A mountain, by its very nature, is the first to touch the dawn. As a consequence, the shadow it casts lies long into the morning, slowly shrinking until it shifts at midday and points in the opposite direction. The Shining Mountain was no exception, with a dark tail like a stain spread out behind as dawn climbed rosy into the sky. This dark veil, the opposite of shining, spread across pines and villages and farms and bends in a meandering river, as well as four cloaked figures that could not be said to be animal or human.

  Trapped between both, though their minds would not admit it, no more than a shining mountain would admit to casting darkness upon the land. Hiding from the morning light, three of them crawled like children, while the fourth walked behind with a heart frozen in pride.

  Once, her name was Qian Ling, and she would still answer to those words, but that person now wore a mask that transformed more than her identity. Her brothers, her children, her hounds had it worse: tongues lolled in the air, claws tore at the ground, and their spines bent and undulated, far too flexible, as they pulled at the leashes of qi and blood around their throats.

  They had the scent, and they were keen, and the masked Qian Ling laughed as they led her on.

  ###

  Chen Ai stared at Ran Qin in disbelief, but the noble clan cultivator stared back with a look of such arrogance that Chen Ai almost thought she was a child once more, back in the compound, with no choices in her future but to obey. It took a moment of cycling her qi and feeling the wild freedom of grass in her veins once more to shake that sensation.

  Oh, how she hated nobles!

  “You think Ran Yaliu should lead?” Chen Ai echoed.

  “Do you think it’s such a bad idea for the Ran to be in charge?” Ran Qin said, unaware of how treacherous her footing truly was. “A Ran is responsible for healing you, and your own senior brother, our beloved expedition leader, said himself that Ran Yaliu could lead if he did not return.”

  “He did return! He simply went after the jiangshi.”

  “But he hasn’t returned since then, has he? The only chain of command he left was my clan member.”

  “I cannot believe this,” Chen Ai said as she glanced around at the other cultivators, looking for someone to back her up. “You must have realised that my senior brother spoke in jest; he would never give up command so easily.”

  Even as she said the words, she wasn’t sure that they were true. How well did she really even know her senior brother?

  “He has barely been present this whole expedition… if he’s even alive!”

  “What are you saying?”

  Ran Qin stepped forward with all the charisma of a painted serpent emerging from a flowerbed.

  “We’ve all been in the Forbidden Zone for a day now, and we’ve seen how truly horrendous the dangers are.”

  The other cultivators nodded at her words, even the Shen.

  “No sophistry,” Chen Ai said with a growl.

  Ran Qin raised her eyebrow as the horned cultivator’s emotions slipped from behind her stoic mask.

  “Fine, no sophistry, I will simply speak facts.”

  “Please.”

  “Your senior brother is dead, and we were all deceived by a demonic monster that wore his face. That is why he has not returned, and that is why our camp was so easily invaded by the jiangshi.”

  “He is not dead! I saw him heal.”

  “So you say, but nobody short of an Immortal could heal from such grievous physical injuries, yet only those in the Qi Condensing realm can enter this valley. So, how do you explain that?”

  “It is his bloodline…” but the words sounded weak even to Chen Ai’s ears. “No, I will not allow you to fill my mind with your poison! If you truly think you should lead the expedition, then challenge me now for the position, and I shall happily fight any of you.”

  A long moment of silence hung over the camp as the coals crackled amidst the ashen remnants of the bonfire and the creatureless forest shifted in the wind.

  The old Shen swordsman stepped out of the background, his hand upon the hilt of his jian.

  “You’ll fight any of us?”

  Chen Ai glared at him.

  “If you make me.”

  He matched her gaze, and whatever he saw there did not intimidate him, but he bowed his head all the same.

  “The Shen will support Assistant Expedition Leader Chen Ai so long as she continues to provide sound judgment.”

  “You think she has shown such judgment so far?” Ran Qin asked with a mocking laugh.

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  “Who can say?” the old Shen swordsman responded. “Nobody here challenged the expedition leader when he returned. If he was truly a demonic monster – and I’m not saying that he was – then we are all equally culpable in letting him return to the camp. I say that we continue as planned, and, if we see him again –”

  “When,” corrected Chen Ai. “He will return.”

  “As you say,” the old Shen swordsman said with a polite bow. “When he returns, we can address the problem then, if we still believe that problem exists.”

  He stepped back, and Chen Ai turned her attention back to the delicately featured Ran Qin.

  “Do you intend to challenge me?” she asked.

  Her tone and intentions were as heavy as the club in her hands.

  Ran Qin sneered.

  “No,” she said. “If words and honor will not sway you, then I shall not let myself fall to your level. Just remember that every step and every breath you take is thanks to the efforts of the Ran, and that you repaid them by spitting in our face.”

  With those words, she turned away from Chen Ai and started towards the outline of a path leading north. She was not in charge, but her intentions were clear, and since everyone else was already packed, they quickly left the campsite behind.

  It didn’t matter who walked in the lead, and Chen Ai trailed behind the others as Ran Qin followed Ran Cong’s notes to find the medicinal herbs they all needed.

  “Please, hurry, senior brother,” Chen Ai whispered to herself as the dark trees closed in overhead. “I can’t do this without you.”

