‘’Do you hear me?’’

Zhang Cai woke to the unfamiliar voice. Yet he saw nothing. He felt nothing except his strained neck and wet nape. His muddled consciousness cleared moment by moment as he identified his state: he had no control over his body, even his breathing, all except his eyes which he opened.

He was in a cavern of some sorts with ambient blue light reflected off its smooth ceiling—at least fifteen or twenty meters high, with roots of aquamarine lotuses twirling down to the ground. Through a singular hole, he saw the last waning moon shining on the pond he floated. Across him was an old master; with unfathomable cultivation, long silver hair and goatee, and sunken eyes. Beads of sweat rolled down his scarred forehead.

There, most importantly, was also a terrible weight crushing his dantian and heart. He felt a foul Qi vortex of black spinning out of control, slithering up his meridians and blood vessels to contaminate his being. They fought against his own Qi, but found no resistance from Long Kongzi’s remnant Ice Qi, overtaking the wounds and further worsening them. He smelled burnt flesh and ash, an eerie laughter constantly ringed in his ears.

‘’Do you hear me?’’ the man asked again. His voice made the sounds go away, echoed deep in his ears, but it lasted no more than a few seconds.

Zhang Cai blinked once. He knew the man would understand.

‘’Good. You have been in a coma for two days. Your inner demons have taken hold of you, and you are past the point of safe return.’’

Zhang Cai felt his heart twitch.

‘’I am suppressing the demons with my might, but I can accomplish nothing else. You have to solve the underlying cause for your perilous state, or not even the Divines can save you from being abducted, young lad.’’

He blinked again. He instinctively knew what abducted meant. His soul, consciousness, would not be able to find its way back here. Who would get his body was another problem...

‘’We must be quick, so listen with prudence. You cannot come back here nor hear my voice once you begin. You will be alone in their realm, and in their realm no power works against them except thoughts. In their realm, they are the rulers, and not even Divines can interfere without a loss. In their realm, there exists a kind of beings who you must not contact even if you fail to escape. Dying is a better option than to face them, beware! In their realm, an eternity might pass, and you might be trapped forever, but here you might be gone for hours. If you have any last words, or a wish to be taken care of, I will provide a few minutes of control for you.’’

Zhang Cai didn’t blink for a while. He stared at the ambient lights passing through, shining and reflecting, and observed the roots twitch under the verdant Qi with joy. The water felt cool, and he felt intense discomfort. His heartbeat slowed to a crawl, where he experienced the sensation of falling back into his body off a cliff. Then again, and again, thinking that if he blinked, he would be gone from this world and could no longer see or feel anything.

He would not be able to smile, nor feel his muscles tighten, nor take a breath of fresh air. He could not drink cool waters from a clean stream, nor sleep under the stars and wonder about their purpose. He would have nothing of that, ever. And also he could not make up with Shu Ligui, nor visit Li Bo ever again. He could not, never, see his brothers in their station of life which they might have reached.

He would never see his master, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was that his master wouldn’t see him ever again, and the thought of the old man crying again for his sake opened the dam blocking his eyes. Zhang Cai cried, poured his heart out through the last bits of control he had, and found his vision blur. He couldn’t die. He couldn’t imagine himself dying. He couldn’t imagine his consciousness being here, then not ever being there ever again.

There couldn’t be an end to consciousness. There shouldn’t be.

He wondered for a moment if this was what Long Kongzi went through in his death.

He spent a few minutes in silence, long past the time his tears dried, and at last resolved himself. He would write a letter to Li Bo. He had no last words of importance, in his own opinion. But he had to make sure those, at least those he thought that considered him friends, needed to be aware. He had to leave something, even though deep down he didn’t believe he would lose his life.

Zhang Cai blinked twice, intently staring at the old master.

‘’Very well.’’

A deep blue rose from the sleeves of the old master, like two currents of a raging river, and struck his neck and spine. Gigantic amounts of Qi, each current tens of thousands of pulls, started wreaking havoc in his meridians and forcibly suppressed the shadows of the inner demons.

