Chapter Text
The day Mo Jian Xuan Zhen died; it was snowing.
Compared to other calamities, his death was rather pathetic. He didn’t die in a blaze of glory, he didn’t take hundreds of enemy soldiers with him; in fact, his death achieved nothing at all. He died painfully, alone, in a forest surrounded by the falling snow. He died with his back against a tree, wondering if this was all he was meant for.
If this was all he deserved.
A cold, lonely death in a far-flung forest, far away from anything he knew and anyone he loved.
Even in his dying haze, he could feel snowflakes landing on his skin, and he remembered thinking about how cold it was. If he hadn’t already been dying of blood loss, he would definitely die of hypothermia; he had nowhere to go and no one to return to after all, he didn’t even know where he was.
Yong’an.
They took us-
Dragged us from our homes-
Mama-
She was there.
Where is she?
Mama!
He couldn’t find the strength to move. His legs were heavy, like lead, and he’d long since lost feeling in his arms. His hands were hanging limp against the snow-dusted ground and the sword he’d stolen (he couldn’t remember who from) was resting a few feet away. He had been using it as a crutch before his legs had grown too heavy and his arms had become too weak; he had stumbled, fallen and eventually he managed to pull himself into a seating position against a tree.
He couldn’t reach it; if he could, he would put himself out of his misery. Instead, he had to watch himself bleed out
The snow eventually began to settle on him. On his legs, on the palms of his hands, on the top of his head. He had grown so cold that his body was indistinguishable from the forest floor. It had even begun to settle of trail of blood he had left in his wake; the only place on his body it didn’t settle was the pulsating wound on his chest, just below his heart.
It was still bleeding, a fresh gush of blood flowing out with every beat. It was getting slower though; he knew he didn’t have long left. He knew he didn’t have long left when he felt a sword pierce his lung – he knew he didn’t have long left the moment Yong’an soldiers dragged him and his mother from his home and locked him in a prison cell.
Mama,
His head turned to the sky. The snowflakes landed on his eyelashes and in his eyes, but he didn’t care.
Mama, I’ll find you.
I’ll find you and those who hurt you.
His fingers twitched.
Hurt us.
I’ll find them and I’ll hurt them like they hurt us.
He choked on blood. It dribbled down his chin and dripped onto his chest, soaking almost-invisibly into the ink-black fabric.
I’ll hurt them, Mo Jian Xuan Zhen told himself.
I’ll hurt them. I’ll hurt them I’ll hurt them I’ll hurt them I’ll hurt them I’ll hurt them-
I’LL HURT THEM!
If he’d had the energy to yell, he would’ve. He would’ve screamed at the top of his lungs, and he would’ve forced people to listen to him; and if there were no people, he would’ve screamed at the heavens; and if the heavens didn’t listen, he would’ve screamed at the world, at everything around him. If he’d had the energy, he would’ve forced the world to listen to him like it had never done before. But he didn’t. He simply didn’t.
So instead he yelled in his head, to himself, using every last bit of energy he had.
I’LL HURT THEM! He yelled internally.
I’LL HURT THEM! I’LL-
I’LL HURT THEM I’LL HURT THEM I’LL HURT THEM I’LL HURT THEM I’LL HURT THEM I’LL HURT THEM I’LL HURT THEM I’LL HURT THEM I’LL HURT THEM I’LL HURT THEM I’LL HURT THEM I’LL HURT THEM I’LL HURT THEM I’LL HURT THEM I’LL-
I’ll hurt them like they hurt me.
✦✧✦✧
His body went cold and yet it continued to snow.
He died and yet he persisted.
✦✧✦✧
He persisted quietly, secretly, on every sconce and in every candle. He flickered and danced and watched those who hurt him laugh, drink and enjoy their lives as if they hadn’t torn a whole country apart. As if they hadn’t torn him apart.
It enraged him. It ignited a particular kind of rage within him that could never be sated. It burned and it scorched and it singed and it coursed through his metaphorical veins continuously, relentlessly.
Why should they – murderers, torturers, destroyers – get to live carefree? Why do they get to be happy? Why do they get to live?
Did he truly deserve so little?
Mama, he said to himself, because right now, he didn’t have a mouth. Or vocal cords. As a small, weak ghost fire, he didn’t even have a physical form. Look at them Mama, living so decadently. It’s disgusting. They’re disgusting. They’re acting as if nothing has happened. I hate them.
He still spoke to his Mama sometimes. Even in death she was the most important thing to him, she was the reason for his persistence. Xuan Zhen’s revenge would be in her name; he was going to write her name in blood on the city walls so they could never forget.
