Memories of the Fall

~Part 2 ~

~ Jun Han – Ling Estates, Near Blue Water City ~

“Fates, I had almost forgotten what it felt like to wear dry clothes…”

Jun Han looked up as Ha Shi Lian came over and sat down beside him, running a towel through her hair. Kun Yunhee, sitting opposite him, poured her out a cup of tea and passed it over.

“—breakfast?” he asked, pushing a plate of deep-fried spirit fruit along to her.

“Oh… yes,” she sighed wearily, taking one and biting into it with relish. “Food, cool coastal climates, not being soaked to the skin in a steam oven for days on end… it’s the little things in life.”

“Ohhh, breakfast!” Han Ryong, now no longer looking like a bedraggled beggar, came and sat down as well.

“It’s amazing how easy it is to forget that the only thing more annoying than wrangling high-rank herbs is having to then walk them back home…” Ha Shi Lian mumbled around a second mouthful of fried spirit fruit.

Their group of five; himself, Ha Shi Lian, Han Ryong, Kun Yunhee and Ling Fei Weng had spent the last week on the lower slopes of Mount Thunder Crest, harvesting a series of really quite obnoxious high-rank spirit herbs and qi beasts with unusual properties.

Thanks to the infernal meddling with the weather, they had then had to walk out of the mountains as well.

“Singularly unpleasant,” he agreed, accepting his own cup from Kun Yunhee.

“With any luck, we can go to Misty Jasmine Inn after this…” Shi Lian muttered, accepting her cup with a polite nod.

“I can’t say I’ve been there,” Han Ryong frowned.

“It is a place that rather subverts your expectations,” he murmured.

“That it does…” Shi Lian agreed.

“Oh, Fei, welcome back!” Yunhee waved to Ling Fei Weng, who had also just come into the hall, looking a bit… vexed.

“What’s up?” he asked as the expert from the Ling clan came and sat down with them.

Ling Fei Weng just shook his head and took a cup of tea, gulping it down in one go. “Not sure, but the binary jade for the teleport formation linked to Misty Jasmine Inn… manifested an… irregularity a short while ago.”

“Could they have just overstressed it?” Han Ryong frowned.

“Maybe?” Ling Fei Weng conceded, “But…” he trailed off, looking at Shi Lian. “What’s wrong?”

He turned to her as well, and found she was holding a Ha clan communication talisman, frowning.

“I… uh… have to take this message,” she said, standing up abruptly. “How long ago did the… uh, formation break?”

“Uh… ten minutes… maybe?” Ling Fei Weng muttered.

“I see,” Shi Lian replied, her eyes growing distant.

“…”

He was about to ask her what the problem was, when Shi Lian took a second jade out, this time for the Green Fang Pagoda, and stared at it for a long moment.

“Ummm…” Han Ryong started to speak, but Shi Lian held up her hand.

“—SIR Fei!” A flustered official from the Ling clan came rushing into the hall, looked around and spotted Ling Fei Weng.

"What?” Ling Fei Weng asked.

“The jades of the guards who went up… they are all showing issues… dissociation errors with their status.”

“In this weather… surely that can happen?” Han Ryong asked, frowning… “I mean, Han Shu’s also registers as disrupted at the moment…”

“Yes, it can,” the official nodded. “However…”

The official glanced at Ling Fei Weng, looking a bit uneasy.

“What is it?” Ling Fei Weng asked again.

“Umm… it’s about the Sleeping Dragon Pagoda,” the official almost muttered.

“And you are bringing this to me?” Ling Fei Weng frowned. “What about Lady Ling Tao?”

“She is at a morning event, invited by the Imperial Advisors, with Prince Fanshu and Princess Lian Jing…”

-Again, huh, he frowned.

“Lord Jiang?” Ling Fei Weng grimaced.

“At the Duke’s palace, apparently,” the Sergeant replied.

“Lady Ling’s husband?”

“…”

“Gone with her… because Prince Fanshu…”

“Ah, of course,” Ling Fei Weng sighed. “What about Elder… Dushan?”

“At Misty Jasmine Inn…” the official replied.

“He went to Misty Jasmine Inn?” Ling Fei Weng’s frown deepened. “What about Elder Chanpei?”

“In Misty Vale…”

“…”

“Is there anyone, more senior than me, currently in the estate?”

“Lord Alchemist Lu Ji?” the official replied with an awkward shrug.

“…”

“—Sorry about that,” Shi Lian grimaced, coming back over and sitting down.

“What’s the problem?” he asked. “Assuming you can say?”

“…”

“A bunch of talismans from people who went up to Misty Jasmine Inn are all showing… irregularities,” Shi Lian said with a grimace. “Also, according to Fairy Seong, the jades for both Jiang Wushen and Jiang Teng are also showing problems, as, apparently, are those of my cousins Mao and Yufan…”

“…”

They all stared at her, then at the official.

-That’s a lot of talisman irregularities… even for a Rising Dragon Gale and the messing with the weather…

Wondering why he suddenly felt so uneasy, he took out his communication talisman for Old Ling and various other Bureau Officials and then stopped, because it wasn’t working.

-Arai and Sana… should be up there as well…

“…”

“Are… your talismans okay?” he asked Kun Yunhee.

She took out her jade and nodded.

“What about Bureau ones?” he asked the others.

“…”

Han Ryong took out his and frowned. “It’s… dissociating for some reason.”

Shi Lian took hers out and considered it gloomily.

“Could there be some widespread malfunction of the talisman network?” Yunhee mused, turning hers over in her hand. “Given what they have done for this idiotic trial?”

“They dispersed the ancestors-accursed weather again, the day before yesterday,” Fei Weng remarked with a resigned sigh. “It wouldn’t surprise me.”

“So… um, what shall I do about the Sleeping Dragon Pagoda?” the official asked awkwardly.

“…”

“Okay, uh… Send a message to the main estate.” Ling Fei Weng said after a few moments. “Tell them… actually, is Ling Yu around still?”

“Uh… she is in her chambers… I believe?” the official said hesitantly.

“Go get her,” Fei Weng ordered.

“…”

“Young Lady Ling Yu?”

“Yes, did I misspeak?” Fei Weng scowled.

“No Sir,” the official saluted and hurried off.

“What does that achieve?” Shi Lian asked with a frown.

“You will see…” Fei Weng sighed, watching the guard depart.

He sipped his tea, staring out of the hall at the rain-drenched courtyard outside, still oddly bothered by the whole exchange, in a way he couldn’t quite put his finger on.

“Sir Fei…”

He was shaken out of pondering that after a moment, by one of the clan officials who helped manage the teleport formation in the estate.

“Here, from Sir Fanglao…” the official passed Fei Weng a jade. “It’s… uh, what was sent from Misty Jasmine Inn.”

“Sent?” Fei Weng took the jade and stared at it.

“It’s a moon rune,” the official said helpfully.

“Yes, I can see that, but…” Fei Weng projected it on to the table for them to see.

“It didn’t survive the transmission, only the ghost of the signal, so we have no idea what it was painted with, but it’s… inauspicious enough that its caused an issue with the binary jade…” the official added.

Shi Lian stood and traced it out with her finger, frowning.

“—You wanted to see me?”

He turned to find a slightly sleepy-looking Ling Yu standing there, with Miss Lingsheng.

“Ah, yes, can you call Baisheng?” Ling Fei Weng asked her.

“Uh… yeah, sure…” Ling Yu replied, yawning.

“Huh…” Lingsheng walked over to the moon rune and stared at it.

“You recognise it?” Shi Lian asked her.

“Yes, it says ‘Help’.” Lingsheng said, putting her hand on it.

“…”

“That it does…”

He was glad he was used to powerful experts appearing like shadows, because Sir Baisheng literally stepped out from between the shadows to stand beside the table.

Sir Baisheng took the jade from Ling Fei Weng and frowned.

“Where did this… no, never mind, I know...” the old man stared at the jade for a long time, his expression darkening.

“What’s wrong?” Ling Fei Weng asked.

“This rune… it was made by a monkey,” Sir Baisheng muttered.

“Oh… that’s why it looks familiar!” Lingsheng interjected. “It’s Flower Mountain Script!”

“Yes… it is,” Sir Baisheng agreed. “Where is Ling Tao?”

“Uhm… with the Imperial Advisors, at the invitation of Prince Fanshu.”

“…”

“She will be here momentarily,” Sir Baisheng said, turning and heading for the door. “The rest of you, come with me.”

“Sir…” Fei Weng saluted.

They followed Sir Baisheng out into the courtyard, heading towards the teleport formation. When they got there, though, he was surprised to find it currently mid-transmission.

“Incoming in five… four…!” Old Fanglao yelled, counting down.

He watched as space on the formation twisted… to reveal five women and two men, in the robes of the Cherry Wine Pagoda, all wearing armour and carrying blades and bows.

“Pagoda Mistress,” Shi Lian exclaimed, saluting Ha Shi Xiaolian deeply.

“Ah, how timely, and Lord Baisheng as well,” Shi Xiaolian said grimly. “Where is Ling Tao?”

“On her way,” Sir Baisheng said. “I take it you are here because you also got a… odd transmission?”

“No, we are here at the Pagoda Lord’s orders, to reinforce Misty Jasmine Inn,” Shi Xiaolian said, somehow even more grimly. “Tell me about this transmission.”

“…”

Baisheng handed her the jade, which she examined for a long moment, then passed back.

“Can you force a connection to the Misty Jasmine Inn?” Ling Fei Weng asked Old Fanglao.

“Not in this weather; we could burn Dao Jade and still not manage to make a stable link,” the old man grimaced. “I have no idea how that communication got through, actually. In fact, it barely did.”

“Peaches of Immortality are far more remarkable than folk realise,” Sir Baisheng muttered. “As to the link, I will deal with that, though the landing will be rough and it will limit the numbers.”

Baisheng glanced at them.

“Take what you want to bring and equip it, your storage rings will not work for a while after I send you.”

“Ah… we are farcasting…” Shi Lian shuddered.

“Yes,” Baisheng said. “I trust all of you have done that before, or have had a… similar… experience?”

He nodded. Farcasting was a kind of teleporting that was used mostly by the Military Bureau. It was modelled after a quite particular kind of teleportation as well – that experienced by Mortal World Ascenders. Few bothered with the training to endure such a trip, so mostly it remained the purview of Mortal World Ascenders or experts with phenomenal physical durability, which meant…

He looked again at the group from the Cherry Wine Pagoda. Both men were Martial Immortals, of a realm with him, as were two of the women. The other three though…

All of them looked like normal cultivators, but to his eyes, their foundations were oddly… opaque. Not in the sense of being higher than him, he could tell their qi purity was only that of an Immortal…

-Three Mantra Immortals…

-Where the fates did the Cherry Wine Pagoda spring three monsters like that from…

That also meant that the other four… were all Mortal World Ascenders, like him.

“I guess that means I am gonna lose my breakfast,” Shi Lian sighed, taking out a tunic of scale-mail armour and starting to put it on.

Han Ryong nodded, also starting to prepare his kit.

Kun Yunhee also sighed and started to pull on a set of light combat armour crafted of finely-carved jade plates.

Exhaling, he stared up at the sky, then sent his qi into his own storage ring and withdrew a mail coat, made of grey, crystalline scales, along with some bracers and greaves. Taking off his over-robe, he shrugged it on, then put the robe back over it. It was not exactly a secret that he had such a piece of armour, but jade-mail was still rare enough that it might attract unscrupulous interest.

For weapons, he took out a spear and then, after some consideration, a pair of short blades. The spear was his usual weapon. The blades were… a memento from Ruliu and certainly powerful, if rather odd. He considered them for a long moment and sighed, then affixed them to his belt without dwelling on it too much. Much like the armour, they were a thing that could easily attract greedy eyes.

By the time he had sorted out his apparel, Ling Tao had also arrived, dressed rather elegantly, as she always tended to be, but looking quite furious. Headmaster Lu Ji and a few disciples from the Blue Gate School were following along behind.

“Sorry, it is surprisingly hard to tell Imperial Advisors you have an urgent problem that is more important than gracing the lascivious eyeballs of a Huang brat,” Ling Tao sneered. “Is what you said true?”

“Well, a monkey sending a moon rune through the teleport formation from Misty Jasmine Inn, in Flower Mountain Script, that reads ‘Help’, is unusual enough to be worth marking,” Sir Baisheng said drily.

“…”

“Shit…”

Ling Tao pulled out a talisman and stared at it for a long moment, then passed it to Lu Ji.

“All the talismans for people up there are showing dissociation errors, even the ones in the Sleeping Dragon Pagoda, Lady Ling.” Ling Fei Weng said with a grimace.

“Since when?” Ling Tao asked, her robe twisting and shifting on her to form light armour.

“Uh… fifteen minutes it should be—”

The air turned flat, the rain shuddering as Ling Tao radiated furious intent.

“I’d ask why I am only hearing about this now, given the circumstances, but I will find that out later,” she hissed. “Another group will be here within the minute. I have also just sent a message to Lord Xian, from the Kun clan.”

“A wise idea,” Headmaster Lu nodded, stroking his beard, having now passed off the tablet to a brown-haired young woman standing behind him.

“I’ll be ready to send you when he arrives,” Lord Baisheng said.

Exhaling, he checked his gear a final time, then took his storage ring off his finger.

“Can we leave our rings somewhere safe?” he asked.

“Leave them with me, I will see that they are not bothered,” Headmaster Lu Ji interjected, speaking up.

“If… something happens to me, give it to my daughters, or to… Old Fang,” he said.

“My brother,” Han Ryong said passing his over.

“My mother,” Shi Lian said drily.

“Chuck it in my grave,” Yunhee grinned bleakly.

To an onlooker, it would seem an odd thing, to willingly give up your ring, but farcasting was not without its risks. One was the increased potential for the destabilization of spatial artefacts when you did it. Being thrown out of a transmission by your own storage ring breaking was not a nice way to go.

“Incoming teleport…”

Space twisted a moment later and Old Xian appeared, dressed in a dull grey set of jade plate armour and carrying a broad-bladed, two-handed xian in his hand.

