Archive of Our Own

“Shit,” Xue Yang said. “It is nasty out there, isn’t it?”

Xiao Xingchen made the unhappy, sulky sort of face that mostly made Xue Yang want to laugh, wringing rainwater out of his hair. “It didn’t seem like it was going to be bad weather.”

“Goes to show,” Xue Yang said. The wind howled, blasting through the cracks in the walls of the shed they were currently squatting in. It brought water with it, too, spattering Xue Yang’s cheeks; he moved away, wrinkling his nose. “Fuck. Well. Least we found somewhere to wait it out.”

“Wait it out?” Xiao Xingchen said, pout deepening. “No, we have to keep going. A-Qing–”

“Can fend for herself for a minute,” Xue Yang said. “She’ll be fine. Are you really telling me you want to try to fly home in this? Or even walk? It’s raining sideways, blowing hard enough to carry off a baby goat, and it’s only going to get darker.”

Xiao Xingchen said nothing and looked no less sulky, which meant he knew Xue Yang was right.

“It’ll probably be over by morning,” Xue Yang said, to make him feel better. “And you can blame it on me if you’re worried she’ll be pissed at you.”

“I’m not worried about her being angry,” Xiao Xingchen said, but then he sighed. His face turned toward the door, his sleeves dripping steadily. A gust of wind rattled the walls. “I suppose we can rest for a little while.”

“That’s it, Daozhang,” Xue Yang said. “Perfect. Aren’t we lucky, landing a nice cozy place like this to wait out the storm.” Xiao Xingchen still looked adorably displeased, and Xue Yang had to laugh. “I wouldn’t’ve thought you’d be so pissy about bad weather.”

“It’s not the weather,” Xiao Xingchen said. “Well – not really. I don’t mind rain but when it gets this bad I don’t enjoy it. But what’s really troubling me is the fact that we didn’t find our quarry earlier.”

Yeah, that made sense. They had come out here hunting for whatever it was that’d been disappearing people for (apparently) the last five years. Never more than one at a time, maybe two in a season, and somebody had decided that made a pattern and come whining to their local helpful daoshi about it.

“It could be a false alarm,” Xue Yang said. “Just an ordinary wolf or tiger hunting the area and picking people off when they’re alone. People do disappear for perfectly ordinary reasons all the time.”

“It could be,” Xiao Xingchen said, but frowning, and with a tone that said but it isn’t and I’m right. Another time it might’ve been annoying, but it didn’t really matter to Xue Yang one way or another. It would’ve been fun to get a decent fight, if they were lucky and whatever it was was something with some teeth, but it was also fun just to be out and away from the yizhuang sometimes, specifically away from the little blind brat.

Having Xiao Xingchen just to himself was a special treat.

Though in an ideal situation his clothes would be dryer.

“Maybe, maybe not,” Xue Yang said. “We weren’t getting anywhere, though, and unless you want to hunt in this…”

“I know,” Xiao Xingchen said, and sighed. “It’s simply…frustrating. And worrying. If we’re wrong, if we missed something…”

“Tch, stop fretting so much, Daozhang,” Xue Yang said. He started stripping off his clothes so at least he could only be wearing one damp layer instead of three. “And if you need a distraction to help with that…” He shimmied out of his overrobe, crawled over to Xiao Xingchen, and leaned up to nip at his ear. “I’ve got some ideas.”

Xiao Xingchen startled and took a quick breath in that made Xue Yang grin. “Oh?” he said after a moment where Xue Yang thought he might try to tell him off. “What kind of ideas do you mean?” he said instead, expression trying for innocence but falling a little too far on the side of ‘eager.’

“Oh, well,” Xue Yang said, grinning, starting to tug at the belt around Xiao Xingchen’s waist. “Why tell you when I can show you?”

Xue Yang woke up with a start in full darkness, the storm still howling away outside, and with a cold, empty space where he’d formerly been wound around a bony, overly long daoshi. Xiao Xingchen’s spare outer robe was still draped over him in a makeshift blanket, but Xiao Xingchen himself wasn’t where Xue Yang had left him.

He was awake, apparently, standing near the door, luminous in just his white underrobe, his head cocked slightly to one side like he was listening for something. Xue Yang squinted blearily at him.

“Daozhang?” he said. Xiao Xingchen startled and turned a little in his direction.

“Chengmei?” he said. “I thought you were asleep.”

“I was,” Xue Yang said. “I thought you were asleep. C’mere, it’s too cold to sleep on the ground by myself.”

Xiao Xingchen hesitated, then shook his head and turned back toward the door. Xue Yang narrowed his eyes.

“What, really? Why not?”

