The inside of the tent was herbal and rather cramped with all of them inside. The small dim hearth in the middle made his flaking flesh ache more so he avoided it, sitting a little farther from the others so that his back was against a beaten chest made of elm. He folded his hands together as the old mutilated woman shuffled to sit a little closer to him, while Liu Xie, an exhausted Li Baobao, and a drowsy looking Bo sat around the tiny hearth. Rui Yifu focused on the woman's face, even though its awful state disgusted him. But it was not her fault he felt. The percise marks around the edges of her face and at the juncture where her chin met her neck were familiar to him. He had done it dozens of times before. He had been taught, and then, he had taught someone to do it as well...

"So what is your story, Auntie?" Bo asked.

Rui Yifu noticed Li Baobao awkwardly glancing away.

"Well I already told it to that nice young man," she pointed at Li who guiltily looked back at her. "This was many decades ago. But to put it simply, I met him on the road. I was a young cultivator at the time, without family or sect. He told me he was a scholar and that we could go together to a Free City. So I joined him. We studied together and I read fortunes on the side. I became quite well known for it."

"Were you hurt at the time you met him?" Rui Yifu asked.

"Hm... not gravely. I had been accosted by bandits however. He was quite charming in how he appeared."

A bitter smile stretched his face. His face. How strange to think of it now. He had spent so much time avoiding it and yet he could still think of it as his own. "That sounds like Wang Huaqing."

"How did you two meet?" She inquired, turning her cloudy unblinking eyes on him.

"I cut open my neck and jumped down a waterfall, I hit the rocks but I didn't die. He pulled me out and took care of me," Rui Yifu answered. He could feel the eyes of the other men boring into him as he stared down at the ground. "He acted very warm and kind, understanding even. It was all a lie, of course."

"Hey, how long ago was this?" Liu Xie asked. "It seems you met Wang Huaqing first."

"Almost two hundred years ago," he replied. "When he had no more use for me, he tried to kill me and fled." He did not include everything else. Not the screams of the boy, or the town that burned. "Whatever happened to you though was likely worse, I doubt you were faceless when he met you."

The old woman's head tipped to the side, "well you certainly do get to the heart of things. He cut off my face and gave it to-"

"It's impossible though," Li Baobao suddenly blurted out. "The Lady of Calm Waters? Why would she need to steal someone's face? I-...I'm very sorry, but there's something strange about your entire story. Why would a goddess steal a mortal's face?"

Liu Xie's expression had changed though, Rui Yifu had never seen the man's eyes so wide with shock. He had barely seemed to register that Rui Yifu was not human but the mention of a goddess drained what little blood was in his face. Rui Yifu found this both strange and relieving. Then he looked back at the faceless woman. "Is that what happened?"

"Yes," she sighed heavily. "I've told the story so many times. This goddess took my face and took my life. I may have died if I had been an untrained person, but I dared not try to assert myself anywhere else."

"...Wang Huaqing was helping that man who was making flesh soldiers... what was his name?"

"Lu Gongqi," Liu Xie muttered. "Under the advice of a fortune teller."

Rui Yifu closed his eyes and tried to turn over the information in his mind. Wang Huaqing had used what he had learned from him to remove a woman's face and give it to another person that he appeared to be working with. Then they eventually went to another Free City and convinced a broken man to help them make flesh soldiers. "...But what would they get from all this?" He could think of no benefits, most certainly not for Wang Huaqing.

"Who is the Lady of Calm Waters anyway? Some sort of goddess right?" Bo asked. "Could we just go to a river and pray to her and ask her?"

"That's not how it works, stupid," Rui Yifu snorted. He winced, his nose was still in pain.

"The Lady of Calm Waters is like many other deities under the Jade Prince. A beautiful woman who threw herself into water to avoid something, and the Jade Prince was just so smitten by her beauty he made her a goddess," Liu Xie explained with the tone of an annoyed disapproving neighbor gossiping. "In specific her story usually goes that she was supposed to be married to a brutal warlord when she had fallen in love with another gentler man. In her despair she fled on her wedding night, but since it was so dark she only had the moon's light to guide her. It led her to a lake, where she drowned herself. The Jade Prince happened to be going by and thought she was too pretty and ascended her."

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"Maybe a demon got into her corpse," the faceless woman suggested bitterly. "Or maybe she was never that kind. As far as I know, the Jade Prince was never known to take personality into account."

