Heng Xiaowen slept like a rock. He woke up pleasantly refreshed and slightly disoriented. It was still strange waking up in places he had never slept before.
The tent had some of the same magic that Qiu Jucheng’s pouch had; it was tall and spacious, with room for three people to sleep comfortably and have space leftover for a small table. Heng Xiaowen had never slept in a tent before, but he wondered if it was enchanted to stay warm and dry as well.
The next day proceeded much the same as the last, following Song Jiayi down the road as she imparted scattershot wisdom to her disciples. Every so often, she would give Heng Xiaowen another quick check up, but continued to come up empty as to what had happened to him.
He wondered if he would meet any of the other characters from the story when he got to their destination. It was true that Heng Xiaowen’s knowledge was drawn exclusively from half remembered tumblr posts, but he thought it was odd that aside from Heng Xiaowen himself, none of his companions were familiar to him. He would’ve remembered if there were this many women in the story—frankly, if he knew about he women he would have actually read it. He supposed he could chalk it up to the fandom not paying attention to them, but something about it still didn’t feel right.
The only other character he could remember by name was Zhu Guangli, who according to his tumblr mutual, dykes4zhuguangli—the main culprit in plastering his dash with barely coherent paragraphs about this novel—was a “legendary hot pink bitch,” and a “wet pathetic drowned cat <33.” Heng Xiaowen was pretty sure he had daddy issues or something. Maybe he was weird about his brother? He mostly scrolled past the posts.
There was definitely also a guy who wore pastel blue who seemed important but dykes4zhuguangli didn’t care about him so Heng Xiaowen didn’t remember his name or what his deal was. There was also a guy in black who somebody else he followed either wanted to keep in a terrarium or fuck. Probably both. But he saw even less of the guy in black than the blue boy because that blogger mostly posted about House now, for reasons that were beyond him. Heng Xiaowen forgot why he followed them in the first place.
That evening the group crested a hill and spotted a village down in the valley, nestled among sprawling pear orchards. As he gazed down, Heng Xiaowen heard a familiar chime.
[System: The Protagonist has received a mission.]
[Mission: Resolve the issue of the missing livestock in Li Village.
Reward: 100 points
Failure: 100 point deduction]
The last time Heng Xiaowen had checked, he only had 10 points. This raised some concerns.
Hey, what happens if I have negative points?
[The misfortune factor will be increased when the protagonist’s point value is less than 0.]
How helpful! Heng Xiaowen thought dryly.
“It must be this place,” Song Jiayi said, shielding her eyes from the sun with her hand. “Okay, let's recite the first three precepts of the Liqiu Hua Sect."
"Master, we are just investigating the missing livestock,” Ling Hong complained.
"Liqiu Hua Sect's 43rd Precept: Recite the first three precepts and don't complain,” Song Jiayi said.
"Last time you were talking about the twenty-third precept!"
"Xiao-Hong, are you going to face the Reflection Tree?"
“The Tree of Reflection is just any tree you point at and tell me to stare at for one hour!”
“Does Xiao-Hong want to face it for two hours?”
Ling Hong, who fit a surprising amount of rage into his small body, looked like he wanted to explode and reduce every hypothetical “Tree of Reflection” to wood chips. Qiu Jucheng put a hand on his shoulder and Ling Hong closed his eyes and let out a long, barely controlled breath. “First precept of Liqiu Hua Sect: Don’t die.”
“Good. Jingfei, what is the second precept?”
“Support and protect your fellow sect members!”
Song Jiayi tossed her a tangerine. “Xiaowen, what is the third precept?”
In a stroke of luck, this was the one precept Heng Xiaowen had heard recited before. “Don’t act tough for no reason.”
Song Jiayi flashed him a smile. “Alright, let’s go find someone to talk to!” she said, and marched off down the hill.
It didn’t take long for them to find a middle aged woman sitting in the shade of a gnarled old tree and weaving a basket.