  ###

  Despite the decades that had passed since the Ran last sent any members into the Howling Blossom Valley, Ran Qin’s map of spiritual herbs was still accurate. The expedition traversed the gloomy forest, their spiritual senses scanning the undergrowth as they moved through pools of shadow, but, fortunately, they encountered no jiangshi. The creatures of cold and darkness were truly hiding from the sunlight, but that was only a relief so long as the sun remained in the sky.

  None of them believed that the creatures were gone for good.

  Shen Botao and the old Shen swordsman carried Shen Tongtong on a stretcher between them in the middle of the group, while Ran Yaliu and Song Shuai used their speed to roam and scout ahead. The group’s constant tension went unrewarded, as they passed beyond the treeline and entered an open, marshy area without incident. Sunlight beat down onto the flattened ground, and pools of water caught the sky like mirrors. Small, bright flowers grew amongst the reeds and grasses, but no bugs zipped over the water, and no birds chased them.

  Like all the other places before them, this place was lifeless, and the silence that came as a result was like being buried alive.

  Ruins dotted the marsh. The structures were vague with the age that only a damp, sinking place can provide, but they seemed to have been temples of some sort once upon a time, the arches and spires sticking out of the wet ground like the slow coils of some white stone serpent.

  After Ran Qin outlined the details and showed the illustrations of which herbs she was looking for, the expedition spread out to search for them. Chen Ai took the first shift as lookout and stood on a fragment of an ancient bridge, looking out at the marsh enclosed by trees.

  The path out of this place forked, with neither going completely straight. One went to the left, and the other to the right, and Chen Ai wasn’t sure which one to take. She’d really hoped to avoid making any decisions like this, but now her senior brother was missing for the second day in a row.

  Was she being ridiculous for hoping that he would miraculously fall out of the sky once more?

  “I hate this place,” Song Shuai said from beside Chen Ai. “It feels wrong in every way I know how to describe.”

  Inwardly, Chen Ai agreed.

  “Why didn’t you speak up on my behalf?”

  “You seemed to handle the situation well enough without my help.”

  “What happened to trying to woo me?”

  He raised an eyebrow.

  “Are you the kind of woman to fall for someone who fights her battles for her?”

  She scowled at him.

  “Everyone appreciates being defended.”

  “Good to know,” he said with an annoyingly charming smile.

  “So, you haven’t sided with the Ran?”

  “There are sides? I thought we were all on the same team. You know, us versus the countless unpredictable dangers of a forbidden zone.”

  “When you say it like that, it does seem ridiculous that there are sides.”

  “It does.”

  “Doesn’t change the fact that my authority was challenged and you were too busy flirting with Ran Yaliu to back me up.”

  His smile stiffened.

  “You seem to misunderstand something, Chen Ai. I’m not here to help you or your senior brother; I’m only here to help myself. Everyone here, no matter what they say, is only here to help themselves. Because, no matter what you might believe, nobody is capable of entering a location of certain death for anything other than the most selfish reasons. If you want to fight me, good, I would love to fight someone as strong as you, but don’t try to sway me with your sophistry.”

  He walked away, and Chen Ai scowled at his back, but he’d thrown her own words back in her face, and she couldn’t refute them.

  As she continued to stand watch over the cultivators as they roamed across the sunny marsh, she heard a cry of excitement.

  Ran Yaliuy waved something shining in her hands.

  “I found something!” she called out.

  “Is it the spiritual herbs?” Ran Qin called back.

  “Better!” Ran Yaliu shouted with almost childish excitement. “There’s treasure!”

  Chen Ai sighed as the cultivators converged on Ran Yaliu. Somehow, she doubted that this would be resolved peacefully.

  ###

  I stood underground with the Butcher Bird on my head as it explained what it wanted from me.

  “This portal you see is a dead, false thing, and I wish to open the real one underneath the Myriad Tree. So, your true quest has not really changed; there is simply one more thing you must do.”

  “What is that?”

  With a gesture, the Nascent Soul spirit beast summoned a scroll.

  “Take this map and follow it until you find an underground facility much like this one. You will find a cage that houses a statue. I need you to enter the cage and remove the key from around the statue’s neck. If you can do that, then I can do the rest, and, together, we can bring my masters back to this place.”

  I examined the map.

  “That sounds easy enough.”

  “There are a few stipulations.”

  I winced.

  “Of course there are…”

  The Butcher Bird took a deep breath, and the cavern buckled and leaned inwards.

  “Do not touch the statue! Do not touch the seals on the ground! Do not speak to the statue! Do not breathe in that room! Do not make a sound! Do you understand?!”

  Blood flowed from my ears.

  “Yes, I understand.”

  “Good.”

  “So, I don’t have to worry about our original deal?”

  “Ha ha! Of course you do! One thing does not exclude another. Even now, your expedition members stray ever so close to moving beyond the path I wished you to take. If that happens, then I shall pluck one of them and impale them upon the Myriad Tree. You do not have long to find them. Best hurry!”

  With that, the Butcher Bird flew up into the ceiling and shattered the rock and soil, sending tons of rubble down until sunlight streamed through the shaft left behind. How was it midmorning already?

  Fortunately, I managed to avoid being buried, but my heart was pounding. Even if I couldn’t die, there were fates far worse than death, and I was starting to suspect that the Butcher Bird might have written a few books on the subject.

  But the warning rang in my head: I needed to hurry, or someone would die.

  I offered a prayer to the faces stitched into the ribbon before I leaped into the crumbling tunnel left behind by the Butcher Bird’s flight and started climbing to the surface.

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