As the two women sat, Xiao Fan momentarily distracted from the incense tree's ominous presence, they spoke. Between every thrust and draw of the needle, the girl with the too-wide smile began to ramble, seeming to focus less on her actions than the thoughts in her head. "So... You're a new disciple, then, yeah? Then, as your new senior sister, let me introduce myself! I'm Hao Ning. That's my birth name, by the way - I've never been a fan of making my siblings call me by my courtesy name. That's Hao Lifen, by the way. And you, meimei?" The spectral waif's eyes re-glued themselves to Xiao Fan, even as her hands worked the needle.

Xiao Fan was all at once amused with this young girl, and peeved that she was, technically, her senior. Who knew how long she had been dead for? And even then, in the context of the sect... No! No, no-no-no, that was a ridiculous line of thought. Xiao Fan hadn't joined a sect! All she had done was... Was ask Zhichao Tingfeng to teach her... And he wasn't... Ugh. A nauseating feeling accrued in her spiritual makeup, right about where her stomach should be. Putting two and two together only annoyed her more.

Zhichao Tingfeng had a lot of explaining to do.

She snapped herself from this moment of reflection when the needle was one again pushed through cold flesh, reminding her that she wasn't alone. Xiao Fan stammered as she went to respond, knowing damn well that her face would be the color of an overripe peach if her blood still flowed. "Uh... If you don't want to go by your courtesy name, I won't, either. I'm Xiao Fan; it's, ah, nice to meet you." While she spoke with a less-than-subtle note of trepidation, at least it was honest. It was good to meet Hao Ning - after all, how else was she going to fix her wounds? She doubted acupuncture was as easy to pick up as throwing a half-decent punch.

Hao Ning nodded in a way that resembled a bobblehead that's been smacked. Once her noggin had stopped bobbin', the old-young girl let forth another torrent of words. "Xiao Fan. It's good to meet you, Fan! It's been so long since I've had any new sect siblings... After the fire, and all that grief... The Tian Lei sect has been pretty empty. You might even say it's been..." She wound herself up to deliver this final blow, a last utterance that surely placed the punch in punchline. "...pretty dead. Ahahahahaha!"

Her laugh was the sound of a great many bells, all rung incorrectly. While Hao Ning's voice wasn't grating, her joy was abrasive as a grindstone, and Xiao Fan felt her heart and soul sharpened all the more for hearing it. The possessed corpse had to restrain herself from covering her ears. Hao Ning stopped after a few moments, but that too-wide smile had returned. She drew the needle out one final time, flourishing her hands instead of driving it in once again. "Ta-dah! You're fixed! Muscles all secure again!"

It was true, Xiao Fan found, sending her mind out once more into her body like a tree sending roots to the earth. Nowhere in her body was warm anymore... Not that kind of warmth that breaking herself had provided, at least. The ex-farmer supposed that was a good thing, but still. It didn't exactly sit well with her that she had been given acupuncture by a ghost, and that's what fixed her. In fact, the needle Hao Ning was using seemed far too large for acupuncture. It was more akin to a knitting needle.

Hao Ning's face broke once more into a smug, mischievous expression. Xiao Fan could already feel another bad joke coming on. Her preemptive exasperation didn't stop Hao Ning; the audacious apparition giggled for a few seconds before her next awful pun burst forth with volcanic force. "Ha-ha-ha~! Looks like I really sewed you back together!"

Not quite what Xiao Fan had been thinking, but a sewing needle was close enough to a knitting needle, she supposed. Xiao Fan drew in a deep inhale, and sighed with the force of a bellows. This only encouraged Hao Ning to laugh even more, but eventually she calmed herself. With an exaggerated clearing of her throat, the ghostly girl leaned back on her cushion and opened her mouth anew. The needle was placed back in its resting place, somewhere behind her tongue, and she drew her hand away.

Silence returned to the gathering hall, the two now simply staring at one another. There was an awkwardness to it, but it wasn't destined to last - Hao Ning's manic smile began to fade, and with it, so did she. Not rapidly, but her appearance became translucent, bit by bit, and her once-frantic eyes now were sad. She pouted. "Fan... You should go. Don't let this senior sister keep you from your training, ok? I thought I heard Zhichao Tingfeng tell you to go outside, or something. I'm gonna go, uh... rest. Something close to that, at least. You go train, ok?"

And with that, she was gone, drifting back from Xiao Fan despite never rising from her kneel pillow. The fading quickened as she gained distance, and by the time Xiao Fan had actually processed it, she was gone. 'Figures', thought Xiao Fan, 'I finally get a chance to pry into her and she decides to leave before I even get the chance to ask.' She pushed herself to a stand, so distracted with her own mild annoyance at Hao Ning that she didn't feel the oppressive aura of the incense tree. Instead, she turned to the eastern corridor and began down it.

Like the southern hallway, there was a door at the end. This seemed to be the case for every path, though she wasn't really certain about the northern passage - she wasn't about to go wandering and find out, though. If this place was steeped in enough resentful energy that a girl like Hao Ning could stick around, then who's to say more ghosts wouldn't show up? Who knew? Maybe this whole husk of a sect was host to hundreds of ghosts like her, just out of sight, just out of reach...

