Chapter Text
“There's a demon in the school.”
Chongyun doesn't even look up from his notes. This is, in all likelihood, another one of Hu Tao’s gags, a prank that will end in false hope and a sense of utter unfulfillment.
“Since when did you prioritise your studies over a chance at exorcism?” The latter whines, snatching his papers.
“Since I realised you're a pathological liar who enjoys watching me suffer.”
Hu Tao presses a hand over her heart in mock hurt. “You wound me, dear Chongyun. I would never!”
Chongyun raises a pale eyebrow.
“Okay, maybe I would.” Something shifts in her tone — it almost sounds like mild desperation. “I'm being serious this time.”
Tao begging, he muses, resting his pen on the desk. That's not something you see everyday.
The girl in question seems to sense his potential interest, and promptly fishes her phone out of her pocket. “Behold — evidence.”
It's a thirty second clip, filmed in what appears to be the neglected bathroom of the old campus’s library. Since it's hidden in a blind spot behind the archive, no one has really bothered upkeeping it. Few visit the library and even fewer visit that particular bathroom; it's no wonder Hu Tao had chosen that place to do—
“You did a summoning ritual,” Chongyun deadpans, pointing an accusatory finger at the brown-haired figure at the very centre of the video. In front of her is a series of candles deliberately arranged around a salt circle, and a faint rune traced in chalk across the floor. “I fail to see where this is my problem.”
“Patience, my dear exorcist friend,” she replies serenely, and even has the gall to pat his head. “Save your judgement for after the video ends.”
Chongyun rolls his eyes, turning his attention back to the screen. She's chanting something now, an incantation her Liyuen tongue probably mangled.
For a moment, nothing happens.
Then the bathroom explodes with water.
“The water came out of nowhere.” Soon after the footage is abruptly cut off as an incoming wave washes over her screen. “My poor phone,” Hu Tao adds dramatically, bringing the back of her hand to her forehead.
“…It just looks like you burst a pipe,” the latter points out, freezing the clip at the exact frame where the water first appears. The look on her face is what can only be described as that one Surprised Pikachu meme.
“Must you have so little faith in me?” The girl puts her hands on her hips. “I’m literally standing there. How could I have done anything?”
“Besides,” she continues, gesturing at the phone, “I felt a presence there. Something or someone — either way, I definitely wasn’t alone in that bathroom.”
Chongyun quashes the chill creeping up his skin. He could doubt her intentions to no end, but when Hu Tao says she senses something amiss, her premonitions are almost certainly accurate. Unfortunately.
(And, if it really turns out to be a supernatural disturbance he has wilfully passed the opportunity to investigate… well.)
“Fine,” he mutters finally, and instantly regrets it when the latter’s carmine eyes light up.
*
As part of a massive upgrading project that had been done shortly before Chongyun's admission, the school had been relocated to an entirely different campus, bulldozing the old one in the process. The library however has yet to be torn down, surviving on a rather generous donation no one seems to be able to trace the origins of. A mystery possibly deserving of attention, though such a case would pique the interest of law enthusiast Yanfei rather than himself.
It had been an easy decision for school management to downsize the new library, which they conveniently cited as an unnecessary extravagance.
Everything can be found on the internet these days. We must adapt to this new age of technology, had been the official statement, to which Yanfei disdainfully translated as They're too cheap to fund the renovation works. Protest, if any at all, had been drowned out beneath the wave of excitement around the installation of computers across the archive.
As a result, Chongyun finds himself gaping at the building in all its three-storey majesty before him.
Hu Tao, on the other hand, doesn’t appear remotely fazed, instead turning her attention to the haversack she has dragged along. She unceremoniously dumps its contents onto the ground.
“Okay,” she begins, making a show of presenting her wares, “what do you need, O great exorcist?”
Chongyun ignores the jibe, pointing at a suspiciously weapon-shaped contraband she has somehow managed to smuggle into school compounds. “Why do you have a mace?”
“Why wouldn’t I have a mace?”
The latter gives her a look.
“I used it for a previous venture. Don't worry about it,” Hu Tao amends sweetly, like that makes a difference.
One of these days we're both going to be held up by the police, Chongyun thinks wryly as he rummages through the items on display. The notion doesn't sound as terrifying as it should be.
There's not much in the pile that he'd really consider useful. Without much information on the exact type of demon — or whether it's really one in the first place — bringing the miscellany of objects to the hotspot is as good as going in empty-handed.
Still, he picks up a flashlight and a sprig of rowan, tucking them into the left pocket of his light blue hoodie. His right pocket is reserved for his array of talismans, their familiar thrum providing an odd comfort when he brushes his fingers across them.
Always be prepared. It's a mantra drilled into his head by Shenhe xiao’yi, a belief he has come to live by. Your constitution is no excuse for complacency.
“Lame,” Hu Tao scoffs, rolling her eyes as she stuffs the rest of the contents back into the haversack.
The latter is more than certain her reaction is an attempt to mask her relief. Someone has to hold the brain cells of the pair.
It takes her a full minute to jemmy the door open — twice her usual timing.
“It’s locked from the inside,” she explains, swinging the door ajar with a flourish. “There's an entirely different mechanism on the other side for some reason.”
