The strange creature before the undead boy, unconscious in the shallow pool of water, looked almost exactly like him, yet not at all. Its face was to the side, with the water reaching its cheek. Perhaps it was of a similar kind to him, but there was something fundamentally different between them, which both fascinated and unsettled him. Just what was it that made them so disparate, like an impenetrable, invisible wall made of still water which separated them? Could he break that cold, invisible wall of stone water with his body, by simply approaching the creature physically? It almost felt wrong to try, yet his feet and hands moved in spite of his apprehensions.

He slowly shifted his way over, unaware of how to walk but gingerly measuring each step in his crawl, so as not to alert the intruder of his presence and scare it away from him. The drops of water from the stone blades overhead dripped over and over, warm and lovely reminders of life encouraging him to step forward. Water from the tunnel above the mysterious entity in the reservoir intermittently splashed in, as if hundreds, maybe thousands of stone blades all dropped the curious dew at once, onto the partially submerged alien.

Perhaps the strange thing in the basin was his Creator? Or was it the one who woke him? Was it his mother?

He possessed no knowledge, yet an awareness of his existence and the faculty of reason existed within him; he engaged in thought, despite being unable to articulate coherent ideas in any known language. Above all, a profound sense of incomprehension prevailed in his mind, aching with a curiosity that almost felt morbid: what manner of being lay before him?

He took a few more steps.

Why could he close the distance between them physically, yet there remained this pervasive feeling of divorce, like he never moved from his place, hiding behind the pedestal? What was this space, this insurmountable chasm between them? Was this cold, guttural feeling truly that which was natural between creation and creator, or was his assumption wrong to begin with? If it wasn’t his creator, was it a gift from his creator? But why would it feel so bad to look at it if it was? So, what was it? He had to know.

This curiosity drove his zealous steps forward.

He crawled ever closer to it, yet the feeling would not disappear.

Finally, he stood above the thing, which he knew and he didn’t.

It lay there, face to the side, a quarter submerged. His and the creature’s hair were of the same black shade, but unlike his, short, matted, and disheveled in appearance, its hair was long and kept in a neat bun, with only a strand or two falling out, suspended in the water to slightly obscure its face. Its skin was pale, but far less so than the cloth that covered his body, and far rosier than the cold, blue skin beneath his coverings. The creature was far shorter than him, by the length of his head and half of his hand widthwise.

The strange creature’s skin grew redder, then whiter. It shivered and twitched, convulsing and splashing water on him. He remembered crashing into the puddle of water after hurting his arm, and the gash he had only recently recovered from, the vile fire that flowed from his skin into his veins, then to his heart. He hated that sensation. He screamed and retreated on all fours, his breaths in quivering and his breaths out forceful, hoarding air in his lungs and driving it all away. He looked up.

That invisible wall was still there. What was it?

His breath slowly steadied, and he steadily approached it, each of his arms and legs moving of its own volition, as its own creature. He crouched above the entity once again, and touched its skin with the back of his right hand.

It was something that he never felt before. It was like the blazing pain he felt before, but at the same time, comforting and lovely. Part of him wanted to leave it, and another part wanted to stay by it forever. This sensation called “warmth” was a treasure to him, irreplaceable and beautiful, the comfort by the side of the fire, which he once thought was simply meant to hurt and destroy.

He could stay there, still with the back of his hand pressed to the cheek of this entity for all of time if he were so permitted. However, as this euphoria faded, he noticed something strange about it. The precious treasure he had just discovered was fleeting. The warmth was rapidly leaving the body with its shaky breaths, but not returning as it breathed in. Was it the water that surrounded it that stole his precious warmth away?

He rushed into the basin, grabbing ahold of each of the hands of the creature and standing on his hind legs, hoping to drag it out of the pool with his body weight. He heaved, pulling as hard as he could, but it refused to budge, as if the thing were one of those immovable stone blades on the ground.

He felt something warm by his feet, and looked down. The water had turned a shade he had never seen before. It was like the darkness of the cavern he had awoken in, but there was another part to it, which looked like pain. He wondered why he could suddenly see pain. Maybe he had no other standard by which he could think of it. He did not know what to call it, but the color was called “red.” The pigment which dyed the bandages around his feet emanated from the stomach of the creature. It groaned, which startled him.

It had a voice, just like him and his creator. It sounded so nice in comparison to the endless dripping and splashing. He wanted to hear more.

