The air suddenly dropped several degrees below zero, and a light mist appeared out of nowhere. Their breaths added to the mist. Echoes of children giggling somewhere far away reached their ears.
"We shouldn't have come here." PingZe said grimly.
Amidst the growing fog, flashes of black and red flew towards them, circulating the three. Looking at them closely MingYu realised the flying things were flags, black flags with red stitching in incantations he was not familiar with, but the two brothers seemed to recognize it as PingZe cursed.
At least five flags were flying around them before they shot out in different directions, dissolving the mist from their way.
As the mist thinned, a group of young men and women came to view, flooding the street, all dressed in black, with thorny roses adorning their clothes in detailed red embroidery. A man in his late twenties with dark, almond eyes motioned the group to a halt.
"What are you doing here at this hour? Get inside!" He looked the three up and down with disdain. He looked awfully familiar, quite handsome in a rugged, worn-out kind of way, yet MingYu couldn't pinpoint where he had seen this man before. "Our spirit flags could have caused you lots of problems!"
These must be the Gui cultivators, MingYu realised. They were a young-looking bunch, most of them barely twenty. Thinking back on it, there seemed to be no young people in the village, so far they had only seen older folks roaming the streets. These were the first youths they had seen in the entire time.
"We are missing some people." MingYu finally said. "Two youths are probably lost somewhere here in this fog. They weren't in their beds."
The leader of the group raised his brow at MingYu. His hand was caressing his sword, that rested in its deep blue casing on his waist. "You are a youth yourself. Get inside before they come for you too, all youths should stay put. Let the cultivators do their job."
"What is going on?" MingYu asked, not bothering to point out most of the cultivators looked like they had barely weaned off their mothers' teat.
"RuRong, we should get going. If they were lured away, we shouldn't waste time." One of the cultivators said, but quieted down at RuRong's hand signal.
RuRong addressed MingYu now, his tone still strict but with a gentle undertone, "Get inside, we will look for your missing friends. There are vengeful spirits out, get into safety."
MingYu approved of his way of talk, so he obediently made his way back in the inn, with confused PingZe and ZhiYi following him.
"Brother MingYu, you are really going to just sit and wait for them to find FuFu and XiaoHe?" PingZe said in annoyance. "We aren't regular humans, remember?"
MingYu gave him a swat over his hard head. "Of course not! But I want to see how they catch these spirits. There is no point in causing problems. We will just follow them and they will lead us straight to the two."
PingZe rubbed his head, musing cheerily. "Not a chance, there are two of them guarding the inn door - but I can kill them if you want."
"The demon thing is really rooted in you, isn't it? No killing." MingYu swatted PingZe again, this time playfully. "Besides, who said we go out from the front door?"
The inn must have had a backdoor, otherwise, how could XiaoHe disappear without going past them? Indeed, behind the counter, further back in the house, there was a door that was left open. Someone had used it and never bothered to close it. The door led into a tight back alley that smelled terribly like someone had died and was rotting on the ground.
The pavement was still wet and MingYu slipped and slid in his straw shoes. ZhiYi was keeping him steady while they moved forward. PingZe traveled up on the roofs, while MingYu and ZhiYi weaved through the fog. The further they went, the thicker the fog grew. Steps of running children echoed in the dark, yet none of them could be seen. Squeezing through the corners, ZhiYi and MingYu plopped back into the main street.
Big buildings were far and few, and soon they reached a side street, far back in the village where only one large building resided. The building was only one story high, but it was built of wood and bricks, an older architecture hidden behind the white stone buildings. It seemed to be a clan house or a meeting house of some sort. Abandoned based on its haggard, worn-out appearance. The doors were sealed shut with barrier incantations, yet the building emitted great amounts of negative energy, like a cloud of black smoke, enveloping the building in sinister presence.
The Gui cultivators were already in front of the house, setting up rounded mirrors with incantations carved around the edges. Each of the mirrors held within them small traces of sunlight. When set to mirror each other, the sunlight would intensify and evaporate any spirit caught in them. MingYu couldn't help but scoff. Even though the mirrors held sunlight, the mist around the house was quite thick for the mirrors to successfully reflect anything.
"That is cruel." PingZe muttered as he came down from the roof and settled behind MingYu and ZhiYi, hidden from the cultivators.
MingYu frowned, "How so?"
"These vengeful spirits are only young children. They don't deserve to be evaporated." ZhiYi whispered.
MingYu stiffened. Vengeful spirits were seldom children unless the death had been cruel and caused on purpose.
ZhiYi seemed to sense MingYu's worry as he said, "They were murdered, but that was a long time ago."
The fog now grew thick. A moment ago it merely coiled around their waist, but now it had risen over their heads, covering everything in hazy grey. The cultivators seemed to falter from their formations as panicked shouts and steps could be heard.
