The world was silent. A river flowed but no sound echoed off its bank. Cooling air flooded along the walls of the shallow canyon.

Fish violently flung themselves from the waters as their abode became a frozen hell.

•••

The rogue had been hovering about their library for many months now. Searching their records for any mention of his existence and by now his hope was far beyond dwindled.

He haunted the halls in a complete daze at times. Hefeng made it her personal duty to protect him from the other dogs at a distance, sticking so often to whatever room he resided in that she even often left Hei Xianying and Qing Xiashu unattended in his favor.

"Mi-didi." Qing Xiashu beckoned delicately, rapping his knuckles against the door frame of the room and peering inside in hopes that the cultivator wouldn't be pouting again.

Unfortunately Qing Xiashu was not blessed with a happy rogue.

Hefeng carefully turned her head to Qing Xiashu, tail set off wagging instantly even without standing or moving to greet him. The rogue too eventually looked up to him but appeared entirely unable to bring himself to smile.

Hefeng did however have her head nestled in the man's lap and he was tentatively rubbing her ears. Over the weeks he had slowly grown more used to the dog's constant presence and was now comfortable with her as long as she moved slowly and didn't bounce on him or open her mouth too suddenly.

The head disciple sighed, entering the room and settling down beside the rogue, patting Hefeng's back. "No luck still?"

"None... Not a single lead." The rogue murmured with a grimace.

"I see." Qing Xiashu murmured. "Well... How about this, let's set you up to stay here long term. And if you feel like it we can give you a new name, I'm sure A-Ying has some pretty big opinions on it."

The rogue cultivator produced a flicker of a smile before finally sitting himself upright. "Are there really no more records?"

"I think you've gone through everything in the library at least twice... Though I suppose we can always head down to the Zhiwu sect of Lu Tian and check their library for more records. I can't promise they'll have anything more though, and there will likely be a lot of copies with nearly identical details."

"But there could be something..."

"There could be something..." Qing Xiashu confirmed before standing himself back up. "Alright, come then Mi-didi, let's head to Lu Tian and see if we can find anything at all."

The rogue gave another flickering smile and rose to follow as Qing Xiashu led him from the room and towards the stables, to collect horses for their journey. "And if we find nothing, I will be able to stay here?"

"Of course." The head disciple said with a grin.

"And you'll give me a new name?"

"Of course." Qing Xiashu repeated, swaying from as they walked, hair swinging back and forth with him. "I'll give you whatever you need, okay Mi-didi?"

"Okay." The cultivator said with a soft nod.

"I'm going to let Xue Shixiong know we're going since we'll be gone for a few days, prep the horses real fast for me!"

"Mm, thank you Qing-xiong."

Qing Xiashu grinned over his shoulder at the fluffy haired cultivator before starting off at a jog to track down Xue Feiyi, first his study, then the central meeting hall.

While the extravagant halls were seldom used for meetings, it was commonly used as a base of operations for the king. The head disciple skipped like an amused child up to the desk where Xue Feiyi sat.

"Xue Shixiong." Qing Xiashu hummed as he leaned himself over the desk slightly, acting as though he were reading the documents despite just inspecting his brother.

"What is it?" Xue Feiyi acknowledged, dipping his brush carefully in ink and continuing to write.

"Mi-didi and I are going to run down to Lu Tian for a few days, we'll probably be gone around four."

The king listened to the younger man speak before he pulled up a new sheet of parchment, scanning over it quickly before humming. "Be back before the fifth day, I'm taking meimei with me to the Eastern conference so you'll be taking over responsibilities as usual."

"Alright!" Qing Xiashu chirped, bouncing on his heels, turning to head back down the hall. He would need to alert Hei Xianying.

"Oh, and A-Shu!" The king called, causing his head disciple to pause in the doorway. "Remember to be safe please." He said, smiling gently.

Qing Xiashu grinned. "See you soon!" He knew Hei Xianying would be in her classes this morning.

With little other than his shadow to observe him, Qing Xiashu made way to the disciples' building. "Excuse me." He called softly as he opened the door.