He lifted the body vertically, hugging the body while keeping it parallel to the ground, crouching horizontally as his legs walked forward. He awkwardly wrapped his right arm diagonally from the right side of its waist to its left shoulder, and his left arm held its legs. It was so heavy, yet the whole body was warm, and he could not help but pause for a moment to hug it tightly. However, the warmth escaped it, dripping through its stomach onto his arm and feet. He continued onward.

He waddled over to the pedestal he had once laid on, and put the body down, flipping it face-up.

Its face was so full, each of its contours and linings being a source of fascination for him, where everything looked so much like his face, but the little details were almost all completely different. Its eyebrows were less bushy and smaller than his, its lips fuller, its eyes bigger, its cheekbones higher, its jaw rounder, and a variety of other such things. Its skin was almost pure white, but a bit of red was returning to it. However, his fascination had to wait, as he looked down at the stomach of the creature.

It had a gargantuan gash there, as if it were struck by a terrifying beast with only a single, long claw. Blood was seeping out of one particularly deep part with every shaky breath that it took.

His eyes widened, and he looked back to the pond, wondering what could have hurt it. He only had one suspicion, the only thing he had ever known to cause pain. Sure enough, there it was: a small stone blade on the ground in the center of the reservoir, facing upwards, exactly where the stomach of the intriguing creature had been when it was lying on the pond. He yelled at it, using the only words he knew.

“You! You can’t live!”

How dare it take away the only other thing? How dare it hurt him, and teach him pain? How dare it exist?

He was not in the state of mind to think about where the rest of the wound was, or why the body was so “heavy” when he tried pulling it from the side. If he did, he would have not only learned anger and sadness at that moment, he would have also learned guilt. If only the poor fool learned it then.

He wept at the side of the creature, holding its hand as its warmth rapidly faded. He grabbed its shoulders and screamed at the top of his lungs.

“Live! Live! You can live!”

The blood kept gushing out of the wound in its stomach, like the water that splashed upwards when the intermittent deluges came crashing into the pool. He didn’t know what to do. Could he do anything? In his desperation, he cried out the only word that he knew from the beginning, without ever hearing it from someone else.

“Mask!”

Another wave of water came crashing into the natural tub behind him. Much of it came splashing out, traveling to his blood-stained, bandaged feet. He felt something strange under his shirt, like a snake slithering through. From the sides of his mask came new white wrappings, which crawled along his arms until they reached his wrists. They began leaving his wrists and tenderly enveloping the stomach of the wounded creature before him, gently weaving themselves and constricting the wound. It was a mesmerizing sight to see the bandages dancing through the air from his arms with the fluidity of water. Could he move like that one day? Maybe. The breathing of the creature stabilized, and so too did his.

He crawled to a wall nearby and leaned against it. He could see the feet of the creature, with strange coverings over them, like clothes for its feet. What an amusing prospect. Still, it was all so tiring. If it awoke, it would notice him there, and see that he saved its life. Maybe he saved his creator? Wouldn’t that be great? Well, that was something to think about later. For now… he had to… sleep…

***

Drip. Drip. Drip. Splash.

What… is that? Ah, right, it’s water. Judging by the fact that I hear that pattern of a drop, drop, drop, then the water from the ceiling tunnel splashing into the pool again, I’m either still alive or a ghost.

Yǚchén surveyed the land on his left, only minimally moving his head so as not to alert any potential captors of his consciousness. There was no need to rush into torture, after all. The land before him was bathed in the same blue he’d seen while looking into the room from the ceiling. He couldn’t help but admire it.

Patches of bioluminescent moss lined the edges of the ceiling, like states on a map, peacefully divided from and blissfully unaware of one another’s presence. Maybe that was what was best for it, or maybe that glorious sight, of a unified and powerful colony that could reach even the outside world, could be worth the destruction of some of the colonies? The thin layer of water on the ground below it was a perfect reflection of the ceiling, like this place was one in which the stars and the sea met one another, within the depths of the earth. There was a raised bit of earth, protruding from the thin puddle, containing a deeper reservoir, which overflowed with water from an opening in the ceiling. If Yǚchén was in better health, he would have been delighted to train here. Yǚchén threw his sluggish right arm over his forehead.

Just what am I thinking about when I’m looking at moss?

Stalactites at the edges of the clearing reached down to touch stalagmites down below, sometimes connecting to form strangely-shaped pillars with thin centers. He looked to the pool below the tunnel he was just in, presumably where he fell into this room. By it was a trail of deep red blood, illuminated by the blue of the moss above. This trail led directly to…

Me?