“Good afternoon, madam!” Song Jiayi said, bowing politely. "This is Song Jiayi from the Liqiu Hua Sect, both of whom are my disciples. We heard that your village is troubled by the disappearance of livestock, so we came to provide our services."
The woman paused her weaving and squinted up at them. “Cultivators?” she said with a note of incredulity as she looked them up and down. She frowned and responded, “You don’t look like cultivators.”
Song Jiayi smiled brightly. "Liqiu Hua Sect follows the path of simplicity, lest worldly desires drag down our souls and hinder our practice."
Heng Xiaowen cocked his head. Was he some kind of monk now?
The old woman was unimpressed and returned to her basket. "It doesn't matter, we have already sent a request to Denglong Palace to handle this matter."
“Denglong Palace?” Song Jiayi asked, narrowing her eyes. “Can I please ask you how long your village has been waiting since requesting their services?"
The woman deflated slightly at that, looking a bit sheepish. “It’s been almost a month now.”
Song Jiayi grinned. "Auntie, how about this? My disciples will track down and solve those who stole your livestock. If we can solve it before Denglong Palace arrives, we only need half of their commission."
Unless Heng Xiaowen was imagining it, he thought he heard Qiu Jucheng let out a barely perceptible sigh.
The woman eyed them suspiciously for a moment, before setting aside her basket and standing up. "I guess there's no harm in it. Come on, let me introduce you to Old Dan."
They found Old Dan on the next farm over, presiding over a pen of goats, and shaking a walking cane at them threateningly.
“Old Dan!” the woman called. “A cultivator is here to see you!”
Old Dan stopped menacing his goats and ambled over to them. He was a wiry old man with a scraggly gray beard and shiny bald head. He frowned. "You are not from Denglong Palace.”
The woman gestured to Sect Leader Song, who bowed in greeting. "They’re from Liqiu Hua Sect. They say they can do it now for half the price."
Old Dan shrugged. "Never heard of it but you’re welcome to try.”
Song Jiayi nudged Heng Xiaowen towards the front of the group. He looked back to her, eyes wide, but she just waved her hand, gesturing for him to go on. He steeled himself, bowed the way he had seen Song Jiayi bow earlier to the auntie, and affixed his best customer service smile to his face. “Could you tell us when your troubles began?
"Well, about a few months ago, some of the chickens started disappearing," he said. "We just assumed it was a fox or a naughty child, but then people's goats and pigs started disappearing too."
"Don't you think this was looting or theft?" Ling Hong interjected.
Old Dan shook his head. "Usually, if it's a fox or something, they leave a mess. Bloodstains, feathers, the ground is scratched. As for theft, the village is small and remote, and no outsiders come here regularly to steal livestock. People here don’t get away with it for so long.”
“Can we look around?” Heng Xiaowen asked.
"Come on, watch as much as you want."
Heng Xiaowen followed Old Dan over to his goat pen, the rest of the group following behind him. Every so often he glanced over his shoulder to see if Song Jiayi was going to take back over, but she was walking a few paces behind the group next to Qiu Jucheng, with her hands tucked behind her back and a piece of hay she had obtained god knows when pinched between her teeth. She seemed perfectly content to let Heng Xiaowen take point.
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Using all measures of assessment available to him, Heng Xiaowen did a lap around the goat pen, inspecting the goats for any sign of what could have been spiriting away their brethren. Naturally, Heng Xiaowen came up empty, because he had no idea what he was doing. He waved Lu Xiuying over.
“Junior sister, what do you think?” he asked her.
Lu Xiuying looked like she was caught off guard by being asked for her opinion. "Oh, well, Old Dan's right, there's no sign of a predator. We should check the goat's psychic powers to make sure there's nothing in there disguised as a goat."
Heng Xiaowen quietly digested the task of checking the psychic powers of a goat and clapped his hands together, turning to address Yang Jingfei and Ling Hong. “Great idea, Junior sister! Let’s get to work!”
