Every man who had ever been beheaded must have cursed their brain's tenacity in the dozen or so seconds that followed the decisive blow.
Yun Jieshi had felt it.
Sliding down the gullet of an unknown entity – a monster, perhaps – was about as existentially crippling as anything could get. Skin sliding against the slimy throat wall; nose blocked, choked by the stink from below; mouth invaded by foul, bodily fluid; eyes blinded and stinging.
Yes.
Yun Jieshi would have loved to write a poem about this.
…But he would have also loved to write a song about the warm embrace that cradled him lovingly right after all his sensations finally died.
His eyes seemed sewn shut now, and his arms and legs refused to move, but he was content. He was swallowed by unseen comfort and perhaps this was his new reality.
But wait.
Why was he suddenly so warm?
Hadn't he just been…?
But no.
Who cared?!
He was in some safe bubble, away from Li Chyou, away from insecurities, away from rent…away from it all.
Nothing else mattered.
Crack!
Something broke the immersion. Yun Jieshi could hear it as a muffled crack just outside the range of whatever magical bubble cradled his figure with warmth and love.
Crack!
It came again, and all of a sudden, the warmth and love were toned down a peg, and then by another peg, and another and another, and…
Crack! Crack! Pwa!
Yun Jieshi felt himself pour out and down from a high place. He slapped against the hard ground and slid for a few meters before coming to a stop. Something thick and slimy was clinging to his body, slowly growing less warm and loving by the second. Remnants of heat remained though, and as Yun Jieshi's ears pricked, he heard the crackling of flames.
His limbs slowly loosened and his eyes decided they were ready to see the world.
Irritation and annoyance almost made Yun Jieshi mutter a curse. He desperately wondered who had disturbed his cozy resting place.
A fierce breeze shut him up, however.
Yun Jieshi opened his eyes fully.
At first, all he saw was white. White fog, white snow.
He was standing on all fours over a mound of ice and snow slathered with some colourless liquid that was quickly… evaporating? Tongues of golden fire flickered here and there in his vision all the way up to what appeared to be a cliff, melting portions of the ice and snow. Beyond this cliff, only a thick fog could be seen, making up the rest of the world.
It took Yun Jieshi a couple of seconds to reconcile with what he was seeing. He blinked furiously and then gaped, quaking.
"What the…! What is this? Where am I?" he cried, and he tried to stand up, but his body seemed oddly stiff. He began huffing in the cold air, staring shocked at the surroundings. He looked left and then right… and then behind him.
Yun Jieshi recoiled and collapsed deeper into the snow and ice. His eyes bulged, perhaps hoping to cover the full scale of what was ahead of them.
Perked on a great, frozen, wooden stump, was a gigantic, peach-shaped rock.
The details on it were impeccable, or least, they would have been if not for the great crack on its face. A colourless ooze dripped from the dark hollow inside, along with sparks of flame. The shadow the rock cast was strangely modest, but that did not take away from the its impressive size. The great flames circling it on the ground also emphasized its grandeur, their dancing shadows adding a bit of ominousness.
Yun Jieshi swallowed hard.
Even while puzzled and confused by everything concerning where he was and why he was here, he put two and two together fairly quickly.
He had emerged from the rock.
…But that didn't explain anything at all.
Again, Yun Jieshi made a valiant effort to stand, but he failed. Something about his body wasn't right, he felt right then.
He looked at himself, and couldn't hold back the scream that left his lips.
"AHHHH!"
Why was he not even a third of his usual height?
Why were his limbs so short?
Why was he covered in bright, silvery-blue fur?
Why did he have a tail… and why was it smacking him in the head?!
Yun Jieshi made an odd groaning noise as he caught his long tail before it could hit him over the head again. He was almost compelled to yank it off Saiyan-style, but the sting that came from its point of origin – right above his hidden little buttocks – promised great agony if he did. The tail was rather long, perhaps as long as he was tall. Yun Jieshi imagined he was almost half a meter tall. He must have been no larger than a young capuchin monkey.
"I'm not dreaming, right?" Yun Jieshi said, feeling hysterical. "No, I did get my head bitten off, didn't I? But then…?"
The right question to ask eluded him.
Spotting the steam and stream rising from golden flames nearby, he quickly crawled over. A pool of water was slowly forming. Yun Jieshi looked into it desperately, his mouth agape, his tail once again hitting him over the head.
A cute face bordered by thick, silvery-blue furs looked back at him with small, sharp electric blue eyes. A button nose sat in the middle, layered with pale, slightly pink skin.
Yun Jieshi had no words.
That was not his face. That couldn't be his face. Since when was he a little…monkey?
"No… no, no, no…" Yun Jieshi murmured while shaking his head.
Right then, a stinging pain stabbed him in the forehead. He grunted and squinted.
What was it now? Was the prospect of his conversion into a little primate not jarring or frustrating enough?
But the pain subsided rather quickly. As he blinked, Yun Jieshi saw through his reflection in the water that something had appeared on his forehead. It was a very minimalistic symbol of a flame, drawn in a pale red hue.
Yun Jieshi's face was a painting of confusion. What could this mark be? How did it suddenly appear on him?
He rubbed it with his little fingers.
"Little curiosity born on the precipice of the Lower Southern Plateau."
Yun Jieshi yelped as an old, sagely voice rang in his ear.
He looked around, shaken.
"What? Who's there?" he cried.
There was no one around but him. Finally, he managed to stand. His tail stopped hitting him.
"What was that voice?"
Yun Jieshi looked in the reflection again and touched the symbol on his forehead.
"Little curiosity born on the precipice of the Lower Southern Plateau."
Again, came the voice.
"Wait…" Yun Jieshi said, eyebrows raised. He touched his face.
"Little curiosity born on the precipice of the Lower Southern Plateau."
He touched his chest.
"Little curiosity born on the precipice of the Lower Southern Plateau."
He touched the snow.
"Snow."
Yun Jieshi's lips trembled. He wanted so badly to smile right then, but his fears made him think better of it. He was immensely fascinated, but reason dictated that he had to remain astounded by being alive after death for a bit longer.
"It's… it's a voice in my head. It's identifying everything I touch."
And indeed, it was.
"Is it because of this mark on my forehead?"
Yun Jieshi returned to his reflection. He was sure he was right. But then…
"Little curiosity born where?" he said and looked around him. Wherever he was, was akin to a small island barely twenty meters at its widest. The peach-shaped rock was right in the middle and all around this 'island', the thick fog obscured everything beyond.
Yun Jieshi's ears pricked up.
He caught the faintest sound of rushing water and focused his hearing. Suddenly, the sound became vivid. He heard how water splashed on something hard on its way further down and…
"This isn't an island," he said, seized by fright. "This is some kind of… frozen knob. Or maybe a rock pillar?"
No wonder it was so cold here. He was high up.
But then again, Yun Jieshi hardly felt it. He was relatively warm, and that didn't make an ounce of sense. He didn't have nearly as much fur – as young of a body as he had – to resist this cold.
But then, his ears shouldn't have been able to keenly adjust so that he could hear something so far away.
What exactly was he?
Right then, there was a loud crash and Yun Jieshi turned behind him, startled.
The peach-shaped rock had split from the great opening on its face, chunks of it falling on either side of the frozen stump. They cocked up snow with their drop; they must have been rather heavy.
Something other than ooze fell from the inside of the rock and plopped onto the snow as it split.
Well, there were two things, in fact.
Yun Jieshi inched towards them, and when he caught a glimpse of the first, he was thrust between apprehension and immense excitement!
---
[Author's Note]
The knob he's referring to is a geographical structure and not a doorknob.