The man must have been in his sixties. The look of him had many features that suggested this, or rather, the little of him that could be seen did.
Two especially thin, sharp eyes were deeply sunken into his skull socket, surrounded by sickly skin. The man's face was especially gaunt, with high cheekbones and a lack of cheeks in general. He might not have had a decent serving of rice since the end of the Qing Dynasty. A few black whiskers grew just above his thin, cracked lips. They were likely to be swept away in the sharp, cold winds if they didn't shape up.
And that was about all that Yun Jieshi could glean about the man's flesh.
He was adorned in a suit of brigandine armor. The riveted metal plates cast in royal blue and gold were war-worn but intact. The helmet had the worst signs of damage, but it held. Somehow, its chipped, scarred, and charred look made its wearer look even more imposing, especially with the way he was standing in the air, looking determinedly at his goal.
His target was evidently something past the Great Gap.
Yun Jieshi would have continued riding the same enthusiasm as before, when Hua Dongmei had told him that there was indeed a human in the Lower Southern Plateau, but there was one detail about this man that threw him off. It was something that conflicted with the joy of finding a 'human' here.
Everything about the warrior – and indeed he must have been one – might have been part of an impressive ink wash painting. His brigandine armor was translucent and throngs of black, gold, and blue rose from it, sifting into the sky like smoke. The same rang true for his face. His whiskers left slow trails of black with the slightest shift of his head and the colour from his pale face seemed to leak into the air as paint.
The first word Yun Jieshi had thought of upon seeing this man hadn't been human. It had been ghost.
He frowned. He wished he could have processed how he felt about this quicker.
What happened next didn't help with that at all.
The man drew a deep breath, and as though he was walking over a tightrope no one else but he could see, he moved one foot in front of the other while his arms spread on either side of him, erect.
He went slowly and steadied over the darkness of the Great Gap. His face went through a series of animations and at one point, he flapped his arms like wings and wound them like rotor blades when he lost balance over the invisible rope. He caught himself at the last second though. His eyes grew wide with fear so potent that even Yun Jieshi felt it as he watched with bated breath.
'Is he serious?' the little monkey thought. Watching this was as comical as it was anxiety-inducing.
The armored man soldiered on for almost thirty meters more. He grew less and less confident – less and less steady – as he went. Finally, when he reached the sixty-meter mark, he seemed to miss a step on his invisible tightrope. He screamed, flapping and flailing his arms about, but it didn't help. He fell and…
'What the heck?' Yun Jieshi was startled when the man fell on the air with a faint pla right at the edge of the Gap, where he had started.
Somehow, he warped, returning to his starting point.
The little monkey gaped, his face its own ink wash painting of confusion. He watched as the man struggled to stand up on the air. He looked furious. He kept muttering things Yun Jieshi couldn't make sense of even when he pricked his ears.
Hua Dongmei and Honghuo soon reached the Discount Sage at that moment. The former might have been about to ask Yun Jieshi why he had stormed off like that when…
"What are you looking at?"
Yun Jieshi reeled, as did his two companions.
The man in the armor was looking at the little monkey, a deep scowl that returned some of his skin's color drawn on his face.
"What? Me?" The part of Yun Jieshi that was getting used to being revered was offended.
"I just asked what you were looking at. What do I look like? A ghost? Get lost?" growled the phantom.
The unrefined young adult in Yun Jieshi flared, and he was about to spit a nasty word salad before he could stop himself.
Honghuo and Hua Dongmei's collective gasp managed to restrain him. Yun Jieshi turned to them, puzzled.
"What's the matter?"
"Sage Xingyu, he's talking to you!" cried Hua Dongmei as she flew in circles above the little monkey.
"Yes, Sage! That's never happened before! H-he never speaks to us nor does he ever react whenever we are close to him!" Honghuo added, visibly shaking.
Yun Jieshi was surprised, but then he remembered that Honghuo had mentioned something like this before he (Yun Jieshi) stormed off. He turned back to the man in the armor only to find him squinting at both Hua Dongmei and Honghuo as well. He licked his lips at the former.
"A fairy?" he said before expelling a chilling cough. "You're younger than her. She didn't look nearly as cold. Why haven't I seen such a lovely sight in all these years?"
