?

  I didn't think Ji-Ho would be very good company today, and Diaochan informed me she still had permission from earlier that day to keep track of Ha-Rin’s vital signs. Once I'd had her explain what vital signs were, I ordered her to inform me if the girl died, or woke up before retreating into the workshop to find something heavy I could use for weight training.

  Afterwards, I raided the kitchen for something I could eat with minimal preparation. The devices and foods here made little sense to me, and honestly, I considered cooking women’s work anyway. So I eventually found a pre-sliced loaf of bread, and a little tub made of the strange material Diaochan had informed me was called plastic. The tub was full of butter I could use for dipping, so I took it and the bread into the room with the false sky and settled on the couch there.

  “Diaochan,” I demanded. “It is time I learned more of this ridiculous city of yours. Get out here and show me those little information windows that demonstrate things.”

  Half a dozen shi later, or as my HUD said about three hours later, I had learned a lot about the world around me, but had gotten bored and was only half listening as I napped on the couch. Diaochan had given up on trying to actively teach me and was now simply cycling through all sorts of things that were being ‘streamed to the citynet’ this was a concept I didn’t understand the workings of, but in a practical sense I now knew it was a constant flow of information and entertainment that was magically sent out into the air, and could be accessed by anyone with a HUD.

  “To betray me.”

  I sat bolt upright, not even the slightest remnant of sleep clinging to me,my heart pounded, and my blood froze in my veins.

  “What was that?” I demanded of Diaochan as I looked at the window in my HUD displaying the ‘stream.’ All I could see was a group of people on bikes like those of the men I had fought outside racing around a course that was obviously intended for the purpose.

  “What was what?” asked the voice of my A.I.

  “The stream.” I hissed. “ Make the stream go back to what it was on before.”

  “Before when? I need a little bit more inf-”

  “Do it now!”

  The racers all froze in place and then began to move in reverse. I knew from our previous conversations that this wasn’t a true time reversal technique. Such a feat would be impossible over any kind of distance, for even the greatest of masters, and an ephemeral weakling like the false Diaochan couldn’t even consider attempting it.

  This was something far simpler; the so-called streams were illusory copies of something happening far away. As they were merely illusions, Dioachan could manipulate them seemingly at will.

  “Not this. Something before this. A man speaking about treachery.”

  “Ummmm.” The A.I. Diaochan voice when she made the unsure noise was so like the real thing for a moment, I could imagine her in front of me with a finger pushed to her lips, with her eyes narrowed in thought.

  “Treachery? Ahh, here we are, the CEO of WeiTech Dynamics was just interviewed about the dismissal of his board of directors.”

  “That,” I grunted. “ Show me that.”

  The little window in my HUD shifted to an event that had apparently taken place around midday up on one of the city tiers exposed to the sky. There was a man dressed in white clothes with blue trim striding out of the entrance to one of the enormous metal towers that house everything up on those higher tiers of the city.

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  The man had long black hair that would have run to the small of his back if it wasn’t tied up in an elaborate design, he had the slightest hint of a beard and mustache, though all were immaculately trimmed, and I thought he was probably in his late twenties to mid-thirties.

  Around him floated little flying yaogui-drones of metal and buzzing wings; beyond them were a group of a dozen or so people who were shouting, questioning, and otherwise trying to get the man’s attention. I had eyes for none of it; instead, I was watching the man’s stride like I was transfixed.

  ‘Impossible.’ I thought, but it was a lazy attempt at self-deception. I knew what I was looking at, I knew who I was looking at. Not to mention, I recognized that jovial almost prancing stride. No one walks like that, no one but…The scene in the window shifted, and the white and blue-dressed man was answering questions put to him by a female interviewer.

  They didn’t seem like very difficult questions, and the woman kept getting flustered or distracted by the man’s flirtatious answers. I wasn’t really paying attention to what was being said so much as how the man spoke, his body language, his tone, and the features of his face.

  They were not the features of the man I thought I had heard; his voice was all wrong too, the clothes and hairstyle didn’t fit with the figure from my past, and I began to admonish myself for paranoia. My own half-asleep at the time senses had clearly deceived me.. Even his exaggerated walk must have been the result of my seeing what I expected to see. At least that is what I told myself as I let the interview play out.

  It was nothing; I had been half asleep, his voice didn’t even sound the same. He didn’t look the same either! The man talking about business, supply lines, and other boring nonsense simply could not be who I had thought.

  Huge block formations of equally sized disappointment and relief went to war inside me. It was probably for the best that I had been wrong, after all, as much as I would love to pursue revenge, I had already concluded such a thing was probably impossible and that I should just move on.

  The fact that the company was called WeiTech Dynamics, and the Wei had been the name of that traitor Cao Cao’s dominion, was obviously just a coincidence that had contributed to my confusion. I was about to have Diaochan get rid of the window in my HUD or to display something more interesting, like those bike races I had seen a few moments of, when the man who was being interviewed tilted his head slightly, and I got a sight of his eyes from a different angle.

  I knew then that I hadn’t been confused by the company name and hadn't deceived myself in my half-asleep state. He might look and sound different, might dress himself in the finery of this new world, and make jokes that had his interviewer utterly charmed. He could never hide the coldness in those eyes.

  Colder than the peak of a mountain in midwinter. Colder than the darkest depths of the ocean. So cold that no amount of laughter or charm could hide the absolute void of conscience that was this man, that was Cao Cao. That icy gaze embedded in a mask of amused self-assurance had been the last thing I saw as I was killed in my past life; even if Mount Tai were to crumble before me, I would never forget it.

  The pale-haired woman asking him questions across a small table seemingly took a moment to master herself.

  “Alright.” She said slowly. “As much as I wish we could just keep chatting, my producer is insisting we discuss the dismissal of your company’s board of directors.”

  The dead-eyed monster masquerading as a person let out an exaggerated “ugh” sound. “ Do we really have to talk about such boring mundanities?” he replied while slipping an apple out of his pocket. Rather than bite into the fruit, he produced a small energy-bladed knife and began to focus on peeling it.

  “I am afraid we do.” She said apologetically. For my part, I simply sat dumbstruck, more and more certain with each passing beat of my hammering heart that this man was Cao Cao, was the most dangerous, treacherous, and ambitious man I or anyone else had ever known.

  “Especially as the methods that were used to oust them are considered a rather nasty legal loophole that lawyers are desperately rushing to close as we speak.” Cao Cao continued to focus on peeling his fruit as he responded.

  “They are not closed, however, so why is it even a question? Everything I did was perfectly legal.”

  The pale-skinned and pale-haired woman asking the questions seemed to have gained a little confidence now and pushed on.

  “Legal or not, some of those board members have been with you since before WeiTech was even founded, men and women who worked for years to make you one of the richest men in all of Abeyance City. Many critics are saying what you did was tantamount to treachery against your own company. How could you treat them this way?”

  Tossing the apple skin to the ground with no concern for propriety or even keeping wherever he was clean, Cao Cao took a bite of the peeled fruit and rudely replied in a casually dismissive tone mid-chew.

  “I’d rather betray the board than allow the board to betray me.”

  The last lingering doubts I felt about this man being Cao Cao or not fled like dust before a windstorm.

  Yikes you guys have almost unlocked 2 bonus chapters at once!