A light wind brushed through the yard, swaying the leaves of the willow tree. MingYu's brows furrowed as he ran his gaze from the treetop to the roots before turning to RuRong. "What happened to the bodies?"
The Gui cultivators shifted awkwardly after hearing his question, they looked around, avoiding his gaze.
"Buried beneath the tree." RuRong said in a quiet tone, barely more than a whisper.
MingYu's face hardened as he stepped under the tree branches and started crawling on the dirt, scraping the soil and clay with his fingers in the dark. The earth was still moist from the rain, and his knees dug into the wet soil. As others looked at him moving about on all fours, MingYu's hands brushed over a spongy patch of land. It seemed like someone or something had dug through the area. He turned around to face the others. "We need to dig up the soil, the youths must be buried beneath!"
PingZe and ZhiYi hurried to dig at the ground while the cultivators looked on with apprehension.
"It's mostly clay on the top, it's hard to dig, not to mention burying someone beneath it in such a short time." Other cultivators made agreeing noises after RuRong's words.
MingYu gnashes his teeth as he shoveled the mud, and dirt with his hands, but said nothing. Then, something cold and clammy unfolded beneath the grainy dirt. MingYu quickly removed his hands and with shaky gestures, dug out a flame talisman from his robes and lit it up. Delicate, lifeless fingers came to view, the rest of the body buried out of sight. It seemed to be the hand of a young woman.
"Say that to her." MingYu said solemnly as he pointed the cultivators to the site. Seeing the protruding appendix, all of them with lips trembling and faces white as dead, hurried over to dig at the dirt with their bare hands. The longer they dug, the stronger the wind seemed to grow until it whipped around them so powerfully, they could barely breathe.
"Get them out, quickly!" ZhiYi called as he pulled the bodies out of the dirt and to rest over the stone steps.
MingYu had dug out multiple youths, and he was now brushing the dirt off one of the younger female disciplines. But when he tried to pull her out, he yelped and fell back, crawling away. Her hand was colder than the others before her, and she didn't move even when pulled at forcefully. When they brought the flame talisman closer, they could see thin tree roots piercing her body from the back all the way to the front, wrapping themselves around her like a snake. MingYu shivered, the tree used these youths as fertilizer.
"A-Wei!" One of the disciplines screeched, but they all moved back. The remaining bodies were all in the same state, pierced by dozens of roots and already dead cold.
"Pull them away from the dirt!" As the last of the cultivators moved out of the tree's facility, the wind died out. MingYu hurried over to ZhiYi's side, who was holding FuFu in his arms, shaking her to wake her up. She slowly opened her eyes, but they were glazed over and focused at nothing.
"XiaoFu?" ZhiYi said as he pulled her up in a sitting position, but XiaFu said nothing. Her lips were tightly shut and she sat hunched over, her eyes now turned towards the willow tree root.
XiaoHe was in the same state, eyes glazed over, heavy lids trooping and lips sealed tight, as PingZe looked him over. MingYu looked around.
All the buried youths were sitting like living corpses. He reached over and forcefully pulled XiaoFu's lips open. They could see dirt and clay shoved inside. MingYu grimaced, he had heard of impish spirits that made their victims shove themselves full of dirt and clay, thinking it was food until they suffocated and eventually died.
"Remove all the dirt from their mouths!" MingYu said as he dug the pieces of clay out from between XiaoFu's delicate lips. "We must remove all the remains of the tree from them or they won't come to."
"They are still out of it!" The cultivators said in a panicked voice. Trembling murmurs and shouts filled the air as they tried to get a response from the youths.
"There is no dirt left!"
"They aren't responding!"
"Get the mirrors and position them around them!" RuRong commanded as he walked around, looking over his disciplines. A languid breath of air rustled the leaves of the tree, and the petals fell and fluttered over the crew. A gentle, undiscernible sigh carried over with the wind, and as the cultivators hurried around, gathering their mirrors, the sigh grew into a murmur of the dead children, singing,
These little girls, these little boys,
should run fast, run very fast!
some have no body, some have no soul,
that's very bad, very, very bad!
MingYu tensed as he turned to ZhiYi, "Souls? How can AhFu miss a soul? Isn't she like you?"
It was impossible for a heavenly being or a demon to lose their souls; they had better control over their spiritual power than mere mortals. None of this truly made sense!
Worry marred ZhiYi's face. "Only AhFen is like us, AhFu is a normal human."
All the blood seemed to rush out of MingYu's body as every piece of the puzzle snuck itself into its rightful place. He moved as he saw the mirrors being brought over. Jumping up, he bellowed, "Keep the mirrors turned downwards. Their souls are not in their bodies!"
The cultivators stopped in their tracks, confused about whose orders to follow. RuRong came over to MingYu's side, irritation clear on his face. "I've lost enough people today. I can't risk losing more. Are you sure about this?"
"None of them are conscious, their souls aren't present, so they must be wandering somewhere. If you set up the mirrors, you will kill them all before they can return to their own bodies."
RuRong studied MingYu for a brief moment before he motioned his followers to lower the mirrors face down on the ground.