Almost at the same time, five youths, three men and two women, trotted into the courtyard, all wearing full face masks shaped like snarling dragons and infantry armour emblazoned with a bronze dragon claw. The women both bore bows and a pair of blades, while two of the men had halberds and crossbows. The last youth, who was a head taller than the others, carried a blade and a shield.

“…”

“This is the Ling clan’s ‘Left Claw of the Little Dragon’,” Baisheng said blandly, introducing the group. “I am sure their… reputation, is familiar to many of you.”

“Lady Tao, Lord Baisheng, Headmaster Lu, Lady Xiaolian, Lord Xian…” the five saluted the various experts there in unison. “It is our Claw’s honour to participate.”

He eyed the five with interest, because, like Baisheng said, they were famous. The Ling clan’s military force had seven ‘groups’; the four limbs, tail, head and heart of the ‘Dragon’, numbering about a hundred in total. There were three ‘Dragons’… that he knew of. The ‘Shadow’, comprised of veterans, the ‘Dragon’ comprised of active members and the ‘Little Dragon’, which was the juniors who would eventually replace those in the ‘Dragon’ itself.

All of them were exceptional martial cultivators and, while they had kept a low profile, he knew that the claws and the head of the dragon had been instrumental in the second assault on the Blood Eclipse Cult, 150 years ago.

“Hmm… we are just waiting for one other,” Sir Baisheng mused.

“We are?” Ling Tao blinked.

“Yes, there are Bai clan up there and it would not be politic for us to ask Miss Lingsheng to step in as a guest.”

“Awwww….” Lingsheng pouted.

“In the meantime, everyone take one of these…” Sir Baisheng withdrew a handful of talisman necklaces from somewhere, passing each of them one, even the people from the Cherry Wine Pagoda.

Accepting his, he put it on and blinked in shock as his qi settled down to the Immortal Realm.

“Odd… what are these?” Han Ryong stared at his hands, confused.

“They will help you with the suppression, so long as they are supplied qi,” the youth wielding the blade and shield said blandly. “Spit some blood on it and channel qi through it.”

“…”

Doing as instructed, he felt the ‘settling’ sensation on him become more harmonious.

Han Ryong shook his head again, clearly impressed. “So this is what it feels like to have an Immortal’s Qi…”

“False Immortal, but yes,” Ling Tao said drily.

“Sorry I am late…” a tall, muscular youth with curly golden-brown hair, strode down the steps to the courtyard, followed by a younger woman who was still trying to fasten the ties on his armour.

“Ah… Bai Sheng,” Lingsheng said with an eye roll. “Of course.”

“…”

Bai Sheng gave her a long look, which she returned by actually blowing him a kiss, then sticking her tongue out.

Accepting a scabbarded blade and shield that the woman, presumably his maid, was carrying, Bai Sheng quickly affixed two quivers of arrows to his waist and a short bow, then passed his own ring off to Lu Ji and accepted a talisman from Sir Baisheng with a polite salute.

“Okay, everyone on the teleport platform,” Sir Baisheng said, shaking his head and waving for them to go up with Sir Xian.

Nodding, he put on his own helmet and affixed the mail around the neck, checking he could move freely.

“Nice armour,” Old Xian grinned.

“It’s saved me from a few knocks over the years,” he replied, going to stand beside the old man.

“Here are the coordinates,” Ling Tao passed a jade to Sir Baisheng.

“Forest… in Western Falls, a smart idea,” Baisheng mused, walking to the middle of the platform. “Lingsheng, can you stay here and keep an eye on Yu?”

“Awww… come on Grandpa…” Ling Yu grumbled.

Lingsheng just nodded.

“Okay, folks, everybody kneel…” Baisheng said, looking around at the assembled groups.

He took a few deep breaths and knelt down on one knee.

“You know the drill, grab the person next to you, don’t let go until transmission is complete!” Baisheng called out.

“Not unless you want to get some practice the art of Void Dropping dangerously!” one of the Little Dragon disciples added, which got a few nervous laughs.

“You don’t say,” Shi Lian grimaced, grabbing his left hand.

“—Jun Han, right?”

He glanced up to find Bai Sheng had ended up on his other side.

“Uh-huh,” he nodded, accepting the youth’s hand.

“Small world,” Bai Sheng said drily. “I ended up going around with your daughter and Ling Yu last week.”

“You… met Sana?” he blinked, surprised at that.

-Ling Yu really does move in circles, huh…

“Uhuh, a talented young woman,” Bai Sheng nodded. “Ling Yu is lucky to have her as a friend.”

“…”

“Everyone good?” Baisheng called out.

“Yes!” he added his own voice to the chorus of affirmatives.

“We should be landing in jungle, but valleys are valleys and weather is weather,” Baisheng added. “Anyway… Teleporting in… twenty!”

“…”

Rather than start to occlude, like they usually did, their surroundings just started to tremble, rather ominously, it had to be said.

By the count of ‘fourteen’, he could see clan disciples backing away from the teleport formation, their faces pale.

By ‘eight’, roof tiles on nearby buildings were starting to drift upwards.

“Five… four, three, two… one—!”

Baisheng, standing in the middle, did… something and—

The world didn’t warp, like a teleport usually did, it rose up and tried to smack him in the face. The forces of the transmission screamed around them as rain bled through a rainbow of shifting colours and barely visible shadows of void fire and lightning. Knowing what to expect, he kept looking straight ahead, because looking down was how you usually ended up puking your guts out—

Everything snapped back together and he found himself falling, through humid mountain air, misty rain swirling around him—

A building appeared, out of nowhere below him, which was not what he expected to see.

Gritting his teeth, he crashed down onto the flat roof of a building, fracturing the stone slabs with the force of the impact. A moment later, Shi Lian and Bai Sheng landed a few metres away, the former almost as hard as he did, the latter somehow managing to roll with the impact.

All around them the sound of smashing masonry, cracking roof-tiles and curses echoed through the misty rain—

“This is clearly not a forest!” Ku Yunhee groaned, rolling off the roof behind him in a clatter of roof tiles.

“Uggh, talk about rough landings…”

A moment later, a second woman, one of the Cherry Wine Pagoda experts, slid down to land beside her, wincing.

“That sucks, every time,” Shi Lian hissed, standing up. “Where are—”

Intuition made him tackle Shi Lian flat, even as Bai Sheng dove for cover and Kun Yunhee and the other woman rolled into the shadow of the wall rising behind them. Six arrows slashed onto the roof where they were, erupting into clouds of sapping yin earth qi.

Taking a few deep breaths, he checked his current state and then checked again, because, while he was suppressed to Golden Core, the degree of qi he could access at once was… close to that of a genuine Immortal and he could use his Principle just fine. The latter was enormously useful right then, because it allowed him to shrug off the otherwise crippling qi drain from the talisman arrows.

“I… these talismans are crazy…” Shi Lian muttered, watching reddish-purple flames dance across her fingertips.

“Y-yeah…” the other Ha clan woman, who, if he recalled right, had been introduced briefly as Meihua, earlier, agreed.

“INCOMING!” someone screamed from their right as sound flowed back into the world.

“…In Darkness Flowers Bloom~”

“The formation is nearly broken!”

“LEFT! LEFT!”

“FATES CURSE THIS WOMAN, WHO IS SHE!?!”

“What even IS this art?!”

“Beneath the Empty Moon…”

“Drown it out! DROWN IT OUT!”

As their surroundings stabilized, he found swirls of jasmine winding across the stone walls to their left, and, as he quickly got his bearings, through the trees above them, even blooming in unnatural drifts, almost floating in the air in places.

“OVER HERE, GET THEM!”

Turning, he saw half a dozen figures dressed in armour emblazoned with… a fan-like leaf in five distinctive colours: red, green, blue, white and black. The green leaf, in the middle, had a golden stripe through it.

“Oh come on!” Yunhee groaned, drawing her blades.

“Green Fan…” Shi Lian muttered distastefully, seeing the symbol.

“Fate-thrashed bandits…” ‘Meihua’, spat, unslinging her bow.

Bai Sheng and Han Ryong also already had arrows in their bows, so he left them to it, unshouldering his spear and dashing for the first rank of attackers. Shi Lian and Yunhee followed after him.

Grinning, the bandit leading the group attacking them parried an arrow from Han Ryong—

{Fire Fang Slice}

The Martial Intent within the strike exploded around him. Rather than block the blow from the bandit, who had closed with him in an instant, he evaded instead, twisting away from the blade, which scattered sparks off the scale armour underneath—

{Bone Breaking Stamp}

The roof beneath his feet shook, making the qi in his body vibrate in a decidedly inauspicious manner.

-Lin clan martial arts?

Gritting his teeth, he overwhelmed the inauspicious resonance of the art – which, while not quite a ‘feng shui’ art, was getting rather close – and completed his spin, forcing the blade user to roll away—

Two arrows slammed into him, driving air from his lungs and grasping at his qi, not that the martial comprehensions of either archer were a match for his own.

Off to the side, there was a male scream—

{Fox Fire Flare}

Shi Lian’s art exploded across the rooftop in a reddish-purple gyre of yin-fire flames.

Trusting that the others behind him would deal with the blade user, he rolled, evading a third arrow, and infused Martial Intent into his motion as he stabbed his spear at a bandit in front of him.

The youth turned pale and tried to block… just about getting out of the way of the thrust. Ignoring the blade itself, which smashed into his arm, scattering sparks on the scales, he swept his spear sideways, sending the youth flying into the wall to their right hard enough that the sound of his bones shattering was audible.

“HA BASTARD! DIE—!” Another bandit hurled himself at him.

Exhaling, he swept the enraged bandit’s legs, sending him sprawling, and simply stamped on his face—

“Shoot that spear bast—” an enraged shout was cut off to his right.

In the same instant, the blade wielder appeared beside him again, slashing at him with a furious expression, his strike already descending.

Gritting his teeth, he spun into the cut, which was aimed at his neck, catching the blow on his armoured shoulder. In turn, he caught the bandit in the side of the knee with a vicious kick, unbalancing him.

The blade wielder staggered back, cursing, and then warded left, barely evading an arrow shot by Han Ryong.

Off to the side, he saw five more arrows hiss through the air, aiming for Bai Sheng, who evaded all but two easily. Those last two he deflected with the shield at his back, drawing back his own bow and taking aim—

{The Jade Throne Repudiates}

He froze as a vast, shadowy green stele exploded out of the cloud above them, dropping like a meteor for their rooftop.

-Ah shit… what kind of talisman…

{Kun Rises to Heaven}

The surging wave of Martial Intent and something intangible he was certain was ‘Sword Law’, surged out across the gorge; rain and scattering leaves twisted into a vast shoal of fish, enveloping the stele, sundering it effortlessly and transforming into a single surging, golden, winged form before scattering against the cliff above them.

“Laws are scary,” Shi Lian muttered, pushing herself up, eyeing the aftermath of what had to be Old Xian’s attack with trepidation.

“Uhuh,” Kun Yunhee agreed.

“Yeah…” Meihua agreed, before adding, “I’m Meihua by the way, from the Cherry Wine—

“Jun Han,” he replied, giving her a nod in return as he re-appraised their surroundings.

All the bandits had retreated, leaving them alone on the terrace roof—

An arrow appeared out of the rain and smashed into his shoulder, spinning him around and numbing his arm from the force of the impact.

“Fate-thrashed martial archers!” Shi Lian, who had just thrown herself flat again, cursed.

“Heavenly Maiden— Graaaah!” Meihua grunted as she was hit hard in the side and sent sprawling.

“Let’s get off this roof,” Bai Sheng agreed, deflecting a third arrow with his shield, even as it sent a swirling cloud of yin earth qi over half the rooftop.

Gritting his teeth, he cycled his qi through the talisman again, getting it back under control and purging the corrupted poison trying to subvert his body and mark him. Shi Lian sniffed as she did the same.

“What are the odds those are looted talisman arrows?” Yunhee muttered, ducking as two more arrows exploded in flashes of disruptive qi against the wall behind them.

Shi Lian just sighed, which was an answer in itself really.

“Any idea where in the gorge we are?” he asked Shi Lian as they hurried after Bai Sheng.

“I think on the southern side, near the inn, but…” Shi Lian shrugged helplessly.

He watched Han Ryong, Kun Yunhee and the other Ha clan woman hop off after Shi Lian, then followed after, landing with a splash on the stones below.

No sooner had they regrouped though, than a dozen more bandits, presumably reinforcements for the ones who had just retreated, rushed out of the gateway at the far side.

“…”

Bai Sheng, who was already halfway across the courtyard, just sighed and smoothly drew his sword, cutting downwards with it—

{Snowfall at the Southern Gate}

Caught in the attack, with nowhere to go, the bandits tried to scatter, though without much success. As they watched, shocked, the bandits’ qi dispersed around them, like snow caught in the wind. A moment later their bodies followed, vanishing as the wind and rain scattered into fine mist. When the ethereal art dissipated, there were only a swathe of bloody smears, scattered bones and tattered scraps of armour left.

“…”

Before they could go further, a profoundly inharmonious ‘twisting’ occurred in their surroundings, making his vision blur and his qi turn chaotic. The ephemeral jasmine, that were drifting here and there still, distorted and started to spread again.

In the same moment, a stunned tetrid stalker nearly fell on his head from the roof above.

Barely avoiding it, he went to stab it, but Shi Lian and Meihua had already immolated it.

“What was that?” Meihua gasped, looking around with concern.

“Feng shui experts clashing,” Bai Sheng replied with a grimace. “This whole place is stuck in what amounts to a tug of war between two competing grandmasters in feng shui, both of whom have a grasp of Laws as well.”

“L-laws?” Han Ryong gulped.

“Well, we have a few as well,” Bai Sheng said with a nasty grin, heading across the courtyard. “Now—”

Before Bai Sheng could say anything further, several more bandits raced out the door, then stopped, looking around at the bloody smears in shock and no little horror.

Bai Sheng didn’t slow, meeting the first one and swatting their blade out of the way, and shoulder charging him back into the doorway. Two still managed to dart by though.

He met one, stabbing them with his own spear. The bandit deflected it, only for him to twist the spear, rolling with the movement. Shi Lian appeared at his shoulder and stabbed his opponent in the face.

Glancing sideways, he saw that the other had already fallen to an arrow from Kun Yunhee, who had acquired Bai Sheng’s bow temporarily.

