Xue Xiangsi returned to the shed where Zui Chunlai remained waiting on the steps. Heavenly Frost was already at his side, blade crackling with newly formed ice crystals.
Zui Chunlai sighed and crossed his arms. "Xiangsi pulling his sword on me is getting repetitive. What have I done this time?"
"Where are they?" Xue Xiangsi asked, standing his ground and ready to freeze Zui Chunlai on the spot at the slightest provocation. "Shizun, shijie, and Yan Huaxing are gone!"
"That's as surprising to me as it is to Xiangsi."
He did look surprised, but not worried in the least. His placid look filled Xue Xiangsi with anger. "How do I know this isn't something you and Qiu Yuliang have been planning?"
Zui Chunlai shrugged. "Xiangsi doesn't, but there's nothing he can do about it."
Xue Xiangsi smirked, Zui Chunlai had just given him an idea. "Actually, there is."
He raised his right arm and a white silk ribbon unwrapped itself from his wrist, and shot to Zui Chunlai's hand. One end of the ribbon wrapped itself around Zui Chunlai's right wrist, and then the left, binding them together in front of him. The other end of the ribbon remained attached to Xue Xiangsi's wrist with a dead knot.
Silk ribbons were Liu Zhuyu's prefered weapon and she could do all sorts of amazing things with them. She had tried to teach Xue Xiangsi but he hadn't proven himself as adept as her. The most he could do was command them to bind themselves on to people and things. They could still be very useful, as the current situation demonstrated.
Zui Chunlai struggled against the restraints, but to no avail. "Xiangsi should have told me he had such appetites. I would have accommodated him sooner."
Xue Xiangsi reddened at the implications in his words. He had no idea what Zui Chunlai was insinuating, but it was obvious from his tone that it was something improper.
He ignored him, and went down the stairs, tugging on the ribbon to drag Zui Chunlai behind him.
The stairs went down further than he originally thought, there didn't seem to be an end in sight to how deep they descended. After at least one hundred steps they finally arrived at a dark and narrow hallway. The dirt beneath their feet had been packed flat by years of walking, the rough narrow walls around them were supported by wooden beams.
The path ahead was illuminated by the flickering light of torches mounted on the walls.
Xue Xiangsi held his free arm in front of his nose, using his sleeve to keep away the rank scent of moisture and mildew. "This construction is far more ancient than I expected."
Zui Chunlai tried to walk ahead of Xue Xiangsi, only to be pulled back by the ribbon. He stumbled, and said with a frown. "How can I help Xiangsi like this?" he lifted his bound wrists to emphasize his point. "If we are ambushed, I won't be able to do anything."
Xue Xiangsi walked in front, pulling Zui Chunlai behind him, and enjoying the sound of his stumbling steps. "Who says I need your help?"
"So Xiangsi is confident he can take on however many Blood Moon disciples we find down here on his own?"
"I can try," he said. "And I'm still not sure what we'll find down here. Whether it's an ambush you and Qiu Yuliang prepared, or unsuspecting Blood Moon disciples. I guess I'll have my answer when I get there."
"How could I have had the time to plan anything with Shizun, when I was with Xiangsi the entire time? We slept in the same bed."
"And yet you found the time to talk with him this morning."
That shut up Zui Chunlai. They kept silent as they traversed the narrow corridor. It twisted and turned and led nowhere. Every time they happened upon a door it opened into an empty room with stone walls and that same rank mildew smell.
After a moment Zui Chunlai's crisp voice cut through the silence. "Xiangsi has no idea what it's like for my shizun in Golden Crane. Everywhere he goes there are whispers behind his back. They say he used a love potion to trick Ji Shuren into marrying him."
Xue Xiangsi remained quiet, and allowed him to continue speaking. "In reality, Ji Shuren married him because he knew he was an Immortal from the Kunlun Mountains. He craved Qiu Yuliang's power, but was disappointed to learn my shizun was neither the all-powerful cultivator he expected him to be, nor willing to use his power to help him achieve his goals."
"It seems Qiu Yuliang was born under an unlucky star. However, two wrongs don't make a right. He shouldn't have lured us here under false pretence. If he had just told sect leader Liu everything that was going on, she wouldn't have denied him help."
Zui Chunlai shook his head, they were now walking side by side. Xue Xiangsi expected to see the usual arrogant smirk plastered on his face, but instead the corners of his lips were turned downwards and his gaze was far away.
"Ever since I was a child, I would hear Ji Shuren have screaming fits and accuse Qiu Yuliang of all manner of despicable things, only to change his tune the very next day and drip sweet words on him like a broken honeycomb. His anger would scare me so much when I was a child, that I would cry in my room for hours. It was Shizun, who comforted me, rubbing my back and singing me lullabies until I fell asleep."
