While the mountain that Liu Liangzhe had carved for them was nice, it wasn't as nice as Liu Liangzhe's original mountain home. He had spent days, possibly weeks, making it a perfect system that only those who were close to him and spent lots of time there could successfully navigate. It was also where all his notes, research, essays, and more were stashed in a variety of different hiding spots. He needed to get back there, he needed to resume his work now that he was no longer plagued by his previously maladaptive physique. He was cured, and perhaps it took a full thousand years for it to happen, or maybe it took whatever caused the power of darkness to surge through his veins in a way he had only previously channelled from external sources. He was connected in a way he had written about theoretically happening to someone with constant prolonged yin exposure, someone powerful who was already on the cusp of apotheosis.
Surely he couldn't have ascended, however. There was no way he was righteous enough to be an immortal, but demons were not truly created like he was. He was only a metaphorical demon, a fiend, not a literal one.
He swung Xiaolin's hand as they walked, and the boy let out the rarest of sounds, a giggle, as they did so. Liu Liangzhe had never been so pleased to hear such a sound before. Xiaolin threw their hands higher, swinging them up higher, and smiled all while he did it. In fact, Xiaolin was having so much fun, Liu was too focused on his happiness to see the thin tree in his path and smacked himself head first. Xiaolin didn't just giggle at him, he laughed from deep down in narrow chest, rubbing his little belly in the process before he reached up to stroke the back of Liu Liangzhe's arm.
"Only you have the privilege to see the Diyu Lord run into a tree," he grumbled, although a warm happiness of his own spread through him, easily soothing any discomfort from the collision. He picked Xiaolin up beneath the arms despite the kid being fully able to walk and held him, giving him a little squeeze as well. "I'll have you know, I'm great with trees usually. I grow them even when there is no sunlight."
"Ah," Xiaolin vocalized.
"Yes, I have a grove of plum trees inside my mountain. It's full of birds, too, albeit dead ones, but they're still fun to play with. I'm sure you will like it there. In fact, I know you will. So comfortable," he said, remembering who helped plant all those saplings with him. He had died before Liu Liangzhe had been imprisoned, but when it came to a person like Liu Liangzhe, death did not mean the end. To Liu Liangzhe, death was a fickle barrier at best, one he had no problem crossing with ease.
"We're only about two weeks away, I would say. I will show you everything, and I'll teach you what I know," Liu Liangzhe said. Xiaolin stared up at him, hsi eyes looking rounder and more intense as he stared at him. Liu Liangzhe tucked stray hairs behind his ears. "I'll teach you everything I know, and I promise that nobody will ever hurt you again, not if I can stop them."
Xiaolin had no way to speak to him, but it seemed as though he understood, and he wrapped his arms around Liu Liangzhe's neck, his bony elbows jutting out behind them. Liu Liangzhe held him for a moment more before he set the boy on the ground.
"Now, how about a lesson?" Liu Liangzhe asked. Xiaolin immediately reached into the satchel at his side, one that dwarfed Xiaolin's emaciated body. "No, you won't need any of that. You'll just need to walk and breathe. Try to keep it natural. I know you're not used to walking, I know you're tired, but the more even it is, the better it is for you." Xiaolin made another noise, this one was far less happy. "It'll make sense. I don't want to have you do some task that will take more out of you than you can give. When we stop to rest, I'll show you a spell, how about that?"
"Ah?" Xiaolin said before he took a deep breath through his mouth and huffed it out in one large go like a mule. Xiaolin looked up at Liu Liangzhe almost like he was awaiting a reaction, but Liu Liangzhe wasn't going to give him one. If he wanted to be stubborn and mule-like then Liu Liangzhe would discourage him, but what right did he have to tell him to change if that's how he wanted to be?
"Yes, a spell that will locate an item of mine that I have hidden. It will give us a more definite path to my mountain. I'll admit, I haven't been this far north in quite some time," Liu Liangzhe said. "It's important, especially if you're like me and lose things often. I know it's a flaw, but I've had people tell me it's quite endearing."
"Liu-er-ge lost his brush again?" Wu Mi asked with a laugh.
"Don't laugh at me! I have to write something down immediately, or it'll be lost forever. I can't let this superior idea go to--" Liu Liangzhe ranted before he was presented with his brush. He accepted it with a flush on his pale cheeks. "Where was it?"
"Right where you left it, silly," Wu Mi said before he kissed Liu Liangzhe's cheek. "Hurry and write down your 'superior idea' before you lose it forever. We wouldn't want the most humble cultivator to lose his notes, would we?" Liu Liangzhe ignored his lover's sarcasm.
"Uh, I forgot what I was thinking about, but I think I know how to solve this problem once and for all."
