There was a young lady sitting with her back to him in a sparsely furnished room before a loom. An open window allowed a soft spring breeze to bring in crisp cool air that played with the long red hair. Callused fingers expertly pulled wool thread, through warp and weft with practiced quick movements.

Liu Xie watched with rapt attention, the fluttering of the hands, the straight back, the shifting of her shoulder blades beneath the wool dress.

If he reached out, he imagined he could feel the soft tresses of hair once again. She could turn around and smile at him.

But he was not there, she was not here.

His eyes opened to the sunny sky above.

The feeling of the sun was invigorating and at the same time a swaddling sleepy thing. He went between wanting to get up and run a marathon as his sap warmed and drift into an actual decent nap to see her again.

In truth, he did not even really need to sleep normally, but his current body had been carved with limits, and needing to sleep a little occasionally was one of them. But there would be time to do so later. Besides, he reminded himself, if he slept for too long Idony would inevitably get into some sort of trouble. The trip to the village was going to be a short one regardless, not enough time at all to get a good nap in, especially with Bo constantly bothering him about various things he saw.

So he sat up and pulled his clothes back onto his bare chest, ignoring Bo’s lingering eyes as he got back to feet to walk over to where Idony and her emergency food supply sat. She looked up at him for a moment, then turned her head away.

She seemed a bit more tired and pale than he was used to. Or perhaps she had always looked like that, and only now was he noticing.

“Go back to Bo,” she said, cradling her pig as she turned all the way around so her back faced him.

“Are you angry at me?”

“No,” she lied. He could hear her click her teeth together and grind them.

“I can’t apologize or change something if you don’t tell me why you’re angry, Idony,” he said in what he hoped was a gentle tone, placing a hand on her shoulder. She moved away from him. He began to feel frustrated with her again.

“I’m not angry, go away.”

Liu Xie withdrew his hand and set it on his lap. He could hear soft oinking and tiny mutterings of the word ‘leave’. Liu Xie stared at her and wondered how she could look so much like Eona and yet be absolutely nothing like her. He broke his gaze at her to instead look at Bo who had walked up behind them, nervously rubbing his bitten hand still.

Bo looked at the two and gave a simple curious shrug before pointing over the bow of the boat.

There was a subtle shift upon the boat as the shadows of buildings came to loom over it. He peered away from him for a moment to see the boat had already reached their destination. The place he last remembered as a respectable village seemed to have grown into a small town with actual docks instead of the muddy embankment he was expecting. Mortals moved so fast sometimes!

He stood up and without a word lifted Idony and her pig over his shoulder.

“Put me down!” She yelled immediately, weakly bouncing a fist on his shoulder. “You can go pick up Bo!”

“It would look silly if I picked up a grown man who is capable of walking on his own without wandering off,” Liu Xie answered as he beckoned Bo to follow him while he walked. His little group, and a few of the people on the boat who were neither the tomb seekers, porters, or fishermen, stepped onto the simple yet large wooden dock that led into a cheery little town where it seemed more lumber was being carted around than people walking.

All around them were people talking. Some spoke of the flood, others of the tombs, but most of it were bitter complaints.

“No no, we’re only taking travelers today Chen! Wait until the next boat to take those logs down river, alright?”

“Damn adventurers, damn foreigners, damn tombs.”

“We don’t have any more cedarwood coming down for at least another three days.”

“What? Do you know how much we depend on these deliveries arriving on time?”

“It seems that the tombs being uncovered hasn’t been a boon to everyone,” Liu Xie observed in vague amusement as they went down the road of the town. Idony had given up her angry protests and was currently doing her impression of a dead pig slung over Liu Xie’s shoulder while Baozi hung from her hands. Liu Xie remembered when it was just a tiny dirt path and now all the old huts had been torn down and well made large businesses and homes sat. Luckily the way out and onto the pathway they needed to go was still a simple straight walk from the river to the gate.

“Didn’t you say this place was a village?” Bo asked curiously as he twisted his head this way and that way to gaze at the buildings. “So much wood…”

Liu Xie tapped his chin and pretended to be sidetracked with checking his sash, “Hm, yes, maybe. Have you never seen wood before?”

“What?” Bo sounded incensed, “of course I’ve seen wood before! I’m not an idiot. I’m just amazed at how much there is. We used… stones mostly in my village…” his eyes turned distant. “I mean, we had a lot of trees too, but my mother said that we wanted to avoid cutting down too many trees so bandits wouldn’t see the village.”

“This place has a massive forest surrounding it-” Liu Xie paused to amend himself, “used to have a massive forest.”

“You sure know a lot, Boss,” Bo spoke as his eyes briefly latched on to two pretty girls standing beneath the eaves of one shop selling ceramics.

