Looking for a Friend: Meat in the Room

The talismans stuck on the wall flared with crimson light and flew at the white figure. Some were deflected away, but others stuck fast, producing a crackling sizzle and wisps of green smoke.

He Zhuoming didn't dare stare, afraid she'd lose precious escape time. She snapped her head back around and dashed out of the courtyard, with Xu Feixian right behind her.

But as she crossed the gate, instead of a corridor, the familiar little courtyard and cabin appeared before her eyes.

The cabin door stood wide open, and the white figure had already smashed through the window and crawled inside—its body pockmarked with scorched black craters from the talismans.

He Zhuoming shrieked, spun around, and nearly collided with Xu Feixian. The two turned and ran back, crossing the threshold—only to be met with the same sight again. The only difference was that the white figure had nearly crawled out the door, and was now closer to them than before!

He Zhuoming broke down: "You've got to be kidding me! This trick again!"

Xu Feixian: "...You summoned this?"

He Zhuoming wailed, "I don't know! I don't even know it!"

The white figure seemed to realize they couldn't escape. It didn't rush at them, but slowly rose to its feet—its fog-veiled face turned toward He Zhuoming and Xu Feixian. The mist around the lower half of its face churned rapidly, as if it were speaking or sniffing intently at something.

Xu Feixian's expression turned grim. One hand gripping her saber, she pulled out two exorcism talismans with the other and flung them experimentally at the white figure.

The white figure dodged, but the talismans curved in midair and smacked against its body with a crack. At the same moment, Xu Feixian closed in with her saber, slashing horizontally. The white figure was already smoking from the talisman burns, and now it had to contend with Xu Feixian's blade as well—for a moment, it was on the back foot.

They traded blows, one ghost against one woman. He Zhuoming circled around to watch, and soon spotted the problem: although the white figure seemed to be struggling, Xu Feixian's saber was having an even harder time actually landing a hit.

The white figure seemed to know Xu Feixian's sword style intimately, evading most of her attacks. The wounds on its body were almost all from the talismans.

Xu Feixian, meanwhile, was gradually being worn down, her momentum slowing.

He Zhuoming was terrified of ghosts, but she clenched her fists, dashed back into the room, tore the glowing crimson talismans off the wall, and came charging back out to fling them at the white figure.

In an instant, the white figure was burning with green smoke, its slender body stiffening and twisting—Xu Feixian seized the opening. With a diagonal upward slash, the tip of her saber pierced through the white figure's chest!

The fog around its face dissipated, revealing a ghastly pale ghostly visage.

Xu Feixian was close enough to see the face clearly: it was Huang Mibo's!

An ordinary ghost pierced through the heart would have scattered into nothing, but Huang Mibo was unharmed—her soul form merely turned a bit more insubstantial.

Her eyes stared venomously at Xu Feixian. The sides of her face were hollow, as if her ears had been cut away. Xu Feixian kicked her off the tip of her blade and shouted, "The maze is broken! Get out!"

Before she even finished speaking, He Zhuoming—driven by pure survival instinct—was already out the door.

This time, there was no ghost-loop outside, just a normal corridor. He Zhuoming was about to weep with joy when a cold, pale figure floated out of the corridor wall.

Her smile froze mid-form. Xu Feixian, running out right behind her, also widened her eyes with an expression of utter disbelief.

Meanwhile, Huang Mibo's ghost, kicked onto the wall by Xu Feixian, crawled back over.

Her soul was weak now, no longer able to maintain the fog over her face. But she forced a stiff, cold smile onto her pale features, and her eerie, drifting voice echoed from all directions.

"Xu Feixian, I've been so lonely in the Divine Palace, all by myself. So bored, so lonely. Come keep me company."

The voice was bone-chilling. He Zhuoming's arms broke out in goosebumps, and she wiped at her face through tears, sobbing: "She's here for you—wahhh—"

Xu Feixian said flatly: "You have terrible luck."

Huang Mibo had been dead for days without her soul returning. But today, of all days, He Zhuoming showed up and walked right into Huang Mibo's hunt for a sacrificial substitute.

The corridor went deathly silent. Both Xu Feixian—trying to keep her composure—and He Zhuoming—crying her eyes out without any pretense—knew they were trapped in another ghost loop.

Whatever happened within the loop was invisible and inaudible to the outside world.

Which was all thanks to Xu Feixian, really.

She lived in the most secluded spot, so two ghosts had all night to weave two overlapping maze formations there, without worrying that anyone would come close enough to notice.

Huang Mibo's ghost crawled, then weakly floated upward. Her gaze swept over He Zhuoming, and she spoke to the white figure on the wall: "There are two bodies now. I'll give you the younger one. Xu Feixian's body can be mine."

The white figure shook its head.

