A small, “tsk,” escaped his lips, before he groaned out words in a quiet rumble. “Whoever sent Shizun this mission needs in trouble! There are no walking corpses, but ghosts!” The boy furrowed his brow further. He took another look over the crowds of people.

Since most of the citizens wore mourning robes, it would be easy to determine who was already dead from this little fact alone. The chef for example wore bright reds, and he was available before the festivities began. So, he must have been alive.

Drifting the sea of people, there was someone who stood out. To some people he might have been easy to look over, as he wore attire matching the dead city.

But Wan Yu couldn’t mistake that face…

“Shizun!” He called out.

With a simple call, those lavender eyes drew into a shape of shock. They held that expression for only a moment before squinting into a thin slit. A smile came across the face, completely opposite to his Shizun’s normal look. It seemed dark.

However, as people passed around him, his Shizun raised his hand and held it low, as if beckoning for Wan Yu to come near. He could stop nearly any urge if he put his mind to it, but seeing his Shizun dressed as if he were deceased, rid his mind of rational ability. Crying out again, Wan Yu joined the moving group of people and pushed his way to that waiting palm. He clasped his hands around the fingers and held them tight.

It wasn’t soft like his Shizun’s, and there were markings of bruising around the nails. It looked more aged, and damaged in stress, but this hand was still unmistakable. “Shizun, I’m… I’m scared,” Wan Yu whimpered.

The fear of this situation had begun to weigh on his heart, and he voiced his honest feelings. He wasn’t expecting the grip to tighten around his hand, and had it gone on for a minute more, he would have felt comfort.

“Kuwei Jun, what’s wrong? Tell this Shizun, and he will fix it for you,” his Shizun said. The words were dripping with malice that would have gone unnoticed had that name not been said. Wan Yu stiffened, and his neck tore upwards.

Wanting to call out, “Shizun,” one more time, he opened his mouth. No words came, as he met with a terrible expression. Only now had he really taken a moment to look. His Shizun’s hair was loose and draped into a stringy mess. Though untied and well kept, it wasn’t tangled beyond belief. They wore clothes that had been stained with mud and dirt, more fitting of a farmer boy he had put to manual labor jobs, rather than a delicate, recluse teacher.

Most stark was his face. The words from earlier nearly made it sound like he was smiling, but no,his Shizun wore a terribly unfitting grin and his eyes were curled up in delight.

This expression was wrong, and it made Wan Yu instinctively pull back, throwing all of his weight to try and escape the hold. But his Shizun held his hand firm. “Where are you going? Kuwei Jun, this Shizun is only here to help,” he lied.

It must be false! Shizun is all wrong! Wan Yu whined internally, a shudder wreaking havoc over his body. He tugged again, and again, forcing his Shizun’s face to turn dark. Wan Yu’s heart was beating in his ears as his mind kept repeating: It’s wrong, it’s wrong, it’s wrong!

From his side, his Shizun pulled a thin, unpolished looking blade, and this caused attention to be drawn. Wan Yu didn’t recognize it to be Shi Wei Ji, further proving the inaccuracies.

The crowd of spirits wailed at the spectacle, and the more frightful of the ghosts tried to make some distance from the threat. A few of the civilians however, stayed close. Some pulled at Wan Yu’s wrist trying to force him away from his captor. Wan Yu winced from being hurled in different directions.

So many screams filled the streets. Concerned voices yelling things like: “Save him!” “You better let that boy go right now!” or “How dare he pull a blade during our Immortal Memory Rite!” mixed horrible with wails of terror and crying children. It seemed that even his Shizun grew impatiently annoyed with the ruckus.

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Upon seeing that Bei Zangli’s ghost guests weren’t going to allow him freedom, his Shizun swung the sword in his hand. It was a wide arching slash that managed to slice smoothly through the chest of any festival goer in the immediate radius.

Wan Yu’s eyes widened in horror as, all around him were torn shreds of white cloth and droplets of red blood. Ghost’s can bleed? he thought, worried. At first he was stunned, because he had never read about this in his cultivation manuals before, but the transparency shown on their limbs proved that they were dead.