‘’Yu Yin.’’ The old master called, and Zhang Cai saw the senior disciple appear before him. The young man held him up, set him straight, and Zhang Cai found a feeling returning to his head and back. Neither of his four limbs worked, still.

‘’Brother Zhang,’’ The man muttered. His eyes still had tears, and remained bloodshot.

‘’Could you call Miss Li, senior brother?’’ Zhang Cai said. ‘’I need to entrust something.’’

The man nodded, then called ‘’Master Jin.’’ To the old man. He went away, and the Old Master Jin spoke again.

‘’Five minutes.’’ Then he spoke no more, and Zhang Cai saw him pale more than before, deep in concentration. The master was trying his everything to keep him standing.

It took fifteen seconds for Shu Ligui to come, and Zhang Cai asked Yu Yin for privacy.

‘’It is alright, senior brother.’’ He said before the man left. ‘’It is my own responsibility.’’

The man left without another word, shoulders shrunk.

Shu Ligui seemed not too distressed. Her hair was still well-made, and her clothes a little worn out if not tidy. She clutched her ceremonial sword in her bosom, and sat beside him to support his trembling back.

‘’Sir Zhang.’’ She greeted. There was no emotion in her voice.

‘’I need you to write a letter for me, if you would?’’

She nodded.

‘’The spatial pouch on my neck,’’ He nodded down to it, and Shu Ligui gently untied the knot. ‘’Take a drop of my blood.’’

She tried to pierce his skin with Qi, but it only left a white mark. She stopped for a moment.

‘’It is alright, use a weapon if you must.’’

She unsheathed her ceremonial sword and gently tapped its side on his forearm. A single drop of blood fell onto his pouch, and an aquamarine Qi stream evaporated into thin air.

‘’There are a few quills and bamboo scrolls. Use any you feel comfortable.’’

She took them out, laid them on her skirt, and put up one hand over the open scroll while securing him straight with the other.

‘’Shall I start?’’

‘’I am listening.’’

Zhang Cai took a deep breath, held it in, exhaled.

‘’To my first dear friend, companion, and second master, Li Bo.

It has been more than a month, I think, since the time you warned me. And from where I am, that is Blue Lotus Sect, it might take over a week for the messenger birds to find you. I don’t have a lot of time for writing this letter—actually it is your sister-in-law, Miss Shu Ligui who, just like you, has accompanied me on my journey, writing for me.

I have advanced to Rocksmote not long after leaving you in your family’s hands, and met with another group of demonic...’’

‘’Sir Zhang?’’

Zhang Cai considered for a little more. He heard the dripping of water.

‘’Please continue.’’

‘’...another group of demonic friends over the strait. I also met our old rival, Long Kongzi, who bested us three by himself. Now, both my friends and Long Kongzi are dead, deep under the waters of the strait, or even might be floating against the shores of your estate. I do not know.

Being the sole survivor, I am entrusted with the burden of their killing. I fell to my inner demons, and can only talk to you through the aid of old Master Jin. This very well might be our last correspondence.

I don’t know what to say, except that I consider you and Li Huan true friends and...siblings, if you would allow me to call you. Regardless of your family. I never had birth families, but always found ones, and I believe sometimes one can go away if they can’t do with either.

I know that I speak as if I am dead for certain, yet I will not die. But I can’t leave anything unsaid unsaid in the worst possible outcome. With this letter, if I am dead, I will entrust with Miss Li my spatial pouch to be sent away. In it will be the map of my master, so expect him to find you in a few weeks at that happenstance.

I hope you can let him read this letter as well, so that he might know that all the years he spent for me was not in vain, and I have strived every bit to be as he is. I love him. Try to cheer him up for me if he cries.

If I am not dead, and the pouch does not find you, then please write back the answer to this question: why did you never tell me you were married? I would have loved to discuss with you how to take care of children, since I did my share plenty back at home. With my regards, utmost love, respect, and well wishes—

Your forever friend and eternal brother, Zhang Cai.’’

‘’Miss Li,’’ Zhang Cai said right after. There was little time left. ‘’I entrust my martial arts to you.’’