Yǚchén pushed his left hand behind him, and laid up. He suddenly felt a rushing pain in his stomach, as if a tiger had placed only a single claw into his stomach and dragged it across, sadistically enjoying his torture. He grabbed and bit the lapel of his cheap guard’s uniform and looked down to assess the damage. It looked a bit like a slash wound, but it was far, far too wide to have been done by a normal blade. It was as if he were cut by a blade with a cutting edge as wide as a peeled chestnut but he knew no such thing existed. And another thing, strangest of all, was the bandaging around the hurt area.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

What on earth happened to me?

“You alive?”

His eyes widened in panic. He snapped his head to the right, like a mouse caught by the tail, to see his captor. He reached inside his clothes to clutch his knife.

How was I stupid enough not to check the right side? No matter how mesmerizing the left was, I should have at least looked!

He gulped.

Is it the thief we were after?

Yǚchén had no choice but to ask, turning his head around to speak with his potential enemy.

“Who are you? Why are you here?”

“Wake up here.”

“Not me, you.”

“I woke up here.”

I didn’t take him to be the stupid type, but at least it decreases the chance that he’s against me, since he’d have killed me already in my sleep and not tried to talk if he were both dumb and against me. It’s also clear he’s not indifferent to me from the fact that we’re talking in the first place. If he’s not against me or indifferent towards me, he is for me. Still, a stupid ally is the most dangerous thing for me when I can’t do anything of my own volition.

“Did you bandage me?”

“I did bandage you!”

“Why?”

“You woke up! You live!”

Alright, definitely not the smart type. I have the goodwill of an idiot.

Yǚchén took a closer look at his savior.

He was a tall and skinny boy, around 18 to 20 years of age. He wore a pale mask with no facial features at all, with only his eyes showing through two slits in the material. His eyes were brown, though Yǚchén did not want to take more than a cursory glance at them for some reason... Yǚchén could not tell his skin color, since all of it was covered by layers and layers of bandages just as white as that mask, as if he were a recovering soldier who had just been struck all over his body by shrapnel from a cannon blast. The layers wove together so perfectly that it almost looked as if his skin were a pale white reminiscent of the moon.

Every noble lady in the country would probably ask him to wrap them if they saw him even once, huh? For skin as pale as the moon, those beauty fanatics would choke themselves half to death. He looks more like a phantom than a man.

Yǚchén chuckled a bit before coughing from the sharp pain arising in his stomach.

Maybe not a joke worth making.

The boy at his foot wore those wrappings underneath all of his outer garments, which, though torn and disheveled, were those of a noble boy, judging by the quality of their material and making. He wore a long red silk robe, representing Yang energy, and black silk pants.

Maybe he was a martial artist trying to cultivate Yang energy here, failed to break through to the next level, and lost his mental faculties in the fallout? No, there’s no Yang energy to speak of here. Why would he be dressed to cultivate Yang energy, which is derived from heat, when this place is filled with cold Yin energy? What is he trying to get at? Or maybe he really is a sacrifice, and wearing this was simply ceremonial? But the Demonic Cultists don’t pull punches when it comes to preparing for that kind of thing, so why would his clothes be torn? He couldn’t have fought anyone off, so what could have torn his clothes? How is he here, and who is he?

Yǚchén rose a bit more to try to look around more clearly, but the sharp pain from his stomach quickly forced him onto his back. He cussed between his shaky breaths, which grasped at air as if they were the hands of the damned, reaching to Heaven for another chance at life, and pushing that chance away with each pained exhalation.

How did I get this injury? Probably not from him, considering that he was the one that bandaged me. It is possible that he injured me and patched me up to gain my favor? Why would he want that? My heart and body? No, that makes no sense. He doesn’t know who I am or where I came from, so he has no reason to want my heart. Perhaps if he is a Demonic Cultist who preys on fallen hearts, but he has covered up his appearance, unlike those beguiling devils. He can’t want my body, or he’d have acted while I was asleep. He can’t want my money, because he’d have left already, taking everything with him.

He furrowed his eyebrows.

Was it genuine goodwill? In the Jiānghú? A boy like him should have died long ago. Still, is there something else here? I have too many questions to assess this situation. I’ll need to hedge my bets and rely on the information that the boy over there has. Even if he’s an idiot, he at least knows how to bandage a wound. Wait, did he…

Yǚchén sighed and leaned his head back against the stone pedestal. There were too many factors outside of his control to worry about it. He recalled the words of the one he regarded as his master.

Maintaining one’s mental state is paramount to survival.

However, curiosity grabbed at the hems of the robes of his mind, until he eventually gave in and asked.

“Did you disinfect the bandages before wrapping me?”

“Can’t.”