“I…” Xiao Xingchen trailed off. After a couple moments of silence, he said, “I don’t know.”

Xue Yang pushed himself up to sitting, torn between annoyance and confusion. “You don’t know why not? Then why don’t you just–”

“No,” Xiao Xingchen interrupted, his voice suddenly, startlingly, sharp. “I’m not tired. Go back to sleep.”

Xue Yang did not like that tone, and he didn’t like Xiao Xingchen using it on him, and for no reason. “You’re being weird,” he said. A gust of wind screamed, rattling the walls. Xiao Xingchen said nothing, reaching out and laying one hand on the door like he was about to push it open, then drew back.

“Something’s out there,” Xiao Xingchen said, and all the hairs on the back of Xue Yang’s neck stood on end at once.

“What?” he said, immediately shoving himself up to his feet. Reaching for his own robes, he found them still damp; he put on Xiao Xingchen’s instead, never mind that it didn’t fit right. “What are you talking about?”

“Go back to sleep,” Xiao Xingchen said again, just his head turning in Xue Yang’s direction. Xue Yang stared at him.

“Why the fuck would I do that when you just said there’s something out there, what does that even mean,” he said. His skin was prickling all over. The wind let up a little, but that just made the rain sound louder, pattering on the ground, dripping somewhere.

“I don’t know,” Xiao Xingchen said slowly. His voice sounded odd again, distant, almost. “You can’t feel it?”

Xue Yang moved cautiously toward Xiao Xingchen. “Feel what,” he said, but he did try to extend his awareness further to see if he could feel anything weird. Nothing, and Xiao Xingchen’s head shake wasn’t helpful.

“Something,” he said. “I don’t…” he trailed off, cocking his head to one side again like he was listening to something, or for something. The wind picked up again, howling like a pack of wolves, lashing rain against the sides of their shelter. Xue Yang shivered and pulled Xiao Xingchen’s oversized robe tighter around himself and crept closer, feeling strangely wary. Not of whatever Xiao Xingchen sensed, or thought he sensed. Something else.

“Okay,” he said slowly. “Well, unless you’re planning on going out there…why don’t we just put an array on the door and revisit this in the morning?”

Xiao Xingchen’s head turned sharply toward him and Xue Yang took a step back, wariness spiking with the look on his face: set and angry, an expression he’d seen before, that Xiao Xingchen had directed at him before, but not for a long time.

Then he inhaled and it was gone all at once, Xiao Xingchen’s eyebrows furrowing.

“Something’s wrong,” he said.

“Apparently,” Xue Yang said, staying where he was, on his toes. “Something’s wrong with you, Daozhang.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Xiao Xingchen said, but then he turned back toward the door again and didn’t explain more than that. Xue Yang grimaced at his back. The door rattled in its frame, and there was a little bit of water leaking in underneath.

“Can you give me a little more than just ‘something’?” Xue Yang asked.

“No,” Xiao Xingchen said, and then, sounding more like himself, “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, just leave off and stop being weird,” Xue Yang said. He didn’t like that he couldn’t get a good look at Xiao Xingchen’s face when he was standing like that. Couldn’t get a sense of what he was feeling.

“I can almost hear it,” Xiao Xingchen said suddenly. “Like…music, just out of earshot. Or someone speaking too quietly to understand.”

Xue Yang shifted his weight from one foot to the other and drew back closer to Xiao Xingchen, putting a hand on his arm and making a go at trying to tug him bodily away. Xiao Xingchen barely seemed to notice.

“I don’t think you should be listening,” Xue Yang said.

“I have to,” Xiao Xingchen said. Spiders crawled up and down Xue Yang’s spine. He checked again for any trace of resentful energy or restless ghost, and this time he caught – something, like a whiff of incense, there and then gone. He stiffened and tightened his grip on Xiao Xingchen’s arm.

“No,” he said, harder. “I really think you don’t.”

Xiao Xingchen tore violently free of his grip and rounded on him all at once. “What do you know?” he snapped. “You don’t hear it. You don’t understand.”

Xue Yang’s hackles went up all at once, his hands curling into fists before he forced them to relax. “I understand plenty,” he said. “I know a thing or two about restless ghosts and angry spirits, and I’ve got good instincts, and both those things are telling me that anything this – whatever it is has to say to you isn’t something you need to hear.”

Xiao Xingchen’s expression twisted in a way that looked strange on him, wrong, and for a bizarre moment Xue Yang almost thought he was going to strike out at him, but just like before it vanished in less than the blink of an eye.

“Something’s wrong,” he said again.

“Yeah,” Xue Yang snapped. “No shit.” Wind and rain battered the walls like they were trying to break in, drown them or blow them away.

