A perfectly rational plan formed in Su Yao’s mind. Then she discarded it in favor of something far more entertaining. Su Yao looked at Zhang Wei. Her eyes sparkled with mischievous glee. She clasped her hands together under her chin.
“I love you!” she declared. Her voice rang across the barren plain. “Marry me!”
Zhang Wei stared. His mind, still reeling from the Yamato revelation and their brutal fight, completely short-circuited. The data slate in his hand nearly slipped from his grasp. “What? Why?!”
“Because you are actually quite strong when you aren’t holding back!” she gushed, letting out a light, musical giggle that was utterly at odds with the surrounding desolation. “That final thrust! The way you moved against the Yamato agent! It was, worthy of a consort!”
Zhang Wei’s face showed pure confusion. “Are you serious?”
Su Yao’s giggling stopped instantly. Her expression smoothed into one of utter, bored disdain. “Of course not,” she stated.
Her voice was flat once more. “The concept of marriage is a worthless mortal construct. A transactional farce for consolidating power or bloodlines. I have no need for either. It holds less value to me than the dirt beneath my feet.”
She turned away from him. Her gaze was already looking past the horizon, toward the city and the secrets it held. “The Yamato faction is using the orphanage. That is a tangible thread. An interesting one. Your government’s files are now my files. We have work to do. Take me to your headquarters. Now.”
Zhang Wei blinked. The data slate was still glowing in his hand. “My headquarters? The central bureau?”
“Obviously. You said if I work with you, I would be one of you. I am now a consultant. I require a proper introduction to my new colleagues.” She offered a smile that was all sharp edges. “And I wish to see the looks on their faces.”
“That’s not how it works!” Zhang Wei protested. A familiar exasperation crept into his voice. “There are protocols! Security clearances! I can't just teleport a—”
“A Nine-Tailed Heavenly Fox into the heart of your most secret intelligence agency?” she finished for him. Her eyebrow was raised. “Why not? It would be the ultimate security test. If your defenses can handle me, they can handle anything.”
“That is the most reckless logic I have ever heard!”
“You have two choices. You can take me there willingly, and I will enter as your new consultant. Or I can find it myself, and I will enter as an intruder. The latter option will involve significantly more property damage and psychological trauma for your colleagues. Your choice.”
Zhang Wei stared at her, knowing with absolute certainty that she was not bluffing. He saw the eager glint in her eyes, hoping he would pick the second option.
He let out a long, defeated sigh. The weight of his career, his oath, and common sense crumbled under the sheer, immovable force of her will. “Fine. But you will let me do the talking first.”
Su Yao’s smile widened. “I make no promises. Now, stop stalling. I have been waiting millennia to see the inside of a mortal spy agency. The bureaucracy must be fascinating.”
She stepped closer to him, ignoring his personal space. “Well? What are you waiting for? Initiate the teleportation sequence or whatever crude mechanism you use.”
Defeated, Zhang Wei input a complex code into his data slate. A shimmering, official-looking portal of blue light erupted before them, a stark contrast to Su Yao’s effortless, silent teleportation.
“After you,” he said. His voice was heavy with the certainty he was making a catastrophic mistake.
Su Yao stepped through the portal without a moment’s hesitation. Her voice drifted back to him. “Try to keep up, partner.”
Zhang Wei took a deep breath and followed. The portal snapped shut behind them, leaving the barren plain silent once more.
They stood in a stark, white antechamber after the teleportation ended. A retinal scanner glowed beside a reinforced titanium door, its status light shifting from red to amber as it began an automated scan.
Before Zhang Wei could even speak, Su Yao’s entire demeanor shifted. The ancient, predatory stillness vanished. She slumped her shoulders, let her jaw go slightly slack, and her eyes widened with a performative, empty-headed wonder.
Her hand closed around his arm, fingers digging in with a possessiveness that felt anything but gentle.
“Wooow, Zhang Wei! This is so cool!” she chirped. Her voice was a high-pitched, giggly tone that made his skin crawl. “Your super-secret base! It’s just like in the movies!”
The titanium door hissed open. A severe-looking woman in a sharp suit, holding a tablet, stood there. Her eyes snapped from Zhang Wei’s tense face to the girl hanging off his arm.
“Agent Zhang. You are unscheduled. And you've brought a, guest.” Her voice was colder than the room.
“This is—” Zhang Wei began.
“I'm his girlfriend! Xiao Ling!” Su Yao announced, bouncing on the balls of her feet.
