Joyce poured Xiang Yu one last cup, cheerfully clinking glasses with the woman. Xiang Yu had a ridiculously high alcohol tolerance, and Joyce was suddenly grateful for her parents feeding her vodka drops from when she was three months old.
"In either case, I've caused trouble for you, so stay with us until the negotiations have concluded. If we agree to take on the Northern Expedition, your Association can't do shit. They'll have to praise you and give you a badge, probably," Joyce said, patting Xiang Yu's shoulder. The older woman shook her head with a booming laugh.
"Not at all! The look on their faces was worth it!" Xiang Yu laughed. Joyce liked the woman better when she wasn't being polite. It felt like drinking with a biker gang leader with an unexpectedly complicated backstory.
"All in all, I'll introduce all my contacts in the region to you," Xiang Yu promised. "I won't make you regret helping me."
Joyce grinned happily. Other than getting Xiang Yu's support as an official representative, this had been what she wanted the most. But honestly, she was accepting more help than she was giving.
"Thanks, that'd be awesome! I'll pay you back somehow," Joyce promised, with no idea how she would do that. Xiang Yu vehemently shook her head.
"No, my honor dictates that I support those who do what's right, instead of what's best for them. And I believe you're doing that," Xiang Yu said, suddenly serious again.
Joyce couldn't believe she was actually hearing someone invoke honor. It would have been pretty damn cool if Xiang Yu wasn't drunkenly slurring her words together.
"I'm grateful," Joyce said sincerely. She politely kept her comments on Xiang Yu's intoxication to herself.
"Anyways, it's been a tiring few days, and I've poured you too much alcohol today. I'll have someone escort you to rest," Joyce offered.
Xiang Yu accepted and was escorted away by her driver. Xiang Yu probably didn't know, but Joyce had put wards in the woman's residence just as a precaution.
It really was a huge violation of privacy, like CIA-levels. Joyce winced a little. She didn't even have an excuse like the War on Terror or something to justify it, but it would be worse if Xiang Yu mysteriously died in her sleep instead.
Kiyoko tapped on her shoulder.
"I'll escort you back, Chairman," Kiyoko offered.
Joyce nodded, standing up and stretching her limbs. The night air was refreshingly cool as she walked into the street. She just wanted to rant to Spade and go the fuck to sleep at this point.
"Chairman," Kiyoko began, abruptly stopping as Joyce let out an uncharacteristic harsh sigh. Joyce turned to look at Kiyoko, who was watching her uneasily. She let out a second sigh.
"Speak up," Joyce urged gently, "Show me what democracy looks like." Kiyoko ignored the second part of her statement, having grown immune to the more ridiculous things Joyce said.
"Is Chairman really going to avoid those methods?" Kiyoko asked calmly.
Joyce sighed as she kept walking. It had come up a few more times over the last four days, whether Joyce really wasn't going to use the usual under-the-table methods, and whether Joyce really was the Sixth Apostle. The official answers for both were yes.
"Kiyoko, could you please save difficult questions for the morning?" Joyce groaned. It was too late for this.
"Chairman, you said to save difficult questions for later in the day because mornings are too early," Kiyoko replied smoothly. Joyce thought back to what she'd said the day before.
Damn it.
"Kiyoko, are you mad because you haven't gotten overtime yet? I promise you're getting it with next week's paycheck in full, Kajio's got the database ready now," Joyce offered, hoping to worm out of the conversation.
"I – no, of course not, I have faith in the Operational Director," Kiyoko sounded offended.
The girl certainly didn't seem to have the same faith in Joyce, probably for good reason. Joyce shrugged. The meetings had been pretty chaotic, even with Kajio carefully feeding her the plan one step at a time. Even if Joyce's control was getting better, she was still far from being reliable.
Joyce kept silent, hoping that she'd distracted Kiyoko enough. There were only two blocks left anyway.
"Was my question rude, Chairman?" Kiyoko pressed. Looks like Plan: Distraction failed.
"No, it's just a little tiring to answer," Joyce sighed.
"I thought the answer was yes," Kiyoko insisted. "Seems straightforward enough."
Wow. Kiyoko might just be more difficult to bring onboard than Kajio, for a bodyguard that had yet to fight even once.
