Chapter 46: The Tomb and the Thing in the Dark

It made sense now — why they'd gone to the trouble of hauling a diviner thousands of miles into a sealed foreign city. With spiritual power suppressed here, Immortals couldn't sense the Phoenix Tree Heart's qi at all. But a diviner could calculate a location using a connected object as a reference point — and the stronger the diviner, the sharper the result. The Phoenix Tree was a sacred relic of Phoenix Isle. Getting hold of even this withered branch must have cost Cloudsoar considerable effort.

"Daoist Bai." Nan Wan's voice dropped half a register. His eyes had already run out of patience. "Anytime now."

"Your Excellency, please — this humble Daoist is beginning." Bai Shuo took the withered branch in both hands. A faint thread of residual qi curled up from it. She closed her eyes, let her lips move in something that sounded like an incantation, and guided the qi slowly toward the spiritual platform between her brows.

Mingxin watched from the side with a frown pulling at his face. The Daoist had read Nan Wan's century-old fate at a glance — so why did finding the Phoenix Tree Heart require all this performance? This looked less like divination and more like something a roadside fraud might put on to seem convincing.

Inside Bai Shuo's divine sense, two cracked and battered turtle shells turned slowly, drawn along by the Phoenix Tree's residual qi.

The moment they'd entered the city, she'd taken the chance to tuck the shells away inside her spiritual platform. She knew nothing about divination — she never had. Everything ran through Old Black's two broken shells, which responded to spiritual power from anyone who held them. If Nan Wan ever found that out, the three of them would be thrown out of this inn, and the Cloudsoar disciples would probably add a few kicks on the way down as a matter of principle.

The shells turned once more and went still. Three faint characters surfaced.

At the same moment, the last trace of qi in the branch ran dry. The wood crumbled to dust between her fingers.

Nan Wan's expression darkened. Before he could speak, Bai Shuo opened her eyes and looked at him. "Your Excellency. I've found it."

The shift in Nan Wan's face was immediate. He reached forward and closed his hand around her wrist. "Where?"

Pain shot up Bai Shuo's arm. "Ow — ow, ow, that hurts—!"

Fan Yue's palm connected with Nan Wan's arm and shoved him back, putting himself squarely between the two of them.

Nan Wan stumbled several steps. Mingxin's sword was out before he'd steadied himself, angled straight at Fan Yue.

"Put it away." Nan Wan's voice came out flat. He met the young man's stare and found something in it that made him shift his weight slightly. He pushed down the irritation working up through his chest and turned back to Bai Shuo. "My apologies. I overstepped. Daoist Bai — where is the Phoenix Tree Heart?"

"The qi in the branch was too thin. I couldn't get a clear read on all three segments at once — only a rough sense of the first." Bai Shuo rubbed her wrist. "It seems we'll need to secure the first Heartflame before the next two will become locatable."

"Then where is the first one?"

"The Tomb of the Foreigners." She let the words out slowly.

Mingxin's brow drew together. "The Tomb of the Foreigners. What place is that?"

"I don't know." Bai Shuo spread her hands. "The branch could only show me that the first Heartflame is hidden there. The tomb's location is beyond what I can divine from this."

Yi City had been sealed inside this wasteland since its founding, with no outsiders ever setting foot in it. Neither Immortal nor Demon cultivators knew anything meaningful about the Yi People or their customs. Something like an ancestral tomb was entirely outside their knowledge.

Still — a tomb was a tomb. It had to be a burial ground somewhere in the city. That was a concrete enough thing to search for.

"Your Excellency, we only have two days remaining." Bai Shuo let genuine-sounding urgency color her voice. "If we don't find the tomb quickly, there won't be time left to locate the other two Heartflames even after we find the first."

"Mingxin." Nan Wan's voice was even. "Take everyone and search."

"Understood, Senior Brother." Mingxin was already moving toward the door.

"Daoist Bai." Nan Wan turned back to her. "Take the room beside mine. Once the first fragment is found, we'll need you again."

Even Bei Chen of Kunlun had spent a full day in Yi City and come away empty. The fact that Bai Shuo had produced a lead at all — any lead — had shifted how he spoke to her, and it showed.

Bai Shuo was halfway into a yawn before the door had finished closing behind Mingxin. "Yes, yes — this humble Daoist is completely done in. I need to sleep." She waved vaguely and shuffled Fan Yue into the neighboring room ahead of her.