By that point, Bai Sheng had already intercepted and killed three more bandits in the corridor beyond, that he could see anyway, so he collected himself and then he waved for the others to hurry after.

“The feng shui of this place is twisting itself into inauspicious knots,” Meihua muttered, eyeing the creeping jasmine winding its way across the ceiling and through the rooms on either side.

He had to agree there.

“It’s a miracle we don’t find ourselves walking back through doors we just exited,” Bai Sheng agreed, looking around with a frown.

“Ah… there is a dead….”

He turned to find Han Ryong pointing into one of the rooms on their right.

A youth, lay dead, half off a bed, stripped naked. Someone had stabbed him, destroyed his meridian gates and his dantian and left him to bleed out, based on the pool of blood.

“Aii…” Shi Lian looked at the Jasmine warily and didn’t enter, however her face was gloomy.

“That youth is from our clan, isn’t he?” Meihua remarked.

“I think so, I have some vague memory of seeing him at the patriarch’s banquet, with Ha Caolun,” Shi Lian agreed softly.

Bai Sheng glanced around the room briefly and sighed as well, then waved for them to move on.

They found two more dead youths, in the following room, both had been incapacitated in surprise attacks and left to bleed out as cripples, near as he could tell.

“What a cruel way to kill someone…” Yunhee muttered.

“That’s the Green Fan,” Ha Meihua sneered.

“Indeed,” he agreed softly, trying hard not to think about Arai, Sana, not yet anyway.

The odds of them still being alive were good, but the Five Fans did have a certain reputation…

He exhaled and forced that though away.

-Maybe they were out in the valley… With the rain they may not have been teleporting back here… he told himself.

Glancing over at Han Ryong, his expression was inscrutable, but certainly he would be worried about Han Shu.

“Hall up ahead,” Bai Sheng signed, waving for them to be quieter.

In the hall, which adjoined a veranda, they found a further pair of dead youths, impaled to chairs. Both had expressions of crushed incomprehension etched into their faces, eyes locked on a healing pill sat on the table between them, just out of reach.

“—How many are they?!”

Bai Sheng waved for them to stop and stealthily crept over to the exit to a veranda outside.

“—Six appeared on the roof…” that speaker seemed to be ‘red blade’ based on what he recalled of how the bandits sounded.

Carefully moving up to Bai Sheng, he looked out into a larger courtyard surrounded on all sides by two-story buildings, with a gateway at the far side.

Some ten cultivators with Ling clan robes, armour and weapons were standing around a formation flag and a small altar. Off to one side, an old man was sitting on a bench, puffing a pipe, looking bored. The bandits who had escaped from the rooftop were talking energetically to a brown-haired youth in a green and white robe.

“At least one was a real expert!” another bandit added.

“Yeah, he had some treasure shield…” the first speaker confirmed.

“The group who just went should have reported in already…”

“Fight?” Shi Lian, who had slunk to the next window, signed.

“…”

Bai Sheng looked around them with an unhappy expression, then glanced back out into the larger courtyard below and grimaced.

“Problem?” he asked.

“Dao Cage, Barrier, Dangerous,” Bai Sheng signed, pointing towards the flag.

That was a problem. A barrier like that would have child talismans, probably scattered over half the building. If it triggered it would manifest everywhere at once, rather than travel out from the flag.

“Diversion?" Shi Lian suggested. “The Green Fang Pagoda and the ‘Five Fans’ don’t get on. If I go down with Meihua first…”

“If they trigger that barrier we are stuffed,” Ryong signed.

“…”

Bai Sheng held out his hand for his bow. Yunhee handed it back without comment, but before he could do anything else, Meihua shook her head and held up a grey-green, fist-sized orb.

“Throw after,” Bai Sheng signed with a nasty grin, making him wonder what it was.

Meihua nodded. Bai Sheng selected an arrow from the quiver and then smoothly stood up and shot it out the window.

A faintly oppressive feeling that he had somehow managed not to notice faded away.

“What the fates!”

“GET THEM!”

“FIX THAT!”

Outraged yells from below echoed up, even as Meihua gently lobbed the orb out over the veranda—

The world turned inside out. The qi inside him dissociated from his physical body like a blurry, diffusing shadow. Even Bai Sheng staggered.

“Go,” Bai Sheng waved for him and Shi Lian to head over the veranda.

Nodding, he quickly replenished his qi using the talisman and slipped through the screen door, then vaulted over the railing, landing on the paving a moment before Shi Lian.

It was immediately apparent what Bai Sheng had done. Somehow, he had shot the jade powering the flag, cracking it.

{Du Fu’s Dao Cage}

A moment later, his movement became sluggish, as if he were trying to wade through turbulent water, and all the qi in his body that was not associated with Lord Baisheng’s talisman was forced out of his body.

Despite the barrier triggering though, the bandits were in no fit state to do anything. Well over half, especially those outside the much-reduced range of the barrier, were suffering from chronic qi depletion.

“Well, that was unexpected…” the old man, who was still sitting where he had been, stood up and took a deep drag on his pipe, blowing smoke out of his mouth.

The three bandits near him, along with the brown-haired youth, immediately perked up.

“Get them while I deal with the flag!” the old man added laconically.

All four dashed for him and Shi Lian, their expressions grim.

Focusing on the talisman, he drew more qi into his body, through it, and the barrier around him shuddered.

Swaying to the side, he used his spear to smack the sword of the first bandit away and stabbed forward…

His spear strike fell into nothingness as the old man stepped forward, past the four attackers.

“Oh monkey—” He barely managed to move his spear towards the old man, before he was inside his guard and had placed a palm against his chest—

He hit the wall hard enough that he was surprised he had not broken anything. His meridians screamed at him and the constriction of the barrier redoubled.

“A Golden Immortal from the Ha clan… Impressive, they do have some means…” the old man mused, looking at him, then turning back to Shi Lian, who had not fared any better.

"Well… well, well, well,” the brown-haired youth grinned, walking over to Shi Lian and tilting her face up so he could see it better in the light of the lanterns in the gloomy courtyard. “The Ha Shi Lian… what a day, what a day…”

Struggling to move, he found that most of his clothing that was not luss cloth under-padding or his armour had turned to ash.

“Strip her,” the old man said blandly, puffing on his pipe, watching as the barrier eroded Shi Lian’s garments. “A girl like her will have means, though at least with this we will have made a little profit from this chaos.”

The brown-haired youth nodded, holding her by the hair and forcing her to kneel while another of the bandits tore much of her armour and remaining clothing off her.

“You will regret this,” Shi Lian hissed, struggling to protect her modesty as she glared at the old man and the youth in turn.

-Where are Bai Sheng and the others? he wondered, trying not to let his concern take control of him.

“Perhaps, but I am an old man and have many regrets already, what is one more?” the old man remarked with a toothy grin, looking Shi Lian over.

“A young woman like you, however, can certainly be helped to dwell on hers…” the brown-haired youth added, running the back of his hand across her cheek.

“—That would be a terrible shame, wouldn’t it, young heroine?” the old man added, looking up at the balcony above.

Pushing himself up, he looked around for his spear as he saw Meihua, not Bai Sheng, standing on the balcony, holding Bai Sheng’s bow.

Hardly any of the other bandits had noticed her either, he saw, based on the way they flinched and looked up.

“…”

“Why don’t you come down, it’s rude to make your elders look up,” the old man added with a grin.

A moment later three more bandits, in markedly better armour, emblazoned with the green fan and the three golden lines, not one, appeared up above. All three levelled their weapons at her, grinning broadly.

Meihua looked at them, her expression taut, then hopped off the balcony to land in the courtyard below.

“Now, I am not a vengeful person,” the old man sighed, turning back to him, “but there is still the matter of you killing so many of my Green Fan…”

“Your—?” Meihua started to ask, before the old man appeared before her, putting a finger to her lips, stopping her.

“Mmm… yes,” the old man nodded. “It’s nothing personal, just people will think I am going soft, you understand?

A moment later, the same barrier appeared around Meihua, expelling her qi in a matter of seconds and ruining most of her clothing. The old man took the bow and admired it for a moment, then passed it to another bandit.

-Ah, fates-sent nameless-spawned misfortune…he groaned. Don’t tell me this old man is the Esoteric Green Fan?

Esoteric Green Fan was an expert with serious renown. While he was not quite on the same level as… Old Xian, say, stumbling into someone like him up here was not good news.

-Does that make him, ‘Smiling Fan’? he wondered, uneasily, his gaze shuttling to the brown-haired youth.

Smiling Fan was no joke either. While he was not a ‘junior’, that was only a matter of perspective and a relative lack of ‘Good Fortune’. Smiling Fan had, by all accounts, the talent to have made that threshold. However, he had offended a group of cultivators some two hundred years ago and suffered an injury that led to him falling out of the generation. As a result of that, he had eventually been taken in by the Five Fans Bandit Federation, becoming the protégé of Esoteric Green Fan.

The group who had injured him had all died horribly, and their daughters, sisters, wives and mothers had been abducted, never to be seen again.

“Nice armour,” the bandit with the red blades observed, walking over to him with a greedy smirk and pulling off his helmet, tossing it away.

“Luss cloth, huh…” the second bandit, remarked with a raised eyebrow, noting that most of his under-garments had not been destroyed.

The barrier constricted around him, again, and more of his qi was dispersed. The second bandit picked up his spear and spun it appreciatively. “Good balance… good balance…”

“Red Fang, Thirsty Fan, stop playing and just off the guardian,” ‘Smiling Fan’ said with an amused chuckle.

“Of course, Young Lord Fan,” Red Fang said with a grin.

“To think a vaunted Golden Immortal is going to die so… pathetically,” Thirsty Fan sighed, levelling his own spear at him. “It’s a pity really, but maybe you can see it as a blessing, this way you don’t have to see your dear protégés suffer, eh—!?”

Having run out of patience, he caught the spear and shoved it backwards, sending Thirsty Fan staggering.

In other circumstances, he would not have risked this, but both bandits were almost out of qi and having to rely purely on Martial Intent. As such, so long as Green Fan couldn’t use laws, he was at least confident of fighting.

Red Fang, looking a bit shocked at last, cut for him with his blade—

Picking his moment, he slipped inside Red Fang’s guard as the bandit swung at him and slammed one palm into the bandit’s dantian and the other under his chin, shoulder charging him into Thirsty Fan.

Hit in the head, dantian and heart gate, Red Fang crumpled backwards—

“—Ah… ah… Ah! Young hero…”

His foot stopped, basically on Red Fang’s face, as he could see that Smiling Fan was running a golden-bronze dagger up across Shi Lian’s bare chest and neck, drawing a thin line of blood as he went.

Shi Lian, for her part, was pale and there were veins now standing out on her neck and forehead as she tried to avoid moving.

“Please, please…” the old man murmured, shaking his head with a grin. “Have a bit of conscience… please…”

The old man trailed off, his eyes widening, but it was already too late.

Bai Sheng, who had, as far as he could see, stepped out of nowhere, slammed the shield into the barrier, which was now merely protecting the inner area of the courtyard and restraining the three of them.

Silence flowed outwards and the barrier vanished like morning mist.

“…Let Flowers in Darkness Bloom,”

“Beneath the Empty Moon…”

“Enchant the Heart…”

The air seemed to vibrate for a few seconds, then everything settled back again, just as it had been. The ghostly words that had seemed to be whispered through the shadows faded away again.

The formation in the middle of the courtyard splintered, the flag on it scattering into ashen embers.

Meihua slammed into the wall near him, groaning in pain.

Esoteric Green Fan, who had gotten halfway across the courtyard towards Bai Sheng, staggered, coughing up blood, his face pale, dropping his spear.

Shi Lian, her qi completely replenished in that moment, twisted, grasping Smiling Fan’s hand and prying the blade away from her neck.

To his surprise, he saw that Red Fang was already up, and dragging Thirsty Fan away.

-Is he a physical cultivator as well?

Esoteric Green Fan pushed himself up, spitting blood, and barely avoided losing an arm to Bai Sheng, who then kicked the old man in the side, sending him sprawling.

With a snarled scream, Shi Lian spun Smiling Fan over, slamming him into the ground.

“Yeah, you like that, don’t you?” Shi Lian sneered, tangling her hands through the shrieking youth’s hair.

Before anyone could react, she had stabbed him several times in the back with the dagger, then dragged his head back and put several nasty gashes down his face.

“…”

“Get—!”

One of the bandits, a bit faster to recover than the others, dashed for Shi Lian—

{Fox Fire Flare}

A blaze of red-purple fire consumed the whole courtyard, emanating out like a blossoming flower from Shi Lian—

“—I’ll be taking that shield, boy.”

A youthful expert dressed in battered, if functional, armour, a broad blade at his back, appeared beside Bai Sheng like a ghost, one hand already resting on his shoulder, the other holding a very fancy-looking talisman which he slapped on Bai Sheng’s back. In the same instant, the yin fire that was consuming the other bandits extinguished itself, as if blown out by a gust of wind.

Bai Sheng coughed up bright blood and was sent sprawling as the new arrival admired the shield.

A heartbeat later, three of the cow-sized tetrid stalkers came down the far wall of the courtyard, accompanied by what had to be several hundred smaller ones, crowding every window, doorway and wall space.

“A pity I cannot soul bind it here,” the man said with a regretful sigh, “But you have my thanks, young hero, this will be useful in dealing with that bitch.”

“He…help…” Smiling Fan rasped, struggling up, clawing at his ruined face, his hair still partially on fire.

The new arrival eyed the youth, and the damage, and just shook his head.

“With all the teaching we gave you, you still got caught out by one of Jiang Seong’s little bitches?” the man sighed, picking up a jade talisman from the ground.

-Talisman… clone? He stared dully at the remains of the old man’s robe and the now-depleted talisman. I suppose that’s… one way to deal with the risks of this place?

It certainly explained why someone reputed to be at least an Ancient Immortal, who had lived for over a millennia, would have been defeated that easily.

“I feel like you have betrayed my good intentions here,” the man, who in his heart he was sure was the ‘real’ Esoteric Green Fan at this point, sighed, recovering the pipe as well and puffing on it.

“So… what to do with the rest of you…” Esoteric Green Fan murmured, looking at them with an amused, yet disdainful expression.