She hugged his arm tighter, pressing her cheek against his shoulder. “He finally brought me to see where he works! It’s so mysterious and important! I'm just a normal high school student, you know? This is all so, so amazing!”
The woman’s eyebrow twitched. She looked at Zhang Wei. Her expression demanded an explanation.
“Consultant,” Zhang Wei forced out. The word felt like ash in his mouth. “She’s a spiritual consultant with high clearance.”
A low-ranking analyst walking past did a double-take, staring at the infamous Agent Zhang being dragged around by a giggling schoolgirl.
Su Yao waved at him. “Hi! Your tie is nice!”
The analyst hurried away, confused.
They moved into the main operations room, a vast space of holographic displays and low lighting. Dozens of agents were at their stations. The murmur of conversation died as heads turned.
Su Yao played her part perfectly. She pointed at a large map displaying spiritual energy hotspots. “Ooooh, pretty lights! Is that a game?”
An older agent, a man with a face full of scars who had seen the classified briefings on the “Calamity Fox” contingency, froze mid-sip of his coffee. In that instant he recognized the ancient, amused hellfire burning in the eyes of the girl pretending to be vapid. His coffee cup slipped from his fingers, shattering on the floor.
She let out a light, airy giggle. “Oops! Clumsy!”
The scarred agent just stared, pale as a ghost.
Zhang Wei tried to steer her towards a conference room. “Director Hao is waiting.”
“Ooh, the boss! I can't wait to meet him!” Su Yao chirped.
They entered the conference room. Director Hao, a man built like a retired boxer, looked up from his documents. His eyes, sharp and intelligent, took in the scene in a nanosecond: Zhang Wei’s pained expression, and the girl acting like she'd just won a backstage pass to a pop concert.
“Director,” Zhang Wei began. “This is—”
“Xiao Ling!” Su Yao interrupted, releasing Zhang Wei’s arm to skip over to the director’s desk. She leaned over it, peering at his papers. “You must be Director Hao! Zhang Wei talks about you all the time! He says you're super strict but really smart!”
Director Hao stood firm. His gaze was fixed directly on Su Yao. He saw past the performance. Past the millennia of calculated amusement there, knowing exactly who and what she was.
“Why,” he asked. His voice was dangerously calm. “is the Nine-Tailed Heavenly Fox pretending to be an infatuated child in my operations center?”
Su Yao’s smile vanished. The empty-headed light in her eyes extinguished, replaced by a flat, ancient boredom. She straightened up. The playful slouch was gone.
“Because it’s funny,” she said. Her voice was now its normal, cool timbre. “The looks on their faces are priceless.” She glanced at Zhang Wei. “And it makes him uncomfortable, a bonus.”
She pulled out a chair and sat down, crossing her legs with an elegant, commanding grace that the schoolgirl persona could never mimic.
“Now that the introductions are over,” Su Yao said, all pretense gone. “Let’s talk about the Yamato faction infiltrating your orphanage farm. I believe I have a consultancy fee to discuss.”
Su Yao leaned back in her chair. Her gaze, now sharp and cold, fixed on Director Hao.
“This Yamato faction,” she began. Her voice was deceptively quiet. “The name sounds Japanese. Are they? Are these foreign cultivators causing trouble on our soil?”
Director Hao exchanged a wary glance with Zhang Wei before nodding slowly. “Their origins trace back to several rogue elements from the Japanese islands, yes. They've been operating covertly here for decades.”
A slow, terrifying smile spread across Su Yao’s face, but it barely reach her eyes. “I see.”
She stood up, placing her palms flat on the conference table. The air in the room grew heavy.
“I will never forgive the Japanese,” she stated. The words were simple, absolute, and laden with the weight of centuries. “It is a grudge from a time you can’t fathom.”
She paused. A look of irritation flashed across her features, as if recalling a particularly annoying pest.
“Centuries ago, there was this male kitsune from their islands. He would not stop bothering me. Sending gifts. Composing terrible poetry. He followed me across three provinces, begging me to marry him and become his ‘empress’ in some damp, insignificant island kingdom.”
Su Yao let out a sound of pure disgust. “Of course, I never agreed. That one was retarded. I told him, clearly, the only way to even approach winning my favor was to get strong and become a power worthy of my attention. What did he do?”
She looked from Director Hao to Zhang Wei. Her expression was one of utter contempt. “Anything but that. He tried political alliances, commissioned paintings, and even attempted to bribe my court musicians. Yet he did everything except the one thing that mattered, cultivating his own strength.”
