"Do you think she'll be okay?" the necromancer asked, watching Zéyì bound away on the back of a si dzi.

"I don't know," Sou Yuet said honestly. "I hope Si fu can help, but... she's really not very well."

A whole day had passed since the routing of the auction. They had not found Zéyì's doctor friend, and Miss Gong had not returned either.

"Si dze, I'm sure Miss Gong didn't mean to be so harsh."

"I know," Zéyì had said bravely, but her lips trembled. "She has so many thing to worry about right now. I'll be fine."

"What the feck does her having lots of things to worry about have to do with you being fine?" the necromancer grumbled, back in male form. The two cultivators looked at him as if he had grown an extra head.

"What? Don't be looking at me like that! Just because she's all fecked up don't mean that ye can't also be pissed off with her!"

"..."

"What the hell did that old man teach ye?"

"Leave Si fu out of it!" The two cultivators exploded at him together, causing him to back away quickly.

"Okay! Okay! Sorry!"

As he and Sou Yuet now watched Zéyì disappear, the monk suddenly asked, almost wonderingly, "Do you think that it's really possible?"

"What?"

"Being upset... if everyone was upset all at once, then the situation would collapse. Someone has to stay calm and manage things."

"Do they now?"

"... yes?"

The necromancer sighed. "Do ye find everyone looks to ye to hold things together?"

"Hm... I suppose. I like to think I stay calm in most situations."

"So ye're always the calm one... and everyone else gets to freak out as much as they like?"

"You make it sound like they have some control over their feelings," Sou Yuet admonished. "In such a situation-"

"Don't you?"

Sou Yuet looked at the witch. The witch looked at Sou Yuet.

"If ye can control yer feelings, so can others. Why do you have to be the one to keep it together? Aren't ye just letting others do whatever they want? How are they going to learn to help themselves?"

"But when people are hurting... it's hard."

"And yet you still manage. Do ye find it fun to play the martyr?"

The necromancer actually sounded angry for some reason, and Sou Yuet found themselves, for the first time, feeling a little hurt by his words. "That's... that's not how it is."

"Wow, even now, you're being so polite to me, when I was being an arse to ye."

Sou Yuet's dark eyes flickered. "What do you want me to do?"

"Me? This ain't about me. What is it you want, ye idiot monk?"

The idiot monk looked bewildered. Their eyes darted around, eventually settling on the necromancer's chest, since it was at eye level. The necromancer sighed and rubbed his head again. "I'm sorry, this... It's like asking a poet to gut a fish when he's never done it before. I guess what I want ye to know is... ye can be angry if you want. And ye can be upset, and sad, and... whatever. Ye don't always have to be caring how other people will react."

"Who taught you this?" Sou Yuet asked, their lips curling very slightly.

The necromancer felt a little dazed, seeing this genuine smile. "Uh... well... me mam, I guess. She was... is... rare good to me."

"... Do you miss her?"

"... Yeah."

"Well, do we not have to investigate all the legendary animal disappearances? I believe that some have been taken from your country too..."

The necromancer's eyes widened. Sou Yuet smiled sweetly. "Let's go visit your mother."

The si dzi puppy in their robes coughed with agreement.

"Ye little bastard, what made ye stay with us? I don't want to dog-sit ye," the necromancer growled, glaring into the puppy's eyes. She licked his nose. "Yeurck! Gah, it's wet and it smells!"

Sou Yuet laughed and patted the puppy. "Pang Yau, let's organise our thoughts before we head off."

They sat on one of the viewing platforms overlooking Yùhǎi Bay, the necromancer still scrubbing at his face. Behind them, a vast grassland filled with nodding golden-silver grass seeds stretched out on the flatlands.

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"Tǎn," Sou Yuet called it. "I think in the common tongue, it's called silvergrass, although often it has a pale golden colour."

The necromancer watched the ocean breeze blow strands of Sou Yuet's hair about, and tease through the grasslands behind them, sending rippling waves into the distance.

In the city below, the streets were full of talk about the sudden herd of legendary beasts that had raced through the city, and the finding of a huge structure within the limestone cliffs. Public authorities had begun to investigate and clean up; the monk and the witch had watched bodies wrapped in cloth start to be removed from the auction hall.

"Let's start with what Miss Eitsu and Miss Tsubaki told us."

The previous evening, they had met up with the two women who had asked for the box with the cat pelts. Zéyì Si dze knew a little of their language, and so between the four of them (the necromancer had awkwardly stayed back), they had come to some understandings.

"Miss Eitsu is a thousand year-old cat. These cats have spiritual powers including multiple lives and soul possession. There may be others, but her memories of her previous lives are still unclear. For this reason, she believes she has met Li, who she knows as Rei, in previous lives, but can't remember details."

"That fecker collected her skins from her past lives. D'ye think he killed her for them or just...? Either way, he's a twisted psycho."

"Miss Tsubaki has known Miss Eitsu over several of her past lives. Therefore, it seems these lives were quite short." Sou Yuet paused reflectively. "I would suggest these were not natural deaths. But as for who was responsible..."

"That fox is suspicious as hell."

"Next, Zéyì Si dze and Lady Gong. Zéyì Si dze lived in the Chūn Kingdom back when Si fu was Head Disciple at the Yuen Mei temple there."

"So are ye saying she's also over one hundred years old?"

