Zachary Ying and the Dragon Emperor: Chapters 4–7

No, he chided himself. Not an orphan.

“This eye device of yours had more of a connection to me than you by virtue of the data about me that it could access on the internet. It was a miracle that I discovered its computational pathways were complex enough to host my spirit before I fell back into the underworld.”

“If I kill you and start over, it’ll take at least another twelve years for a new host to grow into any semblance of usefulness. I do not have time for that.”

But if she grew up in China, she’s heard of me for certain. Pity that the approach she took to keeping you safe is prioritizing your assimilation into American culture instead.

“Before we delve into that, show me something."

About three thousand years ago, there were over a hundred states in the lands that would become China. Three legendary dynasties had claimed sovereignty over them all, but they were mere figureheads. After the states stopped respecting those figureheads, they descended into a knockout competition like one of your American reality TV shows.

Back in American Idol's heyday, George Washington made some of us watch it with him.

His eyes squeezed closed, and his demeanor mellowed.

I ruled over my entire known world! I literally ran out of places to take over! The only reason I get snubbed on these conqueror lists is because my empire is still a single country!

Why don’t you tell him the part where you picked your meekest son as your heir because you believed he was kind and gentle and wouldn’t kill his brothers like you did, not realizing that he’d have an affair with one of your concubines while you suffered on your deathbed, and then that concubine ended up usurping your dynasty and becoming the only female emperor in our history?

“As if you didn’t burn certain books just because you wanted to control your newly subjugated masses.”

Superheroes are just American myth. They haven’t been passed down long enough to take spiritual form, but if they last another few centuries, I reckon I’ll be playing mahjong with Bruce Wayne on the same ethereal table as George Washington.

Legend magic is fickle, however. Sometimes you can bend it to your will, such as me creating my time-slowing magic out of the various legendary assassination attempts against me. But other times, you are at its mercy.

I used to be able to raise and crack the earth with a whip because of a legend believing I built the Great Wall that way. Now, that legend has fallen into obscurity, and I am more associated with dragon abilities, such as controlling water and summoning storms.

Zack balked. “You can get powers from a video game?”

He winced at the memory of how lifeless she looked, hooked up to all those machines in the hospital. It was so easy to imagine a coffin lid sliding over her ashen face.

An elaborate bronze throne was on a raised dais ahead, shrouded in shadow.

He prayed nobody would discover he was the son of an executed dissident.

You know that concubine Qin Shi Huang was yelling about? The one who was married to Tang Taizong, but got with his son on his deathbed and then usurped her way into becoming the only female emperor in Chinese history?

WU ZETIAN
“Empress Wu”
Real Name: Wu Zhao (or so she made up herself)
Lived: 624–705 CE
The only woman to become a full-fledged emperor in China’s history.

“We’ll just say it got banned from airing. It happens all the time.”
“Right,” Zack muttered. “Tyrannical government.”

A brighter swath of light ripped past the windows.

“Was that a spell? An incantation? That’s a very weird incantation!”

“We can access our most powerful magic by invoking our most famous legends,” Qin Shi Huang explained.

“If it will not obey upon being stricken with the whip, then I shall bludgeon its head with an iron hammer!" she chanted in ancient Chinese in much fewer syllables than Zack’s subtitles.

Her qi depleted faster as her hammer beamed brighter, turning from transparent to opaque.

The other passengers, so stunned they seemed catatonic, clustered as far away from them as possible, as if they’d been tilted and spilled to the other end.

A gauzy mist—or maybe just smog—hung over the city, hazing the lights and smearing the tops of the highest skyscrapers.

In traditional Chinese belief, the spirit—or soul, it doesn’t matter what you call it—is divided into many parts, classified as either hún or pò. Hún are the lightweight and ethereal parts, which ascend away from the body after someone’s passing. Pò are the heavy and corporeal parts, which stay in the mortal realm, because they have to be bound to something.

It was a half-bust, white stone statue of a stern-looking man in a brooding pose.

Shang Yang changed everything by following a philosophy called ‘legalism.’ It was all about how the law is the most important thing, not bloodline or background. So he may have been strict, but he was strict to everybody under equal terms.

Two translations appeared for Zack, telling of how they commemorated what Shang Yang and Qin Shi Huang had done respectively. A sudden nostalgic feeling hit him, pumping his heart faster.

Whenever an empire or country pushed for everyone to be the same or do the same, there were inevitably those who suffered because they couldn’t help but be different.

JING KE
Lived: ?–227 BCE
Assassin who went down in legend because Qin Shi Huang was the one he tried to kill, even though the assassination failed. Posed as an envoy from the Yan state, claiming he wanted to present key maps to Qin Shi Huang in surrender.

“That bow comes from Tang Taizong shooting his brothers during his infamous coup for the throne,” Qin Shi Huang hastily explained, causing the bow to appear clearer to Zack, turning from mist-like to a texture more like molten metal.

“Sorry!” Simon blurted, but didn’t relent in his movements.

The bow dissipated from Simon’s hands, and he tugged Zack into a sprint down the sidewalk.

“Yeah, but his story is so popular that he’s become much more powerful in death. Part of the assassination legend is that when it happened, the strict Qin laws against moving through the throne room without permission prevented any officials from helping Qin Shi Huang. Which means you’re the only one who can vanquish Jing Ke!”

“You can’t even channel enough magic to sustain the sword’s construct!”

Zack snatched the handlebars tighter as the bikes careened out of the rack by themselves and then blitzed down the sidewalk.