Chapter Text
The snowstorm came from nowhere and when. Yes, the weather was getting worse with every step they took, and the further they moved away from the village, where they managed to get not only much needed information, but also supplies for the further way, the worse the surroundings looked. There was a fog over the ground, everything seemed to evaporate, as if the world wasn't ready for the attack of winter, the vegetation withered rapidly, the leaves curled sagely under the influence of icy touches, losing any will to live. The wind was blowing stronger and stronger, whistling ghostly in the branches of the taller trees, picking up dust, fallen leaves and snowflakes that hadn't had time to melt yet. The ground slowly became more and more soggy, turning into mud on which it was difficult to walk, until finally the area was so dark that they had nothing left to do but to seek shelter for the coming night.
"There," Ouyang Zizhen finally chuckled, pointing towards the small hill in front of them.
The other three exchanged uncertain glances, but this time they didn't discuss it, even Jin Ling didn't protest particularly loudly, he only let out a quiet cry of surprise when he spotted the entrance to a small cave as he approached the place his friend indicated. He hadn't known for a long time that Ouyang Zizhen was an incredibly good observer who could see details that were invisible to anyone else, but until now, it seemed to the young Sect Leader Jin that this was mainly true for other people around them. He had to admit that at the moment, he was pleasantly surprised by the abilities displayed by the only son of Sect Leader Baling Ouyang.
"Finally! I'm starving, and I think my ears are frostbitten!" said Lan Jingyi, who almost jumped to the narrow cave entrance, but Lan Sizhui put a hand on his shoulder. "What, Ugh, don't tell me you think this is the abode of evil and monsters we're looking for! At most, there might be a frozen fox sitting there!"
"Caution is always a good thing," the elder of the Gusu Lan disciples replied.
By this time, Ouyang Zizhen had already used one of the talismans to see if the cave was empty and if they would definitely fit inside, only leading to dust coming out of the alcove and nothing else. Eventually, the boy shrugged his shoulders as a sign that nothing should surprise them and slipped inside through the narrow opening to let them know that they should all fit in here and there was even enough room to make a campfire. They quickly divided up the tasks, though it wasn't without Jin Ling's whining and Lan Jingyi's complaining that he was the one who was supposed to be cooking again, until they finally sat down by the small campfire that didn't provide much heat for now.
"Why do I have to be the one to cook?" chuckled an inconsolable Lan Jingyi, then made a saddened face.
"You can cook for the leader of one of the biggest sects and still complain" snorted Jin Ling, who just sat down on the unfolded cloak and put his arms across his chest.
"You said yourself that if you don't single-handedly defeat those ghouls from under Yiyang, you'll be preparing all the meals until the end of the expedition" remarked Ouyang Zizhen calmly, who was standing at the entrance of the cave and watching the snowstorm gaining strength while wrinkling his brows.
Lan Jingyi only snorted, then groaned pitifully and set about looking through the provisions, which Lan Sizhui wordlessly began to help him with. Rulan momentarily waved his hands at this, then tried to pull the eldest boy aside, protesting loudly and claiming that this wasn't how it should go, but instead he ended up with the pack in his hand, looking uncertainly at Sizhui smiling at him, who patiently explained to him that if they all got to work, it would be quicker for them to eat something warm and rest.
"Do you really think we'll find anyone here who dabbles in demonic cultivation?" asked Jin Ling after a while, looking skeptically at the successive packages taken out by Sizhui, who was clearly trying to figure out what they could prepare from the products they had. "Because I have a feeling that we'd sooner meet some demon who's being bounced around by snow."
Ouyang Zizhen snorted quietly at those words, and then turned towards them as he had already placed the appropriate talismans at the narrow entrance of the cave, which provided them with relative protection for the coming night. Perhaps he should have been a bit more serious and focused on the goal before them, but he couldn't help but find his young friend's remark relatively amusing in his mind. The greenish eyes of the future leader of the Ouyang Sect even flashed with amusement at the thought that they could come to discuss with a poor creature who wouldn't be able to handle such a terrifying burden as a snow hiccup. Nevertheless, he was also aware that similar jokes were an attempt on Rulan's part to cover his insecurities, into which he was sinking deeper and deeper each day of this expedition. Ouyang Zizhen finally squatted down by the campfire, stopping Lan Jingyi from impaling one of the fish on a stick, and then reached for a knife with a narrow blade to properly filet a rather sizable carp, causing his friend to unconsciously split his mouth open.
"Baling Ouyang is not as big as Gusu Lan," Zizhen remarked calmly, smiling slightly.
"You're not going to tell me that you do exactly everything by yourself, are you? That you do everything yourself?" asked Lan Jingyi, watching in disbelief as his friend efficiently prepared another portion of fish.
"Why not? At least in a crisis situation I won't have to waste energy trying to control my hunger," he remarked calmly in response, glancing at Lan Sizhui and Jin Rulan, who were busy dividing the remaining food into portions. "A-Ling, keep an eye on the fire. Jingyi, if you want, I'll show you how to properly prepare the fish so that it can actually be eaten."
The young Sect Leader Jin snorted something under his breath, rather unintelligibly, to which Lan Sizhui smiled kindly at him, but was clearly concentrating on something else entirely, as his expression seemed to be somewhat unconscious. The elder of the Gusu Lan disciples flicked his fingers over his lower lip, as if searching for the right words to explain what he was just thinking about, and for a long moment he didn't listen to the utterly silly argument about the meal that Rulan and Jingyi were having, eliciting gales of laughter from Zizhen, who had taken most of the food preparation upon himself. Finally, Sizhui sighed heavily, sat down a little more comfortably and closer to the campfire, and then took a deeper breath to simply interrupt his friends' silly argument.