"Mm. She a decade or so older than me."

"What the actual-"

"She said that Lady Gong is Gong Lau Yan, a river loong from the now-cursed Dzue Kingdom. Her sister was Gong Ming Dzue, the loong queen in the region. It was her skin that was on auction yesterday."

"Does that foxy creep have a fetish for the skin of magic women or something?"

"A what?"

"... Nothing."

"Perhaps related, the doctor they were travelling with, Dzue Ngan Wan, disappeared last night." Sou Yuet paused. "Dzue... she is likely a descendant of the destroyed Dzue royal family, although no one has said as much. We don't know who took her, although Lady Gong seemed to have an idea."

"And now that fox..."

"And now that fox," Sou Yuet agreed. "Li, also known as Rei, also known as Tsaam Lei. According to Si dze, Lady Gong knew him before the fall of the Dzue Kingdom. He was a guardian spirit of Tsaam Lam, the pine forest of Dzue."

"So he started off as a nature spirit? Ye know, that rat Spideóg was telling me before that fox spirits have powers of seduction..." The necromancer's eyes flicked over Sou Yuet's face.

"You already scrubbed my lips off. Surely there is no residue."

"... and they can control nightmares, which... I can confirm-"

"What? How? What happened?" Sou Yuet sat up alertly and clapped both hands either side of the necromancer's face. "Have you been having nightmares? I thought you were sleeping better these days, was I wrong?"

"I'm fine!" Face turning crimson, the witch struggled out of the monk's strong grip. "I dealt with it, alright! He didn't succeed. Calm down!"

"... you said I didn't have to be calm."

The necromancer slapped his own face. "Anyway! What I mean is, why the feck does a fox spirit also have the powers of a death guide?"

"What do you think?" Sou Yuet smiled to practically see the thoughts churning through their companion's mind.

"There's... well, there's a few possibilities from me exp- knowledge. If he didn't develop them naturally over time and it wasn't something that happened after death - because he isn't really dead - a highly desperate situation could do it." He rubbed his hand. "That fox could possibly have been pushed right to the edge of death, and with his spiritual powers, survived by just... adapting."

"Given what happened to the Dzue Kingdom, it's possible."

"So explain that to me. It seems to be common knowledge around here."

Sou Yuet explained. The region at the easternmost point of the Jade Road was collectively known as the Four Kingdoms. Yùhăi, where they were, was a major trading port of the Kingdom of Shísuàn, on the east coast of the landmass. West of Shísuàn was where Zéyì Si dze had lived, Chūn, and beyond that was Huáng, where the Yuen Mei Temple was now. North was the mountainous Zhàng, where the si dzi had been living, and south, taking in a large area of land and the southern coastline...

"...this was where the Dzue Kingdom once was, when this area was known as the Five Kingdoms According to common knowledge, Dzue was a highly prosperous country that fell under a curse around one hundred and fifty years ago. The curse is still there, hence why no one has attempted to annex the area."

"And this Lady Gong and that psycho used to live there?”

"Right."

"Hm."

"Exactly. There are so many pieces of information that have some relationship to each other, but there's no clear links. Tsaam Lei is obviously involved in the kidnap of legendary animals, but is he the ringleader? Was he involved in the curse of Dzue or just a victim? Then, is the person who was responsible for the curse also involved in the beast disappearances? What relation does he have with Miss Eitsu? Is he also involved in the disappearance of the doctor, who, coincidentally, may be a descendant of the Dzue royal family who also caught up in the curse?"

The necromancer groaned and clutched his head. "It's too much."

"I think all we can do is continue to focus on our specific investigation," Sou Yuet said, pulling out another sheet of paper to begin their report back to Yuen Muk Si fu. "We may come across other things along the way, but... I agree, it's too much. Those other things will have to be left to Miss Eitsu and Lady Gong."

"She ran off before we could even tell her anything, though."

"I'm sure when she calms down, there will be more opportunities. Loong are highly mobile, travelling the length of the continent would take her less than a day, if she really wanted to get some information. Although..." They put their charcoal stick down. "She was not very well either. I wonder if she is still fighting the curse."

"What was the curse?"

"It's not particularly clear." Sou Yuet began to draw again. "All that is usually said is that the country became a wasteland, with all living things dying. I suppose the fact that Lady Gong is still alive is something of a miracle... Could you... could you have spoken to the spirit of Gong Ming Dzue through her skin?"

"Perhaps. Depends on how long it's been since she died."

"Assuming she died due to the curse, that's over one hundred and fifty years ago."

The necromancer made a face. "Would Lady Gong even let me go near? She looked scared enough holding it herself."

"Again, when she calms down, she may come back. Speaking of skins, what about Miss Eitsu's? Or considering she has reincarnated..."

"Nah, her soul's right there in her current body. She'll have to regain her memories on her own." The necromancer found another bird spirit to take Sou Yuet's message back to Yuen Mei. "So, where to now?"

"West. It's time to leave the continent."

"... and we're not going to walk to whole way, right?"

"..."

"Monk?"

"..." Sou Yuet smiled blankly.

"Hey! Yuen Sou Yuet!"

The ginseng leaf materialised under his feet so quickly that he tumbled over. A small hand grabbed his and pulled him back as the leaf lifted off.

"Hold tight," Sou Yuet laughed.