If Li Chunning tried to speak certain thoughts, he would feel the smooth roots in his throat rapidly expand. They would wrap around his tongue and squeeze between his teeth and slide through his gums to wrap around the jaw to keep his mouth shut. The process was agonizing but nobody seemed to notice. Perhaps even his facial expression was controlled. He could imagine thousands of hair thin roots expanding through his flesh, puppeting him around.

But only when he misbehaved.

If he just spoke thoughts that had nothing to do with...

If he just spoke thoughts that had

If he

He forgot his train of thought and blinked in confusion. He knew something was wrong. But now he could not even consider it.

The cheery sound of insects and frogs was almost soothing to his nerves as they kept walking beside the massive expanse of the Black River. The stench of dead fish was very faint, although sometimes he would step on one half-eaten and rotten fish which would sink into the reedy mud with a 'puomp', the mud trying to claim his foot with it.

"Do people... actually eat rotting fish?" Bo asked suddenly.

"Yeah, I just suggested you do it," Ji Ying sneered.

"There's a person out there for every type of food," Liu Xie said, carrying the little girl in his arms carefully.

"What's your favorite food?" Bo asked, and Li Chunning felt he was just trying to avoid silence.

Liu Xie shrugged, "I don't have any."

"What?" Bo stopped for a moment, "how can you not have a favorite food? Li, what's your favorite food?"

Li Chunning thought for a moment, "uh, stewed wintermelon?"

"What about you Rui?" Bo looked over at the Fish Person.

"Squid," Rui Yifu answered unhesitating. "Shame it's always so hard to get in the markets."

"Isn't that cannibalism?" Ji Ying asked. "I mean, you're a shark and a squid is another kind of fish, right?"

Li Chunning wanted to agree that it was a good point, but suddenly the young woman's amber eyes fell on him and he felt the words die in his mouth. Her gaze was cutting and held nothing but contempt. Li Chunning knew she did not like him, or anyone really but could not figure out why she was looking at him as though she was a single wrong breath away from stabbing him in the stomach. He shifted so he would stand beside Bo.

"If it's in the open water, anything goes," Rui Yifu said quietly, as though admitting something unpleasant to himself. "Many Fish People believe themselves above that, but also many people avoid leaving the cities or human civilization."

"No wonder the gods wanted you all wiped out," Ji Ying commented. "...Hey Liu Xie? Are you sure this guy won't try eating Zhu'er?"

"That's enough, stop," Liu Xie ordered sternly. He had come to a stop a few feet away from a massive black lake. The surface was smooth, with not a single ripple. Yet in the black water were tiny white dots, small sparkles that made the water look like the deepest night sky. It was like a mirror made of night. Liu Xie looked around, then turned around and walked over to Li Chunning. "Can you hold her?" He asked, holding Zhu'er out to him.

"I can!" Ji Ying volunteered.

"I didn't ask you," Liu Xie said.

Li Chunning held out his arms, "s-sure," he said.

Run.

Take her and run.

Go back.

The demand faded from his consciousness before he even fully processed it, and instead he took the sleeping child in his arms and held her as Liu Xie began looking around the ground near the lake. "What are you doing?"

"He made a barrier," Liu Xie explained. "It won't bother us but I can feel it. It's likely just to keep other dragons away." He stopped at one white stone that stuck out from the mud and reeds around it. Liu Xie picked it up and the stone crackled like a ball of lightning in his hand, arcs of blueish white tracing over his arms or swiping at his hair. Li Chunning took several frantic steps back as one arcing ray seemed to swipe in his direction.

Liu Xie then hurled the stone into the lake, where it slid into the water as though it had been dropped in a jar of honey.

The rock had only just disappeared from sight when the lake bubbled, the water thrashing as a massive head emerged. Bo shouted something that Li Chunning had no time to protect Zhu'er's ears from as the sinuous shape of a dragon emerged. Its scales were the same color as the lake, except for the thin dark strip of grey along its belly. Red eyes glared out at them as it hovered over the like, a growl rippling from its throat.