"The answer is more-or-less yes," Joyce said carefully. "You know alignment charts? At heart I'm a lawful neutral, I'm just a chaotic neutral by circumstance." She ignored Kiyoko's confused look.
"Fine, that was a lie, I've always been hella chaotic. Here's the thing: I'll stick to the Geneva Convention by the word, but if I need to, I'll stick to the morally questionable rather than the unquestionably not-good stuff, if that makes it better," Joyce rambled. She turned towards Kiyoko. "Does that answer your question?"
"What's a Geneva Convention? No, never mind," Kiyoko let out a deep sigh. "I more or less understand your meaning."
"Like, I'm going to be acting like a Congressman rather than mafia or CIA," Joyce supplied unhelpfully.
"I said I understand, please stop confusing me more," Kiyoko sighed. The girl was starting to sound more like Spade and Kajio now. Joyce shrugged.
They stopped in front of Joyce's house, Kiyoko dipping her head in a light bow.
"Have a good night, Chairman," Kiyoko said stoically.
"You too, rest up well," Joyce replied, waving as she headed in.
"Chairman," Kiyoko called out. Joyce turned back, but Kiyoko hesitated without saying anything.
"I'll accept it," Kiyoko finally said, sounding as though she were trying to keep her voice calm.
"Your overtime?" Joyce asked. Did she work Kiyoko too hard recently? Even if it was just following her around, being a bodyguard was probably pretty annoying.
"Your choices," Kiyoko said. "Both of them."
She stepped back and bowed formally. "I apologize if I was rude. Good night, Chairman," Kiyoko said, before turning to leave. Joyce watched her go, still frowning in confusion.
"What are you doing at the door? Come in or stay out, don't let the mosquitos in," Spade called as he walked into the living room. Joyce hurriedly entered.
"What the hell was that?" She muttered to herself. Spade glanced out the window.
"Kiyoko giving you trouble?" Spade asked. Joyce shook her head.
"No, not really. Oh, let me tell you what that fucker from the Shaman Council said – No wait, I want to hear about the guys you're training," Joyce said excitedly.
"Alright, how about you wash up first," Spade objected. Joyce nodded. Whatever the hell that was earlier, she didn't have to worry about it right now.
////////
Pania looked over the documents, frowning in confusion. Was Taeyun really going to agree to this? For some reason, she couldn't access the meeting transcripts, but for Taeyun to give in so soon was strange.
"Is it strange to you?" Taeyun asked. She lifted her head to frown at him.
"Chairman, aren't you giving in too easily? It's only been a week! Not to mention that you've been going in person too," Pania protested. It was too unusual for her to write it off as one of Taeyun's whims.
"Don't worry about it, Pania. I just saw a chance and decided to take it. After all, I couldn't exactly refuse with everything that kid kept piling on," Taeyun said in an amused tone. Pania shook her head in disbelief.
"Just what could you pile on that stopped you? That girl won't really attack us even if we don't agree," Pania said in frustration. After all, Joyce hadn't made a move even after the failed assassination attempt.
"In either case, moving out in three months is too fast," Pania concluded.
"Not at all. We've been preparing for this moment for the last ten years, and the last three years we've completed everything we need to do so we could move out at any time. Why should three months be a problem?" Taeyun said. He gave a calm smile.
"After all, three months is enough to plan around their little designs," he said. "I was the one who pushed for this timeframe."
Pania nodded slowly. If anything, Joyce was good at stirring up a shitstorm without so much as blinking. It only took three days for her to upset the whole city and little over a week to smash through the existing power balance. Waiting three months was the limit.
Not to mention that Joyce was at the biggest disadvantage in moving out so soon. Her organization had only been around properly for a month. The Flying Dragons had grown in size at an incredible pace, but the useable amount of people was only around 2,000. Given that Joyce would have to keep at least a small chunk of shamans here to maintain their Canton base, her forces would be the smallest.
Once they got out of Canton and made it a few provinces up, the forces would likely have to split up as they continued northwards.
Before then, Joyce had an overwhelming advantage with her powers as a spirit-sent. But after that, once the forces were no longer concentrated together, Joyce would lose any advantage and Taeyun would be free to expand as he liked.