"Care to tell us what is really going on?" RuRong sounded lost, after all, even though he was a sect leader, there were many things he didn't know of or had encountered in his twenty-something years of life. Coming from such a far-out and small village as Gui, not much happened to learn from.
MingYu looked around, deep in thought, then he snapped his eyes to ZhiYi. "ZhiYi, do you know how to recall spirits to their bodies?"
ZhiYi and PingZe were demons. To become one, they had to either reattach their soul back to their deceased bodies or cultivate an entirely new body of flesh and bone through demon cultivation. ZhiYi, if anyone, should know these the best. ZhiYi gave MingYu a firm nod. "We need to draw spirit attracting talismans with the spirit's name and age, fold it, and place it in their mouth."
The remaining cultivators rushed to pull out their talisman papers and draw over them, as MingYu turned back to RuRong. "The willow tree might have once been a bringer of luck and health, but after those children were killed and buried beneath it, it must have been corrupted by their malevolent spirits."
"That might not be entirely the case." RuRong said as a frown slid over his already taut face.
MingYu's eyes twitched. Just when he thought he got everything figured out, something new came to his knowledge! Seeing no way out of it, he asked, "What is it?"
"How much hatred can there be, if they created both a ghoul and corrupted a heavenly being?"
RuRong's words were like a slap to MingYu's face. His mind was spinning out of focus. There was a ghoul too! A damn ghoul…
MingYu's frown changed as his brows now shot up his forehead and his lips parted in surprise. He turned to ZhiYi so fast his brains crashed into his skull. The white sealed bottle was dangling idly on ZhiYi's sash. It must have been the ghoul of Gui, MingYu thought.
But then the entire situation made even less sense. After all, for a ghoul to be created, massive amounts of negative energy must have accumulated over time, forming the ghoul itself. But then why did the tree get affected by it? The ghoul should have absorbed all the negative energy. Unless…
MingYu looked up at tree once more, his gaze now piercing, as an unsettling thought had struck his mind.
"When was this house built again?"
The youths were stirring up one by one, shuffling sounds and relieved sighs filled the still air. XiaoFu sat up and spat the talisman out of her mouth, gasping for air, clinging to ZhiYi as she looked around at the strange surroundings.
"It was a hundred years ago. I don't know any more than that." RuRong said apologetically. A high-pitched wail pierced the air and surprised everyone within the yard. The wail had come from the outside. As they all turned their attention to the main gates, a cold, commanding voice said,
"You might not know, but this old geezer does! Get inside!" XiaoFen was dragging a battered innkeeper by the collar and pushed him down the stone steps. He tumbled and fell on his knees before RuRong, shivering and sobbing quietly.
"If something happened to FuFu, I will cut your head off!" The old man quivered at the notion as XiaoFen hurried past him and kneeled beside XiaoFu, brushing the escaped strands of hair out of her face.
"Old man Yao?" RuRong said in awe.
"It's him, da- brother ZhiYi! That old bastard knows the truth!" XiaoFen complained as she held XiaoFu close to her chest, refusing to let her go.
XiaoHe was blinking his eyes open now and looking up at PingZe with wide eyes, but everyone was focused on the old man Yao at RuRong's feet.
RuRong loomed over the old man, menace was emitting from him with every word. "Old Yao, what is it that you know of this tree?"
ZhiYi had now left XiaoFu in XiaoFen's arms and moved to MingYu's side. MingYu shot him a questioning glare. How exactly were the girls raised that they kidnap people right and left? ZhiYi looked innocently back at him, a smile tugging at his lips. MingYu found himself flushing and turned away.
The old Yao was trembling, avoiding RuRong's gaze. "I- It's not what you think! I had nothing to do with any of it! It was the tree! It has always been the tree. Ever since the founder of Gui, sacrifices have been made to the tree to grant wishes. But after the last sect leader was killed, none has made a wish, and the doors were sealed!"
"Fools! Of course, if you leave it starving it will have to use other measures to feed itself!" PingZe snapped.
MingYu grimaced, "The tree uses the kids' souls to lure out prey for it to feast on."
"That is why none of their spirit traps worked." ZhiYi continued MingYu's thought process. "It was never the spirits, but the tree itself."
"So the souls never found peace but are trapped forever as long as the tree stands." MingYu trailed his eyes along the ground. The tree roots must reach every corner of the village if the tree was as old as the people claimed it to be.
ZhiYi seemed to realise his thoughts as he said, "We must kill it, all the way down to its roots."
It was creepy how ZhiYi seemed to read his thoughts, but MingYu brushed it aside. Instead, he said, "But why youths?"
"To get their wishes granted, the people had to sacrifice their children. It was the tree's demand," Old Yao said.
MingYu grimaced, how great could a wish be to sacrifice your own blood and flesh? Addressing RuRong, he said, "If you have any monster-killing artefacts or weapons, now would be a good time to use them."
Before RuRong could answer, old Yao said, "The tree is not-"
His words died out, replaced by a terrifying gurgling sound as the others looked on in horror. A tree root had snuck itself around Yao in the darkness and pierced through his mouth, impaling him in place. The crowd broke into blood-curdling screams and chaos. MingYu gaped at the scene as his blood ran cold.
ZhiYi pulled MingYu further away from the dying Yao before shouting, "Everyone, get outside, now!"