“It doesn’t count if I kill the dead, right?” His Shizun whispered to himself.

This scene only grew Wan Yu’s fear, but it had opened up an opportunity as the grip on his arm had been released. He wasted no time in his escape. If he did not leave, more people could easily be mowed down to save him, because there were already about a dozen more ghastly older men and women willing to jump into the fray.

Not knowing where he was going, the easiest choice was to try and lose him in the city and then trail deep into the farmlands. There were houses out there that would provide ample amounts of cover until he could hunt for aid.

The alleyways were tight, but even a thin grown man like his Shizun couldn’t fit through them, so this one time Wan Yu clearly held the advantage.

He never locked eyes onto his Shizun while the came of cat and mouse continued, so he was assured that he had gotten away.

I hope Shizun left those people alone. I… need to stop calling him Shizun. That’s wrong.

Wan Yu took a few moments to rest, and recover his breath. He had been slowly snaking his way through the empty alleys, behind and around small abandoned buildings, until he made it to the entrance of town. This was the farthest entrance away from Jinan, where they originally came into the city of Bei Zangli.

Eyes locked onto his target, a small run down home away from the lights of the city, he ran past endless rows of untended farmland. Those dozens and dozens of Ghost Lanterns couldn’t reach out here, so Wan Yu was left to roam in the blackness of night.

The door was cracked open, leaving an ominous feeling creeping into the air. There was a loud thud from the inside of the house, and then another. This beating sound came in repeated patterns. He swallowed before pushing the door open.

Obviously the room was dark, and he immediately heard muffled whines and whimpers. Wan Yu pulled the sword from his back, and proceeded deeper inside the wooden farmhouse. Body trembling, he brought out his hand in front of his body and held a breath. Calming his breathing he managed to conjure up a spiritual flame. It was small and it danced around like it was unstable. It was a little too advanced for his skill set, and usually he burnt himself while using it, but this time it was stable enough. This little flame immediately lit up the room.

Immediately the light revealed a sight of Lin An and Meng Xiao. Wan Yu let out a small gasp. “Shijie! Shixiong!” Wan Yu called, lowering his training sword.

Meng Xiao was tied up, and Lin An lay motionless on the floor.

Meng Xiao had been tied to the bottom leg post of the bed, and had his mouth covered in cut cloth. There was no way he would be able to move the entire piece of furniture, so he instead was doing some damage to the floorboards in front of his feet. He had been repeatedly kicking them in frustration. Lin An was unconscious and, although Wan Yu was scared for her, there were no visible wounds on her body.

Using his blade, he cut out Meng Xiao first.

“AH! It took you long enough baby!” Meng Xiao yelled and hissed. Wan Yu eyebrows twitched and, for just a moment, he wanted to tie him right back up.

This screaming stirred Lin An. “Meng Zzzhao…” She rubbed her eyes. A few of the flowers had fallen out of her braid and some lay around the floor. “Wan Yu!” She suddenly gasped and looked wide awake. “You are okay!” She reached out and tugged her little shidi into a tough inescapable hug.

“Shizun…” Wan Yu wanted to speak, but he was currently in the process of getting the breath squeezed out of him. His cheeks had become red and he struggled.

“I did want to ask about that.” Meng Xiao spoke looking behind the two of his fellow disciples. His eyes were dark, and he stared into the area that was barely lit up by Wan Yu’s flame. “Why is Shizun wearing mourning robes?”

Wan Yu froze.

He looked to Meng Xiao first, for confirmation of his question, but he only lazily pointed a thumb into the darkness. When Wan Yu’s gaze slowly pulled to the corner of the room a glimmer shone in his vision, as a thin metal blade caught the light off of his spiritual flame.

“Shizun?” Lin An spoke first. The false Shizun stepped closer, more of him being revealed now. He wore specks of red blood on his white robes, and this sight caused Wan Yu’s breath to hitch.

Dark chuckling filled the room, and those lavender eyes were cut into a sharp glare. His eyes were far too cold, and they were locked onto Wan Yu, as if trying to turn him to ice.