Yǚchén’s mind grew abuzz with incessant chatter, as if he were caught up in the summer cacophony produced by cicadas, nearing the days of their deaths. Consonants from his rapid thoughts clicked and tutted in his mind, like the gallop of a hundred million warhorses. He clenched his left hand, which was behind his body so the boy could not see it.

“Do you have any medical supplies on you other than the bandages, or any way to disinfect the bandages?”

He knew it was redundant. He knew it was stupid to ask, when the boy would have already done it long ago if he could. He knew he hoped against hope, like an immature child. Yet, who could accuse a man for wishing he could live?

The boy before him opened his mouth.

“Can’t do.”

A pit opened inside his heart, letting the last remainders of his hope slip in.

What do you mean, “Can’t do”? Are you serious? You bandaged someone without disinfecting the bandages? Aren’t I already dead, then? There isn’t any avoiding an infection anymore, which means there’s no avoiding my death. Why is this happening to me? If I was going to die, why wasn’t it when I still had everything? Why couldn’t I die bittersweet, instead of cold and alone? I still need to recover my family’s noble status, so that my older brother has a home to return to. Even if it’s shameful, I’m the last one who can do this, so I need to. I need to make proper graves for you all. I need to find my brother. I need to restore my spear. I have so much I need to do. So why am I dying now? Why? Why!? WHY!?

His chest rose shakily with his breath.

…why? Why does it hurt so much?

He wanted to scream. His body was already wailing, crying blood droplets into his bandages. His labored breaths devolved into bestial pants, driving more blood from his body. Beads of sweat formed all over his near-cadaver. His legs, arms, feet, wrists, toes, and fingers extended spastically, remaining rigid. His eyes shook violently from side to side, the blue light of the moss forming streaks in his sight, reminiscent of the serpentine fabrics which would chase after the hands of a ribbon dancer. The warring colonies of moss danced together.

Beautiful.

He regained control over his body, but not quite his wits. Yet, his will stayed.

He clenched his fist with what remained of his depleting strength. He had to make it out.

He took a deep breath, trying to control his tongue.

“Have you gone any deeper into the cave?”

“Can’t.”

“Then what’s that?”

Yǚchén lifted his finger, pointing at a large opening to a tunnel, past the pool he had fallen into. The boy moved his head sideways, inquisitively.

“That’s deeper into the cave. You can’t live there. I can go.”

Does he not consider it a viable option? Is there something there that would kill me? Though I’m not inclined to trust his opinion after he dressed a wound without disinfecting his bandages…

Yǚchén moved his head from side to side, surveying his surroundings once more.

I don’t see anything that he could use to disinfect the bandages, even if he wanted to. Maybe he could have burnt my clothes near the hole in the ceiling, then used my leather pouch as a makeshift bowl to boil water with, but that runs too much risk of suffocating both of us. Based on his vocabulary, he doesn’t seem to be the smartest in the world. But, if he has lived here for an extended period under a savage Demonic Cultist, he must be somewhat naturally shrewd, and likely capable of understanding commands relating to anything present here. If he doesn’t have medical supplies, the Demonic Cultist must have taken everything he had. But why didn’t the Cultist kill him and take his expensive-looking clothing, if they took the time to even take the medicine? Wouldn't he be a potential leak? I need more information.

“How long did you live here for?”

“I woke up here before you. I live well here.”

Yǚchén sighed.

“Is there anyone else living here with you, or is there some way to get out of here? Maybe a fire pit or something, so we can boil water?”

“Can’t.”

Yǚchén pursed his lips.

“Will the one who kept you here return soon?”

The boy in front of Yǚchén scratched his head and tilted it slightly. His hope was quickly running out.

“You don’t know, do you?”

The boy in the bandages replied, nodding his head.

“I don’t know.”

I know he warned me not to go, but staying here is a death sentence. I can't go back where I came from in this condition, and that boy wouldn't be able to carry me through a hole that small. I’ll die of an infection here, so the only other place I can go is...

“I’m heading down the cave.”

Yǚchén clenched his left fist, his arm shaking from the pressure.

If I die today, I’ll die my way.

He closed his eyes, calming his breath. A light shone through the darkness in his mind, though dim.

“Then so will I.”

Yǚchén raised his eyebrows a bit, then chuckled.

He can't escape to the surface either, so there isn't any hope, huh? What did the poet say? “As the falcon turns away, the chicks die in each other’s embrace?” It seems that I'll get to know this idiot in the afterlife.

Yǚchén smiled.

Between Hell and the Jiānghú, I could barely tell the difference.

“Carry me, and we’ll go. Onward to Hell, Huànxiǎng.”