Hua Da Tie, dragging her eyelids along through sheer stubbornness, moved to follow — and found the door shut firmly in her face.

She stood there staring at it for a considerable moment. She looked left, toward Nan Wan's room. She looked right, toward the end of the corridor where Bei Chen's light had gone out. Her fist rose halfway toward the door and then lowered itself again. She hugged her hammer to her chest, slid her back down the wall, and was snoring inside two minutes.

Inside the room, before Bai Shuo had managed a single word, Fan Yue had already taken her hand, pushed her sleeve up, and begun working carefully at her wrist with both thumbs. Seeing his pressed-flat mouth, Bai Shuo gave him her most reassuring smile. "It's fine, Mu Mu. Master doesn't even feel it anymore."

He said nothing. His expression didn't change.

She patted the top of his head. "This place really isn't as dangerous as it looks. As long as we're traveling with Cloudsoar, no one's going to lay a finger on me."

He kept his eyes down, saying nothing, focused on her wrist.

"I only came here because I was worried about A-Zhao," she tried again, softer now. "He's your Senior Martial Uncle — I told you about him. I just needed to make sure he was alright."

Fan Yue's hands slowed. The air in the room got quieter.

Bai Shuo twitched her mouth sideways, held up her free hand like she was taking an oath before a magistrate, and said, "Master was wrong. I won't do it again — I swear on everything. Even if I go to Hua Da Tie's house to steal chickens, I'll take you with me."

Fan Yue looked up at last, expression still arranged into something wounded and skeptical. "Really?"

"Really. Truer than refined gold." She reached over and pinched his nose. "You absolute little grouch."

The tightness across his shoulders finally loosened, just barely.

Bai Shuo moved quickly now that the worst was over. She pulled two paper figures from her Qiankun Bag and tapped each one lightly on the head. They shimmered and settled into recognizable shapes — herself and Fan Yue, sitting neatly side by side on the bed.

Fan Yue blinked at them.

Bai Shuo quietly eased the window open. From the corridor, Hua Da Tie's snoring rolled through the wall like distant thunder, more than enough to cover the sound.

"Mu Mu. Everyone from Cloudsoar is out searching. This is our window. Come on — let's go find your Senior Martial Uncle."

A flash of light, and the room was empty.

The streets of Yi City were as quiet as they'd been when they arrived — a handful of scattered lanterns pushing back the dark and not quite managing it. Their footsteps were the only sound.

Bai Shuo raised the bamboo flute hanging at her neck and blew across it softly. A thin wisp of qi rose from the tip and drifted eastward, steady and purposeful.

"A-Zhao's nearby! Mu Mu, this way!" She grabbed Fan Yue's hand and ran.

The flute had been forged with Chong Zhao's spiritual qi at its core. It could find him anywhere — in theory.

Across the city, in a ruined inn with half its roof gone, Chong Zhao surfaced from meditation with a sharp intake of breath. His hand moved to the bamboo flute at his chest before he'd finished waking up.

It had made a sound. Brief, faint — but real.

"A-Shuo?" He held the flute carefully and pushed qi into it. It didn't respond again. He sat there, frowning at the dark.

The city's suppression was strong enough to blur his sense of the flute's range. He couldn't be certain the sound had meant what he thought it meant. A-Shuo couldn't be here — the city had been sealed since midnight yesterday. She couldn't have gotten through the Spirit-Locking Seal.

Couldn't have.

He turned the flute over in his hands, and the unease in his chest refused to settle. His grip tightened. He stood up and disappeared from the room.

He'd barely touched down outside the inn when something crossed the sky above him — a dark shape moving fast, trailing a smell like rot and old graves. Its form wouldn't quite resolve into anything specific no matter how he looked at it.

That much demonic weight, here in Yi City? Evil spirits shouldn't be able to exist in a city under Mu Guang's Spirit-Locking Seal.

If A-Shuo really was inside this city—

His expression hardened. He went after the shadow.

Three streets over, Bai Shuo's flute went dark.

The qi simply stopped, mid-step, and the flute dropped from where it had been floating. She snatched it before it hit the ground and blew into it several more times. Nothing. Not a flicker.

The spiritual suppression in Yi City was too thorough. The flute was dead weight now.