A classroom full of young disciples all writing while sitting up in picture perfect posture snapped to his attention.

"Good morning, Qing Jiaoshou." The students echoed.

Hei Xianying absolutely beamed up from her desk but had probably had her shoulders tapped enough times by the old teacher's cane to stay seated.

"A-Ying, I need you a moment." The head disciple said, waving his hands toward himself before giving the instructor and class at large a quick smile.

"Is something wrong, Shu-gege? Are we going somewhere?"

"No, no. Nothing is the matter. I'm going to take Mi-didi off to a bigger library for a few days, so Xue Xiaojie will be collecting you from your classes, alright?" Qing Xiashu assured, dusting off Hei Xianying's sleeves and carefully fussing over her hair, organizing the girl's hopelessly stubborn waves.

Hei Xianying visibly dimmed at this news, eyes falling downward. "Shu-gege is going away?"

"Just for a few days, A-Ying. Shu-gege will be back very soon."

"How many?" The child asked hesitantly, eyes big and pleading, as though she could argue her way through the issue with the expression alone.

"Only four days." The head disciple answered, holding up his fingers.

"Four days?"

Qing Xiashu couldn't help but chuckle. "It'll be fine, I might come back with Mi-didi's real name, and if I don't then you can help find him a new one ok? He'll get to stay and you'll have another gege."

Unhelpfully, Hei Xianying let out a long miserable whine before lightly kicking her guardian's foot. "Shu-gege better not stay away longer than he has to..."

"Shu-gege would never lie to A-Ying."

At this the child simply nodded, giving him one last hug before returning to her class. Qing Xiashu quietly sighed to himself before turning back again.

Once Qing Xiashu arrived at the stables he was greeted with the rogue cultivator fastening the saddles on Yun-Qiu and a second horse. One of the other horses in the stables was fussing and making the rogue visibly nervous. "What's wrong with that one?"

Qing Xiashu shook his head as he headed for the old horse's stall. "San-Zhui? What's the matter?"

The mare shoved her face through the opening of the stable door and let out another distressed complaint. He put a hand on her forehead and checked over her, but found nothing suspicious.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

"Is she alright?"

"She's just trying to get me to go get Shixiong, she does this fifty percent of the time I get Yun-Qiu out." Qing Xiashu sighed as he rubbed her snout, giving her a treat to help her quiet down.

"Oh..."

"He always takes her when we head south. It's fine. Let's be off." The head disciple noted as he swung himself into the saddle.

Hefeng followed them to the gates before plopping herself down and watching them go. Her duty would be entertaining Hei Xianying in Qing Xiashu's "absolutely horrible" absence.

"Be good Hefeng!"

The dog only howled in an answer, before she scampered off.

Qing Xiashu found himself smiling through the first hour of their day-long ride. "Qing-xiong, do you ever worry that you're accidentally upsetting someone by just existing, even if you don't know who they are?"

"No." The head disciple responded honestly. "I always know exactly the woman I'm disappointing." Then quickly added on: "But I have plenty of memories so it's a bit different."

"Who is it? The woman you're disappointing I mean."

"My mother." He stated simply. "Living my life as I do now, would have her incredibly disappointed. She would tell me that the way I live my life with so little discipline is pointless, and I should focus on something different, never telling me what to focus on, just that I was wrong. So maybe it's better to not know, maybe you just feel like you're disappointing an old friend."

The rogue slowly shook his head. "No... I'm sure it's my father... I just don't remember anything about him, or what he was like, or where he came from, really nothing."

"I'm sure whatever reason that he'd be disappointed in you for, its dumb. You're doing very well if you ask me."

"Maybe..."

•••

The pair arrived at their first stop just after dark, they were just over half way through their trek to Lu Tian, since they had begun later in the day, they would have to take a small intermission to rest. "Mi-didi, take the horses to the stables while I pay for rooms, be careful around the back, there don't seem to be any lit lanterns."

"Mm, it's fine." The rogue answered, but he was holding one of his sleeves up to his nose. "Can you smell that?" He asked, almost choking.