“Aren’t you looking down on us a bit,” Shi Lian scowled, retreating to stand beside him.

“Looking down on you?” Esoteric Green Fan raised an eyebrow. “No, girl, I cannot say I am.”

“…”

“This much was expected; no, it is perhaps fair to say we are… slightly disappointed really.”

“What… did you want the fury of the Ling clan to descend on you in person?” Bai Sheng remarked sourly, picking himself up.

“Oh, I doubt that will happen either,” Green Fan said drily.

“Still… I rather fear you are underestimating Lady Ling Tao though,” Bai Sheng retorted.

Not for the first time, he found himself wondering where the others actually were.

“Mmmm… has she made an impression with you…” Green Fan replied with a ‘sad’ smile. “Ah to be young, and have faith in one’s seniors.”

-Why is he just keeping us talking?

Considering things objectively, this whole conversation was… odd. Green Fan should have attacked already.

“Sadly, ‘Lady’ Ling Tao certainly finds herself shackled by the constraints of her circumstances,” Esoteric Green Fan continued. “I understand Dun Fanshu finds her company… pleasing on the eyes, despite the fact that she is old enough to be his grandmother. If you are relying on her for support, you will experience regrets before we are done.”

“…”

-Why is he just keeping us talking?

-Is he stalling for time… or trying to distract…?

Looking around the courtyard, shrouded in rain and mist, he frowned.

-Something is off… he mused, narrowing his eyes. Something is…

-Ah!

-Where is the jasmine…

-And the tetrids!

There was only one large tetrid still there, with a sleek grey and black body and a strange set of reddish symbols that almost looked like moon runes in a geometric pattern painted on its back.

Esoteric Green Fan glanced at him, then shook his head as if amused. “Good eyes… yes, all I have to do is keep you here for a while. Until the matter outside is… resolved. The young ladies will, of course, be hospitably entertained, and Young Lord Bai here… can certainly be of use, but as for you… no hard feelings, but it’s just your time—”

By the time he realised what was going on, Esoteric Green Fan had already arrived before him, his blade cutting down for his neck.

Assessing his options, which were not good, he mustered all of his Martial Intent, his qi and his Immortal Principle, and tried to get inside Green Fan’s strike, as the old expert’s blade sliced down at him.

There was a subtle, inexorable draw as the blade seemed to draw him to it, obviating his use of his Principle and leaving him stranded as surely as if he had tried to retreat—

Bai Sheng appeared beside him, blocking the blow with his own sword.

In the clash of blades, the subtle, disturbing allure of the other’s Immortal Principle was cancelled out by Bai Sheng, before he could do it himself.

“Not bad, not bad,” Esoteric Green Fan murmured, eyeing Bai Sheng with a frown as he stepped away. “You have some small skill…”

“…”

Scrambling back, he grimaced, noting that Shi Lian had also moved to be behind—

The air in the courtyard shifted and the jasmine flowed out of the cracks in the rocks with renewed vigour. Above them, the trees seemed to sigh and the hiss of rain grew… sharp.

Esoteric Green Fan’s expression turned serious at last and he took a step back—

A sword blade fell, like a shadow amid the rain, seeming to draw the gloom of the forest gorge with it. The hissing of the rain intensified, scattering off leaves, while the mist took on a cloying, constricting, inauspicious weight.

Green Fan’s eyes widened and he properly retreated as the attacker resolved into… Shi Xiaolian, who was standing on the roof above them, her sword in her hand.

Taking that opportunity, he dived for where his spear had landed—

A tetrid stalker crashed down, almost on top of him, its limbs trying to pin him to the ground.

Rather than go for the spear again, he finally drew one of the pair of short blades at his waist and opened up the chitinous side of the beast with a vicious, scything slash.

The creature spasmed and staggered back, the wound bleeding qi as the blade inscribed only with the Ancient Easten Word ‘Merope’, bit deep into it. Their properties, to ruin qi replenishment and deal nigh-unhealable wounds, were similar in a way to the rare copper-bronze blades that sometimes turned up in ruins. That said, Ruliu had always denied they came from a ruin. She had once said they were a gift from the forest, but never elaborated on their origins beyond that.

The stalker shook and ‘screamed’. Claws slid into his mind, trying to drag him… out of him in some fundamental way. Groaning, he shifted his grip and drew the other one, named ‘Phoebe’ and stabbed it deep into the creature’s underbelly—

Shi Lian and Meihua both landed blows on the enraged beast, sending it staggering away before it could roll over on him.

“You okay?” Yunhee appeared beside him, hauling him out of the ichor.

Looking around, he found that Green Fan had vanished.

“Yeah…” he muttered.

The tetrid stalker snarled and then launched itself at Shi Xiaolian, who tilted her head and then took half a step forward—

He stared dully as the stalker collapsed into a pile of mush, ichor and smoking plates, dismembered by the rain itself.

“Laws are scary,” Yunhee muttered.

“Uhuh,” he agreed.

Their comments drew a wry smile from Shi Xiaolian as she walked over to the tetrid and waved her hand. The remains scattered, exposing a head-sized, spherical core, filled with smoky red fire.

“Seriously?” Shi Xiaolian sighed, putting her hands on her hips. “Blood ling corruption?”

“At least it’s on brand…” he noted.

“Yeah, that is true,” Shi Lian agreed.

“Explains why it could use soul attacks, anyway,” Yunhee confirmed, before he could ask, that that hadn’t just affected him.

“Yeah,” Bai Sheng agreed before looking at him and Shi Lian apologetically. “Sorry, that got a bit out of hand.”

“Don’t be; that bastard, if he was easy to deal with, would have died long ago,” Shi Xiaolian spat. “For him to be involved in this is not a good thing.”

That was indeed the worrying truth. The resurgence of the Yeng Brotherhood was a concern, but they were not the only dangerous band. The Five Fans, as Shi Xiaolian had just alluded, had effectively positioned themselves as the Yeng Brotherhood’s successors over the last century and a half. They had links to every dark act in three provinces and their leaders were largely unknown, despite the Bureau’s best efforts.

For one of their principle strengths, Esoteric Green Fan, to be here, now…

“Ah! He ran off with your shield,” he realised.

“Yeah… that’s a bit of a headache,” Bai Sheng agreed with a grimace. “But it is what it is.”

Han Ryong appeared a moment later, from the stairs up, looking tired and pale.

“Looks like this place was where the Ha clan scions were—”

The whole complex shook and his qi turned turbulent. The jasmine all around them shimmered in the rain.

“Flowers in darkness bloom…”

“Beneath the Empty Moon…”

Again, the ethereal words hung in the air, unsettling and… sorrowful. There was depth of pain to them that reached out and touched him…

“Memory born anew…”

“Like echoes of my dreams…”

“Well, let’s get this shit finished,” Shi Xiaolian declared, turning on her heel and heading for the gateway behind them.

Pushing the uneasy, distracted feeling away, he gave the ruined courtyard one final look, then followed after her and Bai Sheng, through the gateway and into the main area of the gorge…

“…”

It was fair to say that the scene that met them… was not what he anticipated.

The area before them was basically a hellscape.

Hundreds of dead tetrids and dozens of bandits lay scattered everywhere.

Esoteric Fan, still wielding the shield, was staggering backwards, his face pale, having just used it to block the blow of a young woman with sandy-blonde hair, covered from head to toe in blood and tetrid gore.

Looking around, nine other experts were scattered around the plaza, besieging the woman, and two others he now noted, by the teleport platform. Two were fighting the woman directly, while four were trying to maintain a formation at something approximating a safe distance. The remaining three were circling, clearly trying their best to recuperate and flank her, to get to two other badly injured women.

For her part, the blood-covered young woman maintaining the formation was clearly the source of the jasmine, which emanated like tendrils and cracks from a second formation beneath her.

Two of the experts trying to flank spotted them, one of them cursed, then broke away and rushed forward towards them, waving for the other experts with Esoteric Green Fan to go to the left and right.

Bai Sheng, who had reclaimed his bow from Yunhee, sent three arrows in rapid succession at the oncoming attacker, forcing him to check his advance.

“Get the ones on the far side!” Bai Sheng called back to them, pointing to their right with a fourth arrow. “I’ll help her!”

Following Bai Sheng’s gesture, he saw five bandits rushing for the buildings on the far side of the gorge.

“Meihua, you two, with me…” Shi Xiaolian added, waving for Yunhee and Ryong to follow her, off to their right.

Off on the other side, he also spotted the Ling group as well, at last, finishing off the last of a group of bandits and several large tetrid stalkers who had been fleeing another complex of buildings.

Focusing qi in his legs, he charged for them, followed by Shi Lian—

“Shit!” one of the bandits cursed, quite inanely really, and pointed a talisman at them.

Shi Lian tackled him from behind, dragging them both down into the shelter of the edge some fallen blocks by the teleport platform as a sheet of searing, sickly-green fire split the plaza. The strength of yin fire gnawed at his qi, vindicating Shi Lian’s evasive strategy.

“Good call,” he rasped, spitting out ash as the fire faded away.

“Recognised it,” Shi Lian murmured.

Pushing himself up, he saw that the bandits were already at the circular entrance to the courtyard—

*Duwwwwwwwong*

Behind them a second massive shockwave made the whole plaza shake and threw them, the bandits ahead of them, and another group who had been dragging several captives out of the building on the right, flat on their faces again.

Picking himself up, he found the source of the dreadful shockwave had been Esoteric Green Fan blocking an arrow from Bai Sheng with his stolen shield. The bandit leader was staggering backwards, looking shocked.

“Did one person really do all this?” Shi Lian muttered, looking around at the death and the destruction, then back at the woman fighting in the middle of the gorge.

“You saw what Xiaolian and Old Xian did,” he replied grimly.

“Yeah…” she conceded, staring at her own hands. “I did.”

“What’s on this side?” he asked as they started running again, pointing to where they were going.

“A shrine?” she replied, before adding a bit helplessly. “I… It’s a shrine to the Queen Mothers and the Grandfather of Heaven?”

“Huh…”

Arriving at the entrance to that courtyard, he found himself wondering what that group wanted in there, other than perhaps to loot it of artefacts.

Glancing inside, he immediately ducked back again as two arrows smashed into the doorframe, exploding into clouds of yin earth and yin fire qi.

“I hope your nine generations are born with cultivation deviations!” Shi Lian screamed, clearly as annoyed as he was with the arrows at this point.

“Well, if you’re the one bearing them!” a bandit heckled back.

“…”

“Shall I go first?” he signed to her, replenishing his qi quickly.

“No!” Shi Lian shook her head emphatically. “My turn!”

Before he could do anything, she dashed into the courtyard, deflecting four more arrows—

{Purple Forbidden Sword: Sombre Xian}

A shadow-like blade, wreathed in purplish-red fire, hit the most prominent archer full on, sending him sprawling across the courtyard. Inhaling, he focused qi in his legs and raced after her. Three more arrows smashed into his armour, exploding in flashes of yin qi.

Glancing right and then left, he raced for the two guarding the door. One discarded his bow and drew a golden-copper blade.

-Seriously, aren’t those accursed blades meant to be rare and expensive artefacts? He complained, deflecting the opening thrust, even as another arrow narrowly missed his neck.

The bandit took the blade in two hands and swung it up at his face, trying to stay inside the reach of his spear. In reply he just slid his hands up the haft, blocking the blow and making a half spin, the butt of his weapon lashing around in an arc at knee height.

They exchanged three moves in rapid succession until he finally got an opening and, abusing his superior armour, shoulder charged the bandit, nearly tripping him on the stairs—

The bandit twisted, almost unnaturally, his speed rapidly increasing as he lashed his sword at his face.

Twisting to the side, he felt the familiar tug of a Principle trying to overwhelm him as the bandit finally revealed his hand. Unlike Esoteric Green Fan though, this bandit was not some lofty expert with a grasp of Laws, merely a peak Immortal with a martial method. Trusting to his armour, he let the bandit land the blow, then shoulder charged him again as his blade deflected off the scales.

They both went tumbling into the shrine, at which point he discarded his spear, grasped the man’s weapon hand and bent it in on itself as they rolled. His opponent screamed in pain as he sent a pulse of Martial Intent infused qi up his arm, ruining the meridians.

Disarming the bandit of the blade, he stabbed him in the leg—

A bowl smashed into the back of his helmet, nearly unbalancing him. Rolling away he cut behind him with the blade, forcing a curse out of the unseen attacker.

Getting to his feet, he found three bandits closing on him in the enclosed space. Two, including the one who had just thrown the stone bowl at him, were badly injured, while the third had passed his blade over and was wielding his spear.

From inside the shrine, there was a further flash of purple fire—

Abruptly, the whole complex shook and the little qi that remained in his body not being supplied by Lord Baisheng’s talisman turned chaotic.

A thunderclap echoed from outside and the air in the smoky hall seemed to gain thorns for a brief moment. His qi, meanwhile, and everyone else’s, turned turbulent in a whole different and much more familiar manner – spatial distortion.

Seizing the moment, he darted forward and caught the haft of his own spear.

Ignoring the fairly mediocre amount of Martial Intent the bandit was able to exert, he took the opportunity to close with his opponent, who quite wisely did not let go of the spear and tried to kick him.

“You should stick to unarmed combat against civilians,” he grunted, absorbing the blow and grabbing the bandit by his hair.

The youth who had thrown the stone bowl at him now lunged, with his golden-bronze blade.

Sneering, he spun in a small circle. The bandit he was holding by the hair screamed in agony as the youth’s committed strike opened up both his legs. Shoving the flailing expert at that youth, he completed his spin and drove the haft of his spear into the other injured, staggering youth, hard enough to send him sprawling in the other direction.

Tuning out the screaming of the bandit, he flipped his spear over and stabbed the sprawling youth through his dantian. The other youth, meanwhile, who had managed to extricate himself and staggered to his feet, stared at him, then the door, and dashed for it.

“Ah, excellent, they didn’t escape…”

The sandy-haired woman from before, still largely naked and covered in blood, was standing in the entrance of the shrine, smiling faintly.

“Y-y-you…” the fleeing youth stammered, backing away.

The woman covered the distance between them in a single step, her hand closing around the youth’s neck.

“You know… I feel like we have been here before, Ha~ Fan~ Jing~,” the woman murmured, almost playfully, as her fist closed around the youth’s neck.

