Liu Ying trudged past the fields that enclosed the eastern side of Qingshan, flooded rice fields glistening in the sunlight as their carers wiped their brows and leaned over them. Some of the farmers stopped their weeding and watering to watch him walk by, grumbling all the while.
He was almost as irritated as when he was stabbed through the hand. Chen Yun had a lot of audacity to be omitting his true intentions all the while he was making distrustful faces and gestures at Liu Ying’s own responses. And to still not be honest about them when confronted! The man was incredibly frustrating to understand. One minute, he seemed like the good, generous golden boy he apparently was seeking to emulate, and the next minute, he was secretive, defensive and sullen.
If his intentions aren’t of any detriment to me, why not just tell me? Depending on what they were, I may have even just shrugged and gone along with it. I’m no cultivator of the path of preservation. I wouldn’t care if he had a morally gray objective in mind, so long as he was honest about it! To question me and my reasons for coming along and not be upfront about his own… Well… I wasn’t entirely honest about my reasons either. Is it any different? How would I know?
He kicked a pebble into a rice field in annoyance, but quickly bowed his head apologetically when a farmer looked up and gave him a wary look.
Alright. We’re doing the same thing to each other. This is… what I get, I suppose.
Liu Ying walked for what seemed like an incense time before he spied in the distance what looked like a two-floor altar made partly with wood and partly with stone. This was also apparently supposed to be the general area where Qingshan kept their earthen pits and their dead, but before he could begin to search for it, his eyes caught something even more interesting – a mule with its reins tied around a tree a short distance to the side of the altar.
Moving swiftly towards it, Liu Ying was careful to slow his steps once he reached an audible distance from the altar and the mule. It didn’t seem to mind his presence much, though, and continued to munch on the weeds by the tree even as he crept by.
The altar doors resembled big wooden barn doors, opened just enough that Liu Ying was able to slip past them without making much noise.
Eyes narrowed in concentration, ears on high alert and dagger drawn, he paused to look around. The building was clearly an altar for the Harvest Goddess. There were barrels sealed with what smelled like rice wine and perhaps oils, and candles were set in a prayer pattern across the expanse of the offering table near the middle of the room. Directly in front of the offering table was a large cooking pot sitting on top of a makeshift stove with a stoking fire, steam and the sound of bubbling coming from it.
Liu Ying tightened his grip on the dagger. Someone was here – Duan Baozhai was here, in all certainty. He could smell recently chopped scallions in the air, fresh ginger along with it.
But… where?
He silently crept further into the room, peering behind and inside the barrels to ensure they weren’t hiding a devious old woman.
Then, his eyes caught a small trail of rice across the straw-strewn floor. The tiny white grains led him to a wooden ladder perched in the other end of the room, against what appeared to be leading up into a loft in the upper level of the altar.
Bracing his grip and testing the stability of the ladder, Liu Ying began to climb it as slowly as he could to avoid causing creaks and cracks of the wood. The element of surprise could very much be his ally and he intended to employ it to the best of his ability.
She won’t even know what’s cracked against her skull –
Suddenly, the altar doors slammed open against the walls with a force that made the entire building tremble. Liu Ying whipped his head around, but nothing was there except a strong gust of wind that had forced its way inside. But it was continuing to flow in heavily, growing more and more intense with each passing moment until it felt as though a violent storm had made its way into the altar.
Liu Ying wasn’t sure what came first – if he lost his footing or if the entire ladder had gone crashing down as a whole, but both things were simultaneous. He felt himself falling, hands grappling at air, before landing on a small pile of hay on the ground with the ladder beside him.
Head spinning rapidly, Liu Ying waited until the wind died down to lift his gaze up and see the Gods of Wind and Earth standing by the altar entrance like soldiers conquering a military base. Their weapons were semi-drawn, a war fan and an iron hammer, but it was their presence that commanded attention. Han Chuanli’s expressive eyes were narrowed but searching, always searching, and Xu Qiang looked as guarded and dour as he did the day Liu Ying met him – the tension in the air was palpable.
This is it… Wait. What’s that smell?
The smell of something burning all at once wafted into Liu Ying’s nose. He pushed himself up hastily and watched with wide eyes as he saw that the cooking pot had been knocked over during the tumult and the fire was pulled up and out of its stone pit. Flames were quickly spreading across the straw floors, eating up whatever was in front of it.
“You!” Han Chuanli suddenly exclaimed, pointing at him, “We need to ask you a few – ah!”
The God of Wind at first seemed oblivious to the commotion he had caused until a great flame sparked up the side of a wooden pillar with an immediacy that drew everyone’s attention.