He would never let them forget.
One day Mama, one day I’ll be strong enough.
His little flame form flittered through the busy Yong’an streets, passing through the people whilst avoiding their line of sight. He didn’t want to end up stuck in a lantern another kind of useless trinket; he had a job to do.
Xuan Zhen had first learnt about Mount Tonglu whilst he was still alive. It was a gathering place for ghosts seeking power and prestige; they would throw themselves at the mountains for the rare chance that they would make it out the other side as a Supreme. Not only that, Mount Tonglu didn’t open very often, only every few hundred years; he didn’t know how long he’d have to wait to exact his revenge.
Xuan Zhen intended to enter Mount Tonglu, become a Supreme and destroy Yong’an the way it had destroyed Xianle. He hadn’t worked out many of the finer details, like how he’d actually survive in Mount Tonglu, but that would come later, he told himself. The details would figure themselves out, probably. Hopefully. Right now, he was too busy trying to garner enough power for a better physical form, and that was taking longer than he thought it would.
The best he could manage for the moment was a toddler, of the age of about four or five, for an hour at most, but he needed more. A toddler wouldn’t last five minutes in Mount Tonglu; A toddler could barely last five minutes on the streets of Yong’an’s capital city. Last time he had been practising, every adult who saw kept trying to sweep him up into their arms and take him home. It was irritating; he had to bite them to get them to put him down.
I’m sorry this is taking so long Mama, he said as he watched over Yong’an. He resented the bright lights, the laughter, the money. It wasn’t fair. I don’t want anything to go wrong, I don’t want any of them to get away.
His metaphorical fists clenched, and he felt the resentment in his heart grow. He was a ghost fire burning.
I’m not strong enough yet Mama, you’ll have to wait a little bit longer.
✦✧✦✧
It began with an itch.
Mo Jian Xuan Zhen was unsure of how much time had past since he had died – as a ghost he struggled with the passage of time, since time no longer meant anything to him – but eventually he was able to sustain a corporeal form, and the corporeal form he chose was that of his nineteen-year-old self, because his twenties hadn’t served him well to say the least.
And it was then when he felt the itch.
It felt as if something was crawling under his skin, scratching his bones and pulling at his tendons. It stretched his skin taught and buried itself beneath his fingernails. It got worse over time as well, to the point where it was nearly unbearable; he was close to dying a second time when he remembered.
Mount Tonglu.
His corporeal form had come with many benefits; namely, he now able to communicate with other ghosts. There had been more hanging around than he had realised, blending in with the mortal population with ease, living their lives as if they were still living. They ate, they shopped, they had little ghost families; he even met a ghost couple who ran a little restaurant, and in that restaurant ghosts would sit shoulder to shoulder with mortals and the mortals were none the wiser. For a moment, it made him wonder,
When all is said and done, can I have this?
He wasn’t going to give up on his revenge – it was his only reason for ‘living’ – but sometimes he wondered.
When Xuan Zhen walked into the ghost couple’s restaurant for the first time, the hostess smiled at him and beckoned for him to take a seat. She acted as if they had been friends for years; she had her partner make him a bowl of soup and she brought him a pot of tea. He didn’t understand why she was being so friendly, and so he asked her. She smiled and said, ‘You finally have a body, that’s cause for celebration, isn’t it?’, and when he grew even more confused, she laughed. ‘I know you’ve been hanging around; I recognise your energy. I was waiting for the day you finally had a body’.
She had been waiting for him?
She went on to explain that the ghosts had built up quite a community in Yong’an, that they’d basically built a society for themselves alongside the mortals in which they could go about their day to day lives with ease.
She could tell from the look on his face though that domesticity didn’t interest him.
“So Little Ghost, what do you plan on doing now?” She asked him.
He swallowed a mouthful of soup before responding. “I plan on going to Mount Tonglu when it opens.”
She looked at him as if he had grown a second head. “Mount Tonglu?” She spluttered. “Why?”
“I need to be stronger,” he said simply. “Mount Tonglu can make me stronger.”
She paused. “But it could kill you, you know that right? It could disperse you.”
He shrugged. “It’s a risk I’m willing to take, I need to do this.”
The hostess rolled her eyes and leant in closer. “I don’t think you heard me Little Ghost; Mount Tonglu could disperse you. You’d be gone forever this time. No second chances.”
Xuan Zhen’s spoon clinked loudly against the side of his bowl and he too lent closer. He looked at her directly in the eye, and when he spoke his voice was quiet and seething.