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"WHO DARES CAST A STONE OF SECLUSION INTO THE LAKE OF AO ZHENG?"

"I do," Liu Xie said. "I don't mean to upset you but-"

"I AM NOT AT YOUR BECK AND CALL. DO NOT ASK ME FOR ANYTHING, COUSIN, FOR I WILL GIVE YOU NOTHING."

The dragon's presence was terrifying, the shimmering form rearing higher up, reddish light poking through. Li Chunning heard the creaking sound of a bowstring. He turned around to find Ji Ying notching an arrow. "Ji!! No!"

"Shut up, I know what I'm doing this time," she said, aiming and firing at the dragon.

The arrow shot straight through the dragon's great head. It flew past it and into the air far above. The dragon's form was unharmed. But it stood still, then it faded away.

Again the lake bubbled, the water thrashed, and another head rose. But this one was different. Li Chunning watched as the dragon's massive head was lifted upwards, revealing a horrific mass of burn scarring that cut straight to the bone, exposing a blackened skull. Charred roots poked out from it. Rui Yifu took a sharp breath of air. "This dragon... was infected."

Li Chunning felt the vines that squeezed and pushed at his heart twitch, as though in some sort of little glee. Could they hear all of this?

"VERY CLEVER. WHAT IS IT THAT YOU REQUIRE?"

Liu Xie opened up his arms as though in a wide embrace, "we don't really need anything. Your friend wants to talk to you."

Ao Zheng shrunk back a little. "ANITHERIN? NO."

"Why not?"

"I... I CANNOT LET HIM SEE ME LIKE THIS."

Rui Yifu stepped forward, the dragon's remaining eye focusing on him. "I hope I do not sound presumptuous, but you were infected by flowers, weren't you? Moon flowers."

"YES! YOU KNOW OF THIS?"

"We've actually had frequent incidents with these flowers. I don't understand how a dragon could have become infected with them, especially one who guards the Great Black Lake," Rui Yifu said, "in the cases we've found, they've been traced to a fortune teller-"

"Who isn't really a fortune teller!" Bo jumped in now. "It's some sort of goddess, except not even that! It was something pretending to be a goddess!"

"MY GRANDFATHER GUARDED THIS LAKE AFTER THE SILENT MOUNTAINS WERE RAISED, AS DID MY FATHER, AND AS DID I. A YOUNG GODDESS KNOWN AS THE LADY OF CALM WATERS HAD VISITED ME OFTEN. SHE WOULD BRING ME NEWS FROM FAR AWAY AND ITEMS OF CURIOSITY. BUT ONE DAY SHE CAME AND GAVE ME FLOWERS. SHE LEFT THEM AT THE EDGE OF MY LAKE AND SAID SHE MUST GO. THE FLOWERS SANK THEIR ROOTS INTO ME, AND AS THEY DID I FELT TERRIBLE PAIN."

"Then you lost control of the lake, which caused the flooding further downstream that wiped out all those towns in the Southern Kingdom," Liu Xie said.

Ao Zheng nodded, its remaining eye cast down in shame.

"I BURNED THE FLOWERS AWAY, BUT THE FLOWERS HAD ALREADY EATEN DEEP INTO ME."

Then Ao Zheng pulled himself outwards more. His body was partially a skeleton, thin strips of muscle tissue clinging to the spine. One of his legs was gone. The charred remains of roots were deeply entwined with the bones. The heart was only half hidden, sluggishly beating. Li Chunning could only imagine the pain Ao Zheng had endured. "Are you... dying?" He asked softly, hoping the dragon would not hear him.

"...I AM." The dragon shook his head. "I LEAVE BEHIND NO SON OF MY OWN. THERE IS NO ONE LEFT FOR THIS LAKE."

