Data-Driven Daoist

Chapter 1: Death Is a Dog

The boy’s corpse slammed against the carriage wheel. And in that lifeless body, Johan snapped awake.

A hooded figure loomed six feet away. With a sickening squelch, he wrenched a spear from the remains of a woman.

Inside the carriage, the wails of an infant cut off abruptly, replaced by the wet, meaty sounds of tearing flesh.

Level 0

Heavenly Allocation: Mind, Body, Spirit.

“You’ve awakened your spirit root.” The killer’s head turned, now directly facing Johan.

A fallen torch illuminated his silhouette in the night, casting a long shadow. His grey eyes reflected the orange afterglow, the rest of his face covered by a buffalo skull-shaped bone mask under the hood.

“I see now.” He grasped towards Johan as if beckoning a child, and the clamshell pendant around his neck snapped free. It floated through the air and landed on the man’s outstretched palm. “You’ll make a fine servant to our clan.”

Johan’s knee wobbled, and he collapsed, retching out his dinner. He had been in Taiwan just a minute ago, visiting a secluded shrine up in the mountains, when a green meteor fell from the sky, blasting him—

There was a flash of red light, followed by an explosion where the murderer stood. The hot air singed Johan’s skin, and his ears rang, deafened by the blast. Despite it, Johan kept his teary eyes open.

“You court death,” the hooded man said, and his gnarled spear cut through the dust screen, piercing at the levitating figure of a young man in white robes. The young man deflected the spear but was pushed back with a grunt.

The hooded man scoffed, unaffected by the explosion. “Merely a Mid Qi Gathering whelp, yet daring to challenge me.” He stomped on the ground, blowing up more dust and dirt, and threw his spear towards the young man. Then he bolted in the opposite direction. The carriage behind Johan shook, and dark shadows leapt out before joining the hooded man.

“This cowardly—” The young man cut at the spear, red light covering the edge of his sword. But as the two weapons collided, the spear exploded into a cloud of miasma.

“Where am I? What’s going on?” Johan said, jaws agape, the pungent vomit clinging to his shirt.

No one replied.

“You shall not escape!” A red light cleaved through the cloud of miasma, and the young man leapt out, chasing after the hooded man with the speed of a motorcycle.

Johan was left alone in a field laden with the corpses of his loving family.

No.

Not Johan’s.

But Yu Han’s. That was his name in this life. And with the name, eighteen years’ worth of memories assaulted his brain. His eyes rolled up, his consciousness drowning in the dark.

***

When he came to, his mouth was filled with the taste of bile and earthy, powdery dirt. Yu Han coughed, gagged, then spat out blood and mud. The stench of vomit assaulted his nose, mixed with the odour of human cadavers.

“Yu Han. Johan. Yu Han. Johan. Who the hell am I?” Two entries for the same variable—something that should have been a global constant.

Yu Han, an unfamiliar moniker that felt like home. He had lived the past eighteen years as this fat kid, the youngest son of a couple that owned a diner. A kid who was loved deeply, and who knew how to love back.

Naïve Yu Han wore his heart on his sleeve.

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But he was also Johan, a former computer scientist turned consultant at Nexus Assurance Auditors. A successful executive with millions in the bank. To his ex, he was nothing but a narcissistic psychopath, claiming the only thing he loved more than his abs were his spreadsheets. His siblings called him a scoundrel. He received no invites to any birthdays. Ever. He had no one to join him on his first vacation in years.

It stung more than he let on.

If not for his dad, the only person who saw past his indifferent exterior and acknowledged the awkward kid inside, he would have truly been alone.

Johan cared—he just didn’t know how to show it. And when he did show it, he always got burnt. His father told him his way of loving was too cold, too calculated for others to understand. That was why no one ever reciprocated it. That was why Johan learned to bury that love deep inside.

He learned how to stop caring. How to be selfish and ruthless. And because of that, he was successful. He could have it all—control, money, women. At the cost of everything else.