Shi Lian, who had come in after the woman, made to speak, however, before she could, ‘Ha Fan Jing’ spasmed, his body emitting several deeply unpleasant cracking sounds.

The woman dropped the barely-alive youth on the ground and sighed, then looked at him.

“Sorry, the appearance is a bit…” she grimaced. “I am Ying, the priestess here.”

“Jun Han,” he replied politely.

“Ha Shi Lian,” Shi Lian added.

“Jun Han…” the woman frowned. “You are… the older brother of the Jun sisters?”

“…”

Shi Lian snorted a laugh.

“Their father,” he replied, trying to keep the edge from his voice and not really succeeding.

“…”

“Oh…” Priestess Ying gave him a slightly surprised look.

“Where—?”

“—They are not here,” she added.

Those four words were like a terrible weight, which he had been trying to ignore, had been lifted off his shoulders.

“How many survivors are there?” Shi Lian asked, her own expression… complex.

“Far too few… I am sorry,” the priestess said softly, walking over to the one he had stabbed and grabbing him by the hair.

“…”

Shi Lian sighed, sadly.

“Let’s get these bodies out of here,” he said, walking over to the other bandit.

“I saw you didn’t kill the two outside,” the priestess noted as he hauled up the barely alive cultivator who had taken his spear.

“Answers are more important than vengeance,” he shrugged, watching as she walked back over to the first one she had crippled and picked him up as well. “Where are my daughters anyway?”

“…”

Priestess Ying’s complicated look brought the weight straight back again.

A part of him, a fairly irrational part, just wanted to grab her and demand answers, but he forced it back and just walked out of the shrine after her, Shi Lian preceding them both.

“There is another, hopefully, in the hall over there,” Priestess Ying pointed to the door on the far side of the courtyard.

Shi Lian nodded and headed over, returning a moment later with another body.

Heading out into the main plaza, he found the end to their assault had been abrupt, likely to the point of being anti-climactic. Ling Tao, Lord Baisheng and Ha Shi Xiaolian were standing around with a few others, including Fei Weng and Kun Yunhee, while two women wearing fresh robes, who were vaguely familiar, tended to a third who was lying on the ground.

Half a dozen captives lay bound on the ground. Most of them had already been crippled, bar two held in barriers, who had been fighting Priestess Ying, and who were glaring balefully at everyone.

There was no sign of the others, like Esoteric Green Fan.

“These are the ones,” Priestess Ying said, dumping the two barely alive cultivators next to a third. “This one was going by the name of Ha Fanjing—” she kicked the one she had crippled first, who sobbed bloody bubbles. “And this one…” she poked the other, “is Ling Zhan Bei, who posed as a Ling clan expert.”

“Huh…” Ling Tao walked over and crouched down beside Zhan Bei, who just about managed to turn his head to look at her.

“You know who I am… right?” Ling Tao asked with a cheerful smile.

“A…stupid… bitch?” Zhan Bei rasped, so quietly it was barely audible.

“…”

“Even… if… you… kill… us… it… doesn’t… matter…” Zhan Bei gurgled. “Stupid… stupid… bitch, suck… my—”

Ling Fei Weng went to gag him, but before he could, Priestess Ying just stamped on Zhan Bei’s neck.

“…”

“What,” the priestess said with a shrug, as they all stared at her. “They ate peaches of immortality that had been left as offerings at the shrine, you can literally cut their heads off or flay them to the bone and they will still live for weeks due to the excess longevity in their flesh and blood.”

Ling Tao stared at the two youths, impassively, then just shook her head.

“What of the other two?” Lord Baisheng asked, eyeing them.

“Ha Pei Quan…” Priestess Ying remarked, pointing to the one who was the least injured, although that was rather relative. “Illhan was noticeably keen to get him back.”

“Quan…” Ha Shi Xiaolian frowned. “Quan… Qwan, Kwan… Yeng Seng Kwan?”

Ha Pei Quan, who was conscious, just stared at her silently.

“Aiii… if it is him, I dunno if that’s good or bad,” Ha Shi Xiaolian sighed, looking over at the last one, who Shu Lian had just dumped down a moment earlier.

“Ha Ji Bofan,” Priestess Ying answered.

“So, they infiltrated everyone,” Ling Tao sighed.

“Yeah…” Priestess Ying agreed. “As I said… I am sorry I couldn’t save more… It was very well-orchestrated.”

“Yes, I am getting that impression,” Ling Tao muttered, looking around coolly.

“How many survivors in total, Miss Xiang Meilan?” Bai Sheng asked.

“Six that can walk?” the golden-brown-haired young woman said with a grimace sitting back on her heels from the woman on the ground. “There are… complications though.”

“—Sorry to interrupt, but we have a problem,” Old Xian said, coming over with a grim-faced Han Ryong, who was carrying the bound-up Duan Mu.

“—Make that seven,” the other, auburn-haired, woman remarked with a wan sigh, sitting back on her heels and looking at Duan Mu.

“To go with the many other problems,” Ling Tao sighed.

“The sealed rooms in the storehouse. They are all empty,” Old Xian continued, while Han Ryong put Duan Mu down on the ground.

“…”

Ling Tao stared up at the sky, then at the ground, then spun on her heel and walked over to one of the other captives, dragging the youth up. She stared into his eyes for a long moment, until he started to twitch, then tossed him back down.

“Got something?” Priestess Ying asked with a grimace.

“A bit,” Ling Tao said, rubbing her temples. “It seems that they intended to capture this place and use it as a front in the trial. They did not run with the herbs… probably.”

“So… someone else cleaned them out?” Old Xian mused. “Duan Mu here said that a Ling Elder and a bunch of cultivators killed those in there.” Old Xian pointed towards a building to the right of the inn, his expression flat.

“Ling Leng Dushan,” Priestess Ying said. “He was among those that fled a moment ago.”

“Fled?” he repeated dully, slightly shocked that that was possible with the current company.

“Uhuh, half of those fighting me were talisman clones, as it turns out.” Priestess Ying sighed. “Including that rat Yeng Illhan. Two others had bound jades.”

“Well, it’s one way to deal with the suppression,” Old Xian conceded.

“Esoteric Green Fan?” he asked, suspecting he already knew the answer.

Ling Tao made a poof motion while Priestess Ying spat on the ground, confirming that suspicion.

“He fled with my shield though,” Bai Sheng said drily. “So, when we get back, I can tell you exactly where they are.”

“So… returning to the other matter, Diaomei,” Shi Xiaolian said. “What were you saying before, about a mishap?”

“Teleportation network got corrupted, yesterday,” The auburn-haired woman said, glancing up, finally revealing that the person she was healing was… Mu Shi, who was pale as death and missing an arm.

“Ah, before that…” Lord Baisheng took out a talisman and waved a hand, dragging the four prisoners over to one spot.

They watched as he put his thumb on the talisman and a ghostly blue cube appeared around the four.

“This way there won’t be any… accidents,” Lord Baisheng said with a brittle smile.

“A wise precaution,” Ha Shi Xiaolian agreed, before waving for them to continue speaking.

“Indeed,” Priestess Ying agreed. “Well, it’s up in the air if it was an accident or not, but a group from the Ha clan, led by Ha Kunbei, captured a yin lamium spirit herb and brought it back here—”

“Basically… an hour later… it all went to shit,” Xiang added.

“—How?” Ling Tao asked.

“Well, near as we could tell, they blamed the Herb Hunters and Ha Huang…” Priestess Ying continued with a grimace. “How truthful their explanation was amid the blame-shifting…”

“Huaaaaaa…” Shi Xiaolian actually bit her knuckles.

“That’s about right,” Miss Xiang agreed, spitting on the ground.

“Ah well, go on…” Ling Tao said.

“Anyway, it seems like an awakened spirit herb managed to gain control of the teleport formation. A bunch of groups got caught—”

“…”

“An awakened spirit herb,” Bai Sheng interjected dully.

“Yeah…” Priestess Ying sighed. “Well, Kun Lianmei and her group were out in Portam Rhanae – the valley with the big ruin – with the Qing, Bai and Ling scions.”

“Whether it was good or bad luck that they evaded that catastrophe is kinda up in the air at the moment,” Diaomei muttered.

“Who was caught?” Ling Tao asked.

“Ha Huang’s group, with Kun Juni, Jun Arai and Sana, Lin Ling and Han Shu,” Priestess Ying grimaced, giving him a sideways look. “They were blamed by the Ha bunch for ‘messing with the formation’. We got a solitary communication from a ‘Ha Ji Mangfan’ alleging that—”

“How… convenient,” Old Xian growled.

“Oh yeah… a lot of ‘convenience’ going around in this,” Xiang muttered.

“The second group was Ha… Ha Yun’s—” Priestess Ying trailed off.

“—It’s easier to just call them the Ha Family,” Shi Xiaolian interjected, rolling her eyes.

“—Okay, Ha Yun’s,” Priestess Ying went on. “Ha Cao Caolun’s group as well… and then a few from here.”

“There was also a Ling group who came through yesterday lunchtime, with the ill-fated new arrivals from the Ha clan—” Xiang volunteered.

“Wait… a group from the Ling clan came through… yesterday?” Ling Tao interrupted.

“…”

Priestess Ying stared up at the sky for a long moment.

“Who was in that group?” Ling Tao asked, an edge entering her voice.

“Ling Luo,” Diaomei replied promptly. “Who if I recall right… is your niece? She said she came up here to help with the logistics… which, given she is a Bureau Official…”

“Sounded awfully plausible,” Xiang agreed. “Not to mention that dog molester Dushan said it was okay.”

Weng Fei, off to the side, looked like he had just eaten shit.

“Who came with her?” Ling Tao said, her tone almost glacial.

“A… Ji Tantai, a few youths in Ling clan robes and a girl from the Bai clan and another from the Shen who I believe are both lying over there with Kun Lianmei and the others,” Diaomei pointed to where a dozen or so people, mostly women, were now being tended to by the Ha clan women and Yunhee.

“Oh, and those other two, who seemed to be known to the Din clan,” Xiang added.

“Ah, yeah, them,” Diaomei nodded.

“And how did she end up… well, maybe it’s a mercy at this point,” Ling Tao groaned.

“She had a Bureau Loci with her, a proper one,” Diaomei answered. “She divined their location, but before she could do much more than confirm that, she and Ji Tantai, along with a few others near the teleport point, were forcibly teleported—”

“Okay, how?” Shi Xiaolian interjected, somewhat incredulously.

“…”

“I have a theory,” Priestess Ying sighed. “But…”

“Go on…” Lord Baisheng said.

“So, we found evidence that a Deng group had been up here… a month or two back?” Priestess Ying explained. “They were using Seven Star teleport formations.”

“…”

“Let me guess…” Ling Tao said, running her hands through her hair and staring up into the rainclouds above. “Someone, likely a Ha clan scion, plugged an end-to-end teleport into our network that had been hijacked by an awakened spirit herb?”

“That… does appear to be the gist of it,” Priestess Ying agreed.

“…”

He realised his mouth had fallen open, as had quite a few others. When it came to ‘stupid ways to tempt death’, that was right up there.

“As I said before, in the context of this, it’s hard to know if that was an accident or not,” Priestess Ying added.

“It’s sad that at this point I can’t even refute that they are that stupid,” Shi Lian, who had been standing silently next to him, complained.

“Any idea where it went?” Old Xian asked.

“Near the Inner Valleys,” Priestess Ying replied. “That was as far as we got yesterday… and, well, they attacked before dawn and had taken out two thirds of the Inn before even I was aware of what was happening—”

“They ambushed us with a proper Dao Cage talisman,” Diaomei added, clenching her fists.

“If it wasn’t for the little monkey…” Priestess Ying sighed.

“We got a warning, via the teleport… in Flower Mountain Script,” Ling Tao said. “What happened to the monkey?”

Priestess Ying just shook her head.

“Well, if they were out there… maybe they escaped this chaos?” Han Ryong muttered.

“…”

Ling Tao looked at him, Han Ryong and Old Xian, her expression…

He had to close his eyes and just turn away, because while he wanted to believe…

-Please be okay… please just be stuck out there, oblivious to all this.

“Do you have a list of who would be in those groups?” Ha Shi Xiaolian asked.

“Yes,” Priestess Ying nodded. “Although who might be… well that’s complicated.”

“Does this have to do with why Hunter Duan Mu here is trussed up like a chicken?” Ling Tao asked.

They all turned to look at the unconscious form of Duan Mu, then at the prisoners.

Closing his eyes, he tried to think what he would do… if Arai and Sana had been…

“Uhuh,” Xiang nodded. “They tried it on me as well, but… my Physical Foundation is… good enough that it didn’t take.”

He couldn’t help noticing she got a bit evasive there.

“What exactly did they try?” Lord Baisheng asked.

“It was a talisman… I think some kind of locking art, or puppet art?” Xiang Meilan replied with a helpless shrug. “I know that when it was used on me, I didn’t even know what I was doing was a problem until my mantra got in the way.”

“There are arts like that,” Lord Baisheng sighed.

“There are,” Ha Shi Xiaolian agreed with a grimace, eyeing the others. “And I can’t help but note that every survivor is someone of… use.”

“Yes, we are,” Xiang agreed with a more wretched sigh.

Looking at the injured he saw what she meant; Mu Shi and Duan Mu were Hunters, the women were from the Cherry Wine Pagoda, the others were from influential clans. All excellent places to gain an opportunistic agent. It was a pattern that the Blood Eclipse had tried before as well.

“So that means that anyone who is out there… could be affected?” Hai Shi Xiaolian groaned. “Lord Feirong is going to kill people over this. As may Pagoda Lord Tai…”

“Richly deserved it will be as well,” Diaomei spat. “Were it not for Priestess Ying, I would probably be destined for some wealthy young noble’s pleasure palace.”

“…”

“Lady Tao…” the leader of the ‘little dragon’ came over. “We have completed the sweep, it seems like all the reference tablets, and everything else like it, have been disabled or taken. There is remarkably little evidence that is not circumstantial or unreliable, especially when you factor in the state of all those we have found alive, so far.”

“They really did do this properly,” Ha Shi Xiaolian muttered.

