The black water sloshed over the white stone which stood as solid as any land as they hurriedly half-dragged-half-ran down the straight path into the darkness. Were they in a cavern? Bo could not tell, everything more than a few dozen feet around them vanished into the darkness, with the corroded towers and buildings only barely seen.

Some of the towers were especially close to them, and Bo could crane his neck all the way back and still not see where they ended. But as he looked at the stone, he began to see the impression of faces in them. He could see young and old faces, men and women, some worn down by endless time to simply be nubs and slight indentations.

But somehow he felt they could still see him.

He glanced over his shoulder. The beach of rocks they had been on was no longer in sight, and he could only barely see the worm-like roots growing slowly over the black water and on top of the stone path.

The fact it was some distance away did not make Bo feel much better, and he squeezed the head in his arm tightly.

"Rui, you think we're gonna go further down?" Bo asked.

"I don't know," Rui Yifu replied quietly. Sometimes he would pause in his walk to sniff the air, Bo wanted to tell him that it made him resemble a dog slightly but could not spare the energy to even make that snipe at him. It felt pointless to do so anyway. He wondered what it was that Rui Yifu was sniffing for, and even tried to sniff the air himself but all he got was the scent of flowers and rotting salt of stagnant water.

The head in his arm felt like it was gradually growing to be a part of him. Sometimes he forgot it was there as they walked, only to glance down and feel the unpleasant thrill of shock at the curling red hair that clung to his arms, trailing down like strange plant life. Yet he could not bring himself to leg go or even adjust his arm so it did not bruise his ribs with how tightly he held it. What if it slipped? What if it fell into the water around them and he never saw her again?

He was tired of losing people.

They had come to a stop and he had barely even noticed, lost as he was in his thoughts. He felt trembling, but not from himself. It was from Rui Yifu, who was staring directly ahead with his thin lips held in a tight line as he shook like a leaf.

Before them was the frame of a gate. It was not a particularly large one, instead it looked like something that may have been in front of a rich man's house, and yet it had clearly been warped in some terrible fire long ago. It leaned drunkenly on its side, as though at any moment it may collapse and looked almost that it had been partially constructed from some large bird's bones. The more he looked at it the more he felt that it was deeply wrong. All of his attention was being pulled into it with the growing strength of a whirlpool. The stone pathway ended going into it, vanishing into an even deeper black that made Bo's eye burn and twitch involuntarily in their sockets. He recoiled slightly but his movement was limited by Rui Yifu holding him in a death-grip. His foot wearily shifted forward, unconscious, he had to get to it. There was the end, right beyond that gate. But he could not move with Rui Yifu holding him so tightly. He did not understand why Rui Yifu stood as still as stone.

Then he realized why.

He had been so distracted by the gate he had not noticed the pleasant faced man standing right in front of it. His clothes looked ragged and blood splattered but the rest of him looked fine, freshly cleaned even.

"What a surprise to see you here," the man said kindly.

"I can't say I am particularly pleased to see you myself," Rui Yifu replied coolly, "but I am not surprised to find you here."

"What?" Bo looked at Rui Yifu, who was still staring straight at Wang Huaqing. Rui Yifu slowly moved Bo's arm off his shoulder, even as he still gripped his arm. "Hey-"

"Not surprised? Really?" Wang Huaqing tipped his head to the side with the same self-effacing smile he always had. It was really beginning to get on Bo's nerves too.

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Rui Yifu gave the other man a nasty smile of his own, "do you remember what happened in the library? How do you think you got here?"

"Here?" Wang Huaqing blinked and looked around in mild bemusement. "Why, I walked here."

"From where?"

"From..." Wang Huaqing paused, he was still smiling but his eyes were locked on Rui Yifu.

Rui Yifu released Bo's arm, opening his hands so his palms were facing Wang Huaqing. "You told me that you did not take Baichan's offer, the one you allied yourself with so closely as to willingly help overthrow the order of heaven itself." As Rui Yifu spoke, Bo struggled to find his own footing for a moment before an unpleasant stiff energy filled his sore limbs.

Wang Huaqing simply stared at Rui Yifu.

