Yuanyuan breathed hard, while grasping the seat of the chair. All I wanted to know was the truth, the real motive on why she came to the townhouse at night. Now that Ruri and I’s cover were blown, all I could do was question. All I wanted was answers Although my body craved sleep more than anything, I pushed on into this confrontation. Ruri stood behind me.

Yuanyuan looked up at us. “Doctor Yang is laying off everyone in the clinic.”

Did Doctor Yang do that? My eyes widened. “Even you?”

“Yeah…” She nodded slowly as her gaze went to the floor. “You, me, everyone. Knowing that it would bankrupt Yang Lianhua Pharmaceutical Company he emptied his staff.”

“Why? Did he say anything to you?”

“He said that there was an emergency, and he was heading to Tolosa.”

“I have some unfinished business in Tolosa, the capital of Patria. Can’t tell you why, but I need to go back.”

I recalled Maîtresse’s intention to leave. It was abrupt along with the final test. She and Doctor Yang both announced this on the same day… meaning that they were loosely connected somehow. “Say, was Doctor Yang in a hurry? I can’t believe that he would suddenly shut down the company.”

“Um, let’s see… He did seem to be in a rush, and instead of his doctor’s uniform he wore a red coat.”

A red coat… Maîtresse also had a red coat along with a white scarf. For whatever motive they both departed Xanton as if there was an emergency. To Tolosa, the capital of Regione Straniera. What correlation did Doctor Yang and Maîtresse share together? During our one month in Xanton he always appeared to be buried in work and clients. He didn’t have time for anything out of the ordinary. However… I remembered the talk we had when I brought a drunk Yuanyuan back to him.

“Yuanyuan, do you have any place you can stay at for the time being?” I inferred that she lived with Doctor Yang in the clinic. If it shut down, then she had no home. A man that was solemn and patient, who decided to disappear. He took in a little girl and raised her. Why would a nice person abandon her now?

“I…” She thought about it for a moment before standing up. “I can manage on my own!”

I sighed. I knew it would hurt her growth to do this, but given the circumstances I didn’t want to do this. “Listen. I was planning on resigning from my job tomorrow, but I guess I don’t have to worry about that anymore. We’re going to leave Xanton, and if you were planning on asking me to take you in I’m afraid we can’t.”

“Wait, that’s not what I said—”

“Then please tell us what you are really feeling.”

Yuanyuan sat down again as her hands shook. Her eyebrows twisted in bitterness. “You say that… but you hid your true identity from me, everyone since we met. Why didn’t you tell me who you are? I thought you trusted me? I’m sure that if you told me, Kaizenji Kawari, then I would’ve kept your secret! How could I expect the person I’ve seen struggling with paperwork, struggling with the sword, someone so dedicated to learn Zhouhua, be a wanted criminal deemed by the Royal Marshal?! So what is wrong with hiding your true self?!”

For the first time, I heard Yuanyuan yell with such emotion. The Yuanyuan that always spoke with a smile and upbeat personality, the coworker who I’d come to know as cheerful and bright, who never failed to make someone’s day. I heard her yell with frustration and anger at my words. “I’m sorry. I took it too far—”

“Even so…” She continued with tears streaming down her face, her face oddly trying to deny the emotions bursting from her eyes. Yuanyuan fell down to her knees, and prostrated to us. “Can I cry now?... Can I be sad?... I don’t know what to do since Doctor Yang…”

I opened my mouth to speak, but Ruri waved her hand in front of me. She walked ahead towards Yuanyuan and knelt beside her. “We, Kaizenji Kawari and Qawasumi Ruri, are currently planning to traverse the main continent. Including Regione Straniera and Tolosa. Would you like to come with us? I can’t guarantee it’ll be safe, but with Kawari and I around you can say how you feel whenever you want with us, especially him.”

Ruri listened to Yuanyuan’s ramblings as she lifted her up and patted her head. The Zhounese girl continued to sob.

