As it turned out, Wang Huaqing was not polite enough to die easily much to Rui Yifu's pained chagrin.

The sturdy bookshelf was almost a comfort as he leaned against it, hand pressed against the hot wound on his chest that still pulsed with blood. It oozed down from his chest to his leg, squelching out from his shoe and onto the ground leaving a convenient trail for Wang Huaqing to follow at his leisure. Rui Yifu looked up to the ceiling. The underground library's original architects had placed numerous pearlescent lamps far above, then painted the ceiling a dark blue to give the impression of a vast night sky. It was a shame he was in no state to really appreciate the effort.

He pushed himself away from the bookshelf and stumbled forward a few steps behind he got his bearings, moving slowly into another corridor of bookshelf with the occasional wandering shriveled scholar to be seen.

The problem with losing blood was that human bodies did not have much of it to lose, Rui Yifu thought as he turned down another row and found himself by the artificial river. It seemed so comforting, the idea of slipping into the cool embrace of the water. A lantern held by a statue of a young man was standing beside it, casting its glow into the water and revealing the crumbled remains of a small boat that a skinny arm stuck out from. He stepped back quickly from the river.

His own body was unnatural, even for a Fish Person, with its artificially increased lifespan but he doubted he could hold out much longer from blood loss than a human could. His head was growing light enough to float off his neck, and he giggled. Someone once said his head was empty enough to be filled with air, but now he could not remember who did. Nausea bubbled in his stomach, which felt curiously empty.

"Where did you go, little eel?"

Wang Huaqing's voice sounded distant still, echoing down. But Rui Yifu walked faster, wheezing faintly as more blood trickled onto the ground. Where was he trying to go? Away, but away where?

He pressed himself against the side of a bookshelf, peering around it to see another shriveled scholar standing still, its jellied eyes sitting deflated in its sockets as it ran its hand slowly down the shelves. Rui Yifu watched it for a moment and wondered if it was looking for something. A flash appeared in the corner of his vision and he let his body drop as a sword bit into the wood and the fragile spines of the books. "There you are," Wang Huaqing's pleasant smile was on his face as he looked down at Rui Yifu. "My or my, you're looking quite tired."

Rui Yifu looked up from his spot on the ground, hearing creaking he was sure was not coming from the sound of his tired bones scraping against each other. "I'm not particularly well rested, you're correct," he managed to say while tasting iron in his mouth.

"Are you tired of running away?"

A rasping shriek broke the air around them, first one voice, then another, and another. Rui Yifu turned to see the shriveled scholar racing towards Wang Huaqing with its withered limbs grasping for the standing man's throat. Rui Yifu's eyes widened momentarily before forced himself onto his feet and took the precious moments to put space between him and Huaqing. The grand library was filled with the ruffling sound of hundreds of withered bodies hurling themselves towards the offender, a few rushed past Rui Yifu without taking any note of him. He ran into another massive chamber of the library, this one had its roof painted as a daylight sky, the lanterns taking the form of fanciful clouds.

The earth rumbled under his feet, dust raining down and the sound of crackling kindling and the smell of smoke rolled into the chamber. He turned around to see a bonfire of shelves and bodies, and the slightly bloodied form of Wang Huaqing stepping from the fire. He wiped some of the blood from his cheek off with a long sleeve and laughed. His laugh was cheerful and soft, "ah, that was my own fault wasn't it? I should have expected this place to have some sort of defense. Shame about the books though."

Rui Yifu set the end of the sword on the ground, using it to keep himself propped up. His legs felt like talc. "And to think, you called yourself a scholar," he laughed.

"Oh, do not make any mistake," Wang Huaqing replied, "I still do consider myself a gentleman of knowledge. But what is lost here, truly? The only things touching these books are the remains of scholars trapped by their own desire for knowledge. If you had not moved, this would not have been necessary."

No matter how pleasantly he spoke or how nice his current face, Rui Yifu knew that the man before him had only ever been interested in himself. He highly doubted he thought much about the burning books behind him. "Yes, yes, of course it's my fault," Rui Yifu took a step backwards, then another, keeping a consistent six feet between himself and the approaching man. Each step came slowly, with pain curling out from his paling veins. "Many things are my fault, I did help you learn how to transfer bodies."

