I was frantically yanking my cheap grey trousers up my thighs, my hands shaking so violently I could barely find the fabric loop for my belt.
The Dowager Empress of the Scarlet Lotus lounged on her throne-like chaise, her surgically stretched, perpetually surprised face gleaming under the soft light of the massive lanterns. A thick, undeniable mixture of my pre-circulation Yang-dew and her own saliva still glistened on her chin. She wasn't even trying to wipe it off. She wore it like a badge of absolute, unhinged honor.
"Running so soon, little lawyer?" she purred, her voice a low, vintage-smoky drawl that made my freshly-drained Cowper's Meridian twitch in pure terror. "I haven't even finished inspecting your briefs."
"I am legally required to return to the arena!" I squeaked, backing toward the heavy oak doors. "My fifteen-minute recess is over! The OSHA codes demand prompt punctuality to avoid spectator riots!"
The goat, which had been sitting in the corner watching my dignity completely evaporate, let out a single, deeply judgmental "baaa". It slowly shook its head side to side, actively disappointed in my lack of professional boundaries.
Suddenly, the gilded doors of the private audience chamber burst open with a dramatic, thunderous CRASH.
Standing in the threshold was my boss.
Lo Yu had unbuttoned the top of his black silk robes to expose his collarbone. He was leaning heavily against the doorframe, striking a deeply suggestive pose. He took a long, slow drag from his bamboo pipe and intentionally exhaled, wafting the overwhelming scent of three-day-old cabbage and cheap brothel wine directly into the fragrant, peach-blossom-scented room.
"Fear not, Imperial Majesty," Lo Yu rasped, his voice dropping into a smooth, predatory baritone. He flashed his missing-tooth smile. "I understand you have grown tired of pretty porcelain dolls who smell of sandalwood. I am Senior Lo Yu. And your gritty, desperate peasant has arrived."
I froze. I looked at Lo Yu. He actually thought he was the target. The bookie had told him the Empress wanted a man who smelled like dirt and existential desperation, and my 300-year-old goblin of a boss had completely misinterpreted the assignment.
The Dowager Empress stopped licking her lips. She slowly turned her artificially widened eyes toward the door.
She looked at Lo Yu's eyepatch. She looked at his scraggly beard. She inhaled the dense, fermented stink of his cabbage aura.
Her red lips curled into a sneer of absolute, aristocratic disgust.
"Eunuch," the Empress drawled, not even addressing him directly. She waved a perfectly manicured finger toward the hallway. "Why is the compost collector standing in my doorway? Have him flogged and removed."
The silence in the room was deafening.
Lo Yu's single visible eye widened. The bamboo pipe slipped from his lips and clattered to the floor.
I actually heard the sound of his 300-year-old heart shattering into a million pieces. He had cultivated the Dao of the Unwashed, built his entire identity around being the pinnacle of unwashed masculinity, and his ultimate Imperial Sugar-Momma had just legally classified him as walking fertilizer.
"I... I am not compost," Lo Yu whispered, a single tear of tragic romance rolling down his wrinkled cheek.
"Get out," the Empress snapped. She turned her ancient, hungry gaze back to me. "I will be watching the next round, He Lu. Do not disappoint me."
I grabbed Lo Yu by the collar of his robes and violently hauled him out into the hallway, slamming the gilded doors shut before she could change her mind and swallow my other ball.
Out in the arena's spectator stands, Junior Sister Gou-Na was supposed to be monitoring the registration booths. Instead, she was hiding in the top row of the bleachers, actively losing her mind.
Her crisp blue Jade Water Sect uniform was currently screaming for mercy. The Twin-Peak Expanding Lotus pills had worked miracles; her aerodynamic cutting-board physique was gone, replaced by two massive, gravity-defying Yin-spheres that rested heavily on her forearms.
Gou-Na had one hand shoved deep inside her robes, aggressively working her own slick folds while she stared at a glowing Scrying Jade. She had purchased bootleg, slow-motion footage of He Lu's previous match from a shady vendor in the tunnels.
"Look at the vascularity of that aura," Gou-Na panted, her eyes completely glazed over as she watched the replay of He Lu's neon-pink Adamantine Pillar straining against his grey trousers. "He's a walking, talking jade dildo. The localized Yang-density in his pelvis is off the charts."
"Junior Sister Gou-Na."
The voice was like a bucket of liquid nitrogen.