Bai Yunkai had done the same for Xue Xiangsi many times when he was a child.
Children could be cruel, and the other disciples used to tease him for being an orphan. It was from the lips of an older disciple, who disliked him for one of the many petty reasons children find to be cruel to one another, that he discovered that he had been left on the steps of Snowfall Peak in a bamboo basket as a baby. He stayed out in the freezing cold for a night and a day until he was found.
The boy had said he was only taken inside because sect leader Liu had felt sorry for him. His family name meant 'snow' because that was where he came from. Those were his roots.
Ever since then he had been trying to prove he belonged in Snowfall Peak.
It was thanks to his shizun's kindness and Liu Zhuyu's friendship that he hadn't questioned his place in a long time.
And now they were gone, because he had run ahead and turned his back on them. He tightened his fingers on Heavenly Frost's hilt.
He shared none of this with Zui Chunlai, but a certain sense of understanding had settled over him.
Who knew what he would have done if his shizun had asked him to walk into Golden Crane and go along with the story that he had been sequestered? He was sure that he would never question whether Bai Yunkai's motives were righteous, but he was even more certain that his shizun would never ask something like that of him.
They kept walking. After a narrow bent, they came upon another door. Xue Xiangsi approached it with a sigh, kicking it open with the heel of his boot.
Just like all the other doors before it, it led into an empty room, with nothing inside, but this time Xue Xiangsi noticed something. He approached the flickering torch, and examined the wooden stand with the tips of his fingers.
"I think..." he started, but stopped himself and used Heavenly Frost's blade to snuff out the flame, making it hiss against the chilled blade.
As soon as he took the blade away from the torch it lit up again.
"It's an illusion," Zui Chunlai said.
Xue Xiangsi nodded. "I noticed a mark in the torch in the last room we entered, and this one had the exact same dent in the exact same place. We've been walking in circles inside a labyrinth formation."
"How do we get out?" asked Zui Chunlai, poking his fingers through the flame.
"I've never experienced a real labyrinth formation, but we've studied them. We need to draw a precise location array, in a spot where the formation is weakest."
Zui Chunlai closed his bound fists over the flame, and opened them to reveal the flame burning on his palm, before flickering and reappearing on the torch. "I think Xiangsi has found the weak spot."
Xue Xiangsi rolled his eyes and loosened the bindings on Zui Chunlai's wrists, allowing the ribbon some give between each wrist so that Zui Chunlai could move his hands around somewhat freely.
Xue Xiangsi got to working, drawing seals with his fingers, which hovered in blue in front of his face, before repapering singed on the floor beneath his feet. Zui Chunlai joined him, his seals glowed orange and burned hot. A reflexion of his strong yang energy and affinity for fire, unlike Xue Xiangsi's cold yin energy and natural inclination for water.
No one would call the finished array a masters work, but after examining it Xue Xiangsi figured it would hold enough to get them out.
"We should have expected some sort of defensive measure, as it stands a labyrinth formation is a mild one," Zui Chunlai said.
"Unless we get stuck inside of it forever and die of deprivation." Xue Xiangsi stepped into the array and focused his qi to activate it.
Zui Chunlai stepped in front of him, and closed his eyes in concentration.
As the energy gathered in the array it glowed in brilliant shades of red and glacial blue. A violent wind enveloped them, whipping their hair and robes. Xue Xiangsi directed his qi to the array, ignoring the light-headedness threatening to make him faint.
The room spun around them increasing the strength of the wind and making Xue Xiangsi sway. Zui Chunlai reached out and held on to Xue Xiangsi, gripping his fingers tightly. They were still tethered together by the silk ribbon wrapped around their clasped hands.
The violent winds finally died down. Xue Xiangsi let out a painful exhale and clutched his middle. He had expended a lot of qi and it left him drained and dazed. When he managed to open his eyes, the small humid room was gone, and they were both standing in what looked like an underground cave.
Zui Chunlai rubbed at his sweaty forehead. "What now? Does Xiangsi think we're in another labyrinth formation?" he sounded winded from the effort of sustaining the array.
Xue Xiangsi could hear the faint trickle of water in the distance. "We can only go forward together and find out."
It was only when he started walking that he noticed that Zui Chunlai was still holding his hand. Looking at their joined hands, still bound by the silk ribbon, seemed to him unbearably intimate, even when compared to what they had already done. He dislodged his hand and looked away, hoping Zui Chunlai hadn't noticed the redness of his ears.
"Let's follow the sound of the water," he said stepping over a cluster of rocks, and dragging Zui Chunlai behind him by the ribbon. "Whatever is happening down here will be connected to the water source."