“Yes, Lady Shi,” the dragon-masked youth agreed. “If I might say, as well, I have considered what might be drawn from this… and the optics are rotten to the very core.”

“When we get back, I want you to take apart this ‘Ling Leng Dushan’s’ life,” Ling Tao said flatly.

“Of course, Lady Ling!” the youth murmured.

“…”

“Your older brother is going to be unhappy,” Lord Baisheng noted as they watched the youth go back over to the others.

“That… is an understatement even for a day like today,” Ling Tao sighed, rubbing her temples. “I know your primary concern is… what it is, but Ling Luo is also my niece…”

“I understand,” Lord Baisheng said, giving her a pat on the shoulder. “I am an old man, not a piece of stone. I am here, am I not?”

“Ha Yun being up there, and Ha Caolun as well…” Shi Xiaolian scowled. “Where is Ha Ji Wufan?”

She turned and waved to one of the Cherry Wine Pagoda women who came over.

“Not among the dead or the crippled,” the woman reported, “At least so far.”

“No sign of Ha Botan either,” Diaomei added, her expression gloomy.

“No, Elder Diaomei,” the woman replied with a grimace.

“Can we lift residual information from the teleport itself?” he asked, turning over the possibilities for tracking where Arai and Sana and the rest might have gone.

“…”

“Not here, but we can take it apart and take it down,” Ling Tao said. “Unless…”

“They haven’t stripped the teleport,” Priestess Ying said. “It worked for the little monkey – may its soul be watched over by the Sage Equal to Heaven – and there wasn’t time after that.”

“What you are asking, Tao… is not a simple thing,” Lord Baisheng murmured.

“But you could do it?” Ling Tao pushed.

“I could,” Lord Baisheng conceded. “But—”

“Who else is capable of that kind of formations knowledge?” Ling Tao asked bluntly.

“…”

“Okay,” Lord Baisheng said at last. “However, there is still a problem. The reason why those two who are conscious, there, are grinning like lunatics.”

“Nobody here can teleport,” Old Xian said drily.

“I am aware,” Ling Tao said sourly.

“We will still need to do the analysis in the Ling Estate,” Baisheng noted. “That is just a limit of this place.”

“Teacher can handle that,” Ling Tao said. “I have a secure talisman connection to him that will still work up here as well. With the expertise on hand, if we cannot transmit that information, we may as well just retire now and take up fishing as a hobby or something.”

“Okay…” Lord Baisheng nodded.

They watched him head over to the teleport formation and crouch down by the centre.

“Ah… I was going to say—” Priestess Ying coughed.

“About the alignments being so scrambled?” Old Xian said, waving a hand. “That’s not a—”

“Ah, no, I already asked some experts with local knowledge to look for the missing groups,” Priestess Ying said.

“…”

“You… asked?” Ling Tao frowned. “And you didn’t say this—”

“In fairness, we have been asking questions non-stop,” Old Xian said blandly.

“Yes, well, an Iron Hide monkey came…” Priestess Ying said with remarkable aplomb.

“An…” Old Xian turned pale, as did Ling Tao.

“It was he who freed us…” Diaomei said softly, grasping her wrists for some reason. “I was…”

“I see…” Ha Shi Xiaolian sighed, giving Diaomei a sympathetic pat on the shoulder.

“Was the dead monkey…”

“Yes,” Priestess Ying said with a grimace. “However, I can make some interventions there, they are not Fern Cloaks.”

“Yes, they are a fate-sent sight scarier,” Old Xian muttered.

“—So, you asked one of the Iron Hide tribe to look for them?” Ling Tao frowned. “Can… they succeed?”

“They can move much faster than we can, and they are less limited,” Priestess Ying replied. “I have a good relationship with them as well, and… the Hunters saved the little monkey. Honour and Gratitude are important to them.”

“They are,” Old Xian agreed, although he still looked uneasy for some reason.

“Well, I’ll go have a look at the dead and the injured,” Bai Sheng said with a grimace. “Maybe something else will turn up.”

“Speaking of problem children,” Shi Xiaolian added, looking around with a deeper frown. “Where are the Din clan scions?”

“Din Ouyeng and Din Kongfei were with the Ha groups caught in the teleport,” Priestess Ying replied. “Din Jian Fuhao and Din Jiaofang I did not see any sign of, throughout the whole attack, nor the other two who came up with Ling Luo.”

“…”

“—Other two?” Ling Tao interjected.

“…”

“I did mention them before,” Xiang pointed out.

“…”

Ling Tao looked up at the sky and just groaned.

“Okay… I don’t suppose you have names for them?”

“Ji…Yao… and uh…” Diaomei trailed off, frowning.

“Huanbei… I think,” Xiang Meilan said. “He did come by and talk a bit in the afternoon, kind of aloof.”

“They barely interacted, that I saw,” Ying agreed. “They were out here for a bit, when Luo was helping with the teleport mishap, but after that they just went to the Ha compound... That said…”

Priestess Ying trailed off, looking… pensive, and somewhat conflicted.

“Okay, just spit it out…” Ling Tao said, “What is bugging you?”

Priestess Ying grimaced, then continued speaking.

“I just find that absence… suspicious. The Yeng Brothers had no qualms trying to attack the Bai, or Qing Aofang… If they wanted to cause real chaos, a few dead Din clan scions would be the way I would do it… But…”

“That’s a dangerous accusation to level against a clan that powerful,” Shi Xiaolian murmured.

“—You are suggesting that the Din clan were working with the bandits?” Old Xian frowned.

“Well, I can tell you for sure that Esoteric Green Fan was among those who came with the Red Sovereigns and the Jade Gate Court, a hundred years ago. As were a few of those others who fled by talisman,” Priestess Ying replied, looking a bit annoyed at last.

“As in… the ones who attacked your tribulation?” Ling Tao said dully. “From the Huang clan…”

“Yes,” she nodded. “Although I can tell you that the driving force in that was not the Huang clan, but the Din clan, and those who came from the Red Sovereigns were also affiliated with the Hao and the Gan…”

“Sweet mother of merciful heaven, is there a troublesome faction that doesn’t have their paws in this?” Ling Tao groaned. “That Ji Tantai is from Meng City as well…”

“So… what do we do?” he asked, trying to push his worries into the back of his mind again, ignoring the fact that none of the grim-sounding events Priestess Ying had just said related to any events he knew of.

-They are not here, so that has to be something…

“Well, once we have extracted the information from the teleport formation, we will hopefully be able to tell where the others have gone…” Ling Tao said, looking around grimly. “In the meantime… let’s mop up the rest of this trash and see if any of the other survivors are able to shed more light on matters.”

~ Jun Arai – ??? ~

Arai opened her eyes and spent a few moments wondering if she was actually dead. The fall was a blur. They had fallen through the cloud layer… she had just about managed to grab Sana… for a moment… tried to trigger the teleport talisman on her body, but it hadn’t worked, then she remembered… shadow, and hitting something wet?

She tried to stand but discovered she was floating in shallow water, at the now-silty edge of a deep pool. Presumably it had been nice and clear before she and Sana smashed into it. How she had survived that fall into water was somewhat inexplicable really. She tried to move deliberately and found that she was practically one giant bruise: everything hurt.

-I don’t think anything’s broken, she thought as she very carefully moved her limbs and head and twisted her torso slightly, which is a minor miracle.

Looking up, she could see daylight above, such as filtered through the verdant greenery overshadowing the… entrance high above.

They looked to be in some kind of sinkhole that was at least 300 metres deep in its own right. The cliff above had been four or five hundred at least, as it was a massive fissure fault.

-How far did we fall vertically, nearly half a mile?

Her head hurt horribly, and just thinking of the good fortune required not to die horribly made her mind gibber a bit. Part of her told her she was in shock, and also suffering some kind of mental disconnect. Probably due to the fall.

-I absolutely am, she shot back sourly. How did we even survive that?

“…”

‘Spirit, Heart, Renewal, Body, Soul’

She corralled her thoughts back together and tried to call upon her mantra to help her healing but got nothing, which was concerning.

‘Spirit, Heart, Renewal, Body, Soul’

She tried again, with slightly different emphasis, but it still seemed to do nothing much.

‘Spirit of my Heart bring Renewal to my Body and my Soul…’

She tried the long form… and still got basically nothing, which was not good.

Flailing a bit more as she sought to get closer to the shore while simultaneously looking around to try and get a better grasp of her surroundings, she noticed belatedly that the light in this space was also a bit… off somehow. The air seemed fine, or if it wasn’t she was going to die not knowing what killed her.

-At three hundred metres… are we in the top layer of the underworld? That was not a pleasant thought.

-Worry about the things you can actually change, she told herself pointedly.

She tried blinking a few times but it made no difference to the light, so she concentrated on moving through the water until, after a few more moments, she found purchase and was standing on her feet, sinking only slightly into the disturbed mud. The icy water was about breast-deep.

Now that she could look around properly, she confirmed her initial guess that she was at the bottom of some kind of sinkhole. Down here it was maybe one hundred metres across, narrowing to sixty or so at the entrance above. She stared warily at the walls above her, just in case the cracks and crevasses were filled with something properly dangerous, waiting to fall on her head. It would be rather pathetic to die to soul-setting lingzhi or devils’ anthem after surviving that fall. Finally confident that she wasn’t going to die inexplicably, she turned back to the pool…

-Sana… and Sir Huang.

With an alacrity she didn’t realise she was capable of in her current condition, she covered the distance around the edge of the pool in several heartbeats. Thankfully, Sana was also right on the edge, so it took her mere moments to jump back in and drag her clear of the water.

-Shit… come on sis… be okay… fate-thrashed bastard… Please be okay…

Cursing and trying not to panic, she managed to use her mantra to mute her inner litany of anger and fear and rolled her sister over. A part of her that was much calmer than the rest somehow stepped in and started telling her what to do.

-Checklist: injuries to head and neck, broken spine, broken limbs?

There were none, or no obvious ones anyway.

-She was face down in the water for who knows how long?

-'Drawing Breath' talisman!

She had at least one, thankfully, and in her inner pockets. Not a storage device. Not for something that important.

Sana was lying on her back, so she tilted her head down before rummaging through her own inner pockets to bring out a small talisman made of jade and carved with a moon rune. Biting her thumb, she smeared blood on it and then opened Sana’s mouth and pressed the talisman against her tongue, then waited a few moments until it dissolved into qi.

Agonising seconds ticked by until her sister’s eyes opened and she doubled over retching, water streaming out of her lungs.

“Where… in… the… fates… are we?” Sana managed to gasp out through the hacking, sobbing coughs.

“Easy, sis,” she helped her sit up. “As far as I can see we are alive.”

Sana managed to grin weakly, her voice creaking. “For… now.”

“Will you be okay?” she asked, concerned.

Sana looked pale and was shivering violently, so she fumbled a Yin Neutralising Pill out of the pocket inside the breast of her robe and pushed it into her sister's mouth. Sana swallowed it weakly and, after a few moments, started to breathe more easily as the pill dissolved into her system.

“Probably?” Sana croaked, experimentally moving her hands and feet.

Patting her side, her sister rasped: “It seems I lost my bag in the fall… A pity…. It was mother’s.”

“Don’t worry about it,” she felt the pain as well, but it was just a bag, despite the memories that came with it. “You’re alive, that’s what’s important.”

“Speaking of,” she muttered, more to herself. “We need to see to Sir Huang.”

“Sir Huang?” Sana rasped, looking around.

“Yeah, he fell with us…” she replied.

She had seen his body in the water a few moments ago, but it wasn’t there now…

-Did he sink?

-Was he wearing armour?

-What realm was he?

It was strange, now, to think that despite having worked closely with him for a few days, she still had no idea regarding that at all.

-At least Immortal… If they sent him as a guard for Ha Yun…

-Not a physical cultivator… she didn’t get that ‘feeling’ off of him.

Her thoughts were still skipping, it seemed, not shaking off whatever damage had occurred with, or before the fall.

-Hopefully the fall won’t have killed him immediately then, even if he landed on his head…

“…”

-Although other things might have after, she thought as she stripped off her sodden and muddy gear and clothes – there was no reason to make the dive harder – and waded back into the icy water taking a length of rope she kept tied in her belt with her.

It was rich in Yin Qi it seemed, she could feel it tugging at her leg muscles as she went deeper.

“Sis… throw me the pouch of Yang-attribute ward stones please!”

Sana sorted out a few of the bigger ones, then shoved them in the pouch and threw it out to her. It wasn’t a great throw, so she had to wade over and grab it, but she wouldn’t be able to do any better in her sister’s position, she knew. Tying it around her wrist, she took one and popped it in her mouth. That was a dangerous trick anywhere else, but now was not a time when danger was the problem. Tucking the stone, that was rapidly heating up in her mouth, into her cheek, she took several deep breaths then plunged under the water.

The pool was not as deep as she feared, but the stratification of qi in the water spoke to how long it had sat here and how old it was. The water was cloudy with disturbed silt, slowly settling, but it wasn’t so bad that she had to search for more than a minute to find Sir Huang, a dozen or so metres away, on the edge of a sloping drift of debris and silt that vanished into shadow.

Starting to swim down towards him, she soon started to grimace, as the qi in the water started to burn her skin. By the time she got to Sir Huang, who was three metres straight down from the surface, she could see her skin peeling visibly. Working as fast as she could, she looped the rope around him, then kicked back to the surface and splashed ashore, tugging his body behind him.

It took her several further moments to haul him clear and kneel over his still form, but… the body looked, by any measure, rather wrong. Well, ‘wrong’ was not necessarily the right word, she realised, staring at its arms.

Belatedly she flipped him over onto his back to make sure he hadn’t drowned, only to find herself staring at the face.

“Uhh…” she squatted back on her haunches, confused.

Rather than Sir Huang, the curly brown-haired face was almost symmetrically neutral, a moon rune visible on the forehead that was now devoid of energy. She searched the ‘body’ and then pulled the clothes off the torso when nothing more availed itself.

“Well that’s one way to minimize danger in this place,” Sana, who was looking on from the side, volunteered. “Infuse your soul into a puppet.”

She nodded, took a few steps away from the puppet, and sat down on the shingle beach, realising that she was shivering from the exposure to the yin-rich water.

“There’s zero chance of getting a fire going down here, isn't there?” she muttered, staring at her trembling hands.