"Stay put! Don't move!" RuRong commanded. The steps halted, and silence settled among the mist. Then, hollow laughter erupted around them, sending chills down MingYu's spine. The laughter was high-pitched and mischievous, that of children, though it was empty, almost cold as it echoed like reflecting from stone walls.
The spirit capturing flags from earlier flew among the fog, but wherever they cleared parts of the mist, it was instantly replenished. MingYu frowned, how come none of the spirit flags seemed to capture any of the spirits? A dark shadow moved past MingYu, and he gasped.
The figure was of a young boy, merely four or five in age. He was running and laughing, his robes drenched in something dark and crimson. He disappeared into the mist as quickly as he had appeared.
Footsteps could be heard as the cultivators moved about again.
"I said don't move!" RuRong commanded again, but the steps never faltered. One by one, the footsteps sounded further away until they disappeared. The fog thinned out and only a few cultivators were left in the clearing. MingYu and others hurried out of their hiding place and reached the clearing where the Gui cultivators were looking around frantically. Seeing MingYu, RuRong's face darkened. "What are you doing here? I thought I told you to stay put! You are in danger here!"
MingYu waved at him dismissively as he inspected the remaining members. All of them looked pale, eyes widened, but all were unharmed – and well over twenty. MingYu felt something click into place. The youths! He turned to RuRong. "Why only youths were taken away?"
A fit of alert flashed over RuRong's face, and he faltered for a moment. "What do you mean, why the youths? The vengeful spirits are children, and they of course will lure the younger ones!"
"MingYu, what is it? It all makes perfect sense." ZhiYi said, his brows furrowed. It was widely known that spirits lured the ones that resembled themselves to ruin to substitute their place as the wandering spirit. Only then could they go towards the rebirth limbo.
MingYu waved his hand in annoyance. There was a feeling, an inkling, yet he lost the strand of thought. But he was sure something was off! Instead, he said, "Get inside the building, we must find all the missing youths!"
"Impossible! The house has been sealed off for years, the seal is still intact, how-" RuRong's words were left unheard as PingZe went over the main doors and kicked it down with one swift movement.
The doorframe shattered with an ear-splitting crack; the doors flew across the yard, splinters shot like darts. ZhiYi and PingZe disappeared inside as MingYu and the remaining Gui sect followed suit. As MingYu reached the gaping opening and peered inside, he stopped in his tracks. A gigantic weeping willow tree stood in the middle of the yard. Stone steps circulated the tree, covered partly by the leaves that drooped so low it brushed against the ground. The leaves were partly yellow, partly healthy green.
"Why is there a willow tree here?" MingYu said. The tree was so big no one could see there was a house behind all the branches. Not only was the FengShui of the place terribly wrong with the tree ride smack middle of the yard, but the tree itself was wrong. Willow trees weren't called ghost trees for nothing.
RuRong stopped in front of MingYu, frowning. "What are you talking about? The tree has been here before the village. The village was built around it."
MingYu hurried down the steps as PingZe and ZhiYi appeared behind the tree. Both wearing grim expressions. "No one is inside the house." PingZe said.
The remaining Gui cultivators had now carried the spirit mirrors inside the yard. MingYu turned back to RuRong. "But why? Why this tree?" MingYu was getting a headache.
"The tree has been around for hundreds of years. It brought great luck and health to whoever touched its body. After the founder of Gui realised this, he built the townhouse around the tree." RuRong said before turning towards the sect members and guided them to set up the mirrors in correct positions.
"None of this makes sense!" MingYu couldn't help but complain as he rubbed his head vigorously with his palm while pacing the stone steps before the tree. ZhiYi took hold of his shoulders and steadied the monk.
"MingYu, what doesn't make sense?" ZhiYi's firm and calm tone eased the tension in MingYu's body and he relaxed a little.
"None makes sense! The spirit flags should have caught at least some of the spirits, but they caught nothing. Willow trees can't live over a hundred years, that is unnatural! So the tree must either be a monster or cultivated to a semi-heavenly being. The latter should be true if touching the tree trunk brought luck and health. Not to mention, why only youths are missing and where could they be?" MingYu groaned as a thumping pain reached his skull from overthinking. He was missing something! He looked around without aim.
"These kinds of spirits will need a replacement so they can move over to rebirth, someone who resembles them, everyone knows that! These vengeful spirits are all youths and younger." PingZe said, annoyance apparent in his tone. MingYu's eyes brightened, and he smacked PingZe over his head.
"No wonder I've been so confused. You keep talking nonsense!" MingYu scolded the brother before he turned towards the tree and studied it with minute attention. "Normal wandering spirits who lost their lives through accidents. Yes, this instant would apply to them. But, vengeful spirits will seek victims who remind them of their perpetrators. Are you telling me, these young children were murdered by youths?"
"No, they weren't killed by any youths." RuRong said, everyone had now halted and looked at MingYu in surprise. "The previous sect leader killed them in a sacrificial ritual."