That thought set Xiao Fan ill at ease, ironic as it was for the idea of ghosts to set her on edge. Old habits seemed to die hard. She made her way out the door and into the side yard, now deeper into the crumbling sect. All around her, those buildings lucky enough to still be standing loomed like stiff corpses, each one a jiangshi just waiting to hop over and drain her dry. There was a certain sort of loneliness and unease that came from walking in the shadow of the dead like this. The moon was high in the sky now, and under its radiance, even more char-marks were visible than before. Whatever had happened had been vicious.

As she walked, she thought on it - anything was better than thinking about how odd it felt to be here, after all. Zhichao Tingfeng had only showed her a single technique, and it was powerful enough to split wood and break bone. Xiao Fan thought back to the armful of manuals he had brought her... If he and his sect had had access to all of those, who - or what - could have done this? She doubted she'd get a straight answer from him if she asked, but she decided to ask him when she could regardless.

Her mind drifted to the possibilities. Demons? Likely. But what sort of demonic beast would be strong enough to will fire into existence? Next up was a rival sect. That would have made sense... if there was any proof of such a sect existing. As far as she or anyone else knew, to her knowledge, this sect - the Tian Lei sect, from what Hao Ning had said - was the only one. They had no rivals, most likely. They had nothing to worry about from without, only from within. "From... within..." Xiao Fan spoke the words aloud as the thought settled into her brain like a weight upon a scale.

A solid thunk and a sky full of stars let her know that she had been daydreaming. Xiao Fan pushed herself up off the ground, getting herself back to a stand and brushing her finery clean of dirt. Before her stood a wizened pine, bearing the scar of many blades, dozens of age-old strikes, and yet all the better for them. It was venerable, a survivor of more strikes than any mortal had ever bore, and even still it grew towards the heavens. Even the bark on it seemed thicker than other trees, shaped into fibrous armor against the testing of sword and fist.

Xiao Fan smiled from seeing it: here was this pillar of strength, a tree of soft wood but great endurance. It had stood against countless strikes, and flourished all the while. She would have liked to think she could emulate it, or at least try to. And then, of course, she wound back her arm and began to practice her form.

Oftentimes, appearances are deceiving. This time, however? They were anything but. Her subconscious sent a gentle prayer of thanks for her newfound inability to sense pain. Every time her fist touched down upon the bark of the pine, it felt as hard as iron. With each kick, it was so resilient that she was sure she'd hear her own leg snapping soon enough. She whiled away the evening, punching and kicking, occasionally stopping to rest and stare up at the stars. Xiao Fan felt herself unable to relax, concern for Zhang Daiyu returning with every moment of respite, but it still felt nice to stop and breathe sometimes.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Midnight became the late hours, and those late hours became the early morning. With morning came the dawn. Just as Xiao Fan saw the sun began to crest over the horizon line of the treetops, she heard movement from a nearby building. By time she whirled about to inspect it, Zhichao Tingfeng was already outside, dressed in a cleaner set of robes with the exact same embroidery. His long hair fell down unabated, now - chestnut-coloured drapes which hung like loose silk from his head. Seemed like he had just woken up.

Her mentor yawned, loudly and gracelessly, his whole face contorting in that way that morning-yawns do. For such an elegant man to do that... To suddenly become so normal, so human... Xiao Fan pressed her lips together hard as a sudden burst of laughter pushed itself from her chest and mouth. She put a hand up to stop it, but the loud 'pffft' was only stifled, not stopped. Zhichao Tingfeng looked over to her, surprised to find he had an audience - and upon seeing who it was, he joined in with her laughter. The two fell about themselves in moments, with him approaching slowly as they cackled.

Once he was close enough that conversation wasn't a bother, he gave her a nod in greeting. Fist-to-palm in gongshou; Xiao Fan followed behind, opposite fist to opposite palm, a mirror of his own gesture. "Good morning, shushu! Sleep well? Hahaha!" The last little spurt of mirth left a smile to linger upon her face. Zhichao Tingfeng put on a stern expression, but so overdone it was obviously fake. His balled fists went to his hips and he raised his chin, looking down the bridge of his nose at the girl.

"Oh? Are you mocking me, meimei? Making fun of your senior's morning routine? Normally, I'd have you make me breakfast as punishment... but I know you probably can't even taste what you're cooking, so that wouldn't work. Instead... Hmm." He spent a few moments with his hand on his chin, looking up toward the waterfall, pondering her 'punishment'. Xiao Fan played into the bit, eyes wide as if she was being truly scolded, back straight and at-attention.

"Instead, you've got to come with me on an outing today. Show me everything you've learned. Admittedly, you've only been here a day, but we do not accept slow learners at the Tian Lei sect!" His imperious look was tinged with performative superiority, a self-assured smirk appearing on his lips. Xiao Fan gasped in surprise, but her reaction was a fair bit less for show. An outing, to show off what she had learned? All she had learned was some basic martial arts, and a singular technique... So they were going to be fighting!