Yang Jingfei casually vaulted over the fence and into the pen. “You think this is some kind of shapeshifter?”
“Perhaps, it’s worth checking,” Lu Xiuying said.
Ling Hong followed Yang Jingfei over the fence, light as a cat. “But Second Senior Sister, if it's a shapeshifter, we have to check every animal in the village. That will take forever! What if the animals just run away? It's not like this village is in a desert wasteland."
“Well, if Little Junior Brother wants to search the entire forest for missing animals, he's welcome. If that doesn't sound appealing, we should all be checking out these goats soon.”
Ling Hong sighed heavily, walked up to a goat, put his hand on its cheek, and said, "It's just an ordinary goat."
Heng Xiaowen, following his juniors, climbed over the fence with considerably less grace, landing with a splash in a muddy puddle that startled several goats away from him.
Lu Xiuying wrinkled her nose at the mud and with a sweep of her robes, walked over to the gate, unlatched it, and walked in.
Heng Xiaowen laughed as he shook the mud off the ends of his robes. “My junior sister is prudent, I should learn from her.”
Lu Xiuying smiled. “Senior Brother is being so considerate!”
“This one is also normal!” Yang Jingfei called, petting a cream colored goat. “Also, Senior Brother, what you learned from Second Senior Sister is to fawn over boys and hide from the sun,” she added.
“Not everyone likes to look like a rice farmer!” Lu Xiuying snapped.
“You can't hold an umbrella and a sword at the same time!”
“Want to get hit?”
“Guys, stop bickering and focus on the goats,” Heng Xiaowen interrupted. He thought he was getting the hang of this senior brother thing pretty fast.
The goats in question had recovered from the surprise of Heng Xiaowen’s splashy entrance, and a brown goat had taken to chewing on his sleeve.
“Hey, Mister Goat, could I get my sleeve back?” Heng Xiaowen asked, giving his sleeve a gentle tug.
This did not prove persuasive.
“C’mon little buddy, can I please get it back?” he wheedled. “I’m sure there are tastier things to be eaten than my ratty on robes, right?”
After Heng Xiaowen had freed himself from being goat fodder by bribing the goat with loose tangerines he found in his pockets, Ling Hong had walked over to him.
“So, do those goats have abnormal energy?” he asked.
Heng Xiaowen had no idea. He didn’t know anything about goats, and he certainly didn’t know how to distinguish them from a shapeshifter disguised as a goat. Luckily, this was not the first time Heng Xiaowen had had to bullshit his way through a job after lying on his resume. “I think so,” he said. “Do you want to double check?”
“Why bother?” Lu Xiuying said from behind, startling Heng Xiaowen. She linked an arm through his and leaned her head against his shoulder. “Highly cultivated shapeshifters are difficult to distinguish from the creatures they replace. Senior Brother is the most talented cultivator among us, and you are unlikely to notice what he misses.”
Heng Xiaowen coughed. His arm tingled. He still wasn’t used to people touching him so freely.
“My Junior Sister speaks too highly of me,” he said, sincerely wishing that the original Heng Xiaowen had been less competent. “Even masters make mistakes. It’s a good practice to have people double check your work.”
Ling Hong cackled. “Okay, Bodhisattva, I’ll listen carefully.”
“Hey, don’t laugh at Senior Brother, he’s very smart!” Lu Xiuying protested.
“Since did you start to think Senior Brother is smart?”
Lu Xiuying hmphed and stormed away.
All this talk of shapeshifters was setting Heng Xiaowen on edge. The original Heng Xiaowen was apparently very gifted at whatever it was that Liqiu Hua Sect did, which encompassed investigating supernatural livestock disapearrences. But he was also a dumbass? It was a difficult needle to thread if Heng Xiaowen didn’t want to tip anyone off to the fact that he was an imposter. He didn’t want to find out what would happen if Liqiu Hua Sect realized their head disciple had been replaced by an alien invader.
When they wrapped up their goat assessment, Qiu Jucheng drifted over. “Did you notice anything interesting?”