“There’s screams on the wind,” Xiao Xingchen said.

Xue Yang didn’t scare easily. And he wasn’t scared now. Not exactly, anyway, it was just – something was wrong and he didn’t know what it was, didn’t know what it was doing, because clearly it was doing something to Xiao Xingchen but he still couldn’t sense much of anything except for traces here and there, like wisps of smoke. Nothing that’d account for the bell in the back of his mind that said he was in trouble.

“Daozhang,” Xue Yang said, “listen–”

“I am listening,” Xiao Xingchen said, but it didn’t sound like he was talking to him. There was a sort of plea in his voice. He pressed his hand to the door again. “Can’t you hear it?”

“Listen to me,” Xue Yang said.

“You,” Xiao Xingchen said, voice harsh. “Who are you?”

The air went out of Xue Yang’s lungs and he tensed, eyes widening, because no, absolutely not, he wasn’t going to let some damned ghost ruin this for him, he had plans still–

“You know who I am,” he said. “It’s Chengmei, remember? I swear to fuck if you don’t snap out of it I’m going to knock you out.”

Xiao Xingchen’s breathing was loud even over the sound of the storm, like his lungs were a bellows. “Can’t you hear it,” he said again, but little more than a whisper.

And then, all of a sudden, cried out, clapping his hands over his ears and stumbling back. Xue Yang lunged forward and the door banged open, a blast of cold wind and rain hitting him full in the face.

“What the fuck,” he said, grabbing onto Xiao Xingchen and trying to pull his hands down. “Daozhang–”

Xiao Xingchen took a sharp breath in. His mouth opened, lips trembling, and he straightened up again, staring out into the dark.

“Zichen,” he whispered, and something in Xue Yang’s chest snarled, baring its teeth, at the same time as his stomach turned to ice.

Then Xiao Xingchen tore free of his grasp and fled into the storm, barefoot and wearing only his underrobe.

Xue Yang’s chest burned. He was pretty sure there was no Zichen out there, but if Xiao Xingchen wanted to go and get himself fucked up by whatever was fucking with him, lose his head over some illusory version of his so-called friend then fine, Xue Yang didn’t have to go after him. He didn’t have to go out in the cold and the wind and the rain and track down a crazed daoshi who hadn’t been listening to him anyway.

He shifted his weight back and forth. Rain was still blowing in through the open door.

“Cunting son of a goatfucker,” Xue Yang said savagely, and followed. But he put his boots on first.

He left Xiao Xingchen’s robe behind, though. It’d be nice to have something dry when he got back.

He wouldn’t have thought that a barefoot, crazed, blind man would get far in a storm that felt like it was trying to scour everything off the face of the earth, but Xiao Xingchen was apparently determined to prove him wrong. The rain stung Xue Yang’s face and the gusts of wind were strong enough they felt like they were going to blow him sideways.

Well, the world had tried getting rid of Xue Yang before, and it wasn’t going to manage it now.

Zichen, Xiao Xingchen had whispered, and Xue Yang’s molars ground together. Always Zichen, years after he tore out Xiao Xingchen’s heart and stole his eyes and Xiao Xingchen was still fucking obsessed with the man. Xue Yang could not, and did not, see the appeal.

Whatever. The important thing was tracking down Xiao Xingchen before he got himself in worse trouble than he already had, which wouldn’t be happening if he’d listened to Xue Yang in the first place and not gone listening to voices on the wind.

In the dark, all he had to follow was the traces of Xiao Xingchen’s energy, and the fine thread of resentment growing stronger as he went. His eyes adjusted a little but even then with the wind blowing the rain almost horizontal, he couldn’t see very far, even when he didn’t have to blink rapidly to get water out of his eyes.

But he kept going, doggedly, stubbornly, until he reached a treeline. He paused a moment, grimacing, before plunging into them; it’d be even harder to find his way in there.

Maybe he should just turn around and go back to the shed and go back to sleep and in the morning, or after the storm blew out, he could go and look for Xiao Xingchen, or his body. And if he was dead – well, opportunity for experimentation if nothing else.

A funny ache twisted in his chest.

And give up the satisfaction of getting revenge on your own terms? he thought irritably, and plunged into the woods. At least they cut some of the worst of the weather. The wind was quieter here, anyway. A little. He could still hear it howling like a pack of wolves out hunting.

It cut the noise enough that he could hear the sound of someone crying.

“There you are,” Xue Yang said under his breath, and headed in that direction. The ground got muddier and muddier underfoot, and he started to suspect he might be heading into a swamp when he saw Xiao Xingchen ahead of him.