Huang Mibo's ghost was taken aback, but didn't argue. After being a ghost for a few days and witnessing her companion's savagery, she was no longer as overbearing and self-centered as she'd been in life. She thought for a moment, then proposed a new plan: "You prefer Xu Feixian's body? Then she's yours, and the little girl is mine."

He Zhuoming wiped her tears and muttered a protest: "I'm not a little girl. I'm a young woman..."

Xu Feixian: "They're not going to listen to you."

Huang Mibo indeed paid He Zhuoming no attention—she didn't even glance her way, just kept watching the white figure on the wall.

Finally, the white figure spoke. Its voice was remarkably gentle, kind—far too warm to be a ghost's voice.

"Let her go."

No sooner had it said this than He Zhuoming felt her vision spin, and her body swayed involuntarily. In the blink of an eye, the white figure, Huang Mibo, and Xu Feixian had all vanished!

She was alone in the empty corridor, wooden sword in one hand and a few leftover exorcism talismans in the other. A cool night breeze swept through, brushing against her tear-stained cheeks, leaving them cold and damp.

She shouted Xu Feixian's name a few times at the top of her lungs, and soon attracted a patrol of sect disciples.

Due to the chaos of the past few days, disciples from several major sects had organized night patrols. The leader was a promising young disciple of the Yuqing Sect. After hearing He Zhuoming's account, he asked her to return with him to the Yuqing Sect's quarters, where he could report the matter to the supervisor senior brother.

But then, a young woman in plain white robes stepped forward and blocked his path. "I'm sorry, but you can't take this young lady."

The Yuqing Sect disciple frowned. "Why not?"

The white-robed girl smiled. "She's a guest of the Pear Garden."

"So what?" the Yuqing disciple retorted. "Your Pear Garden is the one haunted by ghosts now, and a Xuanhua Cave disciple has gone missing. Is your guest exempt from questioning?"

Of the entire patrol, only the white-robed girl was a Pear Garden musician. The others, though from different sects, stood with a unified front, crowding behind the Yuqing Sect disciple and pressing down on her with their presence.

Facing a line of taller, older sect disciples, the white-robed girl kept her smile and spoke unhurriedly: "You cannot take or interrogate Pear Garden guests at will. That is the rule of the Earth Immortal."

"Are Pear Garden guests so damn special? What guest? Someone you picked up off the street counts as a guest?"

Someone grumbled impatiently, stepped past the white-robed girl, and reached for He Zhuoming's wrist. She looked too young, her cultivation far too shallow to matter, and she only carried a plain wooden sword. To them, she was nothing more than a friend the musician had brought home.

These sect disciples had seen plenty of this type in their own sects—low-level cultivators who weren't even qualified to join, surviving off connections and handouts.

The moment his fingers were about to touch He Zhuoming, a sharp pain shot through his foot.

The pain was sudden and intense, so jarring that his knees buckled and he collapsed in front of He Zhuoming.

She quickly jumped aside, flustered. "Can you guys focus on what matters? My friend just disappeared! She vanished right in front of me along with those two ghosts! Can you look for—"

She didn't get to finish. The kneeling youth suddenly clutched his throat, face contorted, and vomited violently onto the ground. His retching cut her off, drawing everyone's attention.

He heaved up a huge pool of blood, and mixed within it were fragments of organs and pale green fluid.

Then, branches burst from every orifice on his body, splitting through flesh and bone. With a faint crackling sound, a crabapple tree rooted and grew within seconds, its trunk plastered with skin and bone.

The moonlight glinted on the blood smeared across the bark.

The other disciples' faces turned ashen, and they stumbled backward. The white-robed girl, by contrast, pressed her palms together in reverence, gazing up at the spreading canopy, then slowly lowered her head, murmuring something under her breath.

For a moment, the other disciples were silent. Then, one by one, they all bowed their heads just like her, softly chanting along.

Their voices were so faint that to He Zhuoming, they sounded like countless tiny insects fluttering their wings.

She stared blankly at the tree for a long time. Then a powerful wave of nausea surged up her throat, and she staggered to the side, bracing herself against the wall as she dry-heaved.

Even though those disciples had been so aggressive moments ago, watching the tree sprout from the youth's body brought her no sense of vindication. Only horror and revulsion, like a caterpillar crawling over her heart.

For some reason, He Zhuoming thought of Lin Qingyun. Lin Qingyun worked for the Earth Immortal. Maybe this would be his fate someday. The thought of him turning into fertilizer for flowers made her chest ache with grief.

The sect disciples said nothing more about taking He Zhuoming back for questioning. They dispersed with lingering fear on their faces.

He Zhuoming vomited until her head spun. When she finally managed to stop dry-heaving, she looked up to see the white-robed girl offering her a handkerchief.

She accepted it and wiped her mouth, her voice weak: "Thank you..."

