Chapter 817: …[Mysterious] Mothers
*Bing-Bong.*
…
|What?|
…
|What?!|
There was no way in hell that was the original title for this chapter. I know you, you like alliteration and crude jokes.
|Yeah, and?|
The original title was something you could confuse with erotica, wasn’t it?
|I can neither confirm nor deny that statement.|
Right…
*Bing-Bong!*
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“No, seriously,” Jinju Ren reiterated. “How can you access the Library of Nowhere? I thought darling was the only one with a key to the place.”
“Wait,” Rianna interjected, “when did you start calling Zhen Liu, darling?”
“Immediately after I learned what that word meant in Tide Tongue.”
“Ah…”
When Zhen Liu and his cousins were all sucked away into the damaged spatial doorway, their sudden absence didn’t go entirely unnoticed. However, only certain people knew what had actually gone down or at least had an idea as to what had happened to the young scions.
In fact, one of the first people to act upon this information was none other than Zhen Liu’s own mother, Daria Nerisa-Zhen. The reason why she was able to act so quickly was due to her cat Spectra reporting the incident to her before anyone else could be informed.
With this information in this hand, Daria proceeded to gather up the people who would most likely know about Zhen Liu’s secrets, aka his romantic partners, Jin Fang, Jinju Ren and Rianna, and drag them off to wherever his current location was most likely be. That and she made sure to get the assistance of Tiny and Mini, since they were technically with Zhen Liu since his disappearance and subsequent reappearance.
“Well, I don’t exactly have a key per say,” Daria replied without missing a beat, “but I do know how to access the Library…hypothetically.”
“Hypothetically?”
“I was taught how to do so by an old friend from a long time ago. Long before I gave birth to the twins and Xiao Liu, and even before I met my dear Xiao Yan. He was incredibly vague when it came to the details, but he told me enough times that I managed to pick up some of the finer points after going over my notes,” Daria explained. “One of the things you must learn about me, my dear future daughter-in-laws, is that I know much more about the world than I let on. “Hmm. Maybe I should’ve saved that line for when the Goldshire girl and the Ecaredies girl were present…oh well.”
Having nothing more to say on the matter, Daria proceeded to walk a bit further away from the group of young women and stand a bit closer to the Jade Lake’s waters. Once she had found a suitable spot, Daria suddenly stopped, closed her eyes, folded her hands into a hand-seal and began to mutter some sort of chant.
As she did, the aether around her began to visibly wobble and distort…but not in the same manner as an aether art.
“Huh…I’m starting to get where Zhen Liu inherited his flair for the dramatics…,” Jinju Ren commented.
“And his perchance for being…what’s the phrase? Enigmatic as all hell?,” Rianna added.
“Yeah, that.”
“Both of you, hush!,” Jin Fang lightly admonished. “Lady Daria is trying to concentrate.”
“On what?”
“I’m…not sure exactly.”
“Hmmm.”
“Well if we can’t distract her…do you mind telling us exactly how mother-in-law met father-in-law?,” Rianna whispered towards Jin Fang. “I’ve been here for months now and yet I still can’t exactly comprehend how they met, let alone hooked up. I know that’s rich coming from me, but still.”
“Well…”
To most people, i.e., the general public, Daria was simply a strong-headed Stampeding Bison woman who had managed to tame the once wily Zhen Yan into being her devoted husband. She may have also had a perchance for dark humor, and knew way too many torture techniques,but that was about it.
However, to the members of the inner circle of the Zhen Clan, Daria was a bit more than the wife of the Seventh Elder of the Zhen Clan, she was also what the elders unofficially titled as a…underworld specialist.
For reasons beyond their understanding, and even Zhen Yan’s understanding, Daria was the go-to woman when it came to manipulating crime scenes or handling goods that could only be acquired through black market channels.
Nobody knew why this was the case exactly, but there were some rumors floating about that the reason why she knew what she knew was related to how she and Zhen Yan met…and they weren’t exactly wrong.
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When Zhen Yan was young, he was a good person and a great warrior with one massive weakness: women.
That isn’t to say he was afraid of women, allergic to women or was rendered an inoperable mess around them, it would be more accurate to say that he just couldn’t keep his hands off of them and vice versa.