His white clothes helped him stand out, at least. Among dark trees and dark rain and dark mud, Xiao Xingchen shone like a full moon fallen to earth. Xue Yang’s next step splashed knee-deep in water and he cursed. He tested two more patches of ground before finding one that sank a little less.

As he struggled closer, spitting curses with every step, he could see that Xiao Xingchen was on his knees on a patch of slightly higher ground, white robes smeared with dirt. He was sobbing, clawing at the ground in front of him with his bare hands. His fingers were black with mud, his clothes clinging to him. He could’ve been a ghost himself.

“Daozhang!” he called again, and when that got no response, “Xiao Xingchen!”

Xiao Xingchen’s shoulders hunched like he was trying to hide. “No,” he moaned. “No, no, no, don’t–”

Xue Yang’s mouth twisted. He forged forward, feet sinking in thick, sucking mud, finally crouching down next to his daoshi.

“Xiao Xingchen,” he said, trying very hard to sound reasonable. “What the fuck are you doing?”

Xiao Xingchen shook his head, pressing his lips together. “I have to,” he said. “I have to, I have to.”

“Have to what,” Xue Yang said. “You know what, I don’t care, fuck this,” and he started sketching a talisman that ought to banish anything clinging to Xiao Xingchen.

One of Xiao Xingchen’s hands snapped out and grabbed his wrist, squeezing to the point of pain and freezing him mid-motion.

“You,” he said, voice a vicious and entirely unfamiliar hiss. “You creature, you beast, I can smell the blood on you. Dripping from your red, red hands.”

Xue Yang jerked, trying to twist his arm free, but Xiao Xingchen’s grip only tightened until he could feel his bones grinding together. He set his teeth so he didn’t make a sound.

“You aren’t Xiao Xingchen, are you,” he said. Xiao Xingchen’s head turned. Blood stained the bandage where his eyes had been once. Two streams of it ran dark down his pale face from underneath.

“I could be,” something else said, with Xiao Xingchen’s mouth. “He is so lonely, so in need of a faithful companion. I wouldn’t hurt him like the world has. I would keep him safe.”

Xue Yang started shaping a sigil with his left hand, keeping it down at his side. This thing didn’t get to take Xiao Xingchen. Xiao Xingchen was his quarry, his to keep or ruin as he pleased. “Sorry,” he said. “His soul’s already mine.”

Xiao Xingchen’s lips peeled back from his teeth in an expression that didn’t fit right on his Daozhang’s face. “No!” he cried. “I will protect him from you, devouring creature, render of souls,” and whatever it was that was squatting in Xiao Xingchen’s skin flung his body at Xue Yang, tackling him into the mud.

The surprise kept him from moving fast enough to counter it. Xiao Xingchen’s nails raked down Xue Yang’s face, missing his left eye only because he turned his head in time, his hands reaching for his throat. If he’d gone for his sword Xue Yang probably would’ve been screwed, but when it came to brawling, fighting close up with no rules, he had a lot more experience.

He grabbed Xiao Xingchen’s hair and yanked his head sideways, driving his other fist into his shortribs. It didn’t have as much impact as it should have – fuck – but it was enough to get Xiao Xingchen off him so he could roll back up to his feet.

“What are you, anyway,” he said, because he couldn’t help but be curious. In other circumstances he might even try to make some kind of bargain with it, but nothing fucked with his stuff and got away with it.

Xiao Xingchen rose up, his movements jerky again without any of his usual infuriating grace, and instead of answering lunged at him again. This time Xue Yang was ready for it, slipping out of the way, grabbing his arm and twisting it up behind his back and kicking the backs of his knees. He crashed to his knees, wriggling like an eel as Xue Yang tried to hold him down. If he pulled any harder there was a solid chance he’d end up popping Xiao Xingchen’s shoulder out of its socket but Xiao Xingchen – or whatever was inhabiting him – didn’t seem to care.

Fuck it. He could always fix it later, and it’d cut down on usable arms.

Xiao Xingchen screamed loud enough to almost drown out the sound of the joint going, and it was. A good noise. Sent a whole body thrill through him and it occurred to him, abruptly, that he could do whatever he wanted to Xiao Xingchen right now, hurt him as much as he wanted, and he could just tell him it’d been for his own good. You were attacking me, Daozhang! What was I supposed to do! Xiao Xingchen might even thank him for it later, when Xue Yang got this thing out of him.

