At lunchtime, I went off to the outer sect's mess hall. Though the inner sect had a separate mess hall, there was a fifty-fifty chance that I would find Long Guoqiang and even his inner sect followers here, if only because they occasionally wished to kick my shins and laugh at me when I dropped my food.

I stepped into the hall, and immediately, I heard Guoqiang's voice calling out,

"Where the hell is Jiang Hanfeng?"

CRRAAAAAACK

—And then I heard the sound of human bones cracking.

Alarmed, I turned to the source of the sound. And I saw— no, it wasn't the sound of bones cracking. It was just the sound of Guoqiang pushing his chair back before standing up. Yes, how could it possibly have been the sound of human bones breaking? How could it be possibly have been the sound of Jiang Hanfeng's soul crumbling apart after— after I killed him?

My heartbeat suddenly galloped forward, leaving in its wake a sharp pain in my neck and a hollow ringing in my ears. Calm! Calm! I held my throat in my hand and repeated the Buddhist mantras in my head. All phenomena are impermanent. All essences are without identity. Serenity is salvation. Everyone flaked now and then. There was nothing to worry about.

Guoqiang looked around the mess hall and said, "That bastard is over half an hour late now. This isn't like him. Did something happen to him?"

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Once again, that sound, this time compounding with the ringing in my ears, not only the sound of one bone cracking but the sound of many, like the sound that I heard when the demon crushed Hanfeng's soul between her teeth—

Someone else stood up. "Senior Long, I normally see Jiang Hanfeng early in the morning. He often helps with firewood collection. However, he was not present today."

"Are you sure?" demanded Guoqiang.

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"Senior Long, I was at home this morning, and though I saw Jiang Hanfeng leave to take a walk towards the vegetable fields as he does most mornings, I never saw him come back," came a voice from another table.

"Brother Long," said one of Guoqiang's followers sitting across from him, "I saw him off on his morning walk, as we live next-door to one another, but as that martial sibling said, he never came back. I had to go do my morning work alone."

A middle-aged man dressed like a homeless pauper stood up, and all the hall turned to face him. You would not know this if you were not told, but he was an inner sect cultivator— in fact, he was ranked first among all the disciples. Qian Fugui, he was named, and it was said that he was only a step away from breaking into the Spirit Severing realm, at which point he would automatically be promoted to a sect elder, even if he was on the younger side. Yet, despite this status, he refused to dress himself elegantly or eat in the inner sect's mess hall, because he believed that enlightenment could only reached through understanding the common folk.

"Junior Brother Guoqiang," he said solemnly, "I am no friend of yours, as I do not appreciate your callous disregard for the well-being of those outside your clique, but if it is true that one of your followers has gone missing, that is a major issue that could affect the face of the clan. A murder is one thing, but a disappearance is even worse. Let us endeavor to resolve this mystery." His eyes filled with a serene sort of conviction. "There shall be no forgiveness for those who break sect rules. With the authority granted to me as First Inner Disciple, I shall mete out judgement myself if need be."

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I shut my eyes tight and covered my ears, but the sound, that gruesome sound, the sound that I, with my own hands, had drawn out of Hanfeng's lifeless corpse, did not get any quieter, almost as if it was echoing not in the hall but within my own ears.

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It wouldn't stop. It wouldn't stop! Even the sound of my own heart beating, even the sound of my own lungs expanding, to my ears sounded like nothing but the timbre of my own guilt! The guilt I felt upon killing Jiang Hanfeng, the guilt I felt upon sacrificing my humanity upon the altar of revenge, the guilt I yet felt knowing that I did not regret my crime in the least!

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"BAI CHUNXUE!" Qian Fugui's voice, resonating like drums in my ears, forced my eyes open, and I saw that his sword was but a few inches from my throat, just as I had pointed my sword at Hanfeng's. "Stop dozing off and answer the question! Did you or did you not MEET JIANG HANFENG TODAY?!"

"— —"

I tried to speak, but my voice would not come out. I feared that if I spoke, nothing but the sound of Hanfeng's bones shattering would come out of my mouth.

Qian Fugui slammed his free hand into a wall, and it yielded a particularly distinct CRACK, that same damned sound! That same infernal sound!

"Long Guoqiang says that you meet Jiang Hanfeng in the morning often since you both pass by the same vegetable patch. So I am asking you, DID YOU SEE JIANG HANFENG THIS MORNING OR NOT?"

Those words, that accusation! They knew, surely, surely, they knew. Surely they too could hear the cracking, the crumbling apart of Jiang Hanfeng's soul as his ghost hung over this hall, speaking through the hole I cut open in his neck, cursing me! The blood of his carotid yet stained the sword I held at my hip. The proof was there. The proof was here. Only one step away, only one word away! Not did you see?, but you saw! With that one change, the revocation of that T-to-C movement, I would be—

"I—"

I managed to get this one sound out of my mouth. No more. I could not summon the breath. My lungs expanded and contracted rapidly, but no breath passed through them.

If only Natsuki were here...

—I am.

I felt her embrace, her fingers as cold as ice, pressing down on my collarbone, slowing my heart, softening my lungs, loosening my throat. I felt her breath, frosty like a lazy winter's wind, caressing the back of my neck. I could even feel the curving ridges of her horn pressed softly against my skull, like iron draining the heat from my skin. She was here. Yes. She was always here, always in my shadow. With her here, what did I have to fear? No, I had nothing to fear. Not power, not guilt. Nothing could stand before her. And if she was by my side, then nothing could stand before me.

"I saw him by the vegetable fields," I said with a calm nod. "As usual, we exchanged greetings and we went opposite ways."

"As usual?" Guoqiang shouted. "If you proceeded as usual, then why did he disappear?! You did something, didn't you?!"

"I can't say. I was showing Natsuki around this morning, so I wasn't paying much attention to him."

—The mess hall broke out into murmurs.

"Natsuki? That's the foreigner, right?"

"Yeah. She looked really weird."

"But she seemed cool."

"Where was she from again? The archipelago?"

"She's from Huoshanlong?" interjected Fugui. "Wei conquered that land several decades ago. That doesn't make her a foreigner."

"Not that archipelago, Senior," someone laughed. "She's from the archipelago at the other end of the world."

Qian Fugui staggered back three steps before somehow regaining his footing. His face pale, he cried out, "Someone from that far away? She must be a guest of the Emp—" Suddenly, he stopped. He sheathed his sword and cleared his throat. "There's no point in dragging this out further. If nobody knows where Jiang Hanfeng is, we'll have to assume he went off to hunt in the mountains at the edge of the outer sect, and hope he returns in good order."

Perhaps it was precisely because he sought to share a mind with the common folk that he feared the Emperor's name more than the other inner disciples.

—Guoqiang, his face contorted with fury, slammed his fist into his table,

and I only heard a hollow thumping on wood.