“I don’t know why you care so much,” he began. “But I’m going to go to Mount Tonglu whether you like it or not. If there’s anything else I need to know, you’d best tell me now, because the moment Mount Tonglu opens I’m going.”
She leant back in her chair and sighed, relenting. Before she spoke again, she muttered something along the lines of kids these days. “What do you want to know?”
“When will Mount Tonglu open?”
To that she almost laughed. “I don’t know, nobody does, but you’ll feel it when it does; trust me.”
“Feel it?”
“You will be able to feel it when Mount Tonglu opens, all ghosts can. It varies from person to person, I start burning up – literally, but you’ll know. You’ll feel drawn to it too, it’ll try and pull you there… but I guess that’s what you want.” She gave him a disappointed look. “Don’t worry, you won’t miss it.”
Xuan Zhen nodded, satisfied.
“Is there anything else you want to ask?” She asked, folding her arms across her chest. She looked displeased; it was almost as if he had personally offended her by asking about Mount Tonglu. He almost cared.
Almost.
“No,” He said, pushing the soup bowl away. “I don’t think so. Thank you.”
The hostess’ frown was grim. “I still don’t think you should go, Little Ghost. It won’t end well.”
The corners of his mouth twitched into a weak smile. “Why do you care so much about what I do?”
“I’ve seen so many ghosts come and go. They head to Mount Tonglu, consumed by the promise of power, only to never come back. I don’t want that to happen to you; you’re young, you died young, from what I can tell anyway. You deserve the chance to live a normal life; Mount Tonglu won’t give you that.”
“I had a normal life once; I don’t know if you can tell but that normal life didn’t treat me so well.” He spat. “I’m going to Mount Tonglu because it might help me actually do something with my time.”
She nodded slowly and gave him a knowing look. “Ah, you want revenge. Take it from me Little Ghost, revenge won’t make you feel better.”
“I think I’ve taken enough from you.” Xuan Zhen said, standing up from the table and preparing to leave. “I’ll keep it in mind though.”
He could feel her eyes on his back as he left the restaurant, and when he turned to look at her one final time, she raised her eyebrows, as if to say, ‘are you sure about this?’. Xuan Zhen responded with a slight nod, before exiting the restaurant and turning left, towards the alleyway in which he had taken up residence (he didn’t need anywhere nicer, he wasn’t planning on staying long).
Xuan Zhen lived every day after that meeting just waiting for that feeling. Every time he felt something off he would wonder ‘is this finally it?’, and when it inevitably wasn’t he would grow increasingly disappointed and eventually he began to wonder if the restaurant hostess had even been telling the truth. She hadn’t wanted him to go after all, maybe she had lied to keep him away?
His fists clenched with anger at the thought. He needed this, he needed to go to Mount Tonglu, because his Mama wouldn’t get justice otherwise.
Her name on the city walls, he reminded himself. Her name on the city walls.
(Not that he needed reminding. He could never forget, never.)
He sat on it for ages, wondering when it’ll come. If. Xuan Zhen was waiting for some grandiose feeling, something gut-wrenching and soul destroying; something that would hit him and make him think, ‘ah, so Mount Tonglu is opening’, but in the end, the feeling came in the form of an innocuous (at first) itch.
At first, he thought it was because of the coarse robes he was wearing. They were cheap, made up of whatever pieces of fabric he could find, so when he first felt that itch on his chest, just below his heart, he thought it was the poor-quality fabric finally getting to him.
But it got worse.
It didn’t spread like he assumed it would. It stayed stagnant on his chest but grew deeper, beginning skin level but eventually delving deeper into his body, through flesh and muscle to his ribs and his useless lungs. It became embedded in his bones.
He would scratch and scratch and scratch, but it just wouldn’t go away. He splurged on new robes but it just wouldn’t go away-
It was relentless, a coursing river of there is something beneath my skin and in my bones and in my blood and in my flesh and-
It wasn’t until he began to feel the pull that he realised.
One day, Xuan Zhen felt himself move. He didn’t realise he was walking until he was outside of the city walls, in the middle of the desert. He had no control over himself; it was as if something had seized control of his body and was forcing him to take one step at a time, pulling him away from Yong’an, through the desert sands barefoot, towards the old kingdom of Wuyong-
Oh, he thought.
The itch, the pulling-
Is this the feeling?
Is Mount Tonglu opening?
It had to be.
If not, then what else?