In his moment of distraction Xiao Xingchen ripped Xue Yang off his back and threw him. He hit the ground hard and inhaled some mud and water and while he was trying to cough it out, Xiao Xingchen caught up to him. The rain was still coming down, the gale-force wind making the trees crack and groan and if one of those came down on them…

It was pitch dark and everything was slippery and wet, the ground treacherous, as likely to slide out from under you as suck you down. Xiao Xingchen fought like a mad thing, spitting insults like he didn’t need to stop for breath, and it kept saying I’ll protect him, I’ll keep him safe and never ever leave.

“Oh, fuck off,” Xue Yang snarled, and punched Xiao Xingchen in the nose. He staggered back, blood starting to stream from his nostrils, visible only as a dark stream on his pale skin. Satisfaction warred with rage warred with adrenaline fueled exhilaration.

Xiao Xingchen howled like a wolf and attacked him again. Xue Yang meant to duck out of the way but his boot stuck for just a moment too long and he crashed to the ground on his back, air driven out of his lungs, Xiao Xingchen on top of him again and this time he got his good hand around Xue Yang’s throat, thumb bearing down. He choked, tried to go for his face but he couldn’t reach, and there was enough force in not-Xiao Xingchen’s hands to crack cartilage.

“I love him,” it said, in a voice that was Xiao Xingchen’s but not quite right. “I will love him as he deserves. What are you? Nothing. Die, wretched gore-crow, die like you should have when you were young.”

White hot rage burned in Xue Yang’s throat. He let his hands fall, scrabbling in the mud as his vision tunneled until he felt something hard.

He pulled it out of the sucking mud and smashed it into the side of Xiao Xingchen’s head with all the force he could muster.

Xiao Xingchen fell sideways and Xue Yang rolled over him and hit him again, and then again, and raised his arm for a fourth time only to realize that Xiao Xingchen had gone limp under him.

Chest heaving, throat aching, Xue Yang looked at what he was holding. A chunk of stone, but when he brought it close to his face and peered at it he could make out scratches that might be writing.

Rain beat down on his back. He was shivering. Xiao Xingchen was unconscious, maybe dead, maybe dying, he wasn’t sure.

He looked over where Xiao Xingchen had been digging. A hole about the size of a person’s head, now full of water.

Xue Yang staggered to his feet. He found Spirit-binding Rope in Xiao Xingchen’s Qiankun Pouch and tied his hands and feet and dragged him over to put his head on the nearest root so he didn’t choke on mud, or blood from his broken nose, or drown in rainwater.

Then he started digging.

He couldn’t see anything. He’d tried lighting a flame talisman but it sputtered and went out almost immediately; he tried one of his flash-bang talismans but that just blinded him for a while afterward and only gave him a glimpse of his surroundings. The rain was still pounding on Xue Yang’s back, his everything soaked through and dripping, and the wind still whistling and screaming loud enough to make him wonder if there might be something else lurking around out here. He was stuck feeling around with no idea what he was feeling for, almost elbow deep in water, though at least now he was too filthy and wet to feel filthier or wetter.

He had no idea what he was looking for, here. It could be anything. Old bones, a treasured possession? Could be anything. He didn’t even know for sure what he was dealing with. A ghost seemed most likely, but it could be something else. Knowing what it wanted would help him learn more about it, but knowing what it was would help him know what he was trying to find in this mud puddle.

A sudden, shuddering inhale brought him around, half reaching for a knife. “Awake already?” he said. He couldn’t get a good enough look at Xiao Xingchen’s face to read his expression. Maybe if he was lucky just knocking him out would’ve been enough to at least shake it off for a little while.

“Beast,” Xiao Xingchen said, wriggling, so apparently not.

“Yeah, yeah,” Xue Yang said. “You’ve said. When I got here you were trying to dig something up, right?”

Xiao Xingchen squirmed in a way that must be wreaking havoc on his dislocated shoulder, which was probably why he stopped quickly. “Vulture, murderer, devourer of raw flesh. I know who you are.”

Xue Yang stilled. “That so?”

All the stuff it’d been saying to him hadn’t really mattered. What he was…that was one thing. He could always write all that off, or play it down, if Xiao Xingchen remembered and asked what it meant. Who…

Did Xiao Xingchen know what this thing did?

It hissed at him. “Leave,” it said. “You can’t have him. He’s mine now. To keep and to love.”

Xue Yang cocked his head to one side. Thinking.

“I could just kill him,” he said, “if you’re going to play it like that. Maybe you can still use a dead body, but so can I. I have a lot of practice.”

Xiao Xingchen’s body fell still as well. He could just see him breathing. “You won’t,” it said.

“Are you sure?” Xue Yang asked. It didn’t answer. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. So–”

“You won’t,” it interrupted. “You will hurt him and hurt him and hurt him but not kill him because then he would be gone and not yours anymore.”