The only visible plants growing on the walls were fern-like things that offered leaves and fronds, but no wood unless she made the steep climb higher up the wall.

“Think we can burn rocks?” Sana joked, holding up the bag of elemental ward stones and scuffing the beach with her foot.

In lieu of a fire, because burning rocks really was a last resort kind of thing, they explored their surroundings properly in hopes of warming themselves with the physical exertion.

The cavern sinkhole was a bit larger than it had first appeared, and it took the two of them about thirty minutes to explore the various side crevices and lower eroded parts, including a cavern of sorts at a point where the beach of the pool met the wall. Her initial judgement that it was a water-eroded sinkhole turned out to be correct, as they found a bunch of water-cut notches in the rock further up the walls of the cavern. Aside from that, their locality contained little else of interest, they had to agree. It also didn’t have any connections elsewhere, at least outside of the deep pool, which was an even bigger relief.

Sitting on the beach a while later, having relocated to just inside the cavern, her sister skimmed a stone across the water, watching it skip.

“Do you reckon we are in the underworld?” she muttered, staring around.

“If we are, it has not connected anywhere else, outside of the water, perhaps,” Sana remarked, giving her a wan smile she presumably though was reassuring.

“True…” she agreed.

“No animal bones either,” Sana added.

“Not even shells, or anything else like it,” she agreed. “In fact, no evidence animals have ever been here at all.”

“Also, literally the only things here are plants and water, which bodes rather poorly.” Sana added with a sigh, staring up at the ceiling. “No evidence of birds either.”

“There is fungi,” she grunted, waving a hand in the direction of the back of the cavern, where some mushrooms quietly shroomed, as mushrooms had a tendency to do in dark, dank places like that.

“There is always fungi,” Sana chuckled. “It's like the apex species out here once you scratch beneath the surface.”

The sinkhole really did contain very little of any significant interest though. It was completely lacking in evidence that anything that wasn’t a plant or a fungus existed down here. Even those were boring, the most exotic specimens being were a few minor bits of spirit vegetation.

“Even the herbs barely qualify as 'spiritual',” Sana held up a few stalks of a very weedy spirit grass.

“That is rather unusual given the density of qi here, given we are as deep as we are,” she agreed, looking around again with a critical eye.

The ferns looked like water ferns, but they weren't. Same for the vines on the far side and some other plants. None of them were really 'spiritual' even though they had the look of species she recognised.

“Really… climbing out seems to be the only route,” Sana finally observed after several minutes of silent consideration by the pool.

“Before we do that. I really want to sort out in my head why we are down here,” she slumped back on the dry sandy shoreline, with her head outside the cavern, and lay there staring at the blue-ish sky far above them. Something about the light was still bothering her for some reason.

She reached up for the pavilion talisman on her necklace… and stopped, because she wasn’t wearing it. For a moment she thought that meant she really was dead, which would make this a deeply ironic afterlife to be stuck in. Then her mind kicked her panic to the side and reminded her that she had been sorting her pack out, before they noticed the Eclipse Shadow had nearly moved around. Her talisman, along with her storage jade, had been on her pack, which was hundreds of metres above them. At least they both still had their jade scrips; those were tied to their forearms for use as armour, just like Ling had a habit of doing.

“You have your pavilion talisman?” she asked Sana.

Sana blinked and began to pat down her pockets before slapping her forehead. “Shit. I gave it to Ling. She was imprinting the updated map on it so we had a spare. Then you called me over and—”

The two stared at each other dully. She patted herself down, then stared around the beach, before finally turning her vision to the water.

“You do have a storage jade, right!?” she asked, her panic rising again.

“Oh… yep, and yours,” Sana held up her wrist, on which was a knotted cord with two talismans.

They both stared at them and breathed out in relief.

No storage jade would have been very bad. Bad in all kinds of ways. It was already bad enough that their packs, which contained a good deal of their more immediately useful kit, were lost. Her talisman sheaf was in her bag, for example, and Sana’s was in their mother’s. Both of those were presumably still back on the ridge. Hopefully. The alternative was they were scattered somewhere above as they fell, which would be an expensive and inconvenient loss, she considered. Also a sad one, as the bags were mementoes of their mother, kept and worn for luck, as were the talisman wallets, a gift from their father upon entering the Hunter Pavilion.

A quick stocktake of the jade storage talismans confirmed to both of them that they did not have an immediate issue in terms of food or basic medicines. Looking at what they had, arrayed between them on the beach, she felt a touch better at last.

Her talisman held four large bottles of food pills, one crate of Sana’s soup cakes, two large jars of fasting pills, a jar of purification pills, two fifty-gallon ‘jars’ of pure, drinkable water, several sets of various medicinal and poison curing pills, quite a selection of random elemental ward stones and formation-related curios, a dozen high-grade formation cores, some two spirit jades’ worth of spirit stones, a small crate of replenishment pills, a set of tools for chopping and digging along with a crowbar, thirty metres of rope and four sets of spare clothes.

Sana’s talisman, meanwhile, held only three large bottles of food pills instead of four, courtesy of the squirrel, a crate of soup cakes, another of replenishment pills, more formation cores and several thousand more spirit stones, another two lengths of rope and various tools, along with most of the herbs after they had rebalanced their stash of those the previous day. There was also the small stack of odd ores that had been stashed in the ancient waystation they had been using as a base-camp, up above.

Their herb stockpile consisted of the three heaven’s blaze pines their group had harvested on the way back, earlier. Several other smaller spirit trees and shrubs, a small selection of rare-grade herbs, some of a very high grade indeed, and a fairly large collection of miscellaneous herbs and fungi, mostly at the four to six star grade from the clearing of the sealed areas. Included within that category were several secondary pieces of six-star lamium, she noted.

As they sorted this all out on the beach and then she took her storage talisman back, they talked through the events preceding their arrival in the cave. It was as much a psychological exercise as anything, to calm their nerves and try to make sense of things.

“But how?” Sana said, at last, asking one of the questions rattling around in her head as well.

“Clearly whoever did it was hiding his strength,” she pointed out rather banally, mostly because she had nothing there, beyond the blindingly obvious.

“Well duh,” Sana remarked with a grimace. “That’s one for the Dao Father Obvious jar. I meant how did he… or they circumvent the suppression?”

“You ask me but who do I ask? There are ways… but none are easy or simple to use,” she muttered, then sighed… and winced.

-Must have cracked a few ribs, she mused, trying her mantra again and getting little to nothing.

They both sat in silence for a bit listening to the lapping of the water. That was somewhat soothing for her; she still had a headache from whatever injury was done during the fall, although Sana had checked and she wasn’t bleeding or bearing any obvious head trauma.

“The nearest person to us should have been ‘Brother Ji’,” Sana declared at last, sitting back. “But I can’t account for Ha Mangfan or Din Ouyeng in those final moments…”

“Ha Mangfan…” closing her eyes, she tried to recall the last moments up above, but really, she had not been paying much attention at all.

Opening them again, she quickly sketched out a rough map of the clifftop plaza.

“Yun’s bunch were over looking at the wall carvings…” she mused, putting several dots in the sand.

“Ling and Shu were sorting out stuff for the teleportation…” Sana noted, putting another two dots.

“The Din bunch were… just milling around, with Ha Mangfan talking to…” she trailed off, because in her mind’s eye as well, Din Ouyeng and Ha Mangfan were not…

“…”

“You’re right,” she agreed at last, after sitting there for a further long moment, trying to recall. “Din Ouyeng and Ha Mangfan… I have no awareness of what they were doing in those final few moments. They were over on the far side… maybe? Near Ling Luo?”

She pointed to where Ling Luo had been sitting, to their right.

“Juni was walking over there,” Sana muttered, putting another dot on, before she could. “I guess she wanted to talk to Ling Luo?”

“And, as you said, ‘Brother Ji’ was walking over to us…” she mused.

“Could it have been Mangfan?” Sana asked at last. “He has been the main cause of most of the issues up to this point. He makes Ha Yun look like a reasonable and upstanding person with the attitude he was waving around.”

“—And he had issues with… me,” she added, running a hand through her wet and tangled, sandy hair.

“Fate-suckling mother-lover,” Sana muttered, spitting on the ground.

The problem there, was that she had no recollection of ‘Brother Ji’ either, although as the culpable party, he was much harder to explain. That said, she had a gnawing sense of unease regarding discounting him, which strangely she didn’t get, when considering Ha Mangfan. However, there was nothing in her recollections of those final moments to justify it; even if those recollections and her awareness were… oddly bad.

“So… if it was Mangfan… he sneak-attacked Sir Huang, I guess?” Sana suggested eventually.

“It’s almost like, whoever did this waited…” she trailed off, staring at the water, because that was quite a scary thought.

“—waited?” Sana frowned.

“While I agree that Mangfan seems like the obvious culprit… something just doesn’t seem… right,” she groaned, putting her head on her knees.

Her ability to recall that chaotic moment when they went over was… really bad, she was starting to realise.

It also circled back to the ‘how’…

“Brother Ji didn’t seem to go over the cliff with us, though,” she added. “Though… if it was him… why?”

“Whoever did it, the suppression was clearly lifted,” Sana said at last, her voice quiet. “In that moment, I recall having this crystal clear ‘understanding’ that if that blow had landed on… ‘us’, rather than Sir Huang, we would have been red mist…”

That was not a pleasant thought, although it would have been an instant death and they wouldn’t have known, which made it better than some other forms of death she’d been close to over the years in Yin Eclipse.

She poked the puppet, next to them, with her foot. It was as durable a thing as she had ever seen really.

“Why though?” she muttered, running a hand through her dark, matted hair.

That was bothering her. The logic of this just didn’t fully add up at the moment.

“I…” Sana stared out over the water.

They sat in silence for a long moment, not quite sure what to say, really.

That was why she found herself doubting the obvious culprit ‘Brother Ji’.

“I keep finding myself coming back to ‘Brother Ji’,” she said. “It’s like… a strange, hunch, that just refuses to go away.”

“…”

“Except he was… helpful,” Sana muttered, starting to squeeze her own sand-matted hair out. “For all that Ling Luo has been a bit… odd.”

“Yeah…” she grimaced.

“But if it was Mangfan…” Sana started to say.

“—It can’t have been just one person,” she added. “I mean, Juni, Sir Teng, Sir Cao, Han Shu… there are enough people with serious firepower there…”

“Suppression though…” Sana pointed out.

With a sigh, she nodded.

“So, whoever did it, targeted Sir Huang… to get rid of the biggest threat to their control over the group?” Sana suggested after a further moment of silence.

“…”

“And what... frame it as an ‘accident’?” she muttered. “Even if they could control the aftermath…”

“Seems logical,” Sana agreed, her pale face twisting with distaste.

“Does that make us an acceptable loss?” she sneered.

That hurt to say out loud, her potential life’s ending summed up in two words as an ‘acceptable loss’.

“That’s meant to be my role,” Sana murmured with a dark chuckle, staring out at the lapping water. “I’m the one who makes the dark asides, not you.”

“There’s enough to go around,” she had a half-hearted laugh at her sister's now pouting expression, but her mood wasn’t really in it.

They stopped talking about it for a while after that, because it was depressing, and ate some of the fresh food. There was such a thing as picking over things too much after all. Once her clothes were mostly dry, she put most of them back on. Her sister stayed partially stripped down as she waded through the shallows, checking for any evidence that some of their stuff might have fallen. As she sort of predicted, however, nothing showed up.

It took a while to rebalance and repack their kit into the storage talismans. The division of the pills and food gave her some renewed hope that they wouldn’t run into any issues for quite a while on that front, thankfully. With preparations they had made back in West Flower Picking Town, they had preserved food apiece to last a month and then some, alongside the fresh goods they still retained from the trek out. Water might be more of an issue, but so long as they kept the jars in a storage talisman it would be okay, even assuming they couldn't top it up or find another source.

That only left the puppet's body. Once she stripped what remained of its garments, she found that it was really a full model of an adult man, just lacking a face. The density of the thing was immense. Not to the point where they couldn’t move it, but she must have used more strength than she had initially thought to pull it out of the water. The water itself had aided her in that somewhat, being oddly buoyant, she had since noticed, probably as feature of its qi density although the qi in it was weird and hard for her to parse.

Eventually, her detailed inspection of the ‘puppet’, which was preposterously lifelike, turned up a slight wound on the back of its neck, just above where the seventh thoracic vertebrae should be. If it wasn’t a puppet, it would have been a lethal wound in all likelihood, splitting its meridian system like a rotten log and obliterating its sixth and seventh meridian gate. There was something residual around the scratch as well, a faint corrosion perhaps, that she made sure not to touch. That would be another on the ‘stupid ways to die’ list.

“It does explain a lot,” Sana mused, staring at the body. “A puppet body that allows you to acclimatize to that degree, the Cherry Wine Pagoda really has means… huh…”

“Do you think that whoever did this… knew this was a puppet?” she mused, looking at the wound.

“And that was why he was targeted? And the two of us, who are the best placed to resist manipulation…” Sana frowned.

“I’m going to assume not… But who knows? Neither of us can sense soul residues,” she sighed softly, squatting back and stating the obvious. “We also have no way to know if it was the attack or something else that pushed whoever Sir Huang was out of the puppet… or maybe just killed them outright?”

“One way or another,” her sister gave voice to the thought both of them were dancing around. “We are going to have to get back up there. Or at the very least, get out of here.”

They both stared upwards again, at the sheer sides of the sinkhole.

“The cliff is sheer and overhanging. You can’t fly this far in, even with talismans. Even teleportation with the really expensive ninth grade talismans gets spotty,” she rambled out loud.

That was more for the Dao Father Obvious pot.

“Have you tried the life-bound talisman?” Sana asked.

Wordlessly, she held up her hand, where Juni’s life-bound talisman seal was. It shimmered and nothing happened, beyond bleeding a bit of qi.

“Oh…” Sana grimaced. “That explains why it didn’t work when we fell?”

“I think so,” she sighed.

“On the bright side,” her sister added with a wan smile. “Even if that Ji Tantai is an Immortal or something… Unless he wants to physically jump off the cliff after us or plans to climb down here personally, we are unlikely to encounter him. Not to mention qi sensing doesn’t work at all up here, beyond what you can see. The mists are the death of all those arts. If he comes looking for us he is going to flail madly and get lost in all likelihood.”