Assuming the hostess hadn’t been lying to him, then this compulsive itch, this pull… it was all Mount Tonglu telling him it was opening. His journey was starting, his revenge was now within grasp, he just had to do the most difficult part now, which was survive the trials Mount Tonglu threw at him.
Just a little bit longer Mama, he thought, putting one foot in front of the other as he walked through the desert. Just a little bit longer.
✦✧✦✧
His feet had carried him for miles, for who-knows-how-long, to a towering mountain range shrouded in clouds and rain. The ground was sodden and muddy (he could feel the mud between his toes) and rain had soaked his hair long ago, the moment he had stepped within the former boundaries of Wuyong. It was as if the entire kingdom was cursed. Who knows, maybe it was.
There were an inconceivable number of ghosts gathered at the entrance of Mount Tonglu, all crowded and packed together, swarming like bees in a beehive. They were spilling over the confines of the road into the forest surrounding it; they were clamouring and jostling, trying to get closer to the mountain’s entrance, but Xuan Zhen stayed comfortably at the back, because as far as he was aware, this wasn’t a race.
Sure, he didn’t want to spend more time in Mount Tonglu than he had to – he was only there to get stronger after all – but he also didn’t want to die (again); he had to get revenge for his Mama, and thus he had to do everything right. If that meant spending one, ten or one hundred in Mount Tonglu then so be it.
After what felt like days of continuous rain, there was a bright strike of lightening and a loud crack of thunder and the gates of Mount Tonglu fell wide open.
The crowd of ghosts suddenly fell through like a collapsing dam, surging in like an angry wave onto the old unkempt road between the two mountains. Xuan Zhen waited until the majority of the clamour had entered before entering himself.
Upon entering the mountain range the road widened considerably and despite the permanent torrential rainfall, there wasn’t much plant life. The grass was yellowed and dry, the road was cracked as if malnourished, and the trees were rotting and devoid of leaves despite it being the middle of summer (so Xuan Zhen guessed). Other than the surge of ghosts, there was complete silence; no tweeting birds, no rustling of leaves, no general ambiance.
It seemed as though the very air within Mount Tonglu was poisoned, cursed with resentful energy. Nothing could survive here, but Xuan Zhen would try.
Over in the distance there was another mountain. It was taller, more jagged than the rest, and void of snow on its’ summit. There were tendrils of smoke pouring out of its’ top, framing the mountain against the already-greying and cloudy sky. Even from this far away, Xuan Zhen could smell it. It smelt like death.
The Kiln.
That was the goal, his destination. Where he would be forged into a Supreme and where he would become powerful enough to get revenge for his Mama. It looked just as inhospitable as it had sounded. It would do everything within its’ power to ensure he didn’t make it out ‘alive’.
Xuan Zhen steeled his resolve and pressed on into the massacre.
✦✧✦✧
Xuan Zhen had seen blood before.
He had fought in a war, he had cleaned battlefields, accounted for the dead. He had grown up in slums, where bodies were left to rot in the street and the smell of decomposition permeated through the paper-thin walls.
Xuan Zhen knew death. He knew it well.
But the Carnage in Mount Tonglu was beyond his comprehension. The worst battle he had fought in paled in comparison; the war now seemed like child’s play.
There were no bodies, because they were ghosts after all, but the act of endless slaughtering other beings still haunted his every waking moment. After killing one, there was another right behind them already launching themselves at him, and after that one there was another one, and another one, and another one, and another one-
For Mama, he had to remind himself. For Mama.
He had tried to play the long game at first, lying in wait until most of the other ghosts had killed each other then jumping in at the last minute, but he quickly discovered that that wouldn’t work. No matter where he tried to hide, be it in the ruins of a house or in a dead tree, someone always managed to find him and attack him.
His first kill was a man, dressed in rich but bloodied robes with an ornate sabre swinging obnoxiously at his waist. Xuan Zhen had been unarmed at the time, hiding in the forests that surrounded the main road. The man tried to kill him by pulling him out of the tree and pinning him to the forest floor.
Xuan Zhen managed to kill him with a particularly sharp tree branch.
Before he dissipated, Xuan Zhen managed to take the man’s sabre for himself. It was clearly decorative, designed to be hung on a wall instead of being taken into battle. There was too much decoration on the blade for it to be reliable and it was nowhere near sharp enough to be effective, but it was all he had.
Coming to Mount Tonlgu without a weapon had been an oversight on his part, but he managed to steal a much sharper, much more trustworthy sabre from his seventeenth kill. A soldier, almost certainly from Xianle; his armour was alarmingly familiar, he had a state-issued knife and for a second, there was a look of recognition behind the soldier’s eyes, though Xuan Zhen didn’t recognise him.