"You did not consider that I would be willing to die to kill you... or that Baichan could just stitch you back up once you've died," Rui Yifu shook his head as he spoke, "you don't remember anything do you? Can you even say if you're really still Wang Huaqing?"

The man's smile slowly slipped a little, not into a full frown but into something more akin to finding out an unpleasant fact but being too polite to visible react to it. "The library... yes, I remember your teeth, but I-"

"You don't remember dying, do you?" Rui Yifu asked. "You got your immortality, Wang Huaqing. So long as you remain useful to Baichan, of course."

"I... I..." Wang Huaqing's facial expression had not moved, but his voice sounded confused. Blackish saliva began to ooze over his lips.

"What's going on?" Bo asked trying to keep himself upright.

"He's realizing he's a puppet," Rui Yifu replied, "or that's what I'm assuming."

There was a soft snapping sound, the left side of Wang Huaqing's head began to bulge unnaturally. The flesh stretched, black hair falling down as if it were being popped out of every root. The skin was turning translucent as white little tendrils clearly writhed in it. Wang Huaqing moaned in agony, his tongue being bizarrely pushed from his mouth as his left eyeball popped out from the socket and hung loosely.

The ribs loudly popped, tearing through thinning flesh and tattered fabric before falling down, hitting the stone path with a wet clatter.

"Bo, you're going to need to go ahead," Rui Yifu said quietly.

Bo looked away from the messily degrading form of Wang Huaqing to find Rui Yifu staring at him with eyes full of... something. Bo had never seen the expression on the man's face before, and could not put any name to what it was, but he did know that it made his chest feel like it was being squeezed by a gigantic hand.

Wang Huaqing suddenly collapsed into the water, where he did not make so much of a splash, it was more that he had simply fallen through with the water barely rippling at his entry.

Bo's eye fell back to the water where millions of dim faded eyes looked back up at him, barely discernable in the inky darkness.

"It's time to go."

"Rui-" Bo moved to grab Rui Yifu's hand, but he had easily pushed through Bo's grasp and pressed his hand against his chest. Like with the Jade Prince, he felt a sudden pain against his ribs as the air rushed past him. Rui Yifu was shrinking rapidly, and Bo only just found his voice long enough to scream before he was flung through the gate.

The endless darkness was replaced with dimly illuminated burnt roots that clustered all around him, where pulsating embers of impossible black, dull amber, liquid jade, and violent white gave everything a nauseous glow. He fell down, down, and down until his back struck a soft surface, throwing up tons of ash around him that he coughed and sputtered out as he rolled onto his side and checked to make sure the head was still in his grip. The sword had skidded down the hill of ash a few feet from his hand. He quickly grabbed it up with his free hand and sat up slowly. The roots above had extended outwards to make a chamber, with one root awkwardly descending downwards into a massive dragon's skull that had partially caved in, its mouth left ajar with the jaw slightly distended. The teeth, Bo realized as he crawled up closer to it on weary knees, were as long as he was tall. The skull itself sat in an equally massive shallow pool of dark liquid that seemed different from the 'water' in the prior area.

Inside the jaw was the mummified corpse of a woman, laying back with half her body bisected, leaking the sluggish dark liquid that had pooled around the skull.

Laying in front of the woman, partially propped up by the teeth of the dragon, was a slab of cold grey stone stained by something dark long ago.

Bidden by something nestled in his bones, he placed the sword on the stone and then began to uncurl his arm from around Zhu'er's head. It ached, his elbow seemed to creak like a rusted hinge and he felt sparks of pain rush up his arm but he managed to place the head on the slab and then felt a rush of exhaustion overtake him. He slumped down against the jawbone of the dragon, staring at the head.

When had it greyed and rotted?

He could not remember.

He was so tired, and now he felt truly alone.

Bo looked upwards, hoping for Rui Yifu to come tumbling down as well but all he saw was the shifting of numerous colors above.

He turned his head back to the sword and head watching small pale embers form in the shriveled skull, slowly spreading and charring the flesh. He reached out to it but his hand fell short...

Bo was so tired he could not move any more.

The only thing he could do was the same thing he did as a child, lay quietly and cry.