In the land of Chimera, there was also a country located to the south. Being the biggest in size and in people, it was also divided into three parts. One part was known for its long deserts and hot weather, the other for its temples and grassy mountains. The other, however, was closed off. It had never been explored, and everyone who dared had been silenced.
Mei-Mei was from the 'Qingzhou Province', the land with a connection to Flo beasts and temples. She was born from a broken promise. Her mother, Miyoko, had been the favourite mistress of a nobleman, soothed with pretty lies of a future together every time they had met in the brothel. She had fallen for him. But when she told him she was expecting his child, his demeanour changed. It turned out the man already had a family. From that day on, he never came back.
Miyoko struggled with a terrible choice. She cried and cried, wrestling with the thought of bringing a child into her world. How would she face them when they got old enough to understand her job? Would she even be alive in the distant future? She had been working since she was sixteen, her own parents selling her off to settle a debt. This was the only life she knew. What right did she have to bring in a child when she could barely take care of herself?
Her answer came from a short old woman named Yen, who noticed her absent-mindedness whilst she was on her way back from praying at a temple. Yen radiated a warmth that made Miyoko break down and tell her everything.
"A child," Yen said, her voice soft as a blanket, "whether an accident or not is a blessing not all receive. What you see as a negative could be the blessing you need."
Yen, who ran an orphanage, refused Miyoko's offer to take the baby. "You are a beautiful, kind woman. Your child will blossom under your protection. No matter your circumstance." A little brown and green monkey with one small horn stood perched on Yen's head chittered and patted Miyoko's hair, making them both laugh through her tears. Before leaving, Yen laid a hand on Miyoko's stomach and said a prayer of protection. Miyoko, her mind made up, begged Yen to let her child visit the orphanage. Yen just smiled and told her where to find it.
Throughout her pregnancy, Miyoko didn't return to the brothel. Yen covered her bills, a luxury peasants never saw. The country was impossibly hard and cruel to those they considered less than nobles.
When Mei-Mei was born, the midwives saw her heterochromia, one eye, dark brown, the other eye a startling bright green. It was the mark of a Pure Synchrite, like Lucius the Praised himself. For a glorious moment, it seemed like destiny had saved them.
But by the age of nine, that hope was gone. Mei-Mei stood before officials who asked her to manipulate Flo. She closed her eyes, she strained, she prayed. Nothing happened .
"Huh. A fluke perhaps?" One grumbled. "Not a Synchrite."
The walk home was the longest of her life. She saw the hope die in her mother's eyes, though Miyoko never said a word of reproach. Instead, Mei-Mei would hear her mother's silent, weary prayers in the dead of night, each one a needle in her heart. She felt like a failure.
Yet, life was not all bad. She had her mother's fierce love. She had Grandma Yen, and the orphanage was a raucous family of kids who watched each other grow up.
Things turned when Mei-Mei turned fifteen. Her mother's earnings dwindled as her youth faded. They couldn't rely on Yen, who already supported an orphanage and a tavern. So, Mei-Mei and the older orphans went to work.
Mei-Mei, who was eager to learn how to cook, started as a waitress, navigating the leers of soldiers and nobles. When things got worse, she begged Yen for a way to earn more.
Yen's face grew solemn. "You can dance," she said finally. "The drunken men will pay for a glimpse of grace."
Mei-Mei agreed without hesitation. She wouldn't tell her mother. She had grown up watching Miyoko's elegant movements and had practised in secret for years. This was a skill she owned, a destiny she could forge for herself.
On her first night, hidden behind a simple white mask and a blue kimono of Yen's that was slightly too large, she listened to the musician, Rei, draw a nostalgic tune from his erhu. She took a deep breath, slid the silk curtain aside, and stepped into the spotlight.
At first, she was a ghost. But as she moved, flowing with the music, a hush fell. One man turned. Then another. Soon, the whole tavern was watching, captivated. The silence broke into cheers, fuelling her. She twirled faster, Rei's music rising to meet her, the crowd beating on tables in rhythm. Up on that stage, she had never felt more alive. She liked being looked at. She liked being admired.