What kind of demon locks behind them? Chongyun wonders. Most spirits don't even use the door, favouring unnecessary destruction or simply phasing through the walls.
The inside is surprisingly… tidy. Pitch black and there's a slight mustiness lingering in the air, but otherwise absent of dust and grime. He doubts the school management is the one that has bothered to maintain it, so—
“What does it take, pray tell, for you to finally leave me alone?”
Chongyun freezes.
They’re not alone. A distinct chill has swept across the room — he can feel the hairs standing on his neck. His fingers close subconsciously around a talisman in his pocket, its charmed power pulsing gently against his skin.
An exorcist’s instinct is never wrong.
…And yet his friend is completely unbothered, tilting her gaze towards the third floor.
“Hello to you too,” Hu Tao chirps back, waving cheerfully into the gloom. “Did you miss me?”
What the fuck.
“Stop following me,” the response floats back, and Chongyun thinks it sounds strangely like a light rain. Delicate, almost whispery, with a slight unevenness that makes it all the more melodious.
Get a grip on yourself, he hisses internally, slapping his own cheek. He raises his head, where a vague silhouette has come into view.
“Chongyun, meet this twink of a demon,” Hu Tao announces, a shit-eating grin evident on her face. “Xingqiu, meet the gullible exorcist I've emotionally blackmailed into joining my quest.”
“Incredible,” Xingqiu calls from his perch above, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “You've even brought an accomplice this time.”
Chongyun glances at his friend. “This time?”
“The bathroom was the first time we met.” Hu Tao shrugs, nonchalant. “I've tracked him down a couple more times—”
“Twelve.”
“—but he keeps vanishing off.”
Through the scant lighting, Chongyun barely makes out the sight of the demon (?) rolling his eyes. “Each time she returns with a different weapon of choice, in an attempt to rile me up. Apparently I must strike first for her to, in her words, act out of self-defence.”
He finds himself feeling rather sorry for Xingqiu.
His friend however, being the chaotic threat to humanity she is, actually takes a bow. “Don't lie. You enjoy this little pursuit as much as I do; otherwise you would've snapped my neck ten encounters ago.”
Chongyun subconsciously reaches for his own neck.
The demon (?) scoffs. “I'm merely uninclined to getting my hands dirty over such a trivial matter,” he counters after a moment, but the pause makes Chongyun think there's some truth to her statement.
It seems as though Hu Tao senses this too. “Aww, such a tsundere,” she croons, before gesturing pointedly at the boy beside her. “At least come down and say hi to A’Yun.”
It’s about a ten metre drop from the third floor, maybe even higher. Chongyun is no genius, but even he is fairly sure a fall from such a height is no less than dangerous, if not fatal.
Which is why he screams when Xingqiu suddenly grabs the handrail, flipping himself off the parapet.
“Aiya, relax.” Hu Tao looks unfazed, perhaps even unimpressed. “He does this all the time.”
Chongyun is about to point out that there’s nothing worth relaxing over in that statement, when Xingqiu lands with a poise the latter can only envy, his heels impossibly soundless against the wooden floorboards.
“The exorcist is actually concerned for my wellbeing?” There’s a teasing lilt to his voice, like the gentle breeze during a light drizzle.
Perhaps now would be a great time for Chongyun to stop thinking about how pretty it sounds and remember that the creature before him is the very target he’s supposed to vanquish. But alas, he is instead preoccupied with the pair of eyes gazing intently at him.
Molten gold flecked with amber, practically glowing against the veil of darkness around them. Sanguine pupils, a deep, arterial hue unlike the brighter red of Hu Tao’s eyes. Juxtaposed against the unblemished pallor of his face, they appear even more striking than they already are.
Next he notices the latter's attire — a silk shirt absent of creases, paired with sable leggings and matching heeled boots. A jacket that has been thrown over his shoulders, its hood concealing most of his hair. Chongyun catches a glimpse of its navy blue when he tilts his head.
Since when are demons this devastatingly gorgeous?
“Quite a specimen you have for a friend,” Xingqiu observes, peering at Hu Tao. “I’m impressed.”
For once, the latter looks deeply offended. “That’s slanderous!” she exclaims, jabbing an accusing finger at him as she retreats behind her friend. “A’Yun, tell the demon how wonderful a friend I am.”
“He doesn't… look like a demon,” Chongyun mumbles distractedly. He looks like a goddamn model is left unsaid.
“That's because you haven't actually seen one before.”
She's got a point.
A hint of annoyance slips into Xingqiu's tone as he folds his arms. “I'm not a—”
“Nuh uh, the demon doesn't get a say in this,” Hu Tao cuts him off, wagging a disapproving finger.
The latter turns on his heel.
The next few moments play out as what can only be described as a fever dream. Hu Tao yells, snatching Xingqiu by the hood of his jacket in an attempt to drag him back. The demon (?) staggers, snapping his head around, just in time for the hood to fall to his shoulders and reveal a pair of inhumanly pointed ears, barely peeking through a cut of asymmetrical navy blue.
It's however — and thankfully — enough to snap Chongyun out of his reverie. A talisman materialises between his fingers, shimmering readily.
Xingqiu notices the gesture.
“Perfect,” he mutters tiredly, the way an exasperated babysitter might after a long day. “Now I have to deal with the both of you.”