Her eyes blazed with light. “So you will understand why the very notion of their descendants, these ‘Yamato’ worms, slithering through my land, stealing our children’s potential, is an insult I can’t overlook. It reminds me of that feeble-minded fool and his utter lack of understanding.”
She sat back down. The intensity receded slightly, but the cold promise of violence remained.
“So,” she said. Her voice returned to a businesslike calm. “You will give me all the files you have on them. Every safe house, every agent, every suspected operation. I am going to personally make sure their operations on this continent are, permanently discontinued.”
She looked at Director Hao. Her gaze left no room for negotiation. “Consider it my first official act as your consultant. And my personal courtesy to the memory of that insufferable, weak-willed fool who could have saved himself a millennium of humiliation if he'd just learned to throw a proper punch.”
“Consider it done,” Director Hao said, tapping a stamped authorization onto the table.
“Good. The Yamato matter is settled,” Su Yao declared. She waved a dismissive hand. “Now, for my consultancy contract. The first clause is you will provide me with the best liquor in your possession. Immediately.”
Director Hao, a man who had faced down rogue demigods and interdimensional incursions, blinked. “Liquor?”
“Are you deaf? Yes. Liquor. Alcohol. The sacred brew. I have just agreed to clean up your mess with the foreign pests. This constitutes a cause for celebration. A welcoming party.” She looked around the sterile conference room with distaste. “This venue is pathetic, but we shall make do. Well? What are you waiting for? Procure the beverages.”
Zhang Wei looked helplessly at the Director. The Director, after a long, calculating pause, pressed a button on his intercom. “Agent Lin. Bring the ceremonial vintage from the secure vault. The one from the Tian Shan mission.”
Su Yao’s eyes glinted with approval. “A start.”
Within minutes, a nervous agent wheeled in a cart bearing a simple ceramic jar, sealed with wax and layered with faintly glowing containment talismans. Su Yao plucked the jar from the cart, ignoring the talismans that sizzled and died at her touch. She cracked the wax seal with her thumb.
The moment the seal broke, the air in the room filled with the aroma of mountain mist, ancient peach blossoms, and a sharp, clean spiritual potency that made every agent in the room feel suddenly aware of their own mortality.
Su Yao took a long, direct swig from the jar. She lowered it. A genuine, appreciative smile graced her features for the first time since her arrival. “Adequate. A pale echo of my Jade Mountain vintage, but adequate.”
She then held the jar out towards Director Hao. “A toast. To our collaboration.”
Director Hao stared at the jar, then at her.
“To the swift and total eradication of the Yamato faction,” Su Yao continued. Her smile turned sharp. “And to me finally having something moderately palatable to drink in this century.”
She took another long drink, then slammed the jar down on the conference table, making the holographic displays flicker. “The party has begun.”
The effect of the spiritual vintage was immediate and spectacular. A flush crept up Su Yao’s neck. Her regal posture slackened, and she slumped back in the chair, propping her boots up on Director Hao’s pristine conference table.
“Hic! You know,” she announced to the room at large. Her words began to slur ever so slightly. “your world is so, loud. And the colors are all wrong.” She pointed a wobbly finger at a blinking hologram. “That one’s especially rude, staring at me.”
Director Hao looked like he was witnessing a natural disaster in slow motion. Zhang Wei had his face in his hands.
“Agent Zhang!” Su Yao bellowed, sloshing more of the priceless vintage onto the floor. It steamed where it landed. “My beloved! Get over here!”
Zhang Wei approached with the caution of a man walking through a minefield. “Xiao Ling, perhaps you've had enough…”
“Enough? I haven't started!” She grabbed his tie and yanked him down to her eye level. Her breath, smelling of immortal peaches, washed over his face. “You're not so bad for a government-trained puppy. You actually listened when I said to get strong.” She patted his cheek, a little too hard. “Good puppy.”
Su Yao released him and stood up, wobbling. “I'm bored of this room. Let’s go liberate the rest of your alcohol.”
She stumbled towards the door, clutching the jar in one hand. The agents in the operations center watched in frozen horror as the legendary Calamity Fox, giggling drunkenly, weaved between their workstations.
“Ooh, what does this button do?” she asked, jabbing a random key on a console.
Alarms blared through the facility. A synthesized voice announced, “Containment Sector Gamma breach detected.”
