The region of Xiaoxian was all in an uproar when Hong and Mu passed through it, not that either of them noticed. They were too focused on the fortress on the far end of town, a towering, crumbling mass of ancient masonry, set high on a hill amidst a swamp of twisted trees and burbling pits. Strange cries emanated from the animals moving amidst the swamp’s depths, but neither of the cultivators paid them any heed as they strolled on into its depths.
In spite of their curving and tormented shape, the tree grew enough foliage to obscure the Heavens, preventing either cultivator from seeing the castle on top of the hill. Still, they made their journey peaceably, taking all the time they needed, unhurried by their (lack of) knowledge as to Yue’s circumstances, and only relatively concerned with discharging Hong’s contractual obligations. Indeed, had they not been disturbed, they might have ambled all their way to the castle, only barely arriving the next morning.
Evening was swiftly falling, and a thick fog was beginning to cover the swamp, when they saw them. There must have been dozens of the beasts, approaching the pair at a surprisingly fast pace… They were not walking, but hopping, proceeding at breakneck speeds in literal leaps and bounds.
The light was bad, but not yet that of night, and even through the fog the pair had no difficulty in making out the details of the beasts approaching them. Hong and Mu readied their weapons as they recognised their oncoming foe.
The monsters shambled forwards with a hip, hop, hip, hop, immobile limbs barely bending. Wicked claws grew from the ends of their rotting arms, and their lamplit eyes blinked not as the creatures moved straight towards the pair of intrepid protagonists. It was the oil of their rotting bodies, however, which most clearly identified the creatures, as it glistened and sparkled on their flesh like diamonds.
These were jiangshi - vampires.
They hopped through the twilight, the last rays of the setting sun reflecting from their sparkly bodies, and setting the mist of the swamp aflame with blazing, multicoloured light.
“…Are they supposed to look like that?” Mu whispered to Hong.
“Probably a unique alchemical treatment,” Hong whispered back. “It’s not too uncommon to find demonic sects which use herbs and pills to make their jiangshi, instead of just formations. It makes for stronger and more docile monsters - if slightly more romantic ones.”
“Docile, eh?” Mu replied as the beasts began to howl.
Hong and Mu backed up, but their caution would prove to be in vain. The jiangshi would doubtless be too much for them; and they would die, horribly, in screaming agony, to the monsters summoned forth from the Slave Torture Pits by Ke Sou. Indeed, it was fortuitous that the Flaming Bloody Organs Sect had decided to put all their resources into re-establishing their dominance in Xiaoxian; had they kept their supplies hard at work on the sect’s farm fields and mines, it was doubtful if they could have deployed such an impressive force.
The air around Hong and Mu crackled with defensive qi; the monsters continued their inexorable advance; now was the moment, now was the time, that-
“Oh hey guys,” said Yue, skipping up to the pair. A raggedy, somewhat ugly man dressed all in rags followed behind her, wringing his hands and looking in terror at the horde of jiangshi. (His concern was merited, for the monsters would be just as merciless with traitors as with the enemies of the sect.)
The mass of vampires stopped, staring warily at this prospective new threat. Yue pressed on, heedless, excitedly bouncing up and down in front of Hong and Mu.
“I can’t believe you guys came all this way to rescue me!”
“You were in danger?” Mu asked in surprise. Yue snorted.
“Please, don’t joke.”
“No, I’m not joking. We genuinely didn’t know you were in danger - we’re only here to discharge Hong’s contractual obligations, though of course we would have come running if we knew you needed help.”
Hog gave Mu the side eye. “Please try and be serious. There would never have been a need for us to come rescue her - I taught her everything she would need to escape by herself.”
“And indeed I did, teacher, thanks to your training,” said the still chipper Yue, apparently choosing to gloss over the implications of Hong’s sentence. “Had I not been so de-stressed, it's doubtful if I would've escaped with such ease. So, what kind of contractual obligation do you have to discharge?”
Though they'd been polite about it, this shift to small talk proved too much for the vampires, and they coughed angrily to get the humans’ attention, sparkly diamond spittle flying from their cracked lips.
“Hello? We’re here to murder you all, remember?” One of the monsters said.
“Ohhh, so that’s why all of you were here. I was wondering if you were just out for a stroll,” Yue casually remarked.
“No,” the monster declared, shocked, “we’re here at the behest of the Flaming Bloody Organs Sect to slaughter wholesale anyone and everyone who opposes the Flaming Bloody Organs Sect - which is to say, the four of you.”
“So, they’re doubtlessly paying you well for your services,” Yue said.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
“Noooo,” came the whispered howl from the monsters.
“So, they’re doubtlessly giving you excellent benefits for your services,” Yue tried again.
“Noooo,” came the whispered howl from the monsters.
“So, they’re doubtlessly giving you many cultivation resources, to ensure you can have a thriving and prosperous cultivation future,” Yue attempted, her expression growing increasingly annoyed.
“Noooo,” came the whispered howl from the monsters.
“…Are they even feeding you?” Yue snapped.
“Noooo,” came the whispered howl from the monsters.
“And you’re doing their bidding?” Yue cried, her expression now downright furious. “When they offer you so little in labour rights?”
And she pumped her fist in the air in rage.