“Put it out!” Xu Qiang yelled, then yelled again when Han Chuanli finished brandishing his war fan, “No! No!”
The sense of urgency was too little and too late. As soon as Han Chuanli flicked his wrist, another gust of wind erupted inside of the altar. While it was much less fierce than the initial one, it was more than sufficient in stoking the existing flames inside of the building. A rapid line of fire engulfed a barrel of rice wine, and within seconds, the entire thing burst with a loud snapping sound and a storm of flames filled the air.
Liu Ying ducked behind a crate full of turnips and carrots, heat radiating off of enough of the surrounding surfaces to make him begin to feel nervous.
Han Chuanli shrieked from the other end of the altar. “Gege! My robe is on fire! D-Don’t stomp on it, you big –”
Xu Qiang let out a frustrated sound. “Go outside! Come on!”
Liu Ying could see the God of Earth yanking a wildly panicked Han Chuanli by the arm out of the altar. He let out a breath he’d been holding and tried to think fast.
He could probably break a hole through the wall in the back of the altar as the quickest way out. As soon as he approached it and raised a leg in preparation to kick at the worn wood, he heard another sound coming from above him in the loft. It was a terrified scream, one that halted all of his movements.
Whipping around and looking up, Liu Ying glared at what he saw.
Duan Baozhai was leaning over the edge of the loft, her face pale and marred with fear as she watched the wooden pillar that held up the second floor become engulfed with flames, traveling quickly upwards.
“What a time to show yourself!” he barked, trudging over at the fallen ladder to lift it and perch it against the loft where it had been.
He climbed it quickly, movements half fueled by anger and half by instinct. When he finally made it up to the loft, his hands balled into fists by his side as he watched the old woman tremble and glare back at him.
“Going to throw me down into the flames?” she demanded, but there was a quiver to her voice that made Liu Ying wince.
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“You should just throw yourself into them. It would save me some trouble, but I didn’t trail you all this way just to watch you evade arrest,” Liu Ying said stonily, turning back towards the ladder and looking down, “We need to… uh. Nevermind.”
“What?’ Duan Baozhai snapped, shoving him aside to peer down at what he was looking at.
The ladder was being eaten up by the fire from the bottom, the wood cracking and falling to pieces to be consumed.
“What a fucking idiot! The youth are doomed!”
Liu Ying’s anger flared. “Me? You’re the one who was cooking with an open flame surrounded by dozens of flammable fucking objects!”
“Think of something then, you insolent child! You –”
Duan Baozhai was suddenly interrupted by a crashing sound coming from just above their heads. Pieces of wood and bamboo fell around them in small clumps, yet the sound didn’t end there. Liu Ying ventured a look above him, narrowly receiving a piece of wood to the head, and saw a familiar sword being used to brute-force a hole in the roof big enough to fit a person.
Within moments, the end of a ponytail followed by Chen Yun’s face appeared on the other side like a god appearing to save a village of mortals.
“Come on,” Chen Yun said, leaning in and extending an arm out towards them, “The flames are getting closer.”
Liu Ying tried to step away to allow Duan Baozhai to be saved first, but Chen Yun’s hand lurched forward and grabbed him by the back of his robe collar before he could.
“No. You first.”
Before he knew it, he was being hoisted out of the altar, lifted by the collar just enough so that Chen Yun could get his hands underneath his arms and finish pulling him out and plopping him onto the roof. Duan Baozhai was secured next with just as much ease, if not more.
She began coughing up a storm into her sleeve, most likely from having inhaled some of the smoke in the altar.
“Hack it up!” Liu Ying quipped.
Duan Baozhai stopped coughing and raised her feeble fist to nail him in the shoulder. “Rude! Petulant! No respect for your elders!”
“That’s enough,” Chen Yun cut in, frowning, “Let’s get down before the entire place blows up.”
When they safely slid down the slope of the roof and assisted Duan Baozhai with doing the same, Liu Ying saw Han Chuanli and Xu Qiang approach them out of the corner of his eye.
Panic swirled around his heart and squeezed tightly. Despite this, he squared his shoulders and turned to face them head-on. While one side of him was keen on racing off as fast and as far as he could, the other side both knew that a pair of gods, idiots as they were, would catch him in a heartbeat and also that it would make him look incredibly suspicious. He would have to focus and spin a tale of a lifetime to get out of this.
Duan Baozhai was squirming where she stood, knees shaking like the day she roped Liu Ying into her vile plans by pretending to be a frightened, innocent old woman. But now, she didn’t seem to be putting on a show. She stared at the two gods with wide eyes and wrung her hands together as though she was preparing to beg for mercy.
