They'd been climbing for three days. The mountain air grew thinner with each step, but Rowan's enthusiasm remained irritatingly intact.

"Look at these frost patterns!" He crouched to examine a crystalline formation on a dead tree trunk. Behind him, Uncle Chen and the five Han guards he'd selected – all of whom had known Rowan since he was a child – exchanged long-suffering looks.

"The molecular structure suggests void energy contamination, but the spread pattern is unlike anything I've seen in the texts. It's almost as if—whoops!"

His foot slipped on the icy ground despite his perfectly fitted boots. Hui Fan caught his waist before he could face-plant into his research subject and reeled him in like a fish.

Uncle Chen cleared his throat loudly. "The mountain is not your laboratory, young master."

"Everything is my laboratory," Rowan corrected, then sneezed. The sound echoed off the cliffsides, earning him glares from both the Han guards and Hui Fan's crew. "Though perhaps a warmer laboratory would be nice."

"Young master should wear another layer," one of the Han guards called out.

"I'm fine! Just need to adjust my core temperature regulation. Did you know that certain meditation techniques can actually—" Another sneeze interrupted his lecture.

Without warning, Hui Fan scooped Rowan up like he weighed nothing.

The Han guards tensed, hands drifting toward weapons, but Uncle Chen waved them down with a weary familiarity born of years watching over his young master's antics.

"This is completely unnecessary!" Rowan protested, though he was already settling comfortably against Hui Fan's chest. "I'm perfectly capable of— oh, that's actually quite warm."

"The doctor rides," Hui Fan announced, his tone daring anyone to object. The Han guards exchanged looks that ranged from scandalized to reluctantly amused.

"In my day," Uncle Chen muttered to no one in particular, "young masters at least pretended to maintain proper distance."

"In your day," one of the Han guards whispered back, "young master Han wasn't trying to collect samples from void-corrupted trees."

----------------------------------------

Several hours later, the path grew steeper, the air colder, and the vegetation... wrong. From his new vantage point (which he would never admit was much more comfortable), Rowan could better observe the mountain's deterioration. Rowan had noticed it first – the way plants twisted unnaturally, leaves curled inwards as if trying to protect themselves from the surrounding air. And the snow was unnaturally shiny and dark. He'd filled half a notebook with observations.

"The void energy readings are getting stronger," he murmured, more to himself than Hui Fan. "But it's not just concentrated in specific points anymore. It seems like its spreading…" He pulled out his notebook, awkwardly trying to write while being carried. "The degradation pattern suggests prolonged exposure, possibly decades of pollution."

At this point, everyone, perhaps even Hui Fan, had tuned out Rowan’s incessant mumbling. Rowan continued to vocalize his observations until they came upon a sight that made everyone fall silent. Before them stretched a valley that should have been filled with hardy mountain pines. Instead, there lay a graveyard of blackened trees.

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"This isn't natural void energy decay," Rowan said quietly. "This is systematic destruction. Something's been amplifying it, directing it." He looked up at Hui Fan's carefully blank expression.

Before Hui Fan could respond, a sound like cracking ice echoed through the valley.

"Movement," Song called from her scouting position. "Multiple targets."

"Void beasts?" Liu Shen already had an arrow nocked.

"Worse." Song's voice was grim. "The trees are moving."

The blackened trunks began to shift and twist, void energy crackling along their branches like dark lightning. Their roots tore free of the frozen ground with sounds that were disturbingly like screams.

"Fascinating!" Rowan exclaimed. "The void energy must have saturated the cellular structure to the point of complete atomic reorganization!"

"Doctor," Hui Fan interrupted, setting him down carefully behind a rock formation. "Perhaps theorize later?"

"But the data—"

"Stay here." Hui Fan's hand lingered on his shoulder. "Please."

Then he was gone, moving to join the others as they formed a defensive circle. The Han guards fell into formation with ease, while the twins moved in perfect synchronization, their weapons gleaming with some kind of enhancement Rowan itched to study. The first twisted tree-thing lurched forward, its branches crackling with void energy. Hui Fan met it with a strike that shattered its trunk, but the pieces simply reformed, darker than before.

"The void energy is acting as a binding agent!" Rowan shouted helpfully from behind his rock. "Physical damage won't be effective unless you can disrupt the energy pattern first!"

"Less analysis, more solutions!" Liu Shen called back, his arrows passing harmlessly through the creatures.

Rowan dug through his medical supplies, mind racing. "The salve! The one I used on Song – it creates a barrier against void energy. If we could somehow distribute it on a larger scale..."

He began pulling out jars and powders, mixing with the speed of someone who had caused (and survived) multiple laboratory explosions. A tree creature lurched toward his position, but Uncle Chen intercepted it, his sword glowing with what looked like purification talismans.

"Anyone have a way to disperse this over a wide area?" Rowan held up a bubbling container of suspicious-looking liquid.

"On it!" Jacky grinned, pulling something from his pack that definitely wasn't standard military equipment.

What followed was either brilliant improvisation or chaos incarnate, depending on who you asked later. The end result was a rain of glowing droplets that caused the tree creatures to writhe and collapse, their void energy dispersing into harmless wisps.

"Ha! The neutralization compound worked perfectly!" Rowan jumped up from behind his rock, already scribbling notes. "Though the dispersal pattern could use some refinement. Perhaps if we adjusted the ratio…"

The world tilted suddenly. He blinked, wondering why the ground was rushing up to meet him.

Hui Fan caught him before he hit the snow. "You're burning up."

"Don't be ridiculous," Rowan mumbled. "It's freezing up here, though technically, the void energy concentration could be affecting local temperature variations." He tried to reach for his notebook but his arms wouldn't cooperate.

"The mountain sickness," Uncle Chen said grimly. "It's affecting him worse than the others."

"The void energy," Rowan managed, his scientific mind still trying to analyze even as his body betrayed him. "It's not just destroying the environment. It's like an immune response... the mountain is trying to fight back but it's making everything worse."

"Sleep, doctor," Hui Fan's voice seemed to come from very far away. "Let us worry about the mountain."

As consciousness faded, Rowan was aware of being cradled against a warm chest, of voices arguing about camp locations and medicine. His last coherent thought was that he really should be taking notes on the void energy's effect on human physiology.

"Still trying to study," he heard Hui Fan murmur and felt what might have been fingers brushing his hair back. "Even now."

Then darkness took him and he dreamed of the trees from earlier. They were trying to tell him something but he was no polyglot. And the language they were speaking in probably wasn’t a common one anyways.

In his fevered sleep, he didn't notice how Hui Fan refused to leave his side, or how the others exchanged knowing looks. He didn't see the way the martial artist's hands shook slightly when he changed the cool cloths on Rowan's forehead, or how his eyes never left Rowan's face as he whispered, "I'm sorry."