Qing Xiashu took a deep breath through his nose and frowned. The grotesquely sweet stench of a human corpse carried faintly on the wind. Something he was unfortunately very familiar with.

Working with ghouls taught you some awful things about the decomposition process.

"Mm... Just get the horses put away, we can investigate as soon as I've paid." He said as he opened the door to the inn's dining room.

It seemed to bother the rogue so much he looked like he wanted to just hold his nose indefinitely. Instead he obeyed and walked away with the horses.

"Good evening young master." The innkeeper announced politely.

"Hello ma'am." Qing Xiashu answered with a small bow. "A room with two beds or two rooms please, my companion is stowing our horses."

"Of course, of course." The elderly woman hummed. "No locks, top floor room, please sleep well."

"Thank you, ma'am." He began to turn to leave before he turned back towards her. "Oh, just one question, do you happen to know the source of the rotting smell?"

The woman's face changed into a near grimace. "We ought not speak of that." She said flatly, expression twisting.

"I see, my apologies for prying." Qing Xiashu said, giving another bow as the rogue entered the building.

"Thank you, miss, for allowing us to stay." The rogue said sweetly before following the head disciple up the stairs toward the room assigned to them.

They were both quiet as they climbed the stairs, and they remained quiet until they closed the door to their room. "That was odd..."

"What was, Qing-xiong?"

"It's just that--" Qing Xiashu fluttered his hand in the air for a moment. "The smell. I asked her about it, right? And she cut it very suspiciously short."

"You think so?"

"Mm."

The rogue hummed slowly, seating himself on one of the two beds, crossing his legs and leaning forward slightly, propping himself into the most classic thinking pose. It almost made the head disciple snicker at the absurdity. "Maybe... She has a connection to it?"

"Now was she protecting the cause or the source..."

"If a murderer was someone close to her, maybe she's trying to keep them safe." The rogue offered.

"A murder is still a murder."

"That doesn't matter to the heart."

A shriek tore its way through the night, chilling both cultivators to the bone.

Oh.

This is no simple rotting corpse.

"Fancy a job, Mi-di?" Qing Xiashu asked with a sigh.

The rogue gave the most hopeless smile anyone could ever muster and echoed the sigh as he stood again. "Let's go find out what's going on then..."

The moment they stepped outside, they found that the smell that greeted them was much stronger now. The rogue retched the moment he hit open air and even Qing Xiashu felt like gagging, covering his face with his sleeve. "Oh gods..."

"It's so much worse than a normal ghoul- it smells young." The rogue stated, nearly gagging again.

"You mean fresh?" The head disciple questioned as he began walking down the street, trying to pick out the direction of the smell.

"No, I mean young, like a kid, young people always smell so much worse when they're dead. But maybe it's just me. No one back in that town really got it either..."

"What does it smell like?"

"Like hopelessness. And pain. The kind of pain you have from loss."

"I see..."

He did not see. Personally he didn't tend to smell feelings very often.

Another shriek grated at their ear drums, practically splitting Qing Xiashu's skull from how near and loud it was.

Ghouls were always active at night, there was no surprise it was being so talkative.

But why did it have to be so shrill?

The stench seemed to be seeping through the shut doors of a barn near the inn, likely something that was part of the same property by proximity alone. Slowly they each grabbed a handle, and prepared to swing the doors open.

Flies burst from the building in a cloud, so violently that both cultivators could feel the wind put off by the thousands of tiny beating wings. Even worse, the putrid stench grew more violent. The rogue finally buckled and heaved up his unfortunately fated last meal. Qing Xaishu gagged and covered his mouth with the back of his hand.

Could this be a fresh nest?

No, it lacked the necessary darkness. Not to mention the important factor of privacy for the ghouls to come and go safely without being noticed. And if it were a nest, the ghoul wouldn't be shrieking, it should be largely content.

Was it starving?

Surely it was far too fresh to starve already. It couldn't be older than a few months.

Most importantly, why hadn't they been attacked yet?

To that he saw no obvious answer.

Perhaps, if he weren't also at risk of vomiting up his last meal, the head disciple would have explained this thought process to his companion. But alas, he hadn't the stomach nor the necessary lust for pain.