Su Yao pouted. “Boring.” She jabbed another button. The alarms cut off. “There. Fixed it.”
She turned to the room, raising her jar. “A toast! To me! For being so, so, hic, magnificently me!”
The rest of the jar vanished in a single swallow, then shattered across the polished floor. Then her eyes landed on Zhang Wei again. She staggered over to him and looped an arm around his neck. Her weight almost pulled them both over.
“You,” she whispered loudly. Her eyes were glazed but intense. “You really like me. Don't you?”
Zhang Wei, supporting her weight, his face crimson, could only stammer.
Su Yao’s giggle was a low, warm rumble. “That’s good. Because I've decided I like having you around. You're my favorite human-shaped tool.” She poked his chest. “So you're not allowed to die. Or get boring. Understood?”
Before he could answer, her eyes fluttered shut. The immense spiritual power she'd been carelessly radiating snapped back into her. Her body went limp, a dead weight in his arms. A soft snore escaped her lips.
The operations center was utterly silent, save for the soft sound of Su Yao’s drunken sleep.
Director Hao finally broke the silence, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Get her a room. And someone, get a mop.”
The silence in the operations center was thick enough to chew on. Zhang Wei stood frozen, holding the slumbering form of the most dangerous being on the planet.
Director Hao’s order to get a room broke the spell. Just as two junior agents moved to help Zhang Wei, Su Yao’s eyes snapped open.
“I’m awake!” she declared. Her voice was still slurry. She pushed herself out of Zhang Wei’s arms, landing on her feet with a wobble. “I require hydration. And to find where you hide the rest of the good stuff.”
She stumbled past the agents, ignoring their hesitant offers of assistance, and barged out into the hallway. Zhang Wei and Director Hao exchanged a look of pure dread and hurried after her.
Su Yao moved down the sterile corridor. One hand trailed along the wall for support. She paused, squinting at a water fountain. “Is this your hydration? It looks municipal.” She dismissed it with a wave and continued her unsteady journey.
A man in a janitor’s uniform was meticulously mopping the already-gleaming floor. His head was down. As Su Yao passed him, she stopped dead.
She leaned in, her nose almost touching his shoulder. And took a deep, theatrical sniff.
“Hic! You,” she slurred, poking him in the back with a sharp finger.
The janitor froze. His grip tightened on the mop handle. “Can I help you, miss?” he asked. His voice was a perfect, neutral monotone.
“You smell wrong,” Su Yao announced to the hallway at large. She turned to Zhang Wei and Director Hao, who had just caught up. “This one. He smells like stale sea wind and cheap sushi.”
The janitor’s posture remained ramrod straight. “I had fish for lunch, miss. From the cafeteria.”
“Liar!” Su Yao giggled, swaying. “Your soul smells of pickled plums. It’s a very distinct regional blend.”
She leaned closer to Director Hao, speaking in a loud, conspiratorial whisper that echoed down the hall. “He’s one of them. The Yamato boys. The ones I’m not supposed to like. He’s been listening to all your boring secrets.”
The janitor’s composure shattered. His hand flew to his ear, and he spat a single, guttural word in Japanese. A small, translucent data chip in his hand flashed and began to smoke.
But Su Yao was faster. Drunk or not, her reflexes were divine. She snatched the smoldering chip from his fingers. The corrosive self-destruct agent sizzled harmlessly against her skin.
“Rude,” she chided, holding up the intact chip. “Trying to destroy party favors.”
A razor-sharp ceramic shard slid from his sleeve into his palm and he lunged.
Zhang Wei’s foot swept his legs out from under him. Before the man could hit the ground, Zhang Wei had his arm twisted behind his back and a knee planted firmly between his shoulder blades, securing him with brutal efficiency.
Su Yao watched, blinking slowly. She tossed the data chip to Director Hao, who caught it with stunned hands.
“See?” she said. A triumphant, loopy grin was on her face. “I’m a good consultant. I find your bugs for you.” She yawned massively. The adrenaline was apparently spent. “Now, I’m tired again. The room. Where is it?”
She stumbled past them, leaving the captured spy, the stunned director, and a very stressed Zhang Wei in her wake. As she turned the corner, they heard her mutter, “Stupid Yamato. Can’t even clean a floor right…” before the sound of her footsteps faded.
Director Hao looked down at the data chip in his hand, then at the subdued spy, and finally at Zhang Wei.
“Get her that room,” he repeated. His voice was hoarse. “And then, I need a very, very strong drink.”