The girl smiled. "You're a guest of the Pear Garden. Taking care of you is my duty. It's very late now—shall I escort you back to the main hall?"

He Zhuoming clutched the handkerchief, hesitating. "But my friend—"

"The Xuanhua Cave people will look for her," the girl said.

He Zhuoming's eyes widened. "When?"

"Well..." The girl's expression turned hesitant. "I'm not a Xuanhua Cave disciple, so I don't know how they'll arrange things."

"Can't we go look for her ourselves?" he asked.

The white-robed girl's brows knit slightly as she weighed her options—she couldn't lie to a guest, but she also didn't want to take He Zhuoming into the gathering place of departed souls.

Seeing the girl's silence, He Zhuoming urged impatiently: "Yes or no!"

The girl let out a soft sigh. "Your friend was probably taken by a living soul... I can take you to where the living souls gather, but I can only escort you to the entrance. Would that be acceptable?"

A lead was all she needed. He Zhuoming agreed at once and followed the girl through the corridor to the main hall.

The main hall of the Divine Palace was completely deserted at this hour—except for the ethereal white figures drifting endlessly out of a small door at the far end.

The white-robed girl stood outside the door, not entering.

She took a crimson triangular talisman, wrapped with a length of red thread, from her sleeve.

She handed the talisman and a white lantern to He Zhuoming, and instructed her earnestly: "Light this lantern, and those living souls won't be able to see you."

"Do you see that small door?"

He Zhuoming nodded.

The girl continued: "All you need to do is go against the flow of the souls, through that door, and you'll find many rooms. Open the doors and look inside—you'll see people sleeping in every room. But don't be afraid. This is the time when the living souls go to the shrine to make their offerings, so the bodies left in the rooms are just empty shells. Living corpses, nothing more."

"Search room by room. When you find your friend, tie the red thread from the talisman around her index finger, then use the talisman to lead her out."

"I'm just a musician, so I shouldn't enter the territory of the living souls. I can't go in with you. I'm sorry."

He Zhuoming thought of that fearsome white figure and asked nervously: "What if the white figure that took my friend is still guarding her?"

The girl answered: "They just left the main hall to hunt outside, which already wasted a lot of time. They wouldn't dare—nor would they want to—waste more time by staying in there. Besides..." She paused for a moment, then finished: "You are a guest of the Pear Garden. Even the living souls that serve in the palace would not dare offend you."

Because the girl in front of her was no ordinary guest. Every person who worshipped the Earth Immortal would know at a glance: this was the guest the Earth Immortal had brought back.

He Zhuoming thanked her gratefully, took the lantern and the triangular talisman.

She turned to face the main hall's entrance. In the daytime, the great hall was empty, but now it was filled with drifting pale figures, every face veiled in fog.

He Zhuoming had already seen Huang Mibo's face. She knew that behind every veil of mist was the gray, deathly pallor of a corpse.

Her teeth began to chatter slightly. She clenched her fist, took a deep breath, and marched in.

The white figures inside were so dense that there was no room to dodge. She walked straight into that drifting expanse of white, and the air turned suddenly cold and eerie, sending a shiver through her and making every hair on her body stand on end.

But just as the white-robed girl had said, so long as she held the lantern, the white figures acted as if she didn't exist. Even when she passed straight through their midst, none of them turned their fog-covered heads to glance at her.

Summoning her courage, He Zhuoming pressed forward against the current of cold white fog and stepped through the small door. Behind it, as promised, were many rooms. The temperature dropped even further, so cold that she trembled uncontrollably, yet her palms and back were drenched in cold sweat from sheer tension and fear, the moisture soaking through her underclothes and clinging to her skin.

Terrified as she was, running away never crossed her mind.

Because abandoning a friend was shameful.

She opened the nearest door first and peered carefully inside—it looked like a dormitory from ancient times, with six beds arranged in a row, each with a person lying on it.

He Zhuoming raised the white lantern to shine on their faces, checking to see if Xu Feixian was among them.

An unfamiliar face. An unfamiliar face. An unfami—

Huh?!

He Zhuoming froze, eyes wide in disbelief at the face illuminated by the lantern's glow. In the flickering white light, that gentle, kindly face lay sleeping with eyes closed.

That face's owner had braided her hair just this morning.

It was Li Shui.

A subtle, creeping dread climbed from her feet to her back. The white-robed girl's words echoed in her ears all over again.

The bodies in the rooms are just empty shells. Living corpses, nothing more.

Was Li Shui one of them too? And did an empty shell mean no soul? Did the white figure have to crawl inside to make a "living corpse" move?

He Zhuoming's mind went deeper and deeper down that path, until she scared herself into a fresh bout of tears. She didn't dare sob out loud, so she wiped her face haphazardly with her sleeve, forced herself not to look at Li Shui again, and hurried to check the others on the beds.