It made sense. This was a great chance to expand from Canton and Taeyun wanted to take it. But something still bothered Pania.
"Just ask if something's bothering you," Taeyun prodded. "It's written all over your face."
Pania mulled on it a little but couldn't put it into words. "Not much, just that it might be a little awkward for Luco this time."
Taeyun laughed softly. "At least Spade isn't Luco's father," Taeyun said in a teasing tone.
Pania grinned at the familiar tone. After all, this was the man who'd practically raised her. If she didn't know what was bothering her about him, it probably was nothing.
///////
Selva sighed as he frantically looked over the latest intel. The warlords were up in arms after hearing about the conclusion of the negotiations. To his surprise, a number of them seemed to be panicking a little.
"They're all scared because the Russian and the little bitch are coming back with an army," was apparently the consensus for those guys.
The Russian and the little bitch. Selva shook his head in dismay at the unfortunate moniker. J
ust what the hell had Joyce and Spade done on their way down? Other than the property-destroying, person-stabbing, tank-exploding, warlord-blackmailing parts, had they managed to do anything else outside the norm?
It seemed that revealing Joyce as the Sixth Apostle was enough to scare a lot of the warlords. The ones who had actually met Joyce before were probably shaking in hindsight as they realized how much Joyce had gone easy on them.
Selva wasn't really worried about the warlords. The lot of them had fewer shamans than a college student had cash, between the Shaman Council and Hengshan's shaman forces, the warlords would crumple easily enough.
The problem was Joyce. They'd only keep their advantage if their ranks kept growing and Joyce acted as a one-man army. The first was easy. The latter...
Selva glanced at Kajio with a sigh.
"What?" Kajio asked, not even looking up from his work.
"Joyce," Selva said.
"Ask Spade," Kajio replied. Selva sighed again, but Kajio didn't so much as blink in his direction.
"Can Joyce do it?" Selva asked. Kajio stopped typing for a moment.
"Ask Spade," Kajio said again.
"Dude," Selva said, starting to feel annoyed at Kajio's passiveness. Kajio sighed deeply and looked at Selva.
"I want to hear your opinion, Spade's too much of a doting parent sometimes," Selva said.
"She doesn't have to do it when she has Mohan. She can just scare people a little," Kajio said, running a hand over his ridiculously handsome face.
It sounded like he was about to say something that would have required an orchestral rendition of the main theme had this been a drama, so Selva leaned forward attentively.
"But you know what she's been doing with the evidence from last time, right? Joyce can do it," Kajio added. He propped his chin onto his hand. "Even if it's on a large-scale, I'm sure she will."
Selva winced. On second thought, dramatic foreshadowing music was probably more appropriate.
"Is that really fine?" Selva asked weakly.
Maybe it was hypocritical of him to ignore the teenagers in the other factions, but Joyce was someone he personally knew and was friends with. It was difficult to imagine forcing that girl into a situation where she'd have to do something like Mohan.
"She's pretty on board with it, her life's on the line if she can't complete the edict either way," Kajio sighed deeply. "It bothers me but it can't be helped. This is for the best, for everyone."
"So it's not just me that's bothered," Selva said in relief.
Kajio shrugged uncomfortably. Joyce had rubbed off on Kajio much more than the man had intended, and for all of Kajio's insisting that he was only in it to keep Canton in the clear, it was obvious Kajio worried almost as much as Spade.
"I'm worried about it happening when she's moving separately from Spade," Kajio added. "That's going to be a big problem."
Selva winced. "Why does she only have one contract anyway? Didn't the First Apostle have almost 800 contracts?"
Kajio shook his head. "There's no good solution to that, there simply aren't enough high-level spirits around in the human world, and the Spirit Realm ones won't be able to help her out like Spade does."
The two sat in silence for a while, brooding over something they had no control over. If Joyce failed to complete the edict, the Great Dragon would probably reverse the effects of the healing and Joyce would probably die. If Joyce succeeded at the price of her mental health and ended up being destructive, Mohan would probably kill her. And these were only two of the many scenarios that could screw them over.
"We'll just have to pray," Kajio announced. "Pray and fix temples."