"Why won't you let your friend see you though? Bo asked. "Would you just rather he spend the rest of his life wondering what he did wrong? I don't know how long dragons live, but that could be a very long time."

The dragon's eye widened, then it looked down at the water.

A darkness grew over them all, the beat of mighty wings and wind yanking at Li Chunning's hair. He looked up to see a monstrous lizard bearing down upon them. He managed a scream shortly before the massive beast landed on the ground, shaking the earth beneath its feet.

Both dragons roared at each other.

Then they went silent, staring.

"MY FRIEND, I CARE NOT FOR YOUR APPEARANCE." The new lizard's voice boomed. "IF IT WAS AID YOU NEEDED, I WOULD HAVE GIVEN IT."

"It's not aid, Anitherin," Rui Yifu said, before looking back at Ao Zheng.

"I AM... DYING. WHO WILL TAKE CARE OF THE LAKE? WHY IS THIS HOW YOU SHALL SEE ME AS I DIE?"

The lizard shook its mighty head, "I WILL TAKE CARE OF THE LAKE. I WILL BIND MYSELF TO IT FOR ETERNITY IF IT MEANS PEACE FOR YOU."

Ao Zheng looked shocked, or as shocked as a dragon's face could get. "IT IS NOT TO BE DONE SO LIGHTLY, ARE YOU-"

"I AM CERTAIN."

"I'm sorry to interrupt," Rui Yifu said. "I do have a question for you, Ao Zheng."

The burnt dragon turned its head to Rui Yifu, inclining it slightly to acquiescence to his question.

"The fortune teller, the goddess known as the Lady of Calm Waters, Bo and Li B-... Li Chunning both said that they had witnessed the deity's skin being shed, and a strange pale man emerging from it like a cicada. Do you know anything about this? A being who wears the skin of gods and is associated with moon flowers?"

The dragon was quiet. Its head bobbed up and down as it closed its eye. "THE NAME OF THE BEING I DO NOT KNOW. BUT MY FATHER ONCE SAID A BEING FROM THE MOON HAS SEVERAL TIMES OVER CLOTHED ITSELF IN THE SKIN OF A DYING MORTAL TO CAUSE SUFFERING. THE MOST RECENT WAS LADY PENG, WHO BROUGHT THE ANCIENT DYNASTY TO RUIN."

"Huh? So Lady Cai?" Ji Ying scratched her head.

"NO, LADY CAI AND HER HUSBAND THE RABBIT ARE JAILERS. THERE IS SOMETHING ELSE ON THE MOON AS WELL. MY FATHER WOULD NOT TELL ME MORE, AND HE IS LONG SINCED PASSED INTO THE WHEEL OF REBIRTH."

"That can't be right," Liu Xie said, crossing his arms. "If something escaped the moon, wouldn't the heavens be alerted?"

"COUSIN YOU ASSUME IT IS LIKE A MORTAL PRISONER ESCAPING A ROOM. THIS THING DOES NOT DO THAT. IT FALLS THROUGH THE MOONLIGHT."

"Not too helpful," Ji Ying remarked. "Ah well, we came and finished what we had to do." She shrugged.

Rui Yifu tapped his chin with his fan, "actually that's great help. We have a bit more information on, what was his name again Li Chunning?"

The roots sank into his gums, agony flared through his body, like a white hot pick was being slowly dragged through his jaw. But he could tell now, there was no movement to his face.

"Baichan," Bo said, "we decided to call him Baichan."

"I still really hope you never end up naming a child," Ji Ying said, before walking over to Li Chunning. "I can carry her if you want."

"N-no, it's fine," Li Chunning said. "I think I've gotten bit stronger, actually!"

"She doesn't weigh too much anyway."

Bo was standing near Anitherin and nodding, but Li Chunning could not hear what was being said. He looked back down at the sleeping form of Zhu'er just in time to see her eyes suddenly snap wide open in absolute panic, and then a foot crashed right into his face and everything went black...