I didn’t know what to think of the proposal. “Ruri…”

“Just like how we are searching for Sorah’s family, she’ll search for Doctor Yang in Tolosa when we get there.” She looked back at me and explained. “So let us take her in, at least until we reach Regione Straniera. I’ll take responsibility.”

With that serious look, I couldn’t deny her rationale. All three of us had something we wanted to find. I got up from my chair and bent down with Ruri and the Zhounese girl. “Kang Yuanyuan of Xanton, do you want to travel with us?’

She lifted her head and sniffled. “I…”

“Please answer. I don’t know if you don’t articulate it.” I referenced Doctor Yang’s problem of when he first took her in. I needed her to use her voice, and not just a silent answer. We couldn’t progress if we couldn’t change. We couldn’t change if we didn’t understand. “Yua—”

“...I guess I’ll go. I want to go with you guys.” Yuanyuan wiped the tears off. She put one knee up and stood. That was all that I needed to hear. There was no use in suffering in silence. As long as we knew a direction of where we wished to go, that alone was okay.

“I can’t shelter her forever. One day, she needs to go out into the world herself. She said to me that she wanted to heal, give people a second chance at life, but not just at Xanton. Yuanyuan wanted to see the world.”

Then, Doctor Yang, I should try to give her that chance.

The next day, Ruri and I packed up everything in the townhouse. We had those uneventful activities of getting ready in the morning for the final time, except we were leaving for good. Our chapter in Xanton, Great Zhou, was coming to a close.

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We tidied our rooms and cleaned the stairs, sweeped the wood and dusted the furniture. Chairs were pushed under the table and tupperware organized into cabinets. I placed the yedo sword Maîtresse left me into my rucksack, along with a portion of the money Ruri and I earned in a month’s stay.

I stuffed some other supplies—canteen, rope, map, dried fish from the ship’s voyage, and my hostel uniform. “Is everyone ready?”

“I believe so.” Ruri came down from the stairwell, her baggage already bouncing behind her along with her bow. “Yuanyuan should be arriving sooner or later.”

“I see…” I went over to the vanity table and tied my hair up into a manbun. “Should we use your Masking skill?”

“There’s no need to. We’re leaving the city anyway.”

Soon enough Yuanyuan came to the foyer, with her outfit and gear the same as when she worked in the clinic. Equipment belt and hanging pouches. Just a little more than usual. Before we knew it we’d stepped out from the shikumen and visited the Kokmin for one last time. Then we left Laolu Fang, and the Zhounese capital Xanton itself.

Xanton’s gates closed on us after we approached the final exit. Towering buildings of the city beginning its rush hour didn’t stop us, while people paid no attention to us in hooded cloaks. Past the city limits, the grass of the Zhou plain withered into dust and sand. Trees waged a war against tumbleweeds and shrubs. A desert unfolded in the horizon and the route further southwest, and the morning sun blazed the surface in scorching heat.

Our next destination was the city-state of Kucha. An oasis in the howling sand, the crossroads between Great Zhou and Aquitaine. At the gate in Xanton massive caravans arranged themselves for passengers crossing the Kucina Desert, but for us it would pose too much of a risk of being discovered.

Ruri, Yuanyuan, and I continued to fare off into the barren path. I cleared my dry throat and wiped the sweat from my forehead. Every step my feet sunk into pools of sand as I forced my body to trudge through this foreign slog.

“You should’ve brought something to cover your face,” Ruri warned me, trekking alongside Yuanyuan. “This harsh sun can exhaust you. Yuanyuan, you said you’re from Kucha?”

She unraveled her shemagh scarf to speak. “I don’t remember much, but I should be able to spot a place Doctor Yang… and I stopped at before.”

If Yuanyuan was from Kucha then hopefully we could use her knowledge of the city. Although she told us she moved to Xanton when she was a child, I shouldn’t expect much. “At this rate we can make it to Kucha at the end of day.”

After a couple hours into the desert, rock formations grew taller with their abstract shapes, and the ground seemed to sparkle in the sunlight. Then the rock monuments grew into larger canyons, their bands marking the presence of an ancient river from long ago.

