bullet screamed through the barrel. Shaft whistled through the space.

Filly was impaled by a spear through the chest, and Mo Xixi was shot in the lung. None said anything more. They both hung limp. Blood pooling from their wounds, like water from a fountain. As the situation dawned on those present, medics rushed into the opera hall and tended to them at once, taking their bodies and escorting them out.

“The winner…” Anera paused. “The winner has been decided! Both Filly and Mo Xixi have succeeded in taking one another out, and thus, neither will be advancing to the next stage of the tournament!”

The audience was taken aback. If there would be no more match after this… Then that would mean whoever won the previous would finally face the King. This revelation came as a surprise to them all. But perhaps none as much as the one seated in his gilded box, with both eyes open, and one finger raised.

The King was about to wake. His chain-bound body, shaking with every tremor of a heartbeat.

“Blood…” he mimed with his mouth. Muscle by tortured muscle. “Blood…shed.”

From his eye came a single tear. From his body came the tremble of emotion. Gijyou Sōun—King of Indaria—was alive, with a great deal of feelings beyond the description of all those present. Perhaps, beyond even himself.

“Now, before the last battle, we'll be having a military parade in his highness’ honour! Please return to the audience hall and await further notice until then!”