"I don't think the local people are lying. Since there was talk even in Yiyang about what's going on here, and the envoys from the surrounding villages have reached as far as Baling Ouyang, the matter must be serious. It's just a shame that they can't tell us anything more than that they're being attacked, kidnapped, and the people who work in the forests usually never come back," Lan Sizhui said calmly and shook his head, wrinkling his brows. "The snow isn't making our task any easier, we haven't found any leads so far, and with this weather it's going to be even harder."
"They would only try to lie!" snorted Jin Ling from his seat, squinting his eyes menacingly.
"I don't think they'd lie," replied Ouyang Zizhen, calmly checking the condition of the fish he was roasting and asked Jingyi to go rake the snow, as they needed water. "Do you remember that girl in the green robes? She was sitting on the edge of the last village, and you wondered why she was swaying so much, as if she couldn't stop herself, crying her eyes out and not letting anyone come near her, and if only someone came close she started waving her arms furiously."
Rulan and Sizhui exchanged uncertain glances, trying to remember who exactly their friend was talking about, but it wasn't that easy at all, because along the way they had talked to many people who had pointed out to them the places where the alleged disappearances had occurred and directed them further and further west, towards forests and villages they didn't even know well. Zizhen only smiled slightly, making it look like he was daydreaming again, and then glanced over to Jingyi, who was squeezing his way back into the cave, whining stubbornly under his breath and cursing the crazy weather that wasn't helping them at all.
"She was the one who told us about the temple in the hills that no one dares to go to anymore because that's where the most monsters have been seen. She shouted that she wanted to go there because that's where she last saw her father," Zizhen explained. "She was too honest in what she talked about, it all had too many details for her to make it up, and people whispered behind her back that she was left alone now and no one knows what will happen to her."
"What about her?" asked Jin Ling simply, after nodding his head as a sign that he already actually remembered.
"Nothing," replied Zizhen. "I just wanted to show you that at least one person definitely wasn't lying" he added, to glance at Jingyi, who was just shaking off the campfire.
"Can we finally eat something? My stomach's going to freeze solid to my back in a minute!" chuckled the younger Gusu Lan disciple.
"Patience, Jingyi," Sizhui admonished him rather gently yet firmly, and then commanded him to get on with brewing the herbs they had brought with them.
For a long while they watched in silence over the slowly simmering meal, which in the end didn't look so bad, and Jin Ling carefully spread out the remaining dry provisions to complete their dinner tonight into four portions. The water boiled slowly while Jingyi and Sizhui poured out the herbs and tea they needed, and Zizhen made sure that the meat would definitely not burn. Everyone looked towards the entrance of the cave from time to time to make sure that the snow was definitely not falling even harder, but there was no indication that they were about to be buried alive here, especially since the talismans laid out by Ouyang Zizhen were clearly doing their job, which was definitely comforting on this dark night when the wind was howling furiously outside the safe shelter. It's hard to say at what exact moment they squatted closer to each other to make it even warmer, but they eventually ended up this way, holding small bowls in their hands where the prepared herbs were steaming.
"I hope we get to that temple tomorrow," Jin Ling finally muttered, turning the small bowl in his hands.
"As long as we don't stray too far south, we should find it soon" replied Lan Sizhui, smiling gently at his friend and squatting down slightly, noticing that Rulan was trembling a little.
"I hope we don't find too many ghouls there, or I'll have to cook again later" grunted Lan Jingyi and rolled his eyes, while Ouyang Zizhen shook his head slightly in disbelief.
"I'd rather it be a bunch of ghouls or ghosts than something we can't deal with. It would be terribly unpleasant if we had to retreat and ask for my father's help" he stated immediately afterwards and closed his eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath in the process.
"I don't know what it would take for us to not be able to handle it" Rulan only sarcastically waved his hand somewhat dismissively, causing him to nearly douse himself with the brewed herbs, but his hands trembled a little betraying the tension he was feeling.
"In your case, a bowl will suffice," Jingyi stated with a giggle, not caring anything about the kick aimed at him, to which he immediately responded and probably would have continued jerking off with the young Sect Leader Jin if Sizhui hadn't separated them, sending a rather sharp look to each of them in the process.
At this time, Ouyang Zizhen was calmly distributing the food he had prepared, content to share his cooking knowledge with the other three. A meal prepared together always tasted the best, and it was even more wonderful when eaten in a group of friends, just like this moment. He knew, of course, that the circumstances weren't the most pleasant, that they might as well sit in one of the mansions, holed up in one of the large kitchens, but he wasn't going to complain. Actually, he was glad that they had come to travel together again, that they had been allowed to embark on this journey to prove that they were truly responsible and ready to shoulder more duties, even if he was aware that they were being followed by Wen Qionglin, probably sent by senior Wei. He didn't tell the others that he was aware that they had an additional traveling companion, assuming that this one also preferred to remain in the shadows and would probably only reveal himself if he had no other choice.
"Quite good," Lan Jingyi stated with his mouth full, almost spitting himself out over it.
"Talking while eating is forbidden" said Lan Sizhui calmly, folding his hands in his lap before glancing at his friend, who only snorted with amusement and this time actually spat, causing Jin Ling to grimace in disgust.
"How old are you?" snorted Rulan, wrinkling his nose and until he stuck out the tip of his tongue in disgust.
Ouyang Zizhen merely laughed warmly at all this, shaking his head in disbelief and concentrating on his dinner. He knew very well that this would probably be their last peaceful moments, because if they managed to reach the temple the next day, from where all the surrounding trouble was likely to originate, they wouldn't even have a moment to sit together over a meal. Therefore, he absorbed with all his being what he had just before his eyes, remembering the warmth, the laughter and the closeness he had just experienced, while the world was covered with a thicker and thicker layer of snow.