Liu Ying’s eyes fell to the heavily burnt patch at the hem of Han Chuanli’s expensive robes, and he swallowed a grin before it could overtake his face. Still, the ends of his lips twitched upwards, and Han Chuanli caught it.
“I’m glad you think this is funny,” he said, frowning. He pointed directly at Liu Ying. “If you could come with us, we need to speak with you privately.”
“What could two highly regarded gods want with me?” Liu Ying asked, careful to keep his voice even.
“Nothing worth you worrying about, as long as you’re truthful about what we ask you.”
Liu Ying couldn’t help but scoff, “I’ve trailed the murderer of Ludong all this way, and the both of you have been trailing me? I don’t understand what this is all about. Are you here to obstruct justice?”
Duan Baozhai, who had been silently shrinking away behind him, suddenly froze in place.
“The affairs of mortals is strictly that – of mortals. Unless prayers are made in our names, we have no reason to pry,” Xu Qiang said, “When it comes to demons, on the other hand, our responsibility is greater, and while we were able to secure Ludong of Jielong, you also played a significant part in doing that… Quite interestingly so, according to the witnesses that watched everything unfold from their windows.”
“How? By surviving a stab wound? You must be –”
“By surviving a fatal demonic attack,” Han Chuanli interrupted, “Please, don’t be coy. You’re to come with us so that we can assess this situation more at length. I wish I could tell you more to ease your concerns, but this is vital to an ongoing case.”
Liu Ying raised a brow. “Is that why you took off and left me and the old lady in the burning altar? To prove I’d survive again? Isn’t that against heavenly law or something?”
At the mention of heavenly law, both gods frowned further before exchanging looks. It seemed to have struck a nerve, and not in the way that he had intended.
Xu Qiang stepped forward. “Come along now.”
In the same instant, Chen Yun also stepped forward to meet him halfway. Liu Ying and Duan Baozhai watched with wide eyes as the two men stood nearly chest-to-chest, stormy looks on their faces.
“He’s on an important task with me to secure the arrest of a murderer. Your interrogation will have to wait,” Chen Yun said.
Liu Ying wanted to reach out and shake him. He could handle confrontation with the two gods because he also was one! A cultivator would be shamed by his sect if they were to discover that he offended a god.
What the hell is he thinking? Just stand down!
Xu Qiang studied him for a moment before speaking, “Who are you, and most importantly – who do you think you are?”
Chen Yun opened his mouth to respond, but he was cut off when something else exploded inside of the burning altar loudly. Duan Baozhai staggered and held onto Liu Ying to keep her balance. He would have shaken her off if it weren’t for a sudden, subsequent roar of thunder over their heads to shake them all to their cores.
Clouds gathered in thick, gray clumps in the sky immediately above the altar, and a downpour of heavy rain began to descend upon them. The flames inside of the altar that had been flickering at the windows began to die down until they disappeared from view, but everyone outside of it was completely soaked to the bone in a matter of seconds. Liu Ying looked up into the sky and saw something bright begin to emerge from within the clouds like a beacon in the night.
Duan Baozhai spit out a mouthful of rainwater when a figure appeared out of the halo of light. Deep orange robes and a furious energy were both telltale signs as to who had just descended down from the heavens.
“What the fuck is going on?!”
Her screech was maddening, even over the sound of heavy downpour, which slowed to a halt after a few seconds. The gray clouds overhead cleared out, and all that was left was a goddess adorned in gold with a nervous twitch standing on the roof of the altar. Her rounded, soft features, at first glance, pointed to a gentle nature, but the reality couldn’t be any more stark.
This was a goddess of volatile temperament and an entitlement that seemed to contrast with her cultivation path of abundance, but when looking more closely, one could say she embodied a version of abundance that most people didn’t think of when they thought of what it meant.
“Kang Zhenzhen, please, this isn’t the time to –” Han Chuanli tried, but was swiftly ignored.
“My altar! My offerings! Who did it?!” Kang Zhenzhen demanded, sweeping her arms in the air dramatically, “Let me see! A handful of mortals or… Two meandering fools that somehow managed to ascend?!”
Neither Xu Qiang nor Han Chuanli said another word, but their pale expressions spoke for them.
Xu Qiang quickly turned and formed a shimmering golden portal with a snap of spiritual energy and yanked Han Chuanli with him through it.
Kang Zhenzhen was moving before they had even walked through it completely, and scaled down from the roof to chase after them, screaming as she flew into the portal a fraction of a second before it closed, “I’ll nail you two assholes to planks!”