Bo had his arms crossed over his chest as though he could squeeze the knot of feelings inside of it into submission. Ji Ying's glare felt like hot knives in his back but he tried to keep his face confident and unbothered. The chill of growing night was nipping at his nose, but the fire they had made from scrounged up pieces of wood and sticks was keeping at least his thighs and legs warm as he stood.

Liu Xie had come out from the dilapidated little shack and looked from Bo, to Ji Ying, then at Rui Yifu and Li Baobao who sat by the fire. "Are Bo and Ji Ying fighting again?" He asked.

"Hey, no, I called you out! Why are you asking them?"

"Yes," Li Baobao answered.

Rui Yifu also chimed in. "Let the children argue, Liu. They'll tire themselves out and the rest of us can enjoy a peaceful night."

"No, no, Boss! Listen," Bo half-pleaded half-sputtered. "I was just thinking, since we got Zhu'er back, can't we tell Ji Ying to go back to Lady Gu? I mean, that's why she was sent here right so we don't need her around anymore-"

"No, I have to stay! I'm supposed to help watch her too!" Ji Ying angrily insisted.

Bo rolled his eyes, this girl had so many excuses for her own presence! He was beginning to think Lady Gu never sent her at all. Maybe she was kicked out instead. "Why are you here to watch her too? We don't need your help! We can watch her perfectly fine!" As soon as the words left his mouth he realized how stupid they were yet he refused to swallow them either. Instead he turned back to others, "besides that's not the point. I was thinking about Baichan-"

"Who?" Liu Xie asked.

"Uh, the uh... the... thing in the river," Bo felt a cold knot form up in his stomach as he remembered the slipping flesh and swirls of red in the water. "That thing. Yes," the more he spoke the more he wanted to change the subject once more. "He was talking to someone, Wang Huaqing," he did not glance back at Rui Yifu but could feel his gaze penetrating his spine, "-and they were talking about someone else too, I think it was..." he was speaking as he thought. But it made sense to him. She was so close to the river anyway, and they had mentioned her by her other name. He had barely even noticed at the time, but the more his brain sat on those memories the more he felt his throat dry, "I think they were talking about Zhu'er, right Li?"

"...I think," Li Baobao was quiet for a moment before his eyebrows raised with shock, "you're right. They had talked about her, Baichan was... was using her foreign name, I'm so used to calling her something more proper I barely noticed it."

"You kept this from us until now?" Rui Yifu sounded mildly incensed and extremely concerned, getting up from his spot to stand in front of Bo.

Bo held up his hands in appeasement, back when Rui Yifu was wearing a woman's face he was not so scary. But now his actual face with its sharp teeth and frightening eyes had managed to intimidate him... just a little bit, he told himself. "We were a bit involved with everything else going on, I'm sorry for not instantly informing you," he took another step back and hit something solid. Slowly he turned around to find Liu Xie staring down at him, his usually apathetic gaze replaced with one so intense that Bo's lungs refused to move. He felt a tightness forming in his chest from lack of air.

"Anything else?" Liu Xie asked.

Bo could not draw in the air to speak and instead simply nodded.

The gaze in Liu Xie's eyes faded and Bo took in a deep grateful breath before speaking, "Baichan had mentioned the Lady of Calm Waters scaring Zhu'er, but that, it really doesn't make sense boss I'll be honest. But he was talking about... speaking with Zhu'er too?"

Liu Xie furrowed his brow, then turned away to rub at his temples and groan quietly. "This is making me think, I don't like that," he admitted bitterly.

"And what, oh may I ask, are you thinking, Liu Xie?" Rui Yifu asked.

Liu crossed his arms, paced back and forth for a moment, placed his hands on his hips to tap his toe. Then he stopped and stood straight while looking at Bo and the others. "I think the Lady of Calm Waters was never what she appeared," he said. "Someone made an idiot out of the Jade Prince."

"I don't understand," Bo admitted.

Rui Yifu patted his head, "it's fine if a dog doesn't understand."

"I don't get it either," Li Baobao admitted from his spot, now joined by Ji Ying who warmed her hands by the pitiful fire.

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Rui Yifu shrugged, putting his hands in his sleeves. "The stories said that the Lady of Calm Waters ascended after throwing herself into a pond or lake to escape an unfortunate wedding. But who makes such stories or witnesses the events? Only the gods. If it happens differently, most gods are not about to change a story that sounds good. There's a hundred different tales as to how the Jade Prince learned to change his colors, or lost his horns. There's a thousand-thousand different stories on how he has helped ascend multiple deities into their positions, and yet he remains careless as to the tales themselves, and often so do they. If something was just wearing the skin of that woman the entire time... well, who would know?"

"Wouldn't a god be able to tell though?" Bo asked. "I mean, a human and a demon have different uh... spirits, right?"