Selva sighed. "Yup, that won't be fun." The two sighed in unison before turning back to their work.
///////
Mohan walked down the familiar streets after getting off the subway. He had exchanged precious training time for the recruited shamans just to walk the streets that Spade had walked.
It didn't surprise him that Spade chose the same neighborhood he had lived in with Lin Bo. Lin Bo had been around Joyce's age back then, but she'd been one hell of a fireball. Everyone else feared the irate swordsman with a higher death count than his peers' combined, but Lin Bo had never so much as flinched before slapping Spade in the face with her shoe.
Mohan shook his head a little. When Spade died, the Flying Dragons lost their last hope. Lin Bo completely ejected herself from the Order and went solo until her death. He wondered if Joyce even knew what happened back then.
But despite the drama and bloodshed, many of the shops and buildings remained. Even if a lot of things had changed over forty years, some things simply didn't. After all, Canton had never seen serious conflict. Even Jia Xu's tussle with her Uncle was mostly resolved remotely.
Mohan entered a small fruit store, looking at the newly delivered lychee.
"Sister, how do you sell these?" Mohan asked, flashing a charming smile at the shopkeeper. She glared at him with open animosity.
"Why are you here?" The old lady looked as though she was speaking to a cockroach.
"Do you act like that to Spade too?" Mohan asked gently. The shopkeeper scowled.
"I wouldn't. He's not the one in the wrong," she snarled. Mohan chuckled lightly.
"You even kept his secret for him," Mohan said lightly. "You must really care about that boy."
The shopkeeper shook her head slowly. "You ran away and let all this happen. How could I turn my back on him too?"
Mohan let out a short sigh. "Alright, let's move on and talk about the present instead," he said.
"It's certainly convenient for you to turn your back on the past," the shopkeeper said bitterly.
"That girl you've grown fond of," Mohan said, keeping his voice casual, "She's leading us on the Northern Expedition."
He met the shopkeeper's outraged gaze.
"Are you still going to harp on about the past knowing that? Ms. Choo, that's really unlike you."
Ms. Choo let out a harsh sigh. "You cunning old bastard, how could you push that girl into the fire like this? Did you already forget about what happened with Lin Bo?" She demanded angrily.
"Joyce was the one who asked me to join her for this purpose," Mohan replied calmly. "She planned to do this from the second she got caught between the Shaman Council and Hengshan."
Ms. Choo looked away from him as though she could no longer bear to look at something disgusting.
"I could hardly speak to them as a former member," Ms. Choo grumbled. "I'm retired. You know I'm retired."
It was regrettable, but Ms. Choo definitely couldn't be coaxed back out of retirement after what happened with Spade and Lin Bo. It was a pity. Ms. Choo had been one of the best informants.
"Joyce needs more support," Mohan said. "She's a teenager storming into a war. I would have made her wait longer, but the circumstances put her in more danger the longer we wait. After all, the flow is about to grow stronger again, if she's still in Canton when that happens we won't be able to wrap things up. We've only been lucky until now."
Ms. Choo shook her head slowly. "I won't come out of retirement. Even though I really like Joyce and Spade, I swore I would never act as a member again. But I will help them. I like earnest kids who work hard. I could hardly send her off without a proper good-luck charm."
Mohan's eyes narrowed as he looked at Ms. Choo's harmless appearance.
"What kind of good-luck charm?" He asked. He didn't bother hiding the energy radiating off Ling Guang. Ms. Choo shot him an unimpressed look.
"A good-luck charm worth more than the Shaman Council and Hengshan's forces combined," Ms. Choo said flatly. "I won't say any more than this."
Mohan didn't bother hiding his excited smile either. It didn't make sense to. After all these years, the descendant of the Tiger Gods Division Commander was taking out her family heirloom.
"It's been a long time since the Tiger Gods have disappeared," Mohan said slowly, "But I'm sure people will remember just fine if you give them a little reminder."
Ms. Choo only shook her head. "This is just for the sake of that kid. I couldn't bear it if she got herself killed."
The two traded a long glance before nodding at each other. Mohan left the shop, step visibly lighter than before. A trip down memory lane was always worth it, he decided. Especially when there was so much treasure to be found.