"The Heavens would be saved so much hassle if he did," Liu Xie groaned. He put his head in his hands for a moment, muttering incomprehensible gibberish.

Rui Yifu looked at Bo and Li Baobao, who both looked quite worn out, then he looked to his own hands. Thin rivulets of blood were trickling out from the drying flesh, which cracked as he moved his fingers and looked more like broken pottery than skin. "...I think we should rest here, if that's okay with you." He looked pointedly at the woman instead of Liu Xie.

"You are welcome to spend the night, of course."

"Thank you Auntie!!" Bo immediately laid down on the ground without any further word or movement and within a few seconds was sound asleep which was an enviable ability in Rui Yifu's opinion. Idiots really were blessed!

Li Baobao's shoulders sank a little and he scooted away from Bo's slumbering form to lean against another old worn chest. "A-ah, thank you. I can pay you-"

"You don't have to."

"Oh-"

"But I would very much appreciate it," the old woman added, already holding out her hand.

Rui Yifu slumped down a little as he watched with dimming eyes as Li Baobao placed a small stack of coins in the woman's hand. When he closed his eyes, he was dreaming.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The roar was like ever present thunder that rattled the wet stone he kneeled on. The fury of the great river threw spray and tiny pebbles against him as it leapt downwards into the sudden drop, disappearing into the mists and rocks below. The coldness was familiar and calming compared to the terror and guilt inside of him. His fingers were frozen around the hilt of the blade. Where could he go? They would find him, inevitably, if he stayed around. To be found was terrifying. To be left alone with his guilt was even more horrifying. To see their faces fading to nothingness...

No.

He could not take it anymore.

They would find him, but not for many years perhaps. Until then he would sink into a partial somnolence. The body would have long rotted, maybe something would have eaten the soul.

The sword was never meant to cut flesh. It was just something to show rank. Yet as he drew it across his neck he felt its cold metal part his throat like water against a rock. A horrible whistling noise came out as he instinctively tried to breathe, and the coldness he felt was replaced by a gushing waterfall of red as the wet sword slipped from his hands.

Return to the water.

Return to the ocean.

To the depths.

To where all begins and ends.

Come home, child.

The voice reverberated from inside of him, deep in his core where it expanded outwards into a terrifying force that drove his weakening limbs to pull himself towards the surging waters. He would return. All children of the ancient ocean inevitably returned home. The water enveloped him and he was lost to its roar.

Yet when he opened his eyes, he was not in the water but a room, and a kindly man with bright worried eyes looked down at him. "Wake up, please stay with me! I'm almost done, if you sleep, you'll die." He said in a warm encouraging voice.

"Wake up."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A new voice, and he opened his eyes again, back to reality. The old woman's mangled face was leering over him in the dark and she held something long and narrow in her hand. "Take it," she whispered.

"Take what?" He blinked groggily.

She pushed the scabbard into his scabbing hands, "this. It was my sword."

"Why?"

"I want you to kill Wang Huaqing with it," she answered simply. "I'm too old, too broken, too fragile to do that myself. But you, you are still strong enough."

He slowly curled his fingers around the sword. It felt cold. "I'm no swordsman, I've only ever really used one once." He used his other hand to trace the scarring on his neck.

"You only need to stab him once, if you do it right."

Rui Yifu forced himself to sit up and looked into the dark tent. Bo was still peacefully sleeping... on the dirt ground. Li Baobao had curled into a little ball next to the chest he had leaned against earlier. Liu Xie was sitting close to the entry flap of the tent, his chin to his chest and his hands folded into his sleeves but Rui doubted he was sleeping. Then his eyes drifted back to the weapon in his hand. Wang Huaqing was a monster, but so was Rui Yifu. He found something bitterly humorous about the request. "I'd be lying if I had not said I had thought about killing him. But I tried my best to avoid his attention, and sometimes I would lose track of him for years. A lot of pain could have been saved if I had just hunted him down, wouldn't it?" He said in a whisper-soft voice.

The old woman sighed, shaking her head. "There is no going back in time, unfortunately. Or I would have just denied his help with those bandits."

He closed his eyes again for a moment to think. The little faces lost, the destruction Wang Huaqing freely caused. Rui Yifu was responsible for at least some of it, was he not? He was responsible for the mutilation of the woman in front of him. He had been endlessly running, posing as different people, becoming a parasite of wealth as Wang Huaqing became one of knowledge. He looked back at the old woman and gave her a smile, "I'm not a swordsman but I'll stick his head on this."