Xue Yang’s teeth clicked together, his guts knotting momentarily before he let out a harsh laugh. “That’s not true,” he said. “Alive or dead, Xiao Xingchen’s always going to be mine.” He turned back toward the hole. “What you were digging for. Is it important?”

Silence again. Xue Yang cracked his knuckles and stuck his hands back into the water and mud. “Something you care about?” he asked, keeping his voice light though his shoulders were tense. “Something you want, maybe?”

“No,” Xiao Xingchen said. “No, not for you.”

“Could be,” Xue Yang said. “You take something of mine, I’ll take something of yours…seems fair. Unless you want to bargain.”

“Stop,” Xiao Xingchen said, voice changing again, to a little bit of a moan. “Stop it. Not for you. You don’t understand.”

His fingers hit something that felt a little different. Not just mud and water, something rough and textured. He dug toward it and Xiao Xingchen started struggling again.

“No, no,” it said. “Please. I’m so lonely. He’s so lonely. Let me – let me take care of him. He needs me.”

“Fuck you,” Xue Yang said absently. He got a corner of something and started tugging at it. The mud tugged back until with a disgusting sucking, squelching noise it started to come free.

“He needs me,” it insisted. “Do you think you’re helping? Do you think you make him happy? I could. You are rot and death and destruction. I can give him everything and he’ll never be alone again.”

Xue Yang paused, glancing over his shoulder, his stomach tight again. “You say that like I want to,” he said, his voice a little funny. “None of this was ever about making Xiao Xingchen happy. Find a better string to pull.”

He fell back on his ass as the thing he’d dug out came free with one last mighty tug. A mud-covered sack, the kind of thing you might get rice in. Big, and heavy, though some of that was probably all the water it’d soaked up.

“Stop it, leave me alone,” Xiao Xingchen was saying, but Xue Yang ignored it, pulling out a knife and sawing through the fabric, cutting a slit in it the length of his forearm. Nothing came out of it to attack him immediately, though behind him he could hear Xiao Xingchen weeping.

He hadn’t actually heard him cry before. It was weird hearing it now, probably for knowing it wasn’t actually him doing it, just some thing using his tear ducts.

Xue Yang cracked his neck. “You shouldn’t’ve fucked with me if you didn’t want to pay for it,” he said, and reached into the bag to find out what was inside. Mud was the answer at first, mostly (he didn’t want to so much as look at mud for a month after this), but then something else that he grabbed onto and pulled out.

He was familiar enough with them to recognize a human arm. Mostly just bone but there was some withered flesh still attached, so it hadn’t been buried here right away. No body attached. Xiao Xingchen was moaning faintly and Xue Yang reached in and pulled out another arm, this one missing some fingers that were probably swimming around somewhere in there. Then a spine with a couple stumps of ribs attached, some scraps of flesh still hanging off the bone.

The surprise was the other spine, or rather disarticulated vertebrae. Properly skeletal, this time, and much smaller than the first one. He laid them next to each other and looked over at Xiao Xingchen.

“One of these yours?”

Xiao Xingchen just kept crying. “I want to go home,” he said. “I want to go home. I need someone to take me home.”

Xue Yang frowned, looked down at the body parts again, then back at Xiao Xingchen.

“Somebody killed you and…what, your kid?” he guessed. “Your kid first, it’s been dead longer. They kept your body around, though. Preserved, somehow. I don’t know how, kind of curious, but doesn’t matter right now. Eventually they took you apart and shoved you both in a sack and took you out here and buried you. And now you’re trying to get home.”

“The others,” Xiao Xingchen said. “The others heard me but when I tried to join them they died. They wouldn’t take me home. I would’ve taken care of them, too.”

“Got it,” Xue Yang said. “But Daozhang’s stronger, so he hasn’t died of you possessing him, at least not yet.”

“Not possessing, I just want to keep them company, keep him company, I’ve been so alone for so long and nobody remembers, nobody hears, nobody listens.”

Xue Yang nodded. “Don’t suppose,” he said, “you told Daozhang what you wanted. Or did you just sneak inside him and set up while you had him all confused by whatever you were doing to get him outside?”

“Didn’t you?” it said.

Xue Yang pressed his back teeth together and his tongue to his front teeth.

“Yeah,” he said. “I guess I did.”

He flipped his knife so it was pommel down and brought it down on the small vertebra with a burst of qi, crushing it into dust.

Xiao Xingchen screamed. Xue Yang bared his teeth in his direction.

“The funny thing,” he said, “is if you’d asked, he’d probably’ve helped. He’s like that. I could help, too. It wouldn’t be that hard, probably. I could give you what you want and lay you to rest the proper way, nice and peaceful.”