Instead of testing his stomach, Qing Xiashu tested the ghoul, stepping boldly into its territory, even while the rogue dry heaved helplessly off to his right.

The head disciple lit a fire talisman and let it burn just bright enough that he would be able to see around the small building, something that should have contained animals but instead contained something much worse.

In the center of the floor was a child, squirming with useless limbs against the ground before letting off another banshee like screech.

It seemed to be a little girl... No older than Hei Xianying and just as small. But where soft baby soft skin should have been, there was slimy rotting flesh. Every movement the little girl made seemed to bring her failing body immeasurable pain.

Bones were bent all wrong and muscles pulled in all the wrong ways, joints unable to support themselves and the eyes rolling in the girl's sockets seeped in clouds.

"Oh shit." Qing Xiashu whispered, this time when he choked, it wasn't because of the stench. It was the way his heart crawled into his throat and blocked itself in.

"What... what is it?" The rogue asked from outside, sounding just as horrified without even needing to look.

"Huo sigui... I think she's a huo sigui..." Qing Xiashu said, feeling oh so helpless.

Huo sigui are harmless.

The suffering a soul endured caged inside the rotting of their own body was a type of trauma no one deserved.

Least of all someone who died so young.

Qing Xiashu didn't sheath Touming, the blade would have its time soon, but he began to move slower as he approached, scuffing his feat to do his best to alert the child to his movement in her direction.

"Dear..." He beckoned softly to the child. "Can you hear me? I'm here to help you feel better."

The huo sigui screamed again in response.

Alright, noted.

"It's alright, I can hear you. It's alright." He soothed, slowly taking a seat beside her writhing form. Part of him wanted to comfort her, press a hand to the top of her head and pet what was left of her hair. But the other part was revolted at even the thought of touching her rotting body.

He could only imagine how revolted she must feel...

His kinder, more empathetic side won out. He carefully set a hand against her skull, gently petting over dried blood and patchy hair. "It's alright..." He whispered, smiling a little as she stilled, perhaps peacefully. Ever so carefully he raised Touming, just high enough to make the kill, but not high enough to disturb her. "You'll feel better soon, little one."

Her head was severed so quickly that she likely couldn't even feel the strike fall past her rotting nerves.

Almost robotically, Qing Xiashu continued petting her severed head, as if soothing the soul as it floated away in an invisible unseen breath of wind.

The rogue's voice began to desperately call from the doorway.

"No-! No ma'am, you shouldn't--!"

"A-Rou!" The woman's sob was heartbreaking, ear splitting the way the huo sigui's had been, but this one, rather than a cry of pain and frustration, was one of utter devastation. "You! You cultivators! Get out! Get out! Take your horses and leave you bastards!" She shrieked, her voice wobbling in her heartache and age.

"Ma'am..." Qing Xiashu struggled to find the words. Maybe he wasn't a grandparent like this woman, or even really technically a parent.

But he could only imagine the way her soul must be breaking. For a split moment he imagined their places reversed, Hei Xianying on the floor, her form contorted and tortured.

He took a slow breath.

It was better she wasn't forced to endure that.

The rogue cultivator, still hovering at the door, spoke Qing Xiashu's thoughts for him. "Ma'am, your A-Rou was already gone, she was in pain, could you not hear it?"

"A-Rou is not gone!! She isn't gone!" The woman snapped, stumbling towards the corpse and collecting the rotting pieces in her arms. "Not gone... not gone..."

Qing Xiashu forcibly swallowed the stone in his throat, standing and moving away from the woman and retreating to his companion. "We should rid her of ourselves." He said softly, watching the other's mournful eyes in the faint flickering lights of the inn.

"Yes, we should continue...." The rogue murmured, turning away to walk back towards the stables, still feeling a little ill. "Do you need to go back?"

"What?"

"Do you need to go back to the palace and check on A-Ying?"

"It's fine, I'm here to help you." Qing Xiashu said, carefully untying the horses and tugging them from their stalls and climbing into an empty saddle.

•●•