He was alone until the very end, praying to a nameless god in that nameless shrine.

Did he inhale some psychedelic fumes in the Taiwanese forest? The land god’s shrine was pretty mouldy, after all. Would that be enough to give him such a realistic acid trip? Or was he abducted by a competitor? Perhaps they trapped him in a hyper-realistic virtual reality simulation. He did scrap a proposal by one virtual reality gaming lab recently; they had wanted to test their helmet on humans, with Nexus Assurance Auditors’ name behind the trials. Idiots, the lot of them. He had said so to their face.

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Did they kidnap him? Was he now the human test subject?

Or was it aliens? Were they behind that green meteor? A UFO?

A scraping sound snapped Yu Han out of his reverie. Half of his being screamed at him to accept this current reality, while the other half cursed.

And the pain that tore his heart… It was the same as when his mum, Johan’s mother, had passed away after an abrupt heart attack.

“Mother… Father… Brother.”

Their corpses remained silent. Yu Han felt his face dampen with tears.

“Why the hell am I crying? These… these are Yu Han’s emotions! Not mine. I-I am Johan!”

Johan didn’t cry. Not because he didn’t feel, but because crying was unmanly. A weakness. He had to be strong, even if his feelings begged to be expressed.

But under Yu Han’s gasps for breath, Johan’s cultivated indifference crumbled.

Two lifetimes juxtaposed like a kaleidoscope. Johan and Yu Han assimilated, and all that remained was confusion. One fact was for sure: The pain of loss was just as much Johan’s, because now he was Yu Han.

“Why…”

The hooded man had been standing in the middle of the road with a bunch of dogs on a leash. Yu Han’s elder brother had hailed the fellow traveller from the carriage’s bench. They were close to their home city, and it was only polite to greet a fellow journeyer.

What followed was a massacre.

“Why was I the only survivor…?” Yu Han muffled his scream, biting into his arm.

Both his lives had been upended in a single day.

Yu Han trudged over to the cart behind the carriage. The mule that pulled it was dead. His father sat on the driver’s bench, head dangling to the side, a black hole piercing his forehead.

Yu Han dragged his heavy legs to the carriage next. The horse didn’t have a head. His brother had fallen off the driver’s bench. He would never get up again.

The door was ajar. Blood leaked out like tar.

He looked inside. The carriage coach was large, built big enough to seat Yu Han alongside his family. The torso of his sister-in-law had been chewed through by those vile creatures, and the baby, Yu Han’s niece, was in her embrace even as death took them both—

The scraping sound returned.

“Who’s there?!” Yu Han shouted. No reply came. He searched for the source in the moonlight. One lone torch hung alight from the carriage wall. The others had gone out.

They had been on their way back from a small fishing village up north; the cart was full of dried seaweed, cured fish, and fermented freshwater shrimp in clay jars full of preservative liquid.

Father had a sword, Yu Han remembered, and he sprinted back to the cart, taking the crude iron sword from his father’s belt.

“…Father.”

The weapon was heavy. Unlike Johan, who had chiselled abs, Yu Han was a pampered youngest son. He weighed over a hundred and sixty kilograms, with pudgy hands and stumpy feet.

He lifted the sword, its feeling unfamiliar. Could he even swing it?

He tried once, but his hands shook. The sword hit the side of the cart with surprising force. Two jars of fermented shrimp rolled out, each the size of Yu Han’s head

“Oh shit!” Yu Han panicked, but the jars didn’t break. The ground was soft. He dropped the sword and picked one jar up, then returned it to the cart.

These were valuable commodities. He picked up the second jar next. The lid was loose. It barely stayed on, but there was a layer of thick cloth under the lid, so nothing escaped.

That was good. If the cloth was removed, they would have to eat the fermented shrimp within a few days, or they would spoil. When they got back home, they’d sell these for a good price.

When we got back home…?