‘’Sir Zhang,’’ She objected right away. He felt her grip a little too hard on his shoulder. ‘’I do not believe you have the need.’’

‘’It is just precaution.’’ He replied. ‘’I sense you are earth-attuned, and I believe your second is most likely water. My master trusts me enough to do away with them what I like, and I just feel like they will do better for you than go back to that old geezer.’’

‘’I can’t accept such a gift.’’

‘’Then take it as an apology from me.’’ He said.

‘’It is I who owe you an apology.’’

‘’You didn’t do something to apologize for.’’ Here he stopped, considering his next words. ‘’Even if you don’t like me, I know there is a bit of respect between us. Am I wrong?’’

‘’There is, indeed...’’

‘’Then out of respect for me, don’t make this dying wish go unfulfilled. I believe that wouldn’t be so proper?’’

She cast him a mysterious frown, but spoke no more. Instead, she rolled up the scroll and put the quill back in the pouch. She laid him down again, cool water up against his nape, and stared into his eyes.

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‘’Ah, also, Li Bro’s Qi signature is in the pouch itself, so please send it right to him instead of the family estate. I suspect his family will mess with something.’’

Then he found his voice gone, and he fell back to the powerless state he was in. Old Master Jin withdrew his trembling hands into the wide sleeves of his gray robe and sat cross legged mid-air, heaving.

‘’Please leave, young lady.’’

She gave a deep bow to the master, said something long, very long to Zhang Cai, and left his field of vision. He couldn’t hear what she said.

‘’Are you ready?’’

Zhang Cai blinked.

‘’...are you not afraid of death?’’

Zhang Cai blinked twice. It didn’t matter how much he blinked, the old master had his way of understanding him.

‘’Like master, like son.’’ The old Master Jin flashed a toothy grin. ‘’I suppose you wonder what the young miss said as well?’’

Not too much, though he did indeed wonder. Zhang Cai blinked.

‘’I see. Then make your way around quick, so that there are no demons on them folks as well. Brace yourself, lad.’’

Zhang Cai blinked, then the cave and master was no more—and he was face to face with a dark, bulking abomination with seven eyes staring down at him.

*********

Shu Ligui left Master Jin’s abode and sat cross legged some steps afar the gates. It was the middle of the night, with no breeze present, and no sound except the crackling torches. The brackets stood solid against the ground, a good three meters long, and the flames cast a warm light down on her dusty outfit.

She fiddled with the pouch in her palm, traveling between each finger with light strokes. She was deep in thought.

The Li Bo she knew could never be friends, even more so brothers, with the type Zhang Cai was. The Li Bo she knew, when she met him some years ago, had been different. He remained for a few months at their estate at the time of betrothal alongside his noble mother. He, even if one included his upbringing, had a manner so exquisite no one would find fault with him.

Even then he remained cold. His heart, she thought, might have been carved from ice. He had this certain glance that made you feel like an insect, and he didn’t hesitate to cut the limbs or heads of the servants at the slightest mistake. In front of his mother and betrothed, he was an angel. Anywhere else, a demon might have been better than him.

Zhang Cai was one of the kinder souls she met, and she met plenty of young masters and ladies and traveling warriors who sought refuge. One step further, Zhang Cai was the disciple of the Virtuous Blind, someone known to be a saint among men, a Paragon. She knew from her mother that the old master had the most difficult criteria for taking a disciple among all the Spirits and Divine, so unlike those of his realm that had hundreds of disciples, there were only two in his tutelage.

How could those two, one so indifferent and other so caring, consider each other sworn brothers? She didn’t believe that Li Bo could change. No, his kind never changed. Her sister, too, never changed. So she thought of the other possibility.

She had her own hunch about Zhang Cai’s knowledge of etiquette and general state. He had the education of a servant, down to the boot, with nothing to add upon it. He was a cultivator, yet still considered himself a commoner, whereas in the North any Rocksmote was above such trifles except those in service to noble families.

He knew the important bits of upcoming or current generation, as well as matters that occured not long ago. As if he was prepared to not embarrass someone in the face of a superior. Was Li Bo truly a friend, a brother to Zhang Cai? Or had he been deceived, in the hopes that he would serve Li Bo as an aide in the upcoming succession crisis of the family?

