The mood at the table had noticeably collapsed into a pit of quiet unhappiness. Nobody wanted to talk anymore. There were the soft clinks of dishware being moved and yet there was little enjoyment left in any of the food. Bo still found it all delicious, he still continued eating but now there was no joy in any of it. Like eating delicious food after a funeral except without the corpse being given to the river. The braised pork still melted in his mouth and the wonton soup's broth still tasted like the most delicious thing ever, needless to say the perfectly made and soft wontons themselves were something he thought that on a normal day he could end up eating forever unless someone stopped him. He looked over to the empty space and set his spoon down as he tried to envision his friend sitting there again.

When did Li Baobao-... Li Chunning, start growing so distant? When did his anger begin? Bo went through the flashes of memory in his head. Li Chunning had been so angry he said he wished he never met any of them, and had called Rui Yifu and Liu Xie monsters. Normally Bo responded to rage or aggression with his own fury. He would gnash his teeth, raise his voice, even throw his fists if he was angry enough. But this time he instead just felt cold and sad. He had no energy to feel angry and why would he? Li Chunning had every right to feel upset. He had not asked for anything that had happened.

But the anger.

Where did it start? At what point had Li Chunning's rage begin to burn inside him? Bo looked down into his reflection in his bowl of broth. His face stared up at him glumly, the black messy hair touching his chin.

It had to have been in the burning of the Free City he thought. When everything that had seemed simple and understandable about their journey had abruptly unraveled. He had still been polite and talkative a bit afterwards, but soon afterwards he had started to withdraw. Shrinking slowly into himself. Bit by bit. The horrors they had been witness to were too much for him, Bo thought. He would not blame Li Chunning's desire to go home. Deep inside, some part of Bo also wished to 'go home', but Li Chunning was fortune enough to still have a home to go to. They were really from different worlds.

Bo was a farmer. Back in his village he spent his time planting crops, tilling the soil, taking care of the pigs and three ox the village shared amongst one another. He would feed the donkeys and the chickens with his sisters. In the mornings of spring and summer months he would try his hand at fishing. He never caught very much but his family never begrudged him for his efforts. During the night he would sleep in a pile with his sisters and mothers in their single roomed home. Having seen a Fish People city, he wondered why they chose to live like that. The hard endless scrabbling existence. Was it to avoid the despair that ate up the people of the city?

Li Chunning however was the son of a very well-to-do merchant family. He did things like advanced mathematics and counting coppers. He went to sleep in his own room, he had a bed, he had new well made clothes and a large family. Until they had come, this was all he had known. It would have been all he had known until Bo and the others had showed up on his path. Bo felt that even Rui Yifu's appearance in Li's life would have been rather temporary. Li Chunning still had a mother and a brother back home, waiting for him. Who could blame him for wanting to go home? Who could have the heart to do such?

Bo certainly could not. A tiny pale hand settled on his arm and he looked down at the splotchy face of Zhu'er. Her eyes were reddened with tears still and her face stained from crying so he reached out and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her onto his lap. Both of them had tried to stop, or at least soothe Li Chunning, but both had failed. He took a deep breath and tried to steady himself a little bit mentally.

"...Is Gege going to be okay?" She asked.

"I don't know," he admitted. Ji Ying rolled her eyes and continued eating some sort of roasted vegetable thing. Bo never cared much for vegetables so he did not know its name.

Liu Xie finally spoke, holding a jar of alcohol that his long fingers fiddled away the seal on. "He will be fine," he said. "Those horses are some of the fastest to exist, it would take another god or particularly powerful spirit of some sort to stop them."

"How do they know where to go?" Bo asked, they had traveled very far from the Southern Kingdom so he could not imagine that Li Chunning remembered every twist and turn in their long path.

"The horses aren't mortal creatures," Rui Yifu said, his strange teeth shearing easily through the uncooked squid he was eating. "Or at least, that's what I surmise. Is that right, Liu Xie?"

"Yes, that's right," Liu Xie said with a tired sigh. "They come from the stables of the heavens."

Zhu'er was quiet for a long time as she stared downwards at her little hands. Bo was suddenly struck by just how small she seemed. Tiny and frail. Maybe she had been like this the entire time, and only now had he bothered to notice what sat in his lap was not a wild animal, but a little girl. Then he remembered he was supposed to give something to her. He reached under the folds of his top and pulled out a wrapped up bundle of fabric, shaking it out so the little shoes inside fell out. "Here, this was for you from uh... Doctor Lin."

"What are you doing?" Ji Ying asked sharply, swiftly snatching the fabric from Bo's hand. "You can't just be giving a little girl the disgusting sweat drenched fabric here! Don't you know that men's sweat can cause illness in young girls?" She berated him. "You also shouldn't be talking to her so casually. This stuff also needs to be washed! Three times at least! Who knows how much your sweat might have contaminated it?" She dropped the fabric onto the ground beside her. It seemed like one of those servant women abruptly appeared, almost sprouting like a weed to grab the fabric with its matching little shoes and leave.