"Yes, it was quite kind of you to do that," Wang Huaqing said, pointing his blade at Rui Yifu, "and to thank you, I even brought you back your sword. Do you recognize it?"

Rui Yifu looked at the blade, or the two blades. Three? His vision was splitting, the nausea was growing worse with each step back. He could smell the water from the artificial river and wondered if he was going to fall in. "Not particularly, I was never a swordsman. It was just a symbol of my office. It was sharp enough for what I wanted it to do." He felt empty air under his foot and stopped moving, settling his feet on the edge.

"Are you going to hide in the water, little eel?" Wang Huaqing asked, tipping his head to the side with a bemused smile. "There's no way to escape through there."

Rui Yifu swallowed a mixture of saliva and blood in his mouth, his foggy brain working for something. Anything. Then he grasped a single string, the name 'Lu Gongqi'. "The man who was helping you in the Free City, what became of him?" He asked, he knew but he wondered if Huaqing did.

"Him? He was another means to an end, although I did not wish any harm on him in specific. Once we had our use with him finished, we allowed him to continue traveling with us. However, when he learned his family would not be returning to him as he thought he succumbed to his despair," Wang Huaqing answered amicably. "Why, did you know him?"

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"No, I was just curious if you knew. He was devoured by those flowers wasn't he?"

He nodded, "yes. He was."

"Are you too infected?"

Wang Huaqing laughed, "of course not! I did not take that offer when it came to me. I know full well what those do. However, I did help sew them through a few areas as requested, in some tombs. The trick is to wear gloves, you see, any open wound they'll slip into."

Wang Huaqing did not trust Baichan, Rui Yifu thought. He knew what those seeds could do, but did not trust that they would not give Baichan the same control that he has over infected individuals. "Why help this being? Did it promise you immortality?"

"What do you think?" He asked, coming closer. He pressed the tip of the sword to Rui Yifu's open wound.

"I think... you believe you can get what you want, and that you'll escape as you always do," Rui Yifu said, "but also I believe you're an idiot. This is not an immortal you're dealing with. This is a god."

"You think I don't know that?" Wang Huaqing looked somewhat hurt, "did you think my mind has suffered with my age as yours has?"

Rui Yifu managed a short laugh, "I do think you know that. I just think you're arrogant. This god has managed to disguise itself as a high ranking water goddess for hundreds of years right under the Jade Prince's nose, has caused massive flooding to unveil the tombs just to lure warm bodies in, and managed to trick another god so it could steal his body. Wang Huaqing, if you think this god is going to give you immortality, why not ask Gongqi's bones if he got his family back?"

Wang Huaqing did not even scowl, instead shoving the sword back through the wound.

The fire of pain burst in Rui Yifu, but he grabbed Wang Huaqing's hand and pushed back on the edge, dragging them both in the cool familiar grip of the water. Rui Yifu twisted in the river as the slow current began to drag him and grappled with the flailing form of Wang Huaqing, bubbles swarming around them. The sides of his neck rippled and tore as the rarely used gills tried to open. He gasped, swallowing down water as he kicked in the water. Wang Huaqing's face stared out at him and Rui Yifu pressed the blade of No-Face's sword against the edge of Wang Huaqing's neck. Red burst from the opened flesh and the man kicked against Rui Yifu's chest, forcing him to let go. He swam upwards in the water and Rui followed him, his eyesight growing dim enough to be black and his limbs barely pushing through the water. But he could still smell Wang Huaqing's blood.

He pulled himself out of the water with a mighty heave, dragging himself after Wang Huaqing's barely visible form. The other man was bleeding horribly, gasping raggedly and letting out a yelp as Rui Yifu latched onto his ankle.

"Where are you going, my love?" Rui Yifu asked, climbing up Wang Huaqing's body. His hair was unbound and plastered over his body, and he barely minded that some of it was caught in his mouth and in his teeth. Every last bit of his mind and strength was focused on the man beneath him. Warm human blood was pooling on the floor and the smell of ash was getting thicker in the air. He could barely see Wang Huaqing, just the dim outline of his face. "It's been so long. Let me... kiss you..."