Her grip on the pouch tightened. Faint pops resounded through the empty hallway, where she cast a look left to gaze at the descending slopes of the sect.

‘’Do I send the pouch, or do I keep it?’’

If Li Bo was as she suspected, then he would just burn whatever Zhang Cai left for him. She couldn’t let the boy’s sole sign of living get destroyed like that.

Yet, denying a dying wish was the most horrible crime one could commit. Which was worse? Not fulfilling his last request, or letting him be erased?

If she died, she thought, she wanted there to be signs of her own everywhere. She wanted to be remembered, with headstones and statues and books about her. She couldn’t bear the idea that there would be nothing left of her after death. She thought the same for others as well. She couldn’t bear people vanishing into nothing, all because some spirit or soul left their body and they no longer breathed.

She wiped a bit of her tears with her sleeve.

‘’’What am I to learn from this, mother? What am I to learn from him at his expense?’’

Then she stopped crying, and thought, all the while the pouch moved back and forth between her hands.

*********

Zhang Cai watched as the abomination trudged up a ninety-degree mountainside, carrying him on one of its tentacles. The sky, the mountain, and the ground proved a weird contrast, all different shades of gray, and every few seconds a devil would fly or walk or swim(?) past them in the most bizarre forms he had ever seen. His panic long gone, Zhang Cai wondered what this realm was even about.

Was this place in his body, in his mind? Or was it like those dimensional trials he heard about, connecting through a certain rhythm or frequency of Qi waves to establish connection to their world? If this place was a part of him, and everybody else, how large was it to be a part of everything? The old master clearly called this place their realm, so there had to be a connection somewhere.

He had time to ponder these, and even watch the scenery, or study the amalgamation’s snail-crawl speed, because he found no emotion in himself. No, he didn’t feel empty. He simply had no rise in anything. He felt the most balanced state a man or woman could find themselves, that is when they are engaged with something that requires neither too much nor too little focus, and time becomes an invisible construct.

Yet he was not engaged unless he chose to, and this state never left him. He remained there, static. Last time, Zhang Cai drowned under the high intensity of his emotions, so this didn’t seem to be an effect of this realm. What was the cause? He had an inkling, but didn’t dwell too much on it.

Soon, he saw the peak of the mountain appear before him. Gray-silver clouds parted ways before the abomination as its seven pupils locked to another, and then they crashed into each other. Wild screams echoed, malleable limbs of all shapes sprouted at the same time, and Zhang Cai found himself in the palm of another demon. This one had four eyes, all red, and six horns sprouting where his ears needed to be.

It seemed more humanoid than any other he had seen.

[Offering for the kings]

The voice echoed in his head. Zhang Cai’s own pupils trembled.

They could communicate?

A loud eerie laughter rang from the demon.

[Good soul]

The new one’s nine wings flapped open. Its feathers whirled, and a gale shot them through clouds up the mountain peak where Zhang Cai saw a Southern-style hall erected. With one glance, though his world kept spinning as the demon played with his eyes, he counted almost a few thousand demons going about.

He saw faint lights, and sensed weak Qi from various places across the mountain peak. They were fellow souls, cultivators, shamans, or Southern Djinns. Yet none of them seemed capable of sensing him, and when he tried to sense them with focus he only heard excruciating screams of pain. They flew into them, deep into their territory.

The demons kept playing with these souls, he observed. They kept molding them into weird shapes, taking bites and spitting them back to merge them together. Some sat on soul-made furniture, some used souls to cut other souls, and...as they went deeper, Zhang Cai saw more humanoid shaped ones use souls to masturbate. Even that wasn’t the lowest of the state he saw, yet he didn’t feel fear, but a sense of deep disgust.

The demon came before the gates of the gigantic hall, almost a few hundred meters high, and pushed open its doors. A black wind swept up, the gates squeaked, and Zhang Cai heard the demon carrying him scream its lungs. One moment passed, and the demon was fine dust swirling in the wind. Some got stuck on his left eyeball.