“Where is my sister? I want the snarky one back,” she gave her a small shove.

Sana laughed a bit weakly. It wasn’t really funny, but they were both stressed enough that they needed some coping mechanisms. She needed some, certainly – she was still worried about her inability to think clearly for more than a few moments at a time.

“Do we even try to get back up—?” she sighed, standing up.

“…”

Sana gave her an odd look.

-Oh, I didn’t finish the sentence. Shit.

“—I mean, do we try to get back to the top of the cliff,” she said.

“Ah,” Sana frowned. “I say we get out of here then worry about that. It’s what… a six hundred metre sheer drop, at least? I wasn’t that conscious of the descent after you grabbed me.”

They stared up at the walls of the sinkhole. It was at least three hundred metres. Sheer and sloping inwards in quite a few places, also, with a lot of overhangs and not much in the way of creepers.

“…”

Climbing it was going to be taxing.

“It’s still weird that there are no birds down here,” her sister groused. “Or even bats.”

They sat quietly for a while longer, without much need to talk since both of them were largely okay. It was going to be an arduous climb, with a lot of communication and concentration required, so in the end they both decided that they should have a short, proper rest before attempting it. She kept the first watch, for what little it was worth, seeing nothing but rustling leaves, lapping water and mushrooms; if it wasn’t for their current circumstances, it would be idyllic. Her sister slept, with the aid of one of the meditation pills, for just over an hour before they swapped, and didn’t seem particularly satisfied with the rest. When she woke from her own short, meditative sleep, she didn’t find it that replenishing either; they were only doing it because experience told them both that these kinds of preparations helped.

Taking one last look around their cave, their view was inevitably returned to the puppet, now somewhat re-clothed, lying nearby.

“What do we do about that?” her sister mused.

“Can it go into the storage jade?” she wondered. She hadn’t bothered to check before now.

Sana walked over to it and pressed the jade against it. Nothing happened: after a few seconds she looked at the notification that had lit up on the side of the talisman and said, a bit glumly, “It seems it counts as its own spatial container somehow,” Sana grumbled. “Could really do with that storage ring now…”

She eyed her own one, nodding just as glumly. Despite the upgrades given by the pavilion before they set off, theirs were still fairly basic by the standards of such things – stuff with their own inner spaces, living things, corpses with intact foundations and some stuff that was simply too dense in qi wouldn't go into them. Mostly those were limitations you could work around, and unless you were capturing high star grade herbs intact, were ones she had found ways to live with. Buying a storage ring that a Qi Refinement equivalent cultivator could bind was disgustingly expensive because all the normal, affordable ones were aimed at Soul Foundation cultivators or higher who could soul bind their own artefacts.

“Bleugh,” she declared in disgust at last.

“Do we have enough rope?” Sana mused.

“Nope,” she shook her head. “A hundred metres at most, between us.”

“We could still take it up in bits, thirty metres at a time,” Sana suggested.

“Hmmm…” she frowned, staring at the overhangs. “I suppose we can try… but it is heavy.”

“If it’s impossible we’ll mark it on the map,” Sana suggested. “At best we can only try to explain. Sir Huang seemed fairly reasonable as far as the Ha family’s goons go. I doubt he will hold it against us that we couldn’t recover it right here and now?”

“I suppose so,” she agreed, looking up at the side of the sinkhole.

A quick experiment found that that strategy was feasible, and didn’t take that much effort, given the sheer volume of resources they had on hand in terms of replenishment pills. Their efficacy was a bit lacking, especially given the odd way their mantra was still behaving, but it was enough to make it worth attempting.

The climb took long enough that Arai found she didn’t want to count after a while. Not beyond the immediate specifics of their pathing, anyway and the periodic breaks to haul the puppet up and tie it off. Here was not the place to ask searching questions of your mental condition, starting with how long they had been down here already, and the minute-by-minute pathfinding took a severe toll on her concentration as it was.

The rock faces were quite a bit more overhanging than they had looked from below. At least the surface was manageable; the original rock was smoothed by water or some other erosive force, but there was enough by way of crevices and faulting to give them handholds. Even so, it was harsh and demanding. For a good portion of it, she was holding on only with her hands, or holding onto Sana as they climbed past each other. Sometimes there were creepers or vegetation she trusted enough to hold their weight, but mostly they stuck to the rocks. Those were clearer. She was also constantly on the lookout for anything that might spring at them from a crevice or piece of greenery: just because there was nothing below didn’t mean that there wasn’t something here, after all.

So they made their way upwards side by side. Hand by hand, foothold by foothold. It was impossible to think beyond the next twenty hand- and footholds. The worst thing to do would be to end up in a dead end and have to descend or scale sideways around the face more than they already were. She reckoned they had already done almost one entire circuit of its perimeter in travelling the first two hundred metres vertically.

“How much time do you think it has been since we fell?” Sana asked from below her as they climbed one of the easier parts about half-way up, her leading with the rope for the puppet.

“I dunno. I think we have been climbing for around an hour? Before that… we slept for an hour each, we messed around for half an hour before that. It’s nearly five hours in total… or six?” she pondered as she looked for the next handhold, considering the merits of scuttling sideways along this crack. There was a plausible surface about ten metres to their left.

The question of time, and the reminder of the fall, brought along with other unwelcome thoughts. She didn’t want to think what might have happened to Juni, Shu and Ling.

-Presumably they are valuable for their knowledge, so they wouldn’t have died?

She ground her teeth, a part of her a bit annoyed with Sana, suddenly and rather irrationally, for making her think about it. Halfway up a sheer cliff face over a pool that you only survived falling to the first time by random chance was not the place to have 'existential crisis thoughts' about the fates of your lifelong friends.

“Sorry,” her sister sighed as if she had read her mind. “I was just wondering if something weird was going on with the time. The light doesn’t seem right… It's shifting to afternoon, but…”

“Oh,” she quashed her annoyance even more firmly.

-Sis is right, she reflected, staring up at the sky above. The light isn’t right.

She had been wondering that herself, but not really vocalised it.

“No idea. I do agree that the light is weird though,” she replied after a moment. “It’s been bothering me for a while but I can’t say why?”

Sana sighed softly and nodded in agreement.

They climbed on in silence after that, beyond the occasional exchanged direction or comment about swapping the rope over. Compartmentalising the tasks was all that made it manageable, particularly for the final fifty metres, which were probably the worst. The rock there was actually wet, and slick with algae that she had to stare at carefully with every handhold just in case it was algru. The mould-like plant would be properly lethal this high up if she put her hand into a patch of it unaware.

Here the creepers were not as strong. The vegetation was more vigorous, but their root systems were more nebulous and searching, spreading over the surface but not working their way into cracks. Eventually, they abandoned relying on it at all for handholds, and soon after that she started getting nervous of even using the trunks of small shrubs, flush to the rock, as footholds. However, the most unnerving thing about the greenery was the complete lack of anything untoward hiding in it: there were no bugs or insects. That said, existential questions about the space they were in were also relegated to the naughty rock in her mind. No distractions.

It was with a deep sigh that she finally pulled herself over the edge and helped Sana over a moment later, who then scrambled past her and tied the rope with the puppet around a handy tree.

Examining their surroundings, she found that the sinkhole was slightly offset from the cliff face: a waterfall, running out of the cliff some four hundred metres above if she was any judge, had changed course incrementally over the years so the pool was about twenty metres further over now. The moisture and runoff from this new pool was what was feeding the one they just climbed out of, a ridge of slightly harder rock all that separated the new and old plunge pools. An incremental difference in erosion that had made all the difference over the aeons. They had apparently fallen squarely into the void left by the waterfall’s old plunge pool.

That was beyond lucky… thirty metres either direction… her gaze traversed the cliff base. They would be crippled to the point of an agonising death.

“Shall we drag it up?” Sana asked, stirring her out of bad thoughts about the fall from above.

“Oh, yeah,” nodding, she went over to the edge and started to haul it up the last bit.

It took some effort, but after five minutes they dragged the puppet over the edge of the sinkhole and across the wet rock, depositing it against the tree.

“We were down there for six hours… Right?” Sana muttered, staring skywards as they caught their breath.

She looked up the cliff again, and then out into the treeline above them. She managed to force out woodenly: “Riiiight… six-ish hours.”

Sana let a flicker of worry into her expression. “It was dawn when we fell, it’s still… kinda dawn now. There’s no way we were out a whole day….?”

That wasn’t even the foremost thing, she realised. Staring around, she found what had been bugging her subtly all the way up. The vegetation was…

“The vegetation here is all normal,” she said, plucking a common herbaceous weed out of a rock crevice.

“That’s not uncommon,” her sister frowned. “We have encountered valleys which were depressingly normal on rare occasions, even this far in. Although…”

Sana trailed off and started to poke around cautiously as well.

“Hmmm,” her sister mused after a minute or so “You’re right. This is almost normal. ‘Mortal’s garden’ kind of normal in fact.”

She found herself wondering if the suppression here was even more severe and, in attempt to check, bounced on the spot a few times. Her strength seemed as it was, and she hadn’t had any issues climbing, after all.

Sana strolled over to a nearby tree and casually poked her finger into it. It pushed through the bark like it was damp paper.

Pulling her finger out, she examined the hole. “Yep. Totally normal, looks like a variety similar to blue river oak.”

Looking around, she was struck by how much stuff looked similar to things she knew, yet, when she stared closely at them, there were subtle differences. The shapes of leaves, types of stems, no flowers— actually… no flowers anywhere that she could see.

For that matter, there was no sign of the rockfall that should have come down with them, or anyone else falling.

They both stared up at the cliff, rising into the low cloud above them.

“Do you fancy another climb?” Sana asked pensively.

“Later,” she declared, with a shudder.

Her arms added to the chorus of mental denial, she was definitely approaching the point of proper meridian strain. “Definitely later.”

A quick exploration of the pool by the waterfall revealed no fish, or anything other than plants, living in it. Sitting by the pool, she found herself again afflicted by a growing sense of unease as she tried to place what else was wrong. It was only when she got up to look further along the cliff base, travelling far enough away from the waterfall that its sound faded, masked by the trees, that she realised what was off.

There had been nothing living in the sinkhole, no bugs, no nothing. That, however, was vaguely explicable, there were weird places like that. The problem was that, now that she listened carefully, there were no birds. No calls. It wasn’t that the forest was dead; it just contained no animals that she could hear. No birds, no mammals… she stared around her… also no insects, even here.

With a certain ominous curiosity, she got the shovel from her storage talisman and dug a small hole. When it was knee-deep, she scattered the soil, looking at it. Leaf litter, rocks, and it was quite rich in qi – although the qi was odd, seemingly impossible for her to interact with. The real problem, again, was that there were no worms. No grubs. No insects or anything like it. That was not normal.

She made her way back, to find that Sana had finished her own excursion in the other direction.

“No birds that way either?” she queried.

“Nope. Nor any insects, worms or the like,” Sana added pensively. “Also no flowers on the plants.

“Yes. No flowers,” she muttered.

Sana looked at her, frowning and she grimaced. She had let the worry creep into her voice.

“That shouldn't even be possible for a place this lush,” she added. “Unless the season here is radically off?”

“That is possible,” Sana agreed, with rather more hope than confidence in her tone, she felt. “There are those valleys near the South Grove ruins that are always in late spring…”

“Oh, yeah,” she conceded, looking around again. “The ones with the perpetually flowering plum and cherry trees?”

That was the main reason she wasn't worrying too much about the lack of flowers. Not yet anyway.

“Uhuh,” Sana nodded. “Let’s look around some more I suppose?”

“Yeah,” she agreed, looking around. “Lets…”

…

In the end, they both spent the next thirty minutes looking through the forest boundary carefully. As time went on, though, she only got more and more concerned, to the point where it was impossible not to feel truly uneasy.

“This is not the right valley,” Sana said eventually, staring up at the sky, probably so she wouldn't see her rather concerned expression. “This should be the one of those mist gorges on the edge of the inner valleys, in the cloud forest. They are largely unexplored because they lie behind those two spider nests. That’s why we came up to the ruins the way we did…”

“Mmhm,” she agreed there, looking around. They were in a gorge, maybe the head of one, though the mist and could made it impossible to tell. However, this was most certainly not the one that they had been looking out over from the top of the cliff. Somehow.

“Could it be… the teleport talisman or Juni’s life-bound talisman did work?” Sana asked at last.

“…”

She sat down on a hand rock and rubbed her temples.

“Maybe?” she conceded at last. “It… certainly has only half its charge in spirit jades…”

Sana said nothing, just pulled up a stem of common herb grass absently and started to nibble on it. She did this for about ten seconds before taking it out of her mouth and staring at it.

“What is it?” she asked her sister. “Is it poisonous?”

“No…” her sister frowned deeply. “It’s… just try it.”

Puzzled she took a piece of grass and nibbled on it. It was starchy and left a pulp in her mouth, much as non-spiritual grass should. She held it in her mouth for a few seconds and then froze. It was…. intangible? No. That wasn’t quite right, it still tasted of something after all. She kept it in her mouth for a few more seconds before spitting it out, then took another stem and chewed that carefully. It was there, then it bent and broke apart. That was all normal. The pulpy mess in her mouth tasted of sour grass, basically: it was sometimes used as a pallet cleanser in rustic salads. She closed her eyes and focused on it, trying to work out what was wrong. There was no sense of nutrition from it? Was that it?

Dropping the grass she walked over to a green, slender wild cabbage plant. It was also devoid of its usual orange and indigo flowers, even though it should have been showing buds at this time of year. Plucking some leaves, she proceeded to carefully chew them for a short while, but spat them out in the end. Aside from the feeling of substance in her mouth, there was nothing more. The flavour, the sweetness was there, even the sensation of moisture, but they gave no actual sustenance. Her body didn’t even get anything from the absorption of the moisture in the leaves. It just seemed to vanish somehow.

Sana was squatting by another cabbage, looking at it closely, with a disconcerted look on her face.

“You know…” her own voice suddenly sounded quite loud in the forest clearing despite the waterfall in the distance. “Somehow… I think we have fallen into one of the properly problematic anomalies.”