“I only know what’s relevant to me,” Liu Xie admitted although he suspected his phrase was vague enough that Bo wouldn’t know what question to ask.

“Uuugggghhhhhhhhhhhhhh,” Idony groaned loudly, reminding Liu Xie she was still conscious.

They approached the gates of the town, swung wide open to reveal a thick muddy path surrounded by tall blue-green trees with thick brown trunks that were wider around than an ox. On both sides stood guards in decent leather armor painted in similar colors to the trees behind them. One turned his head to look at them in mild confusion. Liu Xie tipped his head and offered the man a friendly smile, and the guard spoke softly, “sir please be careful and make sure to follow the path. We’ve had reports of masked bandits wandering around and kidnapping people from the road.”

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“Bandits?” Bo repeated, “eh? Are you leaving them alone in there?”

“No, we regularly patrol the road in and out and protect the laborers who cut down trees and bring them back to town. So we have little manpower left to spread out to anyone else,” the guard elaborated with a frown at Bo.

“Thank you for the warning, we’ll be sure to stick to the pathway,” Liu Xie bowed lightly, then nudged Bo’s foot to remind him of his manners.

“No need to thank us sir, we’re simply doing our duty,” the guard replied with an appreciative smile.

Liu Xie, with Idony slung over his shoulder with her piglet, and Bo at his back, stepped past the gates of the town and onto the long pathway through the forest. As they walked the chatter of the town died away to be replaced with the gentle sound of the wind rustling the leaves with an occasional distant ‘thwack’ of an ax biting at a tree. Liu Xie found himself wincing slightly in sympathy pain.

“So many trees,” Bo marveled quietly. “They’re kind of… creepy. How they’re all dark and sort of leaning over us.”

Liu Xie looked up at the canopy of leaves above which turned the sunlight into a smattering of shards that speckled the ground. “If you find these trees creepy I wonder how you’d feel in a forest of willow trees?” He asked.

“I don’t know… willow trees are supposed to be good luck right?” Bo asked as he looked around them with some brewing anxiety. “But here it feels like a demon could pop out at any time. Or a bandit.”

Baozi let out a tiny oink, and Bo screamed and fell over, his sickle falling from his belt as he scrambled up onto his feet. Liu Xie laughed and heard a weak giggle from Idony. Bo got to his feet red in the face and shaking in some leftover fear and shame.

“HELP!?”

Bo jumped again but managed to stay on his feet while Liu Xie turned his head to the source of the noise… above. He could see a shape clinging to a branch far above in a tree.

“HELP! IS SOMEONE THERE?”

A shoe fell to the ground.

“OH NO!!!!”

Liu Xie set Idony down on the ground, patting her head gently as she wobbled and tried to adjust to standing again while also knocking his hand away with her free arm. Then he looked up at the shape in the branches.

“...Do you need help!?” Bo called up before Liu Xie could speak.

“YES!! Please! I got stuck up here when masked bandits came and my bodyguard disappeared!” The voice was young, shaking and sad. “Please help me! My father can pay you very well!”

“...ARE YOU RICH!?” Bo’s eyes lit up in eagerness. “Very rich!? Like ‘I can own three manors and fifty cows’ rich?” He turned to look at Liu Xie, “we should help him! Think about it, if he really is rich his dad would be indebted to us for not letting his son starve in a tree.”

“What makes you think I have a problem with money?” Liu Xie asked, folding his hands into his sleeves.

“Hey! Hey! We can help you, but only if you swear on the Celestial Mother HERSELF that we’ll get paid!” Bo yelled.

Liu Xie gritted his teeth, “why are we involving the Celestial Mother in this?”

“I swear on my ancestors and the Celestial Mother herself! I do! Just please get me down before the bandits come back! I’m scared of heights!”

“I didn’t agree to this,” Liu Xie looked at Bo who gave him a meek smile, “next time you will ask.” He walked up to the tree the man was stuck in and placed his hand upon its trunk. “Did you try looking for any branches to step on to help you get down?”

“Yes and there’s nothing!” The young man above sobbed.

Liu Xie took in a deep breath and blew against the tree softly, entwining subtle magics into it that raced through the tree, rapidly stimulating the creation of a new branch beneath the man with a loud creak as the bark was pushed apart by the new growth. “Are you sure about that?”

“What? Yes I just…” the man’s voice faltered, “o-oh, there’s one here! I didn’t… I didn’t see it. But it’s still a long way down.”

“I’ll catch you,” Bo offered.

“Well… I’ll… give it a go, I guess…” The sound of weight shifting on branches and leaves shaking floated down to them, a shoeless foot stepping nervously upon the newly made branch. Another foot settled upon the branch.