From the deep darkness of the hall, a swirling vortex reminiscent of his dantian, came out a pitch-black clawed hand. It plucked both his eyeballs, then took him in. The door banged behind him as Zhang Cai found himself taken further and further into what seemed an abyss. His Qi told him that a freezing wind, enough to chill his bones in seconds, whistled around, yet he didn’t feel it.

Then his Qi also told him that there was a fire, and he saw it too, a strange mountain erupting molten rocks of blaze. They rained down on him, and one even hit him almost, but again nothing happened.

The hand came to a halt, then he heard a sigh.

[What a good soul]

One snap of a finger, and Zhang Cai found himself laid on a banquet table. A golden chandelier up above cast rays of splendid light down on the group of five giant demons, all of them twenty to thirty meters, glaring down his soul.

They had two eyes, some three, and bore goat-like horns on their pitch-black skins. Some looked like men, others like women, and all had this thoughtful look on their faces. Their chairs were made of thousands of souls, some Rocksmote like Zhang Cai.

At the end of the banquet table, an empty throne remained. There were six points of power he felt, one of them equal to old Master Jin and Li Bo’s father. Six Threshold souls, all trapped. Whatever the seat belonged to, Zhang Cai knew he had to escape before it came.

[Indeed, what a good soul]

[How wonderful, a good soul]

[What a marvelous soul, indeed]

[Indeed, wonderful soul]

[How did one of its energy acquire such strength]

[Marked, what a good soul]

[Indeed, four different Spirits, good soul]

[Two marks are erased, a pity, but a good soul]

[We could have known their powers, too, a pity]

[I know this mark, it is the Paragon, good soul]

[The other is Stormlord, good soul]

[Stormlord is good, her energy is compatible with us]

[Paragon is bad, his energy is too virtuous]

[But, a good soul]

[Nevertheless, a good soul]

[Indeed, a good soul]

[Yes, a marvelous soul]

Zhang Cai watched these beings argue, unaware if they knew he could understand them, unsure if they cared for him or ignored him altogether. He just thought about what he needed to do to get out, or at least get his body back. He knew the underlying cause was his guilt and self-doubt, but in this emotionless state he couldn’t conjure the disposition required to do introspection.

Then he thought of the...illusions, shown by these demons. They had been real enough. Was he supposed to get eaten by one of them? He saw a few souls blink out of existence when a demon ate them, though he could count them with his fingers.

Or ask for...help?

[Do we wait Emperor]

[No, they have too much energy already]

[We share the soul, good soul]

[No, Emperor will kill us]

[Not if they do not know]

[They know everything]

[Not sharing, one of us can get it. We forge a new hall]

At the mention of a new hall, all demons froze. Then one of them shot its gigantic fist to the demon across it and sent its jaw flying. The broken teeth clattered near Zhang Cai’s eyeballs.

In a few seconds, the banquet hall turned into a battlefield. All the demons tumbled against each other, clawing and punching and kicking their limbs out of use. Pieces of their body flew across the table into the wine and mead and meat. Some of their foul blue blood splattered across the seats and cushions, smelling of rot and ash. He heard constant screams as they contaminated the environment, and then noticed that everything, down to the banquet table’s covers, were made of souls.

As the chaos became too hard to follow, all motions a blur and all screams a buzz, Zhang Cai’s left eyeball twitched. Few specks of dust rose and landed on the limbs near his eyes. Bit by bit, right under the gaze of the Demon Kings, a demon with wings materialized. His unstable form absorbed the remnants of the others, growing ever larger, all the while holding both of Zhang Cai’s eyes in his palms.

[It is my win!]

All heads, torn or not, snapped to look at him. Now he was as tall as the others, and perhaps even stronger.

[I, become, new king! Emperor!]

All of the gigantic demons threw their battered bodies at the new demon, but alas, they came too late. The new demon flew high up, giggling, and crushed him between its sculpted palms.

Zhang Cai sensed himself being pulled into a world of dreams. The chaos died as his consciousness blurred, and silence overcame the hall.

The last sight he saw was a single, golden eye, and the last thing he heard was a loud whisper echoing in his soul.

[Lucky]