“No,” Liu Xiuying sighed. “Old Dan was also telling the truth about there not being any signs of predators. I checked for anything a normal predator or beast would leave behind, but there isn’t anything. If something is stealing the animals, it’s probably at least somewhat intelligent.” Liu Xiuying hopped out of the pen and flicked mud off the end of her robes, pouting. “And now I smell like a goat!”
Qiu Jucheng hummed vaguely and smiled. “Good work, let’s go speak with some other villagers.”
The group bid goodbye to Old Dan and took their leave, wandering further into the village. Sect Leader Song and Qiu Jucheng walked a few paces behind them, letting their disciples decide where to go next. It didn’t take long for Lu Xiuying to zero in on the next target.
“Oh, here we go,” Ling Hong grumbled.
Down the road there was a tall and broad shouldered wholesome farm boy pushing a cart of pears down the road.
Lu Xiuying flounced after him. “Excuse me!” she called. “Excuse me, older brother!”
Yang Jingfei and Ling Hong both made gagging noises.
The farm boy paused and set down his cart. “Can I help you, miss?” he asked, looking a bit awkward.
Liu Xiuying giggled and replied in a high girlish voice, “Xiuying was wondering if older brother knows anything about the livestock disappearances in Li Village?”
“Ah, um, well.” The farm boy leaned slightly away from Lu Xiuying. “I don’t really know very much about it, sorry.”
“That’s okay! Xiuying is sure that older brother can help me anyway, I have lots of questions and older brother seems very knowledgeable.”
A faintly panicked look entered the boy's eyes and he glanced around, locking eyes with Heng Xiaowen and silently pleading for help.
So far, Heng Xiaowen’s strategy of matching his manner of speech to the people around him had been working well enough, so he smiled brightly and said, “We would really appreciate your help, older brother!”
The pear cart was dropped with a thunk and the young man had a coughing fit.
Concerned, Heng Xiaowen reached out to pat the poor guy on the back. “Are you alright, older brother?”
The farm boy sprung back and straightened up. “I’m fine,” he replied quickly, rather red in the face.
Heng Xiaowen glanced at his juniors out of the corner of his eye to see that their eyebrows had gone in search of their hairline.
[System: The Protagonist has gained (+5) points!]
Huh?
“Junior Sister, what was it that you wanted to ask?” Heng Xiaowen redirected.
“Oh, Xiuying wants to know which families in Li Village have lost their animals. Do they live in a certain area? Is there a particular time the animals go missing?”
The upside of Heng Xiaowen upsetting this guy was that he seemed to be taking Lu Xiuying as the lesser evil. “I can’t name all the families, but I know the worst problem is on the southwest side of the village,” he said, picking the handles of the cart back up and nodding his head to the southwest. “The animals have always disappeared overnight.”
“Let’s go!” Ling Hong said and aggressively began shooing his seniors away from the farm boy.
Li Village wasn’t large, but it was bigger than the village that Heng Xiaowen had woken up in. There was a main street lined with shops and teahouses, as well as smaller street vendors selling snacks, and odds and ends.
As they moved to the southwest side of the village, Song Jiayi rejoined the group. “Has anyone noticed anything interesting about Li Village?”
"Master, I have it!" Yang Jingfei bounced up and down on the balls of her feet. "The yin energy is more concentrated on the southwest side of the village!"
"Yes, the energy gets stronger the further you go southwest. But it's still pretty weak, isn't it?"
“Xiaowen, why do you think that is?” Song Jiayi asked.
Could you cool it with the socratic method?
Heng Xiaowen did his best to rapidly connect dots. If they were talking about yin, as in yin and yang, he had a very loose grasp of the concept that they were negative and positive energies respectively. He figured being vague was his best bet. “Did something bad happen on that side of the village?”
“It is possible,” Song Jiayi replied.
"These buildings are all new," Lu Xiuying added. "None of them looked over 50 years old."