“Oh Master Li! You’re okay!” A new voice called out, causing the man in the tree to shriek in terror and fall backwards, landing on top of Bo whose own scream was cut short. “...Oops…”

Liu Xie looked at the newest arrival who peered out nervously around a tree. He was slim looking man wrapped in women’s traveling clothes, including a floral patterned pink scarf wound around his throat, but Liu Xie’s eyes instantly fell to his belt where numerous little stone and metal talismans hung, paper talismans stuffed under the belt. He felt the man’s gaze on him too. Probing, looking for something. He then gazed at the one who had fallen atop poor Bo. A somewhat plump looking young man in fine clothes with apple shaped cheeks covered in tears, his hair so tightly bound it was a wonder it had not pulled the roots from the skull. His bleating crying reminded Liu Xie of a sheep.

“I was….. I was looking for help,” the newcomer announced as he looked at Liu Xie and Bo. “See I knew I could get him down from there, but I wanted to be absolutely sure he would be safe once I did so.”

“How would a skinny bastard like you keep anyone safe?” Bo coughed as he got to his knees, rubbing his chest where the other man had landed. “Who are you anyway?”

“Ah, I am the scholar Rui Yifu, I have traveled-”

“Never heard of you,” Liu Xie cut him off with a dismissive and quick wave of his hand while turning to look at the lightly sobbing man who had fallen from the tree. “Forgive my manners but, who are you?”

“My… my name… uh… well…” He seemed a bit shaken still.

“That is Li Baobao,” Rui Yifu helpfully replied.

“...Baobao…” Bo chuckled.

"It's-It's actually Li Chu-"

“He’s from a very respected family, you know! His father is not only foremost in the fruit, metal, and textile trade but is also a well respected scholar!” Rui Yifu snapped, sizing up Bo before continuing on, “I doubt a mongrel like you would understand that however.”

Bo’s face turned red again, this time in rage, “a mongrel who at least knows what a day’s work is like!”

“I suppose shoveling shit is a job,” Rui Yifu agreed.

“Pl-please, stop fighting,” Li Baobao looked like he was about to break into tears again and Liu Xie could only groan in frustration. “Please, please don’t fight. Rui Yifu I said I would reward these men for helping me so-”

“Yeah, us, not his ‘bodyguard’. What were you doing standing behind a tree? Waiting for him to fall and die?” Bo asked accusingly.

“No I said I was looking for help-”

Liu Xie placed his head in his hands as he tried to stifle an urge to scream, “and I suppose the loyal bodyguard wishes to accompany us to his father’s home?”

“Of course, I have to make sure you two aren’t ruffians pretending to be valiant heroes so they can take advantage of poor Master Li!” He replied.

Liu Xie threw up his hands in exasperation, realizing he was doomed to babysit a bunch of children in the bodies of adults. “Fine, fine, you can come as well,” he tried to muffle his own impatient words with thoughts of seeing Eona again, but somehow all he felt was irritation that he was now required to make a side trip. “Idony, lets go,” he turned his head to the spot he had placed her to find only the rocks she had stood near. He felt an instant stab of ice in his chest, sap curdling in his flesh. “...Idony?” He spun on his heel to see if she had simply moved to stand behind him to find yet more forest.

“The little foreigner child?” Rui Yifu asked. “Uh, I just saw her there.”

“She went that way,” Li Baobao pointed into a particularly dark patch of forest before his own face went pale. “...She could get attacked by the bandits!”

“Maybe she’ll bite them,” Bo grumbled. “She couldn’t have gotten far though…”

“I don’t think biting a bandit will save her,” Rui Yifu muttered, “what happened to your hand?”

“She happened to my hand!”

Liu Xie tried to calm himself, it had only been a few moments surely. Idony was too tired and hungry to move much given how quickly she had settled down when he carried her. Maybe the pig had escaped and she went to follow it? Surely bandits would not be interested in a single child wandering on her own.

Bandits.

He remembered the body in the river.

“Li? Did the bandits make any demands? Were they asking for flesh or treasure?” Liu Xie asked.

Li Baobao wiped some snot on his sleeve as he slowly got to his feet. “Th-they didn’t say anything.”

“You said they were… masked… yes?” Liu Xie looked over at Rui Yifu. “Did you see them?”

“Of course I did, I didn’t get a good look at them though or bother asking them their demands because I was busy ru-...searching for hel...p…” his voice trailed off as he met Liu Xie’s eyes.

Bo looked at the two men in confusion, “what’s wrong?”

A small pitched shriek pierced the air like an arrow, and without a word Liu Xie rushed into the darkness of the trees.