After the performance, it was already gradually becoming late at night. Although she didn't get any tips on her first performance, Yen told her it would take some time for the crowd to warm up to her. She could hardly still control herself. The buzz was still all around her. The sensation felt like she was levitating, floating on the sound of the cheers.
That feeling carried her all the way home. She pushed the door open, a faint, silly smile still on her face from the night's high.
And then she saw her.
Her mother, Miyoko, was hunched in a corner. Her face was turned away, but Mei-Mei saw the fresh, ugly purple of a bruise blooming on her left arm. Her mother was quietly dabbing at it with a damp cloth, her movements slow and heavy with a weariness that went deeper than bone.
The scene was a bucket of ice water. It snatched the joy completely from Mei-Mei and dumped her back into their harsh, cold reality. It wasn't the first time.
As soon as the door creaked, her mother flinched. She quickly pulled her sleeve down and wiped at her eyes, standing up abruptly and trying to force her smile.
"Mei-Mei.." her mother started, her voice too bright, too fake.
But Mei-Mei shut her down immediately. She couldn't hold it back any more. The frustration, the anger, the sheer unfairness of it all boiled over.
"What..what did you do to deserve all of this mama?" The words tore out of her. "Why do these things keep happening to you.." Mei-Mei could barely keep the tears from falling now.
Her mother, who had just been hiding her own tears, now gave a soft, kind smile. It was the saddest thing Mei-Mei had ever seen. She reached over and caressed the side of her daughter's cheek, her thumb gentle on her skin.
"If I had not passed through all of this…" Miyoko said, her voice barely a whisper, "would I still have you, child?"
The words completely disarmed Mei-Mei, leaving only a profound, aching sadness where her anger had been. She cursed the thought of ever going down the same path, before going to the other room, unable to look at her mother's brave, broken face.
In the weeks that followed, a small but loyal following blossomed for the tavern's mysterious dancer. Mei-Mei perfected the art of the double life. By day, she was a waitress, loved by the regulars. But when her shift ended, she would vanish behind the great stage curtain and step into her kimono, tying the mask securely in place. In that moment, the servant disappeared, and the artist took her place.
The thrill of the mystery was a constant hum under her skin. However the thrill only turned to ice when her performance was interrupted by the clatter of a single, large gold coin skidding across the stage floor. "Show us something!" a slurred voice bellowed from the crowd. The demand ripped through the music. The supportive cheers of her admirers twisted into a unified, hungry chant. In that moment, she didn't feel like the artist dancer she thought she was, she felt like her mother.
Mei-Mei's feet faltered. She couldn't hear Rei's music anymore, only the pounding of her own heart. She saw Chen, the tall, dark-skinned orphan who worked as the tavern's cook, moving through the crowd. He was more than a cook and his title meant he earned good pay. His food was also what kept many customers coming back. He put a hand on one man's shoulder seemingly trying to tell him something but he just brushed him off. Another orphan tried to block the view of the most rowdy table, but it was no use.
Panicked, and with Yen absent, Mei-Mei made a choice. Heart hammering with shame, she lifted the hem of her kimono, just high enough to show off the stockings she wore beneath.
The tavern erupted. The roar was deafening. More coins landed on the stage, skittering around her feet like dirty payment.
She finished the dance, her face burning, and collected the coins in silence after the performance. They screamed for an encore, but she just walked away. Her mind was a mix of anger at herself and shame for what she would do for money.
Chen and the Musician, Rei, were already outside in the cool night air, a shared tobacco roll passing between them.
"You okay, Mei?" Chen asked, his voice low with concern. He passed the lit roll to her and she took a puff, the smoke doing little to calm the tremor in her hands. "Nothing I can't handle...besides, you wouldn't have let anything happen to me. Right?"
"Of course not," he said, but his eyes were serious. He looked back at the tavern, then at her. "But you know the chants will get worse. What will you do then?"
Mei-Mei's silence was her answer.
He sighed. "Is the money really worth it?"
"Yes," she replied, the word immediate and sharp, like a reflex. It had to be. He just looked at Rei and sighed ,taking the roll back from her, bidding her a goodnight.
On the way back home, something felt uneasy . Her ears were buzzing, it would happen every time she got really into dancing. But this time, the buzzing was louder. It spooked her. She thought it was a side effect of the tobacco tube. She quickened her pace when she remembered the day her mother came back with a beating. The memory still stung her. To painful to remember, to painful to forget.