Gou-Na shrieked, yanking her hand out of her robes so fast she nearly dislocated her wrist. She scrambled to sit up straight, her newly acquired massive chest knocking over a cup of spirit-soda in the process.
Standing right behind her, radiating a terrifying aura of absolute zero, was Senior Sister Ho Li-Fan.
"S-Senior Sister!" Gou-Na stammered, frantically wiping her sticky fingers on the bleacher bench. "I was just... reviewing the perimeter security footage!"
Ho Li-Fan narrowed her icy blue eyes. She didn't miss the flushed cheeks, the heavy breathing, or the unmistakable scent of fresh grool. But she was too focused on her investigation to reprimand a gooner.
"Where is the wildcard competitor, He Lu?" Ho Li-Fan demanded, her voice tight. "I need to know his locker assignment. His Qi signature vanished from the staging area fifteen minutes ago."
"Oh, the Litigation Master?" Gou-Na giggled, her hormone-addled brain completely failing to read the room. "He probably had to go drain the main valve. Did you see the hydrostatic pressure on that guy? If he drops that Adamantine Pillar into a Jade Valley without a safety harness, someone is going to lose an eye."
Ho Li-Fan's flawless face instantly flushed a vibrant, burning crimson. A thick wisp of white steam curled from the collar of her law enforcement uniform.
"That is none of my concern!" Ho Li-Fan snapped, her voice cracking slightly. "I am merely monitoring him for... illegal doping!"
Gou-Na winked, leaning forward and resting her massive new cleavage on her knees. "Sure, Senior Sister. Just make sure you do a thorough pat-down. For the law."
Ho Li-Fan spun on her heel and marched away, leaving a trail of melted frost on the bleachers. Her heart was hammering against her ribs. He Lu was up to something highly unregulated, and her elite investigative instincts—along with a sudden, deeply uncharacteristic throb in her lower Dantian—demanded she find out what it was.
Down in Locker Room Four, the atmosphere was grim.
I sat on the wooden bench, nervously adjusting my clipboard and retractable steel measuring tape. Across from me, Lo Yu was completely unresponsive. He was staring blankly at the stone wall, occasionally letting out a soft, devastating whimper.
"Boss," I whispered, waving a hand in front of his face. "Snap out of it. We have a tournament to rig. Look!"
I pointed to the far end of the bench. The Dao of the End-User manual I had planted in plain sight had been slightly moved. The dust pattern around the scroll was disturbed.
"The bait was taken," I grinned. "Someone scanned the EULA."
Lo Yu didn't blink. "She called me compost, Junior Associate," he whispered hollowly. "I offered her the very essence of my soul, and she treated me like a landscaping supply."
"Competitor 404!" a heavily armored guard barked, kicking the locker room door open. "Quarter-finals! Get in the ring!"
"Stay here, Boss," I sighed, patting his shoulder. "I'll go collect our contingency fee."
I marched out of the tunnel and into the blinding light of the arena. The crowd of eighty-thousand spectators roared.
Standing on the western edge of the obsidian floor was my opponent: "Synergy" Chen. He was a massive, eight-foot-tall gladiator wearing sleek, state-of-the-art silver corporate armor. He was the sponsored champion of Omni-Dao Holdings.
"I am the designated representative of Omni-Dao!" Synergy Chen boomed, his voice magically amplified to reach the stands. "Your loopholes end here, peasant! I have downloaded your proprietary maneuvers from the locker room! I know your every weakness!"
"Begin!" Magistrate Chen shouted from his floating cloud.
Synergy Chen didn't charge. Instead, a smug, arrogant smile crossed his face. He dropped his weapon. He took a deep breath, shifting his massive, armored weight. He began to circulate his Foundation Establishment Qi in a very specific, highly unusual pattern.
"Witness the ultimate technique of your own design!" Synergy Chen roared, his aura flaring into a brilliant silver light. "I execute the Dao of the End-User!"
I didn't move. I just pulled out my legal pad and readied my charcoal pencil.
"Step One!" Synergy Chen bellowed. He stomped his left boot into the obsidian floor, channeling all his Qi into his leg. "I formally acknowledge that I do not own this technique, and I am merely licensing it from the Lo & He Law Firm!"
The crowd went dead silent. Eighty thousand people leaned forward in their seats, utterly baffled.