Flesh parted easily beneath his teeth, filling his mouth with meat and blood. Suddenly ravenous, he tore into the softer chunks of flesh, ignoring the weakening hands that pushed at him madly. They tugged, pushed, and slapped yet gradually faded away from Rui Yifu's attention. He devoured the pliable flesh and organs he could get to, splattering his body with more blood as he ate.

At some point the blood had grown cold.

He sat with his back against another bookshelf, his chest still hurt but the blood on him was no longer just his own.

Come back... the river seemed to call, come back, child of the ancient ocean...

Yet he could not even find the strength to pull himself towards the water.

A pale figure was walking down the halls of bookshelves towards him and the mutilated body that rested an arms length away. Wang Huaqing's jawless head was stuck on No-Face's sword, the eyes still holding a mixture of pain and fear. There was nothing left inside of him. The source of his agonies and much of his guilt was dead, his promise was complete. He did not know where Bo, Li Chunning, Zhu'er, or Ji Ying were and that was his only regret. It was unlikely that anyone would ever come and find the pearl that held his soul. He wondered how many millennia it would take to truly fade away.

"Ah, how unfortunate," Liu Xie's voice came.

But it was not Liu Xie, Rui Yifu already knew this. It was Baichan, who was standing where Wang Huaqing's sword-impaled head was. Baichan pulled the head free and dropped the sword, then he moved over to to bloodied remains. He turned his head to give Rui Yifu a smile, "so we meet at last!"

Rui Yifu did not reply.

Baichan held up his hand, and a bloom suddenly sprouted. It was a beautiful white flower with fat dewy petals. The roots lifted themselves from his palm and the flower crawled down his arm and onto the corpse, its roots digging into the flesh like a sewing needle and thread, dragging the head and the neck back together.

Rui Yifu fumbled around, finding his two coral monk focuses. He could now feel the heavy sense of dread from having Baichan so close.

"I know it's because of you that my daughter isn't here," he said, still smiling as he leaned towards Rui Yifu. "You and that dog. I don't understand, I just want my family." His face was beautiful, Rui Yifu felt uncomfortably enraptured by it. He wanted to trust it, even though the void-like eyes held nothing but glittering contempt inside of them. "I know... all about your agony. Wang Huaqing spoke often about it. You are a shark filled with despair, and you hide it under a demeanor of arrogant self-assurance and vanity."

"...He spoke so highly of me," Rui Yifu managed to whisper. "I'm honored."

Baichan was still smiling, but it looked strange on his face, "would you like to be free of your burdens? I want to help people, even you."

Rui Yifu glanced at the fake river, his focuses, and then at Baichan who was almost nose-to-nose with him. Then he looked down at Wang Huaqing, "I have something to say."

"Oh?"

"I'm very sad I won't be around to tell Huaqing I was right," Rui Yifu sputtered out. "Who are you though, really? Who was Liu Xie? I'm a scholar at heart, perhaps you can answer that?"

Baichan's smile turned into a full rictus grin, "I am the God of Annihilation, of course. The people cried out for Judgement, and now that it has passed only the verdict remains. Liu Xie was a sustaining dream. A small piece of me meant to rule the flame in my absence. I was buried in ash and yet they still needed me. My dream is over, and I am awake. But I'm not here for that, I'm here to ask you if you would be so kind as to help bring back my daughter. The wedding can't start until she's here. Once the heavens open their gates, I'll-" Baichan suddenly stopped and blinked languidly a few times, staring outwards as black fluid seeped from his left eye and his nose. "A...ah....?" He placed pale slender fingers on the fluid and drew it away. "...What... ah..." he blinked again and Rui Yifu could only watch in fascinated horror as more black fluid oozed out from Baichan's eye and nose. Then Baichan abruptly grabbed his face, "ah, ah! It hurts! Eona! IT HURTS!" He yelled. Huaqing's partially devoured corpse violently convulsed, his flesh unnaturally wriggling as though hundreds of worms crawled under his flesh.

Rui Yifu watched Baichan stumble backwards clutching his face for only a moment longer before he found the energy to bolt for the water, tossing the coral monks at it. They hit the water with a wet slap and a whirlpool formed. He had no idea where it would go, but as Baichan's enraged shrieks increased he did not care so long as he got away.