Bo was unsure if he was more offended on his behalf or Zhu'er's, and glancing over at Liu Xie and Rui Yifu he saw they looked between amused and annoyed by the entire incident. "What are you ever talking about? I'm not filthy or anything and I had nowhere else to put the clothes! What was I supposed to do? Just carry it in my hands? Wouldn't that also get them dirty?"

"Please stop fighting," Zhu'er muttered so meekly that Bo almost did not hear her.

"I think we're done eating," Liu Xie announced.

The women appeared, this time numbering twelve. They moved soundlessly with elegant gestures as they picked up plates, cups, jars, bowls, and then finally the table itself to carry it away into the halls behind them. It was as if the meal had never even happened. Liu Xie got to his feet and walked over to pick up Zhu'er, and then with one hand pulled Bo up to his feet like he was a scrawny kitten.

"None of those servant women are human, are they?" Rui Yifu asked as he slowly stood up as well.

"You're right," Liu Xie answered.

Ji Ying had somehow appeared right beside Bo, leaning close to him, "I bet you thought they were all sisters, didn't you?" She sneered.

"Shove off," Bo muttered in return. "Hey Boss? Where do all those ladies come from anyway?"

Liu Xie looked over at him, "from the heavens. My uncle makes them."

"They're kinda creepy looking," Bo said before his mind caught up to the words Liu Xie had just said. "He... makes them?"

Liu Xie nodded, beginning to walk back into the building.

"I wonder, are they made from jade, or gold?" Rui Yifu asked with genuine curiosity.

"Neither, they're made from amber and wood," Liu Xie replied somewhat briskly, walking faster through the halls that to Bo suddenly seemed to grow impossibly long and tall. He looked upwards and found the ceiling so far up he could only barely see it, and even stranger was he thought he saw shapes that looked startlingly close to roots. Ji Ying was following behind him a few feet, grumbling to herself about 'stupid halls'.

They turned a corner and went down another strange hall, and Bo slowed in his steps to look at the wall. Unlike the strange ink paintings earlier in the building, this wall held only one image and the burst of red on it caught his attention. There was a tall elegant willow tree, its great trunk leaning slightly and its canopy of branches extending outwards. Thick roots dug into the ground and plunged into the lively looking river beside it. Sitting on the roots facing the water was a young lady with a fishing pole. Her clothes were clearly foreign, and her hair was a bright red color that was in spilled loose curls that hung down to her chest. Her face looked incredibly familiar, he thought. Besides an awful scar near her mouth. It was a warm friendly face. Neither overly beautiful or terribly ugly, Bo found he felt like this lady had to be incredibly gentle. It was something in her eyes.

He looked ahead to see Liu Xie and the others still walking, Zhu'er gazing back at him in confusion.

Bo looked back at the painting.

"...Ah."

It was Zhu'er's mother.

Bo had no idea what he expected her to really look like. Close to the little girl, of course, but he had not been prepared for the way she smiled, as though the world was something of warmth and beauty even as it had plainly harmed her. He wondered if Liu Xie had painted it. Was it accurate? Or was this just how Liu Xie saw her?

He decided it would be rude to linger any longer beside the ink painting on the wall, and jogged lightly to catch up with the others.

Liu Xie had paused in front of one room, waiting for Bo to catch up before he pointed inside. "You're going to sleep here," he said.

"Here?" He jabbed his thumb in the direction of the room.

"Yes."

"What about everyone else?" He asked. When had they ever slept apart?

"There's more bedrooms, I guess I can give Rui Yifu a bathtub to sleep in," Liu Xie said with a shrug, ignoring Rui Yifu's pointed glare. "If you need anything, just call out for it and it'll be brought to you."

"Uh, alright then," Bo said. "Thanks...?"

"We'll be leaving in the morning, so better to rest now," Liu Xie said, before instructing the other two on where they would sleep.

Bo did not stick around to listen. Instead he opened the door into his room and stepped into a well appointed chamber. The bed smelled like jasmine and had comfortable looking blankets and pillows dropped onto it, while there were numerous pieces of furniture like chairs, tables, chests, vases, and others he could not immediately identify. They were all painted a deep black color, with carefully done designs in a green color just a shade lighter than the black paint. Even though the place looked like it rarely got visitors, there was not a speck of dust to be found. He walked over to the bed and flopped down on it, finding it to be pleasantly soft and warm. Rolling over onto his back he looked up at the ceiling again. It did not stretch high upwards like the halls did. Instead this one was painted with imagery of an inferno of white flames surrounding a thrashing... tree.... snake thing. He did not know what else to call it. It made for somewhat of an uncomfortable object to stare at so he rolled onto his side and closed his eyes, trying to sleep.

Li Chunning's face appeared unbidden, reddened with despairing anger, his words echoing in Bo's mind and for some reason a deep knot began to wrap itself in his stomach.