“But we’re a whole bunch of monsters in league to servants of evil,” one of the vampires pointed out reasonably. “Of course we don’t get any pay or benefits.”
Yue was on the verge of telling the monster just what she thought of employers who failed to properly pay their staff, be they evil or otherwise, when Hong coughed and spoke for the first time in the conversation.
“Actually, offering your workers sufficient pay and benefits for them to not only survive but thrive is the epitome of what it means to be evil - a good support network and worker satisfaction are hallmarks of solid, long-term evil planning. If you’d like to read more, I highly recommend The New Evil: An Introduction to the Evil of the Future, by Azcabellon the Candlelight.”
And Hong held up a hefty hardcover with a title to that effect, and a tagline from Satan identifying it as “the philosophical manifesto of the millennium and, dare I say, a guaranteed classic.”
“Well what do you know,” said one of the monsters, “and here I thought evil always consisted of poor labour rights, corporate mistreatment, and stress and misery in the workplace.”
“You know what,” said another, “we should go back to our boss, and tell him that we won’t murder anyone or everyone unless and until he gives us better pay and benefits.”
“Yeah!” Chorused the rest of the monsters.
“Oh, I wouldn’t bother,” Yue observed merrily. “As I was leaving I moved the objects in the fortress about to form the Noodle Shop Formation, which metaphysically identifies the circumscribed structure as a noodle shop - another excellent technique I learned, courtesy of my teacher. That castle is now radiating energy signifying it as the largest and best noodle shop for several regions.”
The vampires all shed a single tear at the implications of her sentence.
***
“We’ve confirmed that the woman isn’t inside the castle. She’s escaped,” Ke Sou said to Gan Mao, as the two strode the stone walls surrounding their fortress. The latter seemed unconcerned in spite of the bad news.
“We didn’t really need her anyways. We can focus on the prime objective of exterminating Hong for now, and hunt her down to punish her for defying us later.” The sect master of the Flaming Bloody Organs Sect sniffed the air. “More importantly, do you suddenly get the feeling that we’re in the middle of a giant noodle shop?”
“Why yes, yes I do. I can’t seem to explain it, though - wasn’t this always a castle?”
“Maybe somebody built something in the middle of the-” Gan Mao started, and stopped, for he had noticed what was going on outside the noodle shop- err, castle. His eyes went wide, and he involuntarily activated the Jaw Dropping Technique.
There, outside his castle, were hundreds upon hundreds of cultivators. They poured out of the woods, the sky, and the mud pits in the swamp, swarming en masse towards his noodle shop- err, castle. There were orthodox cultivators and demonic cultivators, annoying background characters and young and rugged protagonists, wastes and up and coming genii. There were cultivators of every stripe and every sect.
The one thing that caste and interminable horde had in common with each other was that every time two of them met on their way, there would be a brief exchange of words, followed by something to the effect of, “you dare? You’re courting death…”
***
Hong took off his cap in sympathy with the Flaming Bloody Organs Sect, not that he could remember their name. “Alas - normally, we never use that technique, but instead set up the related Miscellaneous Restaurant in the Background Formation, which is effective on the unawakened but not on cultivators. A moment of silence for the poor inhabitants of the fortress.”
The gathered humans and vampires were silent for a moment, their caps in hand.
At last, one of the jiangshi said, “So what do we do now?”
Hong coughed. “If you’re interested in living fulfilling lives of evil and darkness, may I recommend joining a union? They have plenty of pay and benefits, and can teach you a trade or artisanal activity, allowing you to create works of beauty and utility while living happy, healthy lives.”
“Ooh,” said the monsters.
“I always wanted to be a stone dragon manufacturer,” said one. “Those dragon's are just so cute, the way they sit there on the roofs, keeping watch over us.”
The others shared his enthusiasm, and after some more talking amongst each other, they decided to go into stonemasonry. That they could barely bend their limbs did nothing to dissuade them from this obviously foolish and non-evil course of action. (A couple even wanted to pursue baking.)
“Well, thank you for your advice,” said one of the monsters, and they were on the verge of leaving when a new voice interrupted their conversation.
“Stop!” Cried a shadowy figure resembling Tou Tong from out of the interdimensional shadows. “You can’t leave the path of evil for stonemasonry and baking! The very idea is absur- arghk!”
He was cut off as a rubbery, greenish creature crashed into him, pinning him to the ground.
“You?” Tou cried. “How can you be here? You’re-”
And then a rotund, suspiciously cheese-like shape towered over the terrified Tou Tong, before the interdimensional shadows cut.
There was a protracted pause, not from the monsters - who were doubtless doing something important - but within the space between worlds, where a victorious, triumphant, (and dare I say very handsome) Author was prying his manuscript out of a certain demonic cultivator’s cold dead hands.
When at last the narration resumed properly, the horde of vampires were already entirely out of sight. The only signs that they'd been there were splashes of sparkly pus floating in the swamp water. The four humans were standing there unharmed, three of them chatting nonchalantly and the fourth taking a rapid and highly practical crash course in the Jaw Dropping Technique.
“Ah well. All’s well that ends well,” Yue said merrily.
“Not true,” Hong replied, “I haven’t figured out if I need to actually discharge my contractual obligation yet.”