After his first swing the soldier hesitated, squinting to get a better look at him. Then, his eyes widened.
“General! It’s-”
Xuan Zhen didn’t let him finish. He took the soldier’s sabre and ran. He didn’t want to think about him, that time, Xianle.
Mama, he reminded himself. Mama, Mama, Mama-
He lost count of his kills after that.
There were many Xianle soldiers; he killed them with lament as their fellow soldier, their former leader. There too were many Yong’an soldiers, dressed in their ornate armour with overwhelming malice in their eyes; he killed them with indifference, because he had killed them before, maybe even literally.
There were, of course, regular people. People who hadn’t been soldiers, who hadn’t been anything noteworthy or special. People who had been taken advantage of and had died cursing the world and everything in it. He empathised with them, he had lived similar experiences at one point, and he too had cursed the world more than once, but it didn’t matter. Not now, because Mount Tonglu didn’t care about his past or his empathy or what he wanted.
So he killed them too. Albeit with more feeling than the rest; they had just gotten caught up in something they wanted nothing to do with and paid the price. He didn’t blame them for dying with a desire for vengeance, but he had to put his Mama first.
It was relentless. They were fighting like vultures, crowding and squabbling over the last scrap of meat on long dead bones. Mount Tonglu echoed with their screams and cries, as they piled atop each other and tore each other apart limb by limb. Had Xuan Zhen been alive, he would’ve suffocated in the crush – his sabre was useless – but instead he was permanently choking, dying over and over and over again. He had to claw his way out, scratching and pulling at everything within reach in order to come out on top of the pile for air he didn’t need.
He could feel the dead skin beneath his fingernails, the flesh and the blood and sometimes the dust, if he tore away at the right places. It was relentless; more than once did Xuan Zhen see a mangled claw rush towards his face and think this is it, but it never was. It was never over because after one ghost there was another, coming at him with just as much vigour as when they started. He didn’t know how long they’d been fighting for – the sun didn’t seem to set in Mount Tonglu – but eventually, Xuan Zhen found himself standing in the middle of the road.
After what felt like weeks, maybe even months, he found himself standing alone, in the middle of the road, surrounded by dust. There was still ghost dust beneath his claw-like fingernails and dirt on the soles of his feet. His hair was frenzied and messy, and at some point he had lost the ribbon tying it back, so now it blew freely in the wind.
It would’ve been quite a sight, had there been anyone around to see him, stood in the midst of a pile of dust, his fingers, stained red with blood, curled defensively. His robes were stained and torn, and his legs were caked with mud. His eyes were wide and frantic, taking in as much information as possible in order to prepare himself for any oncoming attack, but no attack came.
Because there was no one left to attack.
He looked around and saw no one. He saw no one and nothing – he had won.
Xuan Zhen began to laugh. It echoed through the valley.
I did it! He told himself. I did it! I survived!
He kicked the dust beneath his feet with an almost childlike giggle. I made it, he thought, and they didn’t! I won! I won for once! He jumped down with an excited bounce and a quiet thud.
The Kiln was still billowing dark, thick smoke in the distance. It was rolling slowly down the mountainsides, beckoning him ever closer. It was whispering in his ear, telling him come, I have what you want. Your fight isn’t finished yet.
Xuan Zhen considered the mountain for a second, before deciding hesitation was fruitless.
He took a step towards the Kiln.
✦✧✦✧
Xuan Zhen didn’t know how long he’d been in the Kiln for, but he knew the ghosts that were already in there had been there longer.
They were wispy things for the most part, ghost fires on the verge of dispersing, but there were a few still with corporeal forms, but they too were weak - nearly ghost fires themselves - and rather dry in the ways of conversation.
‘You have to get out of here as quickly as you can.’ They said.
In fact, that’s all they ever said.
‘You have to get out of here as quickly as you can, or you’ll waste away. If you stay too long you’ll die.’
The ‘again’ was left unsaid.
Xuan Zhen wasn’t quite sure what ‘get out of here’ meant, nor was he sure of how to do it, but something told him that these ghosts didn’t know either. He quickly came to the conclusion that staying with them would be redundant, so he began to wander in the hopes of finding an answer.
Unlike the prior massacre, which was simply an ongoing terror, the Kiln was subtle in its’ fear. Dare he say it wasn’t scary, or terrifying, but rather unsettling. It was the kind of fear that crawled up his spine and settled in his chest; it wasn’t overwhelming, just off-putting, he knew something was wrong but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it, except he obviously could. He was stood inside a volcano, surrounded by vengeful ghosts, in a haunted mountain range that was unequivocally trying to kill him.