“Oh.” Song Jiayi blinked. "Indeed, Xiuying is very observant."
Lu Xiuying preened.
“There is only one hour before dark. How about we eat something first and continue the investigation when it gets dark?" Song Jiayi asked.
Heng Xiaowen, who was still getting used to having the metabolism of an athletic teenage boy, heartily agreed, and cheerfully followed Song Jiayi to the dingiest tea house in the village.
While they waited to be served, Song Jiayi took the opportunity to chat with the servers and other patrons of the inn before returning to their table.
“It really is weird,” she said, sitting down.
“Hm?” Qiu Jucheng prompted.
“There were no strange deaths in Li Village that anyone I interviewed could recall, and there didn’t seem to be any bad blood between families in the southwest part of the village.”
“They may be hiding something.”
“Yes, but if they have something to hide, why bother to collect money and entrust such a decent person as Denglong Palace? This village is too small, and the bizarre death cannot be kept secret from everyone here.”
“You have a point.”
The conversation was interrupted by their food being brought out.
The fair was simple but filling and Heng Xiaowen had no complaints. The same couldn’t be said for his juniors.
"Master, can we buy some braised pork to serve? Please?" Lu Xiuying asked. “We always eat vegetarian food.”
"We're not always vegetarians," Ling Hong protested, looking slightly offended. "I shot a rabbit last week."
“Yes, yes, but we only eat meat when somebody catches it. We never buy any meat.”
“Ask your uncle, he makes the decision,” Song Jiayi replied.
Qiu Jucheng smiled mildly. "Sect Leader Song is willing to help Li Village and reduce the commission fee for Denglong Palace in half. I'm afraid if Xiuying wants meat, let the junior brother shoot another rabbit."
Lu Xiuying stirred her food mournfully. "I swear, I will marry into a wealthy sect, just wait and see."
In the two days Heng Xiaowen had spent with Liqiu Hua Sect, regardless of how mouthy and disrespectful his juniors were, Sect Leader Song and Qiu Jucheng never seemed to take it very seriously. The only time Song Jiayi had threatened anyone with punishment was when Ling Hong had complained about reciting the precepts before beginning the investigation.
"You can do whatever you want! But when the Liqiu Hua Sect becomes the most powerful sect in the world of cultivation, and I become the greatest swordswoman in the world, you will regret it!" Yang Jingfei said, and then turned to Heng Xiaowen with bright eyes. “Right, Senior Brother?”
Oh god. He was supposed to have aspirations of becoming the best swordsman in the world? Heng Xiaowen arranged his features into his best approximation of fiery determination. “Yeah!”
"How about we focus on making sure no more chickens go missing before we start worrying about our rich husbands and becoming nationally famous, hm?” Song Jiayi added with a smile.
“Yes, Master,” her disciples chorused.
When night fell in Li Village, the disciples of Liqiu Hua Sect crept through the dark on light feet, their senses alert to every rustle in the bushes and whisper on the wind.
In his first life, Heng Xiaowen had worked a lot of horrible graveyard shifts at a string of soul sucking dead-end jobs at 24-Hour convenience stores and fast food chains. Working late into the night wasn’t anything new to him.
As he tried to keep pace with the other disciples as they skulked surprisingly swiftly through people’s farms and orchards, he still wasn’t exactly sure if this was his job or not. And if it was his job, what exactly that job was.
Whatever it was, it was still better than retail.
Ahead of him, Ling Hong paused and turned his head like he had caught the scent of something and Heng Xiaowen followed his line of sight to a shed on the edge of the paddock they were circling.
Following his lead, the four youths carefully approached the shed. Keeping low to the ground, they crouched against its wall and held their breath, listening.
Heng Xiaowen couldn’t explain why, but he felt the hairs on his arms slowly rise. Was this what they meant when they were talking about sensing different types of energy?
At first, all Heng Xiaowen heard was the wind blowing through the grass and the dull peals of a distant wind chime.
Then, he heard the wet sound of something being torn apart.