"That's the smartest thing I've ever heard you say," Ji Ying snorted. "You'd be right, except there's nothing to say that another god can't do the same. Some gods are very good at pretending to be humans, so good they can even fake aging and dying." Then she looked at Liu Xie, "so what you and the vinegar fish over there think is that someone tricked one of the Four Divine Pillars and... what? What's the point of pretending to be a goddess for hundred of years? Who would do that?"

"That's the one thing I can't figure out," Liu Xie admitted with a disgruntled face.

"it wasn't just pretending to be a goddess, it was also stealing the face of a young woman and posing as a fortune teller to cause chaos and spread certain bits of knowledge that the gods long ago banned," Rui Yifu added.

"Well that could just be your fault," Ji Ying laughed, "fish people love knowledge. Maybe you guys-"

There was a crunching sound of a boot on a dried twig nearby. The group went silent to gaze in the direction of the noise. A dark figure walked through the shadowy forest, surrounded by the icy trees that seemed to absorb more of the coming night.

Then it stepped into the light, illuminating the tired form of Doctor Lin. He carried with him a lump of fabric and two small shoes. "I hope I am not disturbing anything," he said although Bo thought he did not sound particularly apologetic at all.

"Not at all, what brings you here? Shouldn't you be helping in town?" Rui Yifu asked.

Lin shook his head, moving straight over to Liu Xie even as he continued addressing the rest of the group. "There were no injuries. Some were in shock but that is nothing I can help with. One of the townspeople however had not been aware Zhu'er left, and when she found out she sought me to deliver something." He held up the fabric and shoes. "She said there had been an incident at a river prior to the village moving and that Zhu'er had saved her son."

"How?" Bo could not help but ask. He could not imagine the tiny child doing much. Did she crush a bug or something?

"His mother said the story her son said was nonsense, Zhu'er probably just kept him from drowning," Lin held out the objects expectantly and Liu Xie took them.

"Why couldn't she just bring it herself?" Ji Ying called out from her spot, "too lazy or busy rebuilding her house?"

Lin shook his head, "she did not want to see any of you. You ruined our homes, broke the peaceful lives that everyone had become accustomed too, and wounded the person many of the townspeople consider close to a protector deity. I even asked Hua if she would come and she said she would rather disperse herself than step close."

Bo's face felt hot. What was with all the anger? Liu Xie did not purposefully try to destroy the town and it was not their fault anyway! "This is because of you!" He pointed at Ji Ying. "If you had not been so twitchy and afraid, none of that would have happened."

"How was I supposed to divine the opinion of a dog that eats gods?" Ji Ying leapt to her feet and rushed over to Bo, stopping just in front of him to shove him back a foot. "You're such an idiot, what if I hadn't done anything? What then? Then he could have attacked us anyway-"

"He was not going to attack us for sure!" Bo shoved her back, she felt as solid as a rock. "You just wanted to cause shit!"

"Stop," Liu Xie's strong hand grabbed Bo's arm to pull him away from Ji Ying, "you two need to learn to either start approaching things as adults or shut up." He pointed towards the shack while shoving the new items Lin had brought into Bo's arms. "Go sit in there with Zhu'er." He instructed before pointing towards a large tree on the far side of the clearing. "Ji Ying, go sit facing that tree."

"What!?" Ji Ying stomped her foot. "I should be going in the shack! Bo can look at a tree. He's a dog anyway, dogs belong outside."

"Go. Both of you. Right now."

Bo stuck his tongue out at Ji Ying and felt a mighty spike of pain in the back of his head, nearly knocking him off his feet as he was pushed towards the shack.

"Stop antagonizing each other!" Liu Xie's demand was forceful and sounded a little like an exasperated parent long tired out.

Not wanting to risk another slap in the back of the head, Bo scrambled over into the shack. The shack was not much warmer than outside, and despite the many cobwebs there were few other occupants besides himself and Zhu'er, who slept while wrapped up in some of Liu Xie's clothes. Bo sat down beside her and grumbled a little in irritation at being treated like an ill-behaved child. It was all Ji Ying's fault anyway. After a moment of letting his angry feelings eat each other up he finally set down Zhu'er's new clothes on the cleanest bit of floor he could find near her, then placed her new shoes close to her feet. Despite all the yelling outside, she had not woken up.

Zhu'er was sleeping so quietly that Bo held a finger under her nostrils just to make sure she was still breathing. She barely moved which he thought was simply because of how tightly wrapped up she was in white fabric, and her hair was loose and left in a tangled mess that had some ash from earlier in it, like burnt embers in a fire. He reached out and carefully brushed away some of the ash. She felt a bit cold to the touch so with some hesitation and a great deal of careful maneuvering he pulled her into his lap and held her close. He had dim memories of his sisters doing the same when he felt cold too. Zhu'er continued to sleep, her slow shallow breaths barely felt.

For some reason, some part of Bo felt like he was holding a living corpse.