He started in on one of the arms, pulverizing the bones one blow at a time.

“But you pissed me off,” Xue Yang said, “and you tried to take something of mine. So I’m going to do this the other way.”

He hauled the sack out the rest of the way out of the grave as Xiao Xingchen started screaming again. It was too damp to light it on fire, which was too bad. He really would’ve liked to light the whole thing on fire.

“I won’t!” it screamed in Xiao Xingchen’s voice. “I won’t go, I won’t, I won’t leave, help me, help me,” and right now Xue Yang was grateful for the storm because it meant even if some other nutcase was out here he wouldn’t hear the screams. They cut off when Xiao Xingchen started spitting up blood and something else that smelled like swamp.

The last thing he dug out of the bag was, perfectly, the head. Mummified skin stretched over bone, still some bits of hair clinging to it. A big hole smashed in the back.

“Nasty,” Xue Yang said. Xiao Xingchen whimpered.

Xue Yang had to wonder who’d done it. How long they’d spent scooping all the messy, wet bits out of a body that’d mattered to them somehow – you didn’t put in that much work for just anybody – and then preserving it somehow. Corpses wanted to rot. Keeping them from doing it was hard. Somebody in a fit of rage, maybe, killed someone they loved and couldn’t take it back. Not an uncommon story; most people just didn’t take it this far, or end up making it everybody else’s problem.

Too bad they hadn’t learned demonic cultivation, Xue Yang thought with a flicker of amusement.

He tossed the head up in the air and caught it, then got up and set it down on a patch of drier ground in Xiao Xingchen’s sightline.

“I’d say I’m sorry,” Xue Yang said. “Seems like you had it rough. But I’m really not.”

It took a few times, but not that many. A last little bit of blood or swamp muck or whatever dribbled out of Xiao Xingchen’s mouth and he went limp. Xue Yang ground bone dust into the mud with an emphatic twist of his heel and then kicked a layer over the fragments.

Clever thing, hiding from him, though. From both of them, really, but tonight from him especially. He didn’t know how it’d done it. It must’ve sensed him and known he’d make bad prey. But Xiao Xingchen, with all his open, bleeding wounds…

Xiao Xingchen, right.

Xue Yang went over to him and checked to make sure he was still breathing (he was) and that his qi was fine (mostly). He was a mess of blood and mud and rotten-vegetation swamp stink, his nose was broken and his shoulder was dislocated, and his head was going to be hurting for a while. But he was alive, and, at least Xue Yang was pretty sure, not possessed anymore.

He collapsed back against the tree that belonged to Xiao Xingchen’s root and tipped his head back only to immediately bring it back down when water dripped up his nose. It felt like the storm should’ve stopped when he’d won, but of course it didn’t work that way.

After a couple moments just breathing, Xue Yang got back up, untied the ropes from Xiao Xingchen’s ankles and wrists, and grabbed Xiao Xingchen under the arms, heaving him awkwardly over his shoulder. His knees almost buckled, exhaustion starting to hit him, but he turned back the way he’d come and started walking.

“You’re lucky I don’t just leave you here to find your own way back in the morning, Daozhang,” Xue Yang murmured, already thinking longingly of the dry robe back at the shed.

It was still dry, mostly. Almost nothing else was. It was dry enough for Xue Yang to light a flame talisman, though, laying Xiao Xingchen out on his back now that his nose was no longer actively bleeding, and then flopping to the floor himself with a heaving exhale. He didn’t go to sleep, though, keeping a close eye on the unconscious Xiao Xingchen, just in case the ghost was just pretending it was gone.

The sun was starting to rise, Xue Yang’s jaw cracking with repeated yawns, when Xiao Xingchen stirred with a small, hurting sound that made Xue Yang twitch. He waited, still tense, until he took an unsteady breath in and said, “I – where am I?” sounding shaken and utterly bewildered. Maybe it was just faking, but Xue Yang had the feeling that wasn’t its style.

A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Welcome back, Daozhang,” he said. “You had a busy night.”

Xiao Xingchen groaned faintly, then rolled to his side and threw up.

Xiao Xingchen remembered nothing. From going to sleep to waking up with a broken nose, a dislocated shoulder and a monstrous headache, covered in bruises, a big blank space. None of his possession, nothing about screams on the wind, and (thankfully) nothing about how much the thing had enjoyed calling Xue Yang all kinds of names. He could probably come up with an explanation Xiao Xingchen could expect, but it was better if he didn’t have to deal with Xiao Xingchen fussing about his friend’s bad deeds – or worse, finally managed to put it together and figure it out for himself.