When she got back, the door was slightly ajar, dimly lit by a single candle. A cold dread, colder than the air, gripped Mei-Mei's heart before she even stepped inside.
She looked in. The scene was a frozen picture of grief. Yen was there, her face a mask of sorrow. So was the big, buff man from the orphanage, his presence like a dark shadow. Two women from the brothel, one with straight black hair, the other blonde, stood by the bed, one weeping, the other looking away in shame.
They all turned to her as she entered.
"Mei-Mei." Yen's voice was soft but heavy. "I'm sorry."
Mei-Mei's eyes followed their gaze to the bed .
There lay her mother.
Miyoko's eyes were closed. Her face was a mess of bruises and dried blood. She wasn't moving.
Mei-Mei's whole world shattered. The floor seemed to fall away. Her knees buckled, hitting the wooden floor with a jarring thud. She couldn't breathe. Her mind was a roaring static of terrible thoughts, but one kept reoccurring. She's gone
It was only the sound of Yen calling her name, over and over, that she finally looked up, her vision blurred with tears she hadn't even felt falling.
"Your mother is not dead."
The words didn't make sense. They were just sounds. Then, they sank in. Not dead.. A choked, ragged gasp tore from her throat.
"You didn't let me finish, girl," Yen said gently. "She is, however, in a terrible condition. She appears to be in a coma."
The news was a fresh wave of pain, but the relief was so much stronger. Her mother was alive. She whispered a prayer of thanks, her body trembling. Then, the relief hardened into something cold and sharp. "What happened?" she demanded, her voice louder than she anticipated.
Yen began. "Your mother had encountered the man a while ago, though that time he was with another hostess." She indicated the younger woman with the straight black hair and tear-stained white kimono. Mei-Mei remembered how badly her mother had looked after that day. The same customer?
"The customer came back, requesting Miyoko. And since your mother has been getting fewer clients recently, she took it." Yen's voice grew grim. "It wasn't until wailing and crashing and screams could be heard coming from their room after a while." She then pointed to the other woman, the one with dark brown hair in a purple kimono. "Suzie was the one who heard the commotion and screamed for help."
Mei-Mei's gaze then shifted to the big man. She realised what he was there for.
Yen turned and place a hand on Miyoko's face. "Poor girl. When they entered the room, they saw him beating on her with pure rage and anger. At that point, she wasn't even moving...yet he wouldn't stop."
Mei-Mei seethed with a rage so pure she couldn't stop shaking. Her breaths became shallow. "Who was he?" she whispered.
"He was a noble," Suzie answered. "He frequents the brothel multiple times a week." Yen added that the same guy was also a regular at the tavern. "He would always make a show of his distaste for women, but he wasn't as brutal up until recently . It changed when your mother tried to de-escalate a situation with Sumi." The black haired girl, Sumi, looked down, averting eye contact and rubbing one of her arms. "Something in his eyes changed...like he snapped. He left muttering to himself with eyes that were too wide for anyone."
Mei-Mei asked what happened to him, and they all pointed at the big guy. She hadn't noticed at first, but on closer inspection, she saw the specs of red on his knuckles and his garment. She prayed that bastard was more than dead.
After gaining the courage, she walked to the bedside and looked down at her mother's broken form. She gently took her limp hand.
"Will she ever recover?" Mei-Mei asked, her voice small.
"Her body can heal," Yen said, her tone turning practical. "But it requires a skilled healer, and that requires money we don't have. A peasant is low on their list. A woman of her profession?" Yen shook her head. "They wouldn't even let her through the door."
The injustice of it was a final, crushing weight. They were trapped.
"What we need," Yen said, her voice dropping to a determined whisper, "is status. We have no patron, so we will make one." She turned her gaze to Mei-Mei. "You are going to participate in the Chimera Cross Trials for Synchrites."
Mei-Mei stared, bewildered. The whiplash was too much. "...I'm not a Synchrite?"
Yen's smile was thin, filled with a fierce certainty.
"Yes, "Yen said, her voice leaving no room for argument. "You are."