Fate Entwined, Part Two

"Sorry, our restaurant is closed."

"We're terribly sorry, but we're short on ingredients and can't serve you two."

"Lord Soul Master, all our tables have been reserved. Could I recommend another restaurant?"

Xiao Wu stormed out, slamming the door behind her. Tang San followed, suppressing his anger as he hurried after her. The manager finally relaxed when those two walking disasters left. Heh. I sent them away without offending Passione, and I even saddled a competitor with them. My brilliance is truly beyond compare!

"Xiao Wu, why don't we find a hotel and rest first?" Tang San suggested as he caught up. Something felt wrong. The situation gave him such a strong sense of déjà vu that he almost felt as though he were back in his previous life. Senior disciples of the Tang Sect had mentioned encountering things like this. Offend a local power, and the locals would often shun you to avoid getting involved.

Just what is this Passione? How can it have more influence in a city than the City Lord? Tang San wondered.

"Brother San! This is all your fault. I should never have come to Suotuo City with you. You'd better make it up to me!" Xiao Wu said, planting her hands on her hips.

"Xiao Wu, our priority is finding a hotel where we can rest," Tang San said, trying helplessly to soothe her. Their situation felt dangerous, but with his hidden weapons, even a Soul Ancestor probably wouldn't be his match!

"Brother San, didn't that restaurant give us an address?" Xiao Wu was still upset, but she knew what mattered most. She was like a child giving her mother the silent treatment through tears, only to sneak out for dinner anyway, dignity forgotten. Being angry was one thing; eating and resting mattered more.

"Isn't that an obvious trick to drum up business?" Tang San said with a gentle smile. Still, he decided to take Xiao Wu there. He could let anyone go hungry, but not his little sister. Well... whether she was his sister was debatable.

The restaurant they'd been sent to was called Divine Chef Fugui. Tang San found the name strange. Along the way, he'd seen plenty of oddly named shops, including Delicious-to-Death Ramen Shop and Ramen Worth Dying For. Honestly. Could none of these people come up with a decent name?

"Boss! Are you open?"

Xiao Wu marched in, slapped the table, and demanded an answer. The clerk behind the counter instinctively glanced toward a nearby table. Xiao Wu and Tang San looked too, only to see a balding middle-aged man fawning over two blond youths. He looked like a hopeless flatterer who'd spotted the woman of his dreams. It was sickening!

"Hm?"

Both blond youths looked over. The boss jolted and immediately showed a frightened expression. He put a hand to his mouth, trembling as if he had no idea what to do.

"Boss! We've got a recommendation from another restaurant. They told us to eat here. You won't turn us away too, will you?" Xiao Wu exchanged a glance with Tang San, then instantly put on her best behavior. With one hand on her hip, she held out the paper with the other and smiled sweetly at the boss.

"Well, you see, our restaurant is already..." At a signal from one of the blond youths, who had mismatched eyes, the boss approached them, wringing his hands anxiously.

"Boss, we'll leave as soon as we finish eating. We won't cause trouble," Tang San said earnestly, pulling out a chair and sitting down.

"That's not it, sir."

The words on the paper made the boss's face burn red, as though Darius had instantly stacked five layers of rage on him. He wished he could take his hoe Martial Soul and, like Nasus next door with ten thousand stacks on his Q, bring it down on that bastard. What kind of filthy business tactics are these? Last year, you snuck in to steal my official seal so you could order a thousand pigs from a breeder in the east of the city and bankrupt me. The year before, you bribed the dishwasher to water my money tree to death. And this year, you send people who offended the organization to eat at my restaurant?

So these are Shejin's methods? Man-Eating Tree? Dark psychology? The secrets of human nature? Terrifying! Just you wait! Next month, I'll hire a celebrity Soul Master to perform at your place, then leak his scandals and bring your business down with him!

"Boss, I know there's been a misunderstanding, but..."

"Serve them." The blond, red-eyed youth cut off the argument, calmly turning a teacup in his hand.

