The next morning, Xue Xiangsi woke up feeling rested and refreshed, and laying almost on top of Zui Chunlai. He grunted in dismay when he realized their positions and got up from the bed in a hurry, trying not to rouse Zui Chunlai.
Zui Chunlai looked unusually peaceful while resting, almost childlike. As soon as Xue Xiangsi left the bed he had curled up on himself, hugging his legs to his chest. His messy hair fell over his eyes, and fluttered gently with each breath. Xue Xiangsi restrained the urge to brush it away from his face. It was amusing to tease Zui Chunlai, and he did enjoy talking with him, but he couldn't forget that they weren't friends, and there was still a lot about him he didn't know. Getting lulled into a false sense of security was a risk he could not take.
He changed into a fresh set of white and silver robes, did his hair up with a jade hair pin. It was the day of the Double Ninth festival after all, he could afford to dress up some. He left the room and a sleeping Zui Chunlai, and went to find Bai Yunkai.
His shizun was in his room, sitting around the low table, having tea with Liu Zhuyu and Yan Huaxing.
"Xue Xiangsi, I'm glad you've joined us, please sit and tell us if you managed to find anything from young master Zui about Ji Shuren's odd behaviour, and Qiu Yuliang's disappearance," Bai Yunkai said, patting the pillow next to him. All traces of the previous day's sorrow were gone from his face, and his genial smile was once again quirking up the corners of his lips.
Xue Xiangsi sat down, feeling rather ashamed that the only information he had gathered could be considered gossip about Bai Yunkai. The only relevant information he had learnt, namely that Qiu Yuliang was an immortal, also implicated Bai Yunkai, and he wasn't sure if his shizun would want him to divulge it in front of Liu Zhuyu and Yan Huaxing.
"Hmm," he said accepting the tea cup Liu Zhuyu served him with a lowered head. "This disciple has learnt that two cranes have taken flight from the Kunlun Mountains. One of those cranes now rests amid the snow, while the other vanished among the flames."
He was confident that since cranes were a well-known symbol of immortality, Bai Yunkai would be able to understand the reference. Snow of course represented Snowfall Peak, and fire had long been associated with the Golden Crane sect.
From the corner of his eyes Xue Xiangsi saw Bai Yunkai's widen minutely, before his usual look of placid tranquillity took over his features.
"Shidi, are you feeling alright?" asked Liu Zhuyu. "None of what you said made any sense."
"I suspect it did to the one it was meant to," said Yan Huaxing taking a sip of tea.
Every time Xue Xiangsi saw her she was either disdainfully sipping tea, or looking down her nose at him. He wondered if she did anything else.
Liu Zhuyu however, cottoned on to Yan Huaxing's meaning fast. She rose from her pillow and extended her hand to Yan Huaxing. "Yan-jie, let's have breakfast downstairs, and leave Shizun and Shidi alone. I'm sure they have a lot to discuss."
Yan Huaxing took Liu Zhuyu's hand with a pleased smile and rose from her pillow. On her way out Liu Zhuyu threw Xue Xiangsi a disappointed look over her shoulder.
It pained him to keep things from her, but this matter concerned their shizun's personal life. He wasn't sure how much Bai Yunkai was comfortable sharing, considering he was so tight-lipped about his past.
As soon as the door closed between the two of them, Bai Yunkai slumped and rubbed his temples. "So Xue Xiangsi knows."
Xue Xiangsi held on to Bai Yunkai's sleeve, looking pleadingly up at him. "Why didn't Shizun say anything? Did he think we couldn't be trusted?"
Bai Yunkai patted Xue Xiangsi's hand comfortingly. "My disciple must believe that everything this teacher kept from him was for his own safety."
"I do, Shizun, but now I know, and I have some questions."
Bai Yunkai nodded in understanding, but his smile didn't reach his eyes. "Xue Xiangsi may ask."
"Is Shizun still an immortal, even after leaving the Kunlun sect?"
"We only address immortality from a theoretical standpoint in Snowfall Peak, so it's natural that Xue Xiangsi doesn't know. But immortality can't be lost once attained." He paused. "Unless the golden core is destroyed. in that case along with losing all their cultivation powers, the cultivator will lose immortality as well."
"Has it ever happened?" Xue Xiangsi asked, already guessing the answer from Bai Yunkai's stuttering silence.
"Only once, that I know of. I'd rather not talk about it, if Xue Xiangsi wouldn't mind."
There was a tightness around Bai Yunkai's eyes that made Xue Xiangsi reel in his curiosity. Instead he asked, "Does Shizun think that whoever sequestered Qiu Yuliang is aware of his immortality?"
"I'm not sure, yet, but I can only hope that my past hasn't returned to haunt us all," he sighed and got up from his pillow. "Let's go downstairs, we need to continue investigating what's happening in Qi Ain, whether it's related to Qiu Yuliang or not."
---
Zui Chunlai joined them for breakfast late. He winked at Xue Xiangsi when he sat down, who pretended not to notice but couldn't disguise the red tint of his earlobes.
After they had all eaten, Bai Yunkai announced that Xue Xiangsi, Liu Zhuyu and Yan Huaxing would question the prisoners, while he and Zui Chunlai would visit the Red Peony and try to pin down Madam Sisi.
"Why can't I go with Xiangsi? We made such a great team yesterday," Zui Chunlai asked, with false consternation.
"It seems there's much I need to discuss with young master Zui, so if he doesn't mind, I'd like him to accompany me." Despite his polite words Bai Yunkai's tone left no room for argument.
Zui Chunlai wisely decided to keep quiet. Xue Xiangsi was surprised to find himself disappointed. He usually loved spending time with his shijie, maybe Yan Huaxing's somber mood was weighting down on him as well.