The only thing that came to mind when combat was concerned was Tang Shun. Surely they were gonna go kick his ass, right? Kill him like an animal bred for slaughter? The excitement of such an idea rattled her to the core, and she couldn't help but make a few practice punches to release excess energy. Of course, being energetic for her wasn't quite the same now as it once was. She hadn't felt tired since she had awoken back in Er Xin, but even still, this sudden influx of emotion forced those roots back down into her distant body.

For a split second, she thought she could feel every muscle in her body - every individual strand, every thin sinew, every deadened gland and organ. Honestly, it disoriented her. So much information flashing into her brain was like getting hit in the head with a brick, and she teetered where she stood as a result. Zhichao Tingfeng broke character then, letting his chin drop to a normal height, eyes now tinted with concern.

"Xiao Fan, are you okay? You seem a little unsteady. Is this too harsh a punishment? I could always have you split wood instead... Go into town and buy some food... The point being, if you don't think you're ready, I can go alone." He took a step forth, raising a hand out to help her stabilize, but her wobbling only worsened from her swift response. Shaking her head with more vigour than anything else she had done since dead, she tried her best to focus her eyes on Zhichao Tingfeng. It was only moderately effective.

"No! No, no, no. I want to go with you - I need to. What would the point of me coming here have been if I didn't come along with you on your expedition? This may come as a surprise, shushu, but I do want to save my wife. If you're going to be fighting Tang Shun, or anyone associated with him..." She didn't need to finish that sentence. Zhichao Tingfeng let his arm drop, nodding in the affirmative to her. "Good. Not him, yet... But some of his friends. That man, Tang Shun, has a lot of sway within the jianhu. We'll have to track him down before we can kill him."

That did put a damper on Xiao Fan's mood, but only a bit. As the sensation of being inside her own flesh began to truly fade, she crossed her arms. "Hmm. Fine. I'll still come along; I wouldn't want you to get lonely, shushu. Oh, by the way... I met someone last night." At that, Zhichao Tingfeng's normally unshakable demeanor was shaken. It was only shaken slightly, as shaken as a drink from a vending machine, but there was no doubting it had affected him somehow.

"Who... Who did you meet? A villager from a nearby village? A wild animal you decided was your friend now? A rock with a face painted on, perhaps?" His cocksure smile returned quickly this time, but there were serious doubts about how genuine it was. Xiao Fan didn't mind; even if she did, it would only have made her want to press the issue. Instead, she simply gave a shrug, rolling up the sleeve on her right arm for him to see. Everywhere Hao Ning pushed the needle was now unbroken skin, with only a soft darkening of the flesh to signify something had intruded there. Despite the fairly mundane appearance, Zhichao Tingfeng still became solemn.

His face dropped to face the ground; his hands came together at his lap, holding one another. He let out a breath that was half sigh, half sound of stifled, hidden despair. When again he looked up, his expression had become as stern and serious as it had been parodying minutes ago. "Xiao Fan... You met Hao Ning, then. If you see her again, tell her I miss her. That will be all on that topic. Now, ah, about our excursion..."The urgent rush to change topic didn't seem to wholly originate from well-meaning intentions.

"The nearby town of Xinmeijin sent me a pigeon. They say they've got a small group of outlaws nearby, troublemakers who are blocking trade and damaging their fields. They need help. We are going to help them. It'll be a good way to try out your training." He remained visibly uneasy at the mention of Hao Ning's apparition, but Xiao Fan didn't think now was the time to pursue it. He seemed to affected by her even appearing, much less speaking with and helping Xiao Fan with her injuries. She decided to put a pin in it and ask him later, when they had time.

For now? They had to prepare to head out. Xiao Fan had never left Er Xin until recently; going to see a new village was a daunting prospect. She did have one question, though. "A pigeon? Could Er Xin have sent you a pigeon as well? Is that why you even arrived?" Her tone was pure and inquisitive, but the intent behind it was undeniable. Zhichao Tingfeng's dour expression only deepened at the questioning - he bowed deeply to his junior, eyes closed somberly.

"...yes, meimei. I was sent a pigeon saying Tang Shun and his ilk were nearby; I thought I would have a day to travel. He attacked between when the pigeon was sent, and when it arrived. I... am sorry, that I could not save your village. I'm sorry that I could not save you, Xiao Zongying. I can only hope to remedy my failing as best as I can, and help you avenge your family and friends."

He remained angled down into that bow, waiting for response, while Xiao Fan's excitement burnt out like a poorly-made incense stick. She suddenly had so much to say; again, her thoughts came pouring in like a waterfall. Too many thoughts... Too many feelings. Too much to say, to ask, to shout, to scream, to sob. Finally, she settled on saying none of it at all. There would be time, she was sure; plenty of time later. But if they wanted to save Xinmeijin from Er Xin's fate, they had to move quickly.

She started towards the great hall, and ideally, the cart past it, completely disregarding her teacher's bow. "Come on, then. Time is of the essence. Er Xin already died from tardiness; Xinmeijin is still able to be saved. We should get going now. Eat on the way, if you can." Zhichao Tingfeng straightened himself only after she spoke, and he said nothing in response; what could he even say?

Off, then, to Xinmeijin. Perhaps this time, help wouldn't arrive too late.