Xue Yang sketched out for him what had happened, slightly edited to make his defeat of the ghost sound more heroic, and Xiao Xingchen was quiet for a while, then gave an awkward, one-armed bow and apologized for his actions, and thanked Xue Yang for breaking him free.

Xue Yang could’ve laughed.

Instead he popped Xiao Xingchen’s arm back into place (it was sort of funny, doing it both ways) and used the least dirty scrap of his robe he could find to wipe the worst of the blood off his face, though there wasn’t a lot he could do about it. He looked hazy, probably at least a little bit concussed, but he was coherent enough for them to make it home.

It was still coming down rain, but it was less awful than it’d been. They limped home, and despite Xue Yang’s best efforts, Xiao Xingchen remained almost entirely silent, subdued and withdrawn. He tired quickly of trying and gave up, irritated by Xiao Xingchen’s moodiness.

“What are you moping about,” Xue Yang said finally. “It seems like that was the thing we were looking for to begin with, doesn’t it? You’re fine, I got rid of the ghost, what’s the big deal?”

Xiao Xingchen opened his mouth, paused, and closed it again. After a couple moments of silence he said, “it was so lonely.” He sounded a little lost.

Xue Yang eyed him sideways. “I thought you didn’t remember anything.”

“I don’t,” Xiao Xingchen said. “Not…nothing that happened. Just the feeling. Loneliness and…loss.”

Xue Yang narrowed his eyes. “Daozhang,” he said, “it was trying to kill me and probably would’ve killed you sooner or later. I hope you’re not feeling sorry for it.”

Xiao Xingchen startled a little, his head turning in Xue Yang’s direction. “Of course I do,” he said. “Whatever it became, it wasn’t always that way. It was warped by misery and pain into something else. How can I know that – feel its pain so keenly – and not feel pity?”

Xue Yang’s stomach turned over. He stared at Xiao Xingchen, a strange hot feeling building in his chest.

“You still would’ve destroyed it, though,” Xue Yang said. His voice sounded weird.

“There might have been another way to appease it, if things had gone differently. Or to suppress it.”

Xue Yang made a slashing gesture. “Same difference on the latter,” he said. “Just keeping it locked up forever. And if there wasn’t, if you couldn’t, you’d’ve destroyed it same as I did and thought it was the right thing.”

Xiao Xingchen’s eyebrows suddenly furrowed and he came to a halt. “My friend,” he said, “I’m not saying you did anything wrong. Under the circumstances…I understand you had little choice.”

A strange, stuttery laugh came out of Xue Yang’s throat. “Yeah,” he said. “I didn’t. But even if I had I’d’ve done it anyway for trying to take you over.”

Xiao Xingchen’s expression softened. He reached out and touched Xue Yang’s cheek. “I know you’re upset on my behalf,” he said, “but I hope that you can let it go. It’s over now.”

“I’m upset on my behalf,” Xue Yang said. “Everything I’m wearing is ruined, and so is everything you’re wearing, and I’ve never been so wet in my life. And do you know how much Qingqing’s going to bitch about it if she finds out I broke your nose? She won’t care that you were possessed when it happened.”

Xiao Xingchen bent down and kissed Xue Yang’s forehead. “I won’t tell her,” he said. “We can say it was the monster.”

Not a complete lie, Xue Yang thought, but all he said aloud was, “you’d better let me say it or she’ll know right away it’s not true.”

Xiao Xingchen laughed, but to Xue Yang’s ear it sounded a little weak. He still looked miserable, on top of the strain from his hurt shoulder, even with his arm bound up to his chest so it wasn’t taking weight. The latter, of course, didn’t bother Xue Yang, but the other thing…he briefly wished he could go back and trap the ghost until he could figure out how to make it hurt properly. Really, he’d been too nice.

He shook it off. If Xiao Xingchen wanted to mope about this he could do it and there’d be no stopping him. Probably he’d just have to wait it out, let him be sad for a few days and then he’d come back around; that was usually how it worked when he was upset about something.

Xue Yang looked down at his robes, trying to figure out what would be salvageable after some vigorous washing, but his mind wandered off again before too long.

Whatever it became, it wasn’t always that way, Xiao Xingchen’s voice said in the back of his mind. It was warped by misery and pain into something else. How can I know that and not feel pity?

Something sour burned deep in his stomach. His eyes slid sideways again, toward Xiao Xingchen, and he saw him for a split second as he’d been, eyes in his head, standing tall and straight and full of righteous anger.

“My friend?” Xiao Xingchen said, and Xue Yang realized he’d stopped and was just standing in the middle of the road.

Xue Yang shook it off, shrugging the gathering stormcloud of a mood off his shoulders and quickening his pace to catch up.