Who would sell it? No one.

Yu Han wiped his tears. He was being such a sissy.

That was when he noticed the beast.

A creature slogged out from the nearby woods. It looked like a black dog, about the size of an adult German Shepherd. It bled from the many scars on its body. Its eyes were covered with a black cloth bearing the Chinese character for "suppress" in dripping blood-like strokes. It was thin, as if it had starved for months, ribs poking out and fanged maw dripping with drool.

One of those monsters the hooded man had commanded. The things that had killed the mule, the horse, Yu Han’s sister-in-law, and his niece.

The dog-like creature growled, snout low as it sniffed the ground left and right. It made no attempt to get the black cloth off its eyes. Was it blind?

Yu Han gulped and took a step back. The ground was rocky underfoot.

No reaction. Good. The creature was upwind. Did it rely more on scent than sound?

The trees were too far. There was a possibility of tripping if he sprinted. Nowhere to hide.

I have to hide.

Move against the wind—the carriage!

A second step, as lightly as he could. Hard, considering his mass. Sweat dripped down his chin, his collar and armpits damp.

God, why do fat people sweat so much?

Third step.

The creature perked up. It pointed its snout at Yu Han.

Stop when it perks, step when it sniffs.

The creature sniffed, moving towards Yu Han’s mother’s corpse.

Fourth step.

Yu Han stepped on a twig. The sound was soft, but it was as though a crack of thunder had echoed throughout the universe.

The creature paused, this time directly facing Yu Han.

It growled, then barrelled forward with a monstrous bark.

Yu Han threw the vat lid towards the creature and scurried for the carriage, almost falling. Through the corner of his eye, he saw the lid miss by a mile, swivelling in the air like a frisbee. But the creature jumped at the lid, biting it with its maw of serrated fangs, like a dog playing fetch. The creature’s unexpected distraction gave Yu Han just enough time to reach the carriage.

Crunch! A loud howl broke the night sky as the creature crushed the vat lid.

Yu Han climbed in, then shut the carriage door. He blocked it with his large body, feet pressing against the floor for support. Just in time, as something heavy crashed against the door from outside. Once. Twice. Thrice.

“Oof!”

Thank God it didn’t think to jump in through the window.

The creature snarled, continuing its assault. It was a nightmarish sound, like rocks grinding against each other.

What do I do? Think! What does the data say?

Yu Han’s mind raced, instinctively categorising each observable feature.

Canine, blindfolded—possibly blind. Scarred—high pain tolerance? Sniffing the air—relies on scent! Possibly hypersensitive olfactory receptors, and I have a jar of fermented shrimp!

The door cracked. Yu Han counted the seconds between each ram.

Bam! Bam!

About seven seconds. Did it take some distance before charging?

The door cracked again.

Now!

Yu Han moved to the side, flipping the lock. He held the jar above his head, moving what distance he could from the door.

Three seconds.

Yu Han kicked at the door. It flung open, exposing the creature mid-charge. It leapt inside the carriage with a yelp, crashing on the opposite wall just under the window.

Yu Han smashed the jar on its head before it got up. The jar broke, the fermented shrimp and liquid splashing out.

The creature cried like a kicked puppy; the sound was so loud that Yu Han felt it in his bones. Then it erupted into violent sneezing, clawing frantically at its snout as it thrashed in the liquid.

Yu Han lunged from the carriage, shutting the door behind him. His trembling hands, slick with blood, snatched up the last torch. The heat seared his face as he thrust the flames against the carriage. Inside, the snarls grew louder, more frenzied.

The fire refused to catch.

Yu Han’s blood ran cold. Was the wood too dense? Treated to repel flames?

Every second, the carriage quaked with thunderous thumps. The door held. But for how long? The beast, though still reeling from the olfactory assault, was regaining its senses fast.

Suddenly, a splintering crack pierced the air as a hole burst through the door. The creature's head rammed through, maw snapping wide.