She stood in the middle of a dark street with no idea which direction to go and a city that all looked the same in every direction.

Then something passed overhead. Just a shape, just a shadow — and the bamboo flute shuddered.

Had it come back? Was that him?

Bai Shuo was already gathering herself to jump when Fan Yue's hand closed around her arm.

"Master. Don't."

She turned. He was scanning the darkness around them with his eyes moving slowly and carefully, a slight tension in his brow that sat oddly on his face — a coldness in his eyes that looked like it didn't quite belong to him.

"What's wrong?" Something small and cold moved through her chest.

"The smell here is wrong," he said quietly, his grip not loosening. "It's foul."

Bai Shuo lifted her nose and took in a slow breath. She smelled nothing. Dust. Night air. The faint remnant of old wood from a building nearby.

She looked around. The street was empty in every direction. She reached over and flicked Fan Yue's forehead with one finger.

"Good disciple — don't let your nerves get the better of you. This is Yi City. Everyone inside these walls is running on barely more than a half-immortal's power." She curled her hand into a fist and showed it to him. "Even if something found us, it might be no match for your master."

And besides, she added silently, with the biggest monster of all walking right next to me — what exactly do I have to worry about?

The flute trembled again. East.

She jumped.

"It's A-Zhao! Mu Mu, keep up — we've got him!"

Fan Yue's chest lurched as he moved to follow — and a gust of rancid air hit him from the left. Something dark and formless dropped from above, straight at him.

By the time he looked up, Bai Shuo was already gone into the dark ahead.

She landed running, the flute rattling continuously in her palm, leading her around a corner, down a narrow lane, further in — and then the shaking stopped. The shadow she'd been chasing flickered once and vanished.

She skidded to a halt.

A dead-end alley. Blank wall on three sides.

"Mu Mu?" She turned. The lane behind her was empty. She was alone.

The wind moved through the street above and made a sound against the rooftops — a thin, dry, scraping sound that did nothing for the stillness.

"A-Zhao?" She backed up slowly, keeping her voice low, throwing it into the dark on both sides.

Silence.

She looked down at the flute in her hand. It had been reacting this whole time. She'd assumed it meant Chong Zhao was close — but it hadn't stopped shaking since that shadow passed overhead. It wasn't pulling toward something. It was doing something else.

She remembered, then, what Chong Zhao had said.

"A-Shuo, the flute was made with qi from my own spiritual core. It finds me wherever I am — but it also warns you. If something wrong is nearby, you'll know."

The sweat that broke across her forehead was cold.

A sound behind her. Heavy, deliberate — something landing on the ground.

She couldn't make herself turn around. She stood completely still, eyes down, and watched the shadow that was forming on the ground in front of her, cast by whatever was standing at her back. It was enormous. Its breathing reached her neck in slow, wet waves.

Bai Shuo's hand drove backward. The Qiankun Bag at her waist flew open and two hundred talismans erupted out at once, wrapping around the shape behind her in a cascade of paper and light. She didn't look back. She jumped straight up.

The explosion came half a second later. Then the roar — deep and tearing, like something that had never learned what pain was until this moment. A hand shot up from below and closed around her ankle, and the sky inverted as she was wrenched back down toward the ground.

She got one look at it on the way down, and everything on her body stood on end.

Six feet of it, at least, maybe more. Its face was running — pus and blood moving slowly down from its eyes and mouth, which had mostly stopped resembling anything human. A tail dragged behind it on the ground. Four claws branched from its sides, and three of them were currently tearing through her talismans like they were paper. Which they were. The fourth had her by the ankle.

What is that thing —

"MU MU! HELP!"

The scream left her before she'd decided to make it.

The creature jerked at the sound and drove the three remaining claws toward her in a single downward swing, as if the noise had decided something for it.

Bai Shuo slammed her eyes shut.

The sound she heard instead was a crack — clean and massive — and then she was airborne, tumbling upward rather than being torn apart. She opened her eyes. Someone had dropped into the alley from above, and a single swing of a heavy staff had taken the claw that held her clean off at the joint.

The creature screamed. Black blood sprayed upward from the stump. It twisted and convulsed and then threw itself into the shadows and was gone.

Something caught Bai Shuo on the way down.

"Master!" Fan Yue had blood on him — quite a lot of it, from what she could see — and his arms around her were shaking. She could feel the tremor moving through his whole chest.