It would be easier for him to discern what was right.
(Nothing. Nothing was right.
Xuan Zhen was going to fix that.)
After a while, Xuan Zhen happened upon a network of caves, made up of both narrow passageways and large caverns. It curled and turned, winding in a million and one different directions and Xuan Zhen wasn’t sure it was taking him in the right direction (not that he knew what that was) but it wasn’t like he had another option, and it wasn’t like Mount Tonglu was going to help him.
And so he persisted.
There was very little light in the cave, even for his better-sighted ghost eyes. There were also points in which he had to get down on his hands and knees and crawl, and sometimes he couldn’t even do that. Sometimes, he’d have to get down even lower, pull himself along on his stomach to get to the cavern on the other side; it was incredibly claustrophobic and more than once did he find himself choking. It reminded him of the Slaughter, the battle outside-
He was still coming to terms with the fact that he didn’t need to breathe.
It was grounding sometimes, breathing. Being dead was jarring – everything was so… beyond him, more distant; touch was felt through thicker skin, warmth was just that bit colder and the cold was that bit warmer. He no longer felt anything in extremes, physically at least.
Emotionally, everything was amplified.
There nothing to do but feel.
He stewed in his rage and in his anger. He mulled over everything he had ever done or said, he had the time for it after all. He thought about his mother, his father, the people he knew; he spent a lot of his time thinking about what could’ve been.
What could’ve been if he had just kept his mouth shut-
‘The choice has been made, Little Ghost,’ a voice echoed throughout the cavern, or maybe it didn’t. Maybe it was all in his head. ‘There is no point in fretting over the past.’
Xuan Zhen looked around but saw no one. His only company in the cavern appeared to be the stalactites (wait, stalactites?).
I must be going crazy, he thought.
‘You’re here because you want something, Little Ghost.’ The disembodied voice continued. ‘What is it that you want?’
“What a stupid thing to ask.” He muttered to himself (or not?). “Why does anyone go through the trouble of coming here?”
The cavern appeared to disapprove of his attitude. ‘I didn’t ask about anyone, I asked about you. So, Little Ghost, what is it that you want?’
He rolled his eyes. “Revenge. On Yong’an.”
‘You want revenge on a whole nation?’ The cavern paused. ‘Wow, I wonder why?’
Xuan Zhen’s fists clenched and his pointed nails dug into his palms. ‘They hurt my Mama – they killed her!” He spat with fervour. “So…so I want to kill them back.”
(That was the first time he had admitted his desires out loud,
And it felt good.)
‘Is that truly what you want?’ The Cavern asked.
“Yes.”
‘Really?’
He grinded his teeth. “Yes.”
‘Positively?’
“Yes!”
His voice echoed off the cavern walls. His palms were bleeding but he couldn’t feel it. The cavern itself stayed silent for a few minutes, contemplating, seemingly judging whether he was worthy of a response.
It spoke up a few minutes later.
‘What are you willing to give up, in order to get your revenge?’
What am I willing to give up? He thought.
Why am I even questioning it? I would give up-
‘Your freedom is not going to come cheap, Little Ghost. What are you willing to give?’
“Everything.” Xuan Zhen said, without hesitation.
‘Everything?’
“Everything.”
The cavern rumbled, almost as if it were laughing. ‘I don’t want everything; if I took everything, you’d have nothing left to fight with. Think, what got you here?’
“What got me here?” He thought out loud. “What kind of bullshit riddle is that?”
‘It is not a riddle, Little Ghost. You’re here for a reason, you died for a reason. Think.’
“I died because of Yong’an soldiers, I’m here to get revenge on them! I already told you!”
‘No Little Ghost! You are thinking rashly.” The cavern quaked again, this time with anger. ‘I’m beginning to doubt your worth.’
“No!” Xuan Zhen yelled. “I want this! I need this!”
‘What you want and need is not the same as what you deserve. Figure out what it is that got you here and then we’ll see what you deserve.’
And then the cavern fell silent.
Even through all of Xuan Zhen’s pleading.
“Hey! Come back!” He yelled. “What do you mean? What do you mean ‘what I deserve’?”
Nothing.
“How is ‘everything’ not good enough for you! Stop being obtuse and tell me what you want from me!”
Nothing.
(Again.)
