Opioid Painkiller of the People (short story)

Opioid Painkiller of the People
Key crew
Writer:	Athenadora Cat
Release details
Part of:	The Boulevard: Volume Two
Release date:	17 January 2024
Faction Paradox
Next →	A Consignment

Opioid Painkiller of the People was the first story in The Boulevard: Volume Two.

Summary

Our Cousin sits with Cousin Abigail, talking to her about fables and stories we tell to teach morals to others. How often the best thing to do, how what they've been trained to do in the Faction is to question the underlying premises of these fables, why the world was even set up in such a way that the tragic end was inevitable. Our Cousin suggests that in the same way there are further things they ought to be questioning, suggesting that the Faction is caught up in their own interests while the Grandfather was all along presaging the coming of the Enemy.

Our Cousin begins her story as she comes to a town in Ming China, having taken an emergency time-jump as the House Military assaulted the team she was with. She convinces the villagers and the village headman that she had been captured by a yaoguai centuries prior, taken as its slave, only escaping after killing it. She presents her mask and prayer beads as proof, claiming them to be the head of the yaoguai and an amulet that kept her safe. With some reticence the village accepts her story, taking her in. But Our Cousin knows that she can't be idle, so asks to be apprenticed to the local daoist. With some convincing, she's accepted as an apprentice, eventually taking on the role of village witch for a few years, siphoning small amounts of qi here and there in order to power a journey back to her native time period.

This, however, is not to last. The Headman had two sons, and the older, Zhang Qingshan, despises Our Cousin, constantly sparring with her until she decides to step away, become a traveling ceremonialist, returning often to the village to pay her respects and show her gratitude. However, it becomes clear that this doesn't solve the problem, Zhang Qingshan has turned his disdain towards his younger brother. And so Our Cousin takes Zhang Qinghai on as an apprentice, with his father's blessing.

The pair travel together, performing rituals, occasional bouts of healing, and when needed, performing with actors, Our Cousin using her Shadow-weapon to slice objects over distances as a magic trick.

Eventually, Our Cousin falls quite ill and lies in bed in the hut she owned, Qinghai bringing by doctor after doctor to try and help her. Eventually one enters and sends the boy away, giving her a temporary fix. The physician explains to her that her biodata hasn't been trained quite right to enmesh itself to local history, so it's experience a famine that hasn't happened yet. The two sat and talked, the other explaining to Our Cousin that some of the things she'd been taught, some basic assumptions she'd held, were wrong. And as the other left, he said that some things could only be explained in metaphor and allusion, misdirection and shadows.

Our Cousin, knowing now how to return, swallows one of the time gems from her prayer bead, activating her biodata, powering her, and she opened the door of her hut, finding herself in the Eleven-Day Empire. In the time she had been gone a revolt had taken place, a splinter cell calling themselves the Thirteen-Day Republic tried and failed to compete with the Faction. And in the wake of the failed rebellion, narratives were already being spun, justifying what the other had told her, what the man who claimed to be Grandfather Paradox had said, that the Faction had gone astray, wished only to hold onto the power it had claimed. Our Cousin was not yet sure that he was truly Grandfather Paradox. But the charges he laid out were making more and more sense. Our Cousin begins her plan, begins to return to China to establish a forward base with other recruits she finds, others who are dissatisfied with the current regime.

Our Cousin sits with Abigail after telling her story and explains her plan. Travel from Ming era China, to China in 1752, to England in 1752, where the Grandfather was known to be, signing the Gregorian Compact. Once there, verify whether the things he told her were true. As Our Cousin explains this, her phone chimes. Checking it, a text from Abigail is waiting, explaining that she won't make the meeting today. Our Cousin attempts to continue the meeting, but the inquisitor she's been talking to the entire time spots the ruse and restrains her.

The Cousin with No Name awakes in a new world, a different world, the day after they would have been recruited into the Faction. In the mail, on their way to class, they find a letter welcoming them to the new version of history and a bracelet of prayer beads.

Characters

• The Cousin with No Name
• Cousin Abigail
• Zhang Qinghai
• Master Zhang
• The other

References

to be added

Notes

to be added

Continuity

to be added