Hua Dongmei jerked back. Her little face had all the shock in the world. She looked at Yun Jieshi and then at the armored man and clapped her hands on her tiny cheeks. She murmured something about coming to watch the man at least a hundred times since she was born and then squealed.
The man squinted even harder when he turned to Honghuo. Yun Jieshi wasn't sure his vision was competent even as a ghost or whatever he was.
"And you… What are you doing here?"
The Discount Sage and Hua Dongmei slowly scrolled their heads to Honghuo who visibly shuddered. He was just as puzzled as them.
"Man… you know what I am? W-where I come from?" he asked in a trembling voice.
But the phantom of a man gave a sigh and adjusted his helmet instead.
"How dare you call me an old man, you overgrown candlelight?" he barked and clicked his tongue. "Look at you all, wasting my time. You're a distraction! If you won't go away, then at least be quiet. I need to focus. I have a good feeling about this time. I've made her wait for too long. I will cross and meet her this time. Mark my words!" he said and cast his focus towards his goal again.
Yun Jieshi wished things could have slowed down for just a second.
What in the world was going on?
Had he just affected the natural order of things here?
Did the armored man start to interact with the things around him because he was here?
And what did he mean when he asked what Honghuo was doing here?
As though prompted, Hua Dongmei hurried to reiterate how abnormal everything happening was.
"Sage Xingyu, what did you do? He's not just talking to us. He also seems more driven now. It's almost like he might run this time. What kind of spell did you put on him?"
'Spell?' Yun Jieshi questioned himself incredulously before asking Hua Dongmei:
"What do you mean he's especially driven?"
The man in the armor was pressing his foot on the invisible tightrope only he could see as though trying to judge if it could hold his weight well. Hua Dongmei was momentarily dazed by the sight, but Yun Jieshi's urging brought her back to the present concern.
"He's always talking about meeting someone on the other side of the gap, but he never mentioned anything about their gender or the fact that they were waiting for him."
"That's right," confirmed Honghuo. "It almost looks like he is really going to cross this time."
"Quiet! I need to focus!" the man cried, waving his hand up and down at the trio.
Yun Jieshi and the rest obliged. The little monkey wondered how this was even a challenge for someone who could walk on air. If Honghuo could do it, why couldn't this man?
Yun Jieshi secretly gulped hard.
The phantom suddenly took a leap and began racing steadily over the Gap – over the deep darkness. It looked comical, honestly. He was a little stooped, and the little dance he did as he charged on quickly, placing one foot in front of the next while bobbing left and right made Yun Jieshi grind his teeth in an attempt to stifle a grin. The man looked like those wavy, bloated balloon men from car dealership stores.
But whatever method he was using was working. He persisted nomatter how ridiculous he looked and it was bearing fruit.
Hua Dongmei and Honghuo rose into the air, swelling with anticipation. They found themselves rooting for the armored man.
Yun Jieshi couldn't say his feelings swung in that direction, but he did want to see what would happen if the phantom reached the other side. By the time he decided that he was also hoping for the best for the armored man, he (the man) had already passed the halfway point across the Great Gap – many kilometers away. The phantom was almost indistinguishable from the deep darkness.
But then he suddenly tripped… and vanished.
"Huh?" Yun Jieshi exclaimed while Honghuo and Hua Dongmei deflated.
"He still failed." The fairy sounded dejected.
The phantom appeared before the trio, dropping hard onto thin air with a pla!
A torn look was on his face. His lips drew a downward curve and his eyes seemed to sink deeper into their sockets. He gnashed his teeth and wore a frown so deep it wrinkled his entire face. A sound akin to ripping cloth came from his mouth as he collapsed to his knees and buried his face in his hands.
The man wailed.
Yun Jieshi was taken aback. He suddenly got the feeling that this was all wrong. The armored warrior wasn't supposed to fail to cross this time.
The man's cry echoed throughout the entire gap. It was wet, withering, and weak. It stank of defeat, bitterness, and longing.
Yun Jieshi thought he'd heard it somewhere before. Or perhaps, he had heard something similar – something so contagiously sorrowful and depressing.
Perhaps it was this familiarity that compelled him to move forward, look at the armored man and ask:
"You. Who is waiting for you on the other side?"