Liu Liangzhe hoped that Wu Mi hadn't felt the horrid passage of time, as ghosts so often did. For every day, Wu Mi must have suffered the loneliness of an eternity, and it was all Liu Liangzhe's fault. He was broken from his stupor when Xiaolin laughed at him with his head bobbing as it shook. Liu Liangzhe huffed, almost as mule-like as his charge.
"Don't laugh at your Shifu, A-Lin, it might make him cry," Liu Liangzhe said with a crooked smile. Xiaolin didn't stop laughing, in fact, he only laughed harder until he really did run out of breath. Liu Liangzhe picked the boy up and held him up, rubbing his back. "See, I told you about breathing, but you didn't listen and now you're coughing. This is on you." Xiaolin huffed as soon as he regained his breath and jammed his chin into Liu Liangzhe's shoulder, right where the muscle met with his neck, and stayed that way, his arms draped around Liu Liangzhe's shoulders.
They continued to walk down the dirt road until there was a sign post that announced that they had arrived at a settlement. The archway was made of sterling metal that glinted in the sunlight. A poor way to conserve funds, and the worst part was that it glinted with magic that meant it was enchanted. This was a protected town, protected by the Jin Clan, as seen from the tigers carved into the bottom of the archway beams, the leaders of the Metal Sect.
As Xiaolin slept on him, his face turned to now press against his neck entirely like a much younger child than he was, Liu Liangzhe had half a mind to not even bother with the town. So, he didn't. He headed back into the forest around them, mostly untouched, and sat Xiaolin down on his lap as he pulled a piece of rice paper free from his inner coat, which was beginning to see the wear of being worn everyday and the effects of being out of the protection of whatever energy kept him preserved for all thousand years he slept. He used a needle from a bundle of them that he had purchased for a rather cheap price all things considered. He wrote the spell on the talisman with his blood.
"Sunless Plum Forest," he muttered, and tossed the talisman into the sky. It ignited into black flame as it was consumed. To his eyes, and because he was touching Xiaolin the boy would see it as well, a guiding red line the colour of blood erupted from the ground. However, it headed directly in the direction of that damn town: Tongzhen. They would have to pass that place, even though Liu Liangzhe didn't wish to lest he accidentally run into a cultivator or two.
"Hey, you there!" someone shouted. Liu Liangzhe looked around, and reached down to pat Xiaolin's head, when he realised whoever was speaking to him. He looked up to see two men running towards them, their hands resting on the swords strapped to their hips. Their robes were just the colours he was hoping to avoid: white and gold. They were most definitely cultivators, their swords were intricate and nonstandard, and their uniforms bore the logo of a tiger in white with a golden outline just like he remembered his enemies wearing a thousand years prior, although the style of the robes themselves had different quite a bit, they were still similar.
"What sort of spell did you use?" the second man asked him. Both of these disciples were young, barely young men, and Liu Liangzhe wouldn't even call them adults just yet.
"Just a tracker charm. It was nothing you need to worry about," he said, not lying despite the fact it was a rather unorthodox spell in general.
"Jin-shizun doesn't allow wandering cultivators entry. Unless you're with… the Water Sect, maybe?" the boy asked, although he had certainly started off strong with some authority it melted with his immaturity.
"Yes, I'm from the Water Sect, or I used to be, I definitely have formal education," he said, although this time it was a blatant lie. He couldn't bring himself to care about such a harmless lie, however. He just wanted through the village to get home, and he really couldn't be bothered with all the hoops these people were bound to want him to jump through.
"Well… Why don't you follow us?"
"Why?" he asked.
"Why? Because we're from the Jin Clan! We own this land, and everything on it. And right now, that includes you!" the other boy said, although his partner held a hand on his shoulder to soothe him. It didn't seem to be the most effective technique at soothing a raging bull, however, because the other boy continued to glare at Liu Liangzhe.
"Because if you're from the Water Sect as you say, we need to know what brought you here, and if you need help," the original boy said. "I'm Jin Xing, but you can call me Jin Baohu. This is my biaoxiong Jin Meng, but you can call him Jin Hufa."
"Hufa…" Liu Liangzhe said with a smirk. What a silly name. He wondered how they spelled it, but he didn't really care. "Well, I'm Liu Liangzhe, and this is my son. His name is Liu Lin. I think we'll stay right here until he wakes up. I've missed the sun…" he said, although after a moment of the sun blinding him as he stared up, he added, "I think…" because maybe he didn't like the sun as much as he thought. Maybe it was just seeing it after so long that has made him homesick. In his first life, before he was trapped in that coffin, he never cared much for the sun, and his delve into the death arts led him to growing even paler in pallor as he lost his humanity and increasingly succumbed to his yin-absorption illness. A madness that made him crave blood. He killed hundreds of people if he was minimizing his damage, but sometimes he wiped out villages, he had taken out a city once or twice, before he was locked away. Never once had he missed the sun then.