Everyone fell silent. Five pairs of eyes snapped toward him at once, as though he were the center of the room.

"What does it matter? Everyone who comes through the door is a customer, isn't that right?" the youth continued calmly.

"Very well." The boss finally relaxed. He wiped the sweat from his forehead and promptly told the kitchen to prepare food. Now that the person truly in charge had spoken, he had nothing to worry about. Lord Jodio must already have a plan.

"Thank you," Tang San said, giving Jodio a polite nod.

"Hmph." Jodio turned his head slightly, almost amused. Tang San was surprisingly polite. He even knew how to say thank you. How funny was that? Who could imagine that, after becoming a god, this man would so quickly turn into that sort of person? Could anyone believe that the Tang San sitting here now... Well, he was already the sort who might blurt out "a path to death" at any moment.

Anger burned inside Jodio, but he soon forced it back down.

It was like hearing someone ask "Was it all worth it?" in a game and feeling no anger, or a scientist scoffing when told a space shuttle ran on coal, or a wolf begging food from humans sneering at another wolf's rebuke. Jodio had every reason to be angry. But he also had to remember one thing: this guy had crossed over from ancient times. He. Was. Not. A. Modern. Man.

His values, worldview, and outlook on life were different. Even his ambitions for the first half of his life had been different. To put it bluntly, Tang San had been a "researcher" in the Tang Sect. The fact that he'd only adopted the manner of a crime boss after becoming a god was almost impressive. You couldn't expect more of him, any more than you could expect someone who thought space shuttles flew by burning coal or firewood to understand how they actually worked.

But wrongdoing still called for punishment. Punishment was necessary and deserved. Since ancient times, an eye for an eye had been humanity's highest moral principle. Even Holmes had said that if the law could not deliver justice, then personal revenge became justified—even noble—from that moment on.

Jodio was a man of his word. He had said he would leave Tang San without a place to be buried, and that was exactly what he would do. Tang San would come to see death as a mercy. This was Jodio's bottom line, his pride as one of the strong. Nothing would shake him. Neither the present nor the future could make him betray the person he had once been.

His past self had poured everything into the will to take revenge, hoping that his future self would see it through. Let it go? Reconcile? Refuse to be blinded by vengeance? What would that mean for the person he had been? Wouldn't it be a betrayal?

They wanted him to become a traitor to himself?

Bullshit!

"Like fate entwining us... or perhaps destiny," Jodio murmured to himself.

"Go meet them," Jodio told Dai Mubai, using Soul Power to send his voice directly to him.

"Heh, you don't have to tell me. I was thinking the same thing." Dai Mubai rose with easy confidence and walked over, sending his reply back the same way.

To Be Continued

Gao Weis—JoJo! (A coin drops.) (The transition music from JoJo Part Five plays.)

Information currently available:

Martial Soul: Soft Bone Rabbit (Level 29)

Holder: Xiao Wu

Spirit Rings: Yellow, Yellow

Destructive power: B+, speed: A, range: D-, stamina: D-, precision: B, growth potential: A+

Martial Soul ability: In theory, it should follow an agility-attack path, but in practice, it has been developed as a power-attack Martial Soul. Since its foundation is still agility-based, it retains considerable mobility while attacking with force, and its speed is no weakness.

The trade-off is that it lacks the high defense and resistance typical of power-attack Martial Souls. It usually has to rely on Spirit Ring skills for defense. Its innate defensive ability is not high enough to qualify as power-attack and remains at the level of an agility-attack type. It does seem to have unusually high resilience, though, which is another advantage.

The burst of speed and strength from its first Spirit Skill, Waist Bow, works with the control effect of its second Spirit Skill, Charm, to give it assassin-like capabilities. If she later gains a defensive Spirit Skill, it will make for an excellent combination. (Personally, I think Xiao Wu's first four Spirit Skills work together better than Tang San's. She has buffs, control, defense, and mobility. If Xiao Wu is Gaia from Seer, Tang San feels more like Lishabubu???)