Ruri sighed after watching me grab a petrified stick as a trekking pole. “Let’s rest somewhere. Is there a shelter with shade nearby?”

“Up ahead there’s an old temple.”

“You’re a lifesaver, Yuanyuan,” I said exasperated, barely holding myself up. Sure enough, I could make out a concrete structure jutting from the top of the nullah. I picked up speed and arrived there first before collapsing on the ground.

The temple consisted of a single spire extending to the sky with a decorative crown. Half-submerged in sand, eroded etched patterns plastered the walls and pillars of the derelict monastery. Just three solitary buildings in the middle of nowhere. Here the sun did not reach, and the cool stone soothed my body.

“How lame.” Ruri followed after me with Yuanyuan. “What happened to training with that Straniera?”

I shot back up from the dusty floor. “Oi, this is my first time in a desert! I never thought about… how hot it is.”

She put her hands on her hips. “Well think about it! The desert is obviously hot. Don’t you have some in your own world?”

“No deserts exist in my country…” I forced myself to stand. I noticed that Yuanyuan and Ruri didn’t appear tired at all. Was I really this weak? I cleared my throat. “Anyway… what temple was this before?”

While Ruri shot an angry stare at me for switching the topic, Yuanyuan stepped forward and touched one of the pillars. “You haven’t learned of the gods worshiped here? Each of the major settlements have one.”

Gods… I never came across that concept in this world until now. Usually a world like this would have some religions, creation myths, and prophecies that could also explain why I ended up here. Something that could explain that voice that guided me here, who referred to ‘the Pacification’.

“However, we no longer revere such beings anymore.” She shook her head and walked over to a shrine apparatus. “Chibu the Pacification was Waqwaq’s deity, and Qinfen the Diligence was Great Zhou’s.”

My focus immediately shifted towards the Pacification. I realized that the voice hadn’t even talked to me for over three months since being transported to Han’ei. What happened? “Chibu… Qinfen… So this temple is dedicated to Qinfen the Diligence?”

“From the sutras engraved in the pillars, it was probably a dual-purpose shrine for both Kucha and Great Zhou’s respective deities.”

If this was used as a place of worship then maybe I could call out to Chibu the Pacification, who had been talking in my head way back when. “Can we still pray?”

“It’s been abandoned for at least a century, Kawari.” Ruri gestured with her hand, walking to Yuanyuan and I. “People here could still pray all they want without any answer from the gods.”

It was time to test that theory. I stood in front of the shrine before kneeling down. “Do you two know how to pray?”

Both of them shrugged their shoulders. I looked back at the shrine with a discontent face. I guessed that it’d been a long time since religion had been a part of their countries. It couldn’t be helped. My hands clasped together and I closed my eyes. If this truly used to be a place of meditation, worship, and adoration for the deities of this world, then I should be able to see here.

“Somehow, please answer me one more time, Chibu the Pacification,” I whispered.

“This land is not of the Pacification, but the Diligence and the Equanimity.”

I fell back in surprise to the sudden boom inside my head. I heard a voice. However it didn’t sound like the one in Waqwaq. Ruri said that people would pray to hear nothing. Was I delusional? What was wrong with this world?

A monstrous roar erupted from all around. I scrambled to my feet. Multiple cries repeated in different directions, as ghastly shadows of some entities scrabbled in the sunlight. Ruri readied her bow in a second from her back. “Kawari, Yuanyuan, be careful. Local monsters in the area.”

“Monsters?” I stood in awe until I saw something enter the small monastery. Yuanyuan stepped back, her face quivering. I pulled the yedo sword from my sack and unsheathed it.

[System Announcement]

Weapon Equipped

[Zhongji Ruidao]

Activation Cost: 5 EP; Upon activation, releases AoE energy burst dealing 30% of base damage; Upon killing, increase speed by 5% and recover 5 EP.

As soon as the blade exited the scabbard I pointed it forward, at the creature that nonchalantly walked into the scene.