Xuan Zhen screamed and kicked the cavern wall with little effect. “Why does this have to be so hard!” He cried. “Why can’t I have anything?”
The cavern refused to respond.
“What did I do wrong?” His voice was raw, filled with more emotion than it had ever been before (except…). “I can’t have anything. Am I good enough for you?”
Wind blew through the cracks in the rock but the cavern still said nothing.
Xuan Zhen laughed but he was not amused. Rather, his laughter was wet and he found himself feeling a kind of frustration he had never known before. He can’t escape his own incompetence, even in death.
“I’m not good enough for a sentient cavern,” He mumbled as he sat down on the rocky ground in defeat. “No wonder Danxia never thought me good enough.”
The wind howled even louder. Xuan Zhen wondered where it was coming from.
He picked up a small pebble and threw it across the cavern. It hit the opposing wall with a quiet smack. “I tried my best to help him,” He sniffled. “But my best was never enough. There was always another fight, then we’d have to run, and then we’d have to find work all over again. It was never-ending.”
The wind, the wind, the wind.
“I was weak, in the end. We were all struggling, we’d all had the rug pulled from beneath our feet, but I just had to take it out on them.” He took another pebble and threw it violently. This time, it splintered. “I just had to go and put my foot in my mouth and say the most awful things. I called his parents deadweight’s, Feng Xin a kiss-ass and him ignorant.” Once again, he laughed without really meaning it. “The worst part is, I still believe in everything I said, even after it got me killed.”
The wind stopped.
‘My my, you did say some terrible things, didn’t you?’
Xuan Zhen smiled, before realising the cavern had just spoken to him. Then, he froze.
‘Just because they were terrible things to say, Little Ghost, doesn’t mean they were wrong.’
“But it got me killed.” He looked around the cavern for signs of life, even though there had never been any. ‘I left them after that, that’s when the soldiers took us, that’s when…”
‘Oh indeed, had you stayed with your friends you would not have died, but your mother would have died alone. Take some consolation in that at least.’
Xuan Zhen felt a pressure on his knee, like a warm, comforting hand, like a parent trying to see eye to eye with their child, but there was still nothing, no one, to see. ‘Now, Little Ghost, can you tell mewhat it is that got you here?’
He thought for a moment. “My…my words?”
If the cavern had had a head to shake, it would’ve done so. ‘I cannot take your words from you, can I? You’ve already said them.’
“Then…” He fumbled, thinking over his words as he rolled his tongue in his mouth. “My…”
Oh.
His…
His tongue.
The cavern said nothing, despite being able to hear his thoughts. It seemed to beckon him on, to say it out loud.
“My…my tongue?”
If the cavern had had a mouth with which to smile, it would’ve done so. ‘Yes, well done.’ The cavern said, almost patronisingly, as if he were a little child.
When nothing happened, Xuan Zhen frowned. “So…what do you want me to do now?”
‘Oh Little Ghost,’ The cavern rumbled in subtle laughter once again, and Xuan Zhen felt a guiding force lead his hand to the hilt of his sabre. Then, the force made him draw it.
‘I want you to cut your tongue out.’
The guiding force led his sabre to the corners of his mouth before letting go. The final act was left up to him.
And without a moment’s hesitation, Xuan Zhen cut.
✦✧✦✧
Elsewhere, a gold-clad man threw his cup across the room. It smashed into thousands of little shards, spilling its contents onto the floor. He called for a servant to come and clean it up.
Someone arrived not a minute later.
“Forgive me, My Lord,” The servant began. “Is everything alright? You look…pensive.”
The man moved his head away from his hand and feigned a smile.
“Yes,” He said. “Everything is just fine.”
✦✧✦✧
Jiang Meili had been loitering in the market with her basket perched on her hip when she first heard the screaming.
She hadn’t panicked at first. After all, she lived in a crowded, bustling city where there was some kind of strange noise every five minutes; screaming in and of itself was nothing weird, nor were the yells of ‘Fire! Fire!’ (the downside of having closely packed buildings).
What was weird though was the swarm of ghost soldiers, running amok through the city, killing any human they laid their eyes on and setting alight almost every building. They reeked of foreign spiritual energy, meaning someone was controlling them, directing them to slaughter and ravage.
Jiang Meili didn’t know who would do such a thing.
All she had wanted, after her particularly traumatic death, was to live the life she had always wanted to. She wanted a loving partner, a restaurant and nice food made out of old family recipes; everything that she wanted – in her mind – was simple. She didn’t think she was asking for too much.
Was she?