Thanks to a combination of his rugged looks and gentlemanly demeanor, Zhen Yan had an innate charisma to him that women seemed to find irresistible.
In fact, it was a running joke amongst his siblings at the time that he could find a bed in any city on any continent, but there was a very high possibility that that bed would belong to somebody else’s wife and/or maiden daughter.
And in some very rare cases, both.
…
“Pfft!”
“Hmmm? Something funny?”
“Nothing, nothing,” Jinju Ren replied. “It’s just that…I’m now fairly certain father-in-law and my own father would actually get along swimmingly if they had met in their respective wilder years…actually, has father-in-law been to Roaring Tide prior to now?”
“Aside from the amendment trip? I don’t think so.”
“Pity.”
…
It was actually during one of these bouts of debauchery that Zhen Yan met Daria Nerrisa.
Zhen Yan had just finished a lovely night at a brothel in some city in the middle of nowhere, when he came across the most beautiful woman in the world being harassed by a rather nasty group of thugs.
In a sudden display of heroic chivalry, Zhen Yan proceeded to show these ruffians what for and sent them all packing, rescuing the woman in the process.
This woman would turn out to be none other than Daria Nerrisa, his future wife.
A few death defying adventures, a couple of romantic dinners, several moments of flirting while patching up each other wounds and one very awkward fight with someone from Daria’s past later, the two would eventually get married and settle down with the rest of the Zhen Clan in Stone Claw City.
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“Huh…that’s oddly romantic. Also, very much like father like son,” Jinju Ren commented as she recalled how Zhen Liu had apparently met Jin Fang, Alicia, Bellona, Rianna and herself in a similar manner.
There were less deaths involved, but the spirit was the same.
“Would…would this be considered irony or coincidental?,” Rianna asked as she thought more about how she and Zhen Liu met in a literal death jungle.
“I don’t think either applies.”
“Well yes,” Jin Fang replied to Jinju Ren while ignoring Rianna’s side commentary. “but that’s because that’s the version most people outside of the family know,” Jin Fang explained. “Lady Daria apparently had to edit some details though…for some reason.”
“There’s another version?”
“What happens in that version?”
“Well-hold up…why am I sensing the circulation of [Chaos]?”
“What are you-wait…I’m sensing it too, why?”
“Uh, girls? Why is Zhen Liu’s mother glowing like that?”
“Oh my gods…”
While Jin Fang and the girls were discussing about the history of the relationship between Zhen Liu’s parents, the aforementioned mother of the group had been busy chanting something all this time.
It was only now though that the girls realized why she was chanting in the first place.
She was getting into the right mindset to perform a [Chaos] art.
“Did…did you know that she could use [Chaos] too?,” Jinju Ren asked Jin Fang, looking actually flabbergasted for the first time.
“No…this is new to me too,” Jin Fang replied with genuine shock.
Evidently, despite being Lady Daria’s direct disciple in a lot of clandestine manners, not even Jin Fang knew all of her adoptive mother’s secrets.
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A list of things that were edited out of Daria’s past, including the things that Jin Fang didn’t know about.
1. The people harassing her at the time weren’t average thugs, rather they were knightly enforcers for a very old sect that had once been rather powerful but had been declining over the centuries. Still had enough money and prestige to be a nuisance though.
2. It wasn’t actually by accident that Daria ran into Zhen Yan that fateful evening, it was partially by design as she had known about him for quite some time and had actually fallen for the fellow prior to that meeting.
3. While Daria is her real first name, she lied about her last name being Nerrisa.
4. The person connected to Daria’s past wasn’t exactly human…or a Bloodliner…or even an aetherii. If anything…they were more closely related to someone like Amazona, Frosttusk and Kit.
5…To be continued.
CREATORS’ THOUGHTS
Mizako
Heads up to my loyal readers, I’m gonna be trying to participate in the 2024 WSA contest with a new book.
It’s not gonna take place in the same setting as this one…maybe…but there will be similar themes.
I will still be updating Kaijin Fighter to the best of my ability, and ADHD, but keep in mind that if I ain’t updating this one, it’s probably because I’m updating the other one.
Keep an eye out in the near future for something…bueno.