Up in the VIP box, Omni-Dao's Lead Counsel Sima dropped his wine glass. He gripped the railing, a sudden spike of sheer, corporate terror shooting up his spine.
"Step Two!" Synergy Chen yelled, completely lost in the automated flow of the stolen martial art. He twisted his torso violently. "Upon the rotation of the hips, the User formally waives all rights to a class-action lawsuit and agrees to binding arbitration!"
"Stop!" Sima shrieked from the stands. "Break the stance! He didn't read the Terms and Conditions! It's a trap!"
But it was too late. The Qi circulation of the manual was absolute. Synergy Chen's eyes went wide as his body was forced into the final, unalterable stage of the technique.
"Step Three!" Synergy Chen screamed, his voice cracking with sudden, horrifying realization. "To confirm acceptance of the Terms and Conditions... I ACCEPT FULL LIABILITY!"
CRACK.
CRACK.
With two sickening, back-to-back snaps that echoed through the entire stadium, the immense, mathematically flawed torque of the Dao of the End-User ripped through Synergy Chen's legs. Both of his kneecaps violently dislocated simultaneously.
The massive corporate gladiator let out a blood-curdling shriek. He collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut, hitting the jade floor face-first. He curled into a tight, whimpering fetal position, clutching his shattered joints.
"My... my quarterly projections!" Synergy Chen sobbed into the floorboards.
I casually strolled over to his groaning body, checking off a box on my clipboard.
"Contract executed flawlessly," I declared loudly. I looked up at Magistrate Chen on his floating cloud. "Sir! The opponent has legally absolved me of all damages and crippled himself to signify acceptance of our Terms of Service! I claim victory!"
Magistrate Chen stared at the sobbing gladiator. He stared at me. He looked over at Lead Counsel Sima, who was currently tearing his own hair out in the VIP box.
"Ring out," Magistrate Chen muttered into the dead silence. "Winner... He Lu."
In the VIP box, Sima collapsed into his chair. He pulled out a glowing jade tablet and watched in absolute horror as Omni-Dao's stock prices literally plummeted on the magical ticker. He had just lost a million-stone cyborg gladiator to a mandatory arbitration clause.
High above the arena, in the gold-trimmed Imperial Box, the Dowager Empress watched the entire exchange.
"Brilliant," the Empress whispered, her vintage-smoky voice trembling. "He weaponized the paperwork. Send the Eunuchs. Bring him back to my chambers immediately. His leaky bucket requires urgent maintenance."
Ten minutes later, I was trudging down the opulent, silk-lined hallways of the Imperial Palace. My knees were shaking.
The two massive Imperial Eunuchs flanking me had practically dragged me out of the competitor's tunnel before I could even celebrate my victory. The Empress wanted round two, and my Cowper's Meridian was completely empty. I was walking into a dual-cultivation slaughterhouse.
But I wasn't the only one in the hallway.
High above my head, clinging silently to the ornate, shadow-draped ceiling beams, was Senior Sister Ho Li-Fan.
She had invoked the Dao of Absolute Zero Thermal Camouflage, masking her Qi signature perfectly. She crawled along the rafters like a sleek, icy predator, tracking my every move.
This is strictly a Law Enforcement operation, Ho Li-Fan told herself, her heart hammering against her ribs as she watched the Eunuchs push me toward the Empress's private bedchamber. I must observe his illegal Dantian enhancements. I am gathering evidence.
It was a lie, and she knew it.
The heavy, gilded doors of the Empress's chambers swung open. The Eunuchs shoved me inside and slammed the doors shut, locking them from the outside.
Ho Li-Fan didn't hesitate. She silently slipped through a ventilation grate near the ceiling, dropping onto a wide, wooden rafter directly above the Empress's massive, circular bed.
She peered over the edge.
Down below, the Dowager Empress was already stripping off her crimson silk robes. She looked at He Lu with a filthy, ravenous smile, gesturing toward the edge of the mattress.
"Sit, little lawyer," the Empress commanded, dropping to her knees.
Up in the rafters, Ho Li-Fan clamped a hand over her own mouth to stifle a gasp. Her icy composure shattered instantly. The ambient heat of the room—and the sheer, unadulterated degeneracy unfolding below—washed over her.
Her thighs clenched together. Without thinking, her free hand slowly drifted down toward the hem of her own pristine blue uniform.
The Ice Beauty was officially compromised.