She was beginning to question, as she ran through the streets, passed the ghost soldiers who seemed to pay her no mind, and the burning buildings falling apart at the seams. She had to know if the restaurant was still standing, she had to make sure that Xu Xiaodan was okay, she had to make sure that the other ghosts were okay-
And the mortals! She had to make sure that the mortals were okay!
She had blended in quite seamlessly to life in Yong’an. She mingled happily with the resident mortals, they were patrons at her restaurant – she had even made friends with many of them – she had to make sure they were okay.
It was overwhelming. The heat, the screams, the smell of burning wood, the smell of burning… (she didn’t want to think of what else she could smell); there were shouts of distressed parents, there were cries of children lost in the fray. There was so much going on, she didn’t know what to do.
Then, time seemed to slow,
Before stopping altogether.
In the distance, Jiang Meili could see a figure. They seemed to glide through the pandemonium with ease, side-stepping the dead with ease. Their skin was pale, so much so that they looked ill, and their black hair was loose, blowing in every which direction. The figure would’ve blended into the background had it not been for their corpse-like skin, and the sinister slash on their face, cutting from ear to ear. It looked fresh, the tissue only just beginning to reconnect and scar.
There was something familiar about the figure. About the way they walked, slighting hunched over as if they didn’t want to be noticed; and about the way they looked at other people, as if they were judging them, weighing unknown pros and cons. They were tense, their brown eyes wide and darting, looking over everyone and everything.
Trusting no one.
Jiang Meili felt like she was choking.
She had met so many ghosts in her time, thousands upon thousands. She couldn’t remember much about most of them; a face at most, rarely a name, and even more rarely a nickname. She didn’t give most people nicknames, only Xu Xiaodan (baobei) and Little Ghost, who hadn’t actually been called Little Ghost, but he didn’t seem to know his own name at the time.
The time over four-hundred years ago.
Little Ghost was odd. He was odd because he was nothing but typical, the archetypal new-born ghost: vengeful, memory-less and egotistical (they all thought they could take on Mount Tonglu. Most never came back), but for some reason she remembered him. Vividly.
There was a certain look in his eye – his brown eye – that she could picture even now. There was a certain way he carried himself, as if he didn’t want to be seen; but that didn’t make sense, because his words were so bold. When he said he was going to Mount Tonglu she believed him, and when he said he needed to go, she believed him again.
Could this…?
Could it be?
But it’s been so long.
Mount Tonglu was ever-changing. Not one ghost had the same experience, or so she had heard. Being stuck in there for four-hundred years, it wasn’t implausible, but it seemed – felt – unlikely.
But still…
It felt like him…
But why?
Why was he doing this?
The figure, Little Ghost, continued to walk past his destruction with a chilling apathy. Like he didn’t care about the lives he and his ghost-soldiers were taking, like he didn’t care about the destruction he was leaving in his wake.
“Little Ghost?” She called out to him, but her voice seemed to be lost in the air. He didn’t hear her, or perhaps he chose not to.
She yelled again. “Little Ghost!”
The figure, now almost directly in front of her, froze, and looked at her directly. He didn’t say anything, nor did he really do anything; he simply blinked. She wasn’t sure if he recognised her, it had been over four-hundred years after all, and they had only spoken once.
“Little Ghost?”
His brows furrowed, but still he said nothing.
“Why…” She hesitated. “Why are you doing this?”
He looked around himself as if to say, ‘this?’.
“These people, they’re innocent! They haven’t done anything to hurt you!”
Little Ghost grinned, tearing at the wounds on his cheeks. He then pulled his sabre – Xianle made, inscribed with the phrase ‘Xuan Zhen’ – enigmatic truth – before continuing on.
When he passed her, he didn’t stab her with his sabre, he didn’t even threaten her. He simply looked at her with a similar apathetic expression as he had given the surrounding corpses; an expression that said he didn’t care.
He had spared her a first glance, but he would not give her a second.
Little Ghost left Jiang Meili behind with ease, strolling on through the burning streets of Yong’an without a care in the world. He left her in the dust.
He did it, she thought. He really did it.
For why though?
Why was he doing this?
She supposed it didn’t matter now, it had already been done.
Jiang Meili began walking again, and then she broke out into a run. She still needed to know if Xu Xiaodan was okay after all (there wasn’t much hope for the restaurant).
✦✧✦✧
Elsewhere, a king was killed in what could only be described as a vicious coup d'état. The king’s own son had witnessed it all, his teacher violently cutting his father down with little regard and almost no respect.
Later, a man was buried alive.