He was unusually quiet as the three of them made their way to the house where Tan Fei and the other prisoners were being held. The streets of Qi An were cheerfully decorated with lanterns, and sprigs of dogwood and bright red cornel twigs for the Double Ninth festival. When they walked by a stall selling fragrant chrysanthemum cakes, Xue Xiangsi stopped in his tracks and considered buying a few, but Liu Zhuyu pulled him by the sleeve and dragged him along.
"Do you notice anything weird?" asked Yan Huaxing suddenly.
"I think that seller was overcharging for the cakes," Xue Xiangsi said.
"I don't think that couple sitting by the bridge is showing sufficient respect for the ancestors. Have they forgotten what the Double Ninth festival is supposed to be about? Being so amorous in public...they should save that for Qixi," Liu Zhuyu said, with a scrunched nose.
Yan Huaxing shook her head. "No, look at the lintels on those houses."
Xue Xiangsi looked at all the houses in the street surrounding them, a few of them had paper talismans stuck to the wooden lintel. From what he could see, they were meant to ward off evil.
"Well, the Double Ninth festival was originally celebrated because the cultivator Heng Jing protected a city from a demon who was causing a plague. Maybe the people of Qi An take the legend to heart?" he said, trying to spot a pattern in the talismans that might tell him something about where they came from.
All paper talismans sold to common folk were created by a sect. Qi An was under Snowfall Peak's jurisdiction, but these talismans hadn't been created by them. The brushwork wasn't refined, and he didn't recognize any of the seals.
"If that was the case, why do only some houses have them?" Liu Zhuyu said, her sharp brows drawing in concentration. She wasn't one to see spotted tigers everywhere, but she also wouldn't see smoke in the woods and mistake it for a cooking pit. "I think something might happen today; we need to hurry."
They dashed to the house where the prisoners were being kept. It was a small dilapidated hovel, squeezed between two other buildings in a back street leading nowhere. When compared to the bustling main streets, this area looked dismal. Dust kicked up with each footfall, attracting curious eyes that come up to doors and windows to take a peek at them. Unlike Xue Xiangsi's first assumption this wasn't an abandoned neighbourhood that had fallen into ruin. People still lived here. But why, when Qi An looked so prosperous?
Inside the little shack, five of the retainers who had accompanied them on the journey to Qi An were guarding seven men. All of them were bound with ropes on their feet and hands, as well as by the confinement array drawn on the floor they sat.
Xue Xiangsi walked unceremoniously into the room, and sat in front of Tan Fei, who had several bruises and a long gash across his cheek. Liu Zhuyu and Yan Huaxing hadn't treated him kindly.
"Tan Fei, you ate from our table and then tried to stick a knife in our backs, you owe us some answers."
Tan Fei raised his head with great effort and gave Xue Xiangsi a sallow look. His eyes looked sunken, he scoffed, "Do I have a choice? What will you do if I don't answer?"
Xue Xiangsi smiled, and unsheathed Heavenly Frost, from its scabbard at his waist. He ran his thumb over the gleaming blade, leaving a thin trail of blood on the frosty metal. He sucked the thumb into his mouth, and licked around it with a smirk. "It's best you don't find out."
"Demonic cultivators have nothing on my shidi. He once disembowelled a man just from looking at him," Liu Zhuyu said, crossing her arms, and looking expectantly at Yan Huaxing.
Yan Huaxing didn't catch the gist at first, and Liu Zhuyu had to elbow her to get her to speak. "Oh, right. I heard he can make you bleed from all the holes in your face with a whistle, and from all the holes in your body with a song."
Yan Huaxing's bored tone of voice, somehow made her gruesome words much worse. Xue Xiangsi flinched at her grisliness.
Tan Fei's face drained of all colour, so no one could say they weren't effective. "We had no choice! We are refugees here, we have no papers, no money, nothing! No one would give us a job, and we can't find a place to live. The Blood Moon sect promised they would help us."
"And they have!" shouted one of the other bound men. "They found us jobs, and they were even going to make us into cultivators, like you high and mighty types."
Yan Huaxing sneered, and kicked him down. He fell face first into the floor, making the array glow blue. "You dogs are nothing like us."
"You say you are refugees, where did you come from? What happened to your land?" asked Xue Xiangsi, addressing Tan Fei.
"We are from Shu, from the city of Tongzhou. Our city was completely invaded by demons, monsters and hungry ghosts. Thousands of inhabitants had to flee."
That was the first any of them had ever heard of it. How could something like that happen without all the sects learning about it? An entire city razed by demonic beings? For such large number to be able to come in, that meant there was a large tear in the barrier separating the underworld from the human world.
"Isn't Shu Golden Crane territory?" Asked Liu Zhuyu.
Tan Fei started laughing, a bubbling sort of laughter that seemed to tear his throat and leave it bloody. "Golden Crane? You know what those bastards did? When we called for help? They told everyone who could still walk to leave, and to keep our mouths shut. I would have joined Blood Moon just for their promise to tear Golden Crane to the ground."
As much as Xue Xiangsi wanted to dismiss Tan Fei's words as the ravings of a madman, the raw pain in his voice was too real to be ignored. Could Ji Shuren really have covered up something like that? He felt an icy cold crawl down his spine and chill his bone. Did Zui Chunlai know, too?
"We need to send a message to sect leader Liu, she needs to look into this," said Liu Zhuyu walking towards the door.
Tan Fei started laughing brokenly again. He fixed Liu Zhuyu with a glare filled with malice, his next words froze her on the spot. "You'll have front row seats, soon. It's happening here too."