She was shaking too, badly enough that she couldn't have stopped if she'd tried. But she looked past his shoulder at the figure still standing where the creature had been, staff resting against the ground, and blinked several times.

"You — what are you — how are you here?"

"I want to know the same thing!" Hua Da Tie dropped to the ground and sat down heavily, her forging hammer rolling away from her loose fingers. Her painted face was streaming — whether from the exertion or because she'd started crying, it was impossible to tell with all the smeared makeup. "You rotten Daoist, do you have any idea what I just went through?! What kind of cursed nightmare of a place is this?! WAAAH!"

Across the city, Chong Zhao had been following the dark shape across the rooftops for three blocks before it cleared a wall and disappeared into a courtyard below. As it went over, a blade of Saber Qi shot back at him from inside — compact and fast, with a killing intent behind it that had nothing casual about it.

He threw himself sideways and back. The strike caught him even at that distance, sending his internal qi churning. He landed unsteadily, worked to steady himself, and then the lanterns in the courtyard below flared to life.

He looked down.

The Palace of the Yi King.

The gates swung open before he'd made sense of it. A figure walked out unhurried, and Chong Zhao recognized him — Wu Zhao, the Yi King's deputy general, the one who'd greeted the Immortal and Demon disciples at the gates the previous evening. He materialized three steps from Chong Zhao, saber already out, a scar running the full length of his face from brow to jaw.

"Who enters the royal palace uninvited in the middle of the night?" His eyes moved across Chong Zhao. "An Immortal disciple."

"Chong Zhao of Piaomiao Sect, paying respects to General Wu Zhao." Chong Zhao lowered his head.

"Piaomiao." Wu Zhao studied him with an expression that sharpened with interest. "I didn't catch your qi at the gates yesterday. You've been concealing your cultivation this whole time, haven't you, boy."

"This junior would never—"

"Don't give me that. Someone who can take a strike from me and still be standing isn't far behind Bei Chen or that pampered Cloudsoar prodigy in real ability. But skill or no skill — what gives you the right to come slipping around the Yi King's palace in the middle of the night? How many lives do you think you're carrying?" Wu Zhao's voice came down several degrees. "Speak plainly. What are you doing here?"

"General, I mean no disrespect to His Majesty. I sensed what felt like evil qi moving through the city earlier and followed it — only to see it pass over this wall and into the palace grounds. I followed without thinking. That was my mistake."

Wu Zhao's expression snapped shut. "Evil qi. In Yicheng." He said it the way someone might repeat back a claim they found faintly insulting. "You're using a ghost story as cover for sneaking into the palace and hunting for the Phoenix Heartflame. Don't insult my intelligence."

"General, that was never—"

"Listen carefully." Wu Zhao's voice cut him off clean. "A thousand years ago, the former Heavenly Emperor Mu Guang laid the Spirit-Sealing Array beneath this city. That array does two things — it suppresses the spiritual power of anyone who enters, and it destroys evil. Any corrupt qi that crossed into Yicheng would set off the array's defenses before it had gone three steps. Not even a demon could breach this city, let alone some wandering malevolent presence. Whatever you think you saw, you were mistaken."

Chong Zhao went quiet. He turned the logic over and found no gap in it.

Mu Guang's Spirit-Sealing Array had been considered absolute below divine rank — proof against all corruption and evil. If the array was active and intact, nothing foul could exist inside these walls. He must have read the qi wrong. Some trick of the suppression, some echo of something that had passed close outside the walls.

"This junior was in error. I beg the General's forgiveness."

"Go back to your inn and find your Heartflame in the morning like everyone else. If you come near the Yi King's palace again at night, I won't be this patient." Wu Zhao turned his back and walked through the palace gates without another word.

The gates came together with a sound that landed like a period at the end of a sentence.

Chong Zhao stood alone in the street for a moment. He reached up and pressed his hand against the bamboo flute at his chest. It lay against him cold and completely still — no qi, no tremor, nothing.

He looked back at the palace gates once more. Then he turned away.

"Senior Brother." Er Yun dropped from a rooftop nearby and came toward him quickly, reading his face. "What happened? What are you doing out here alone in front of the Yi King's palace?"

"Nothing." Chong Zhao shook his head. "Let's go back."

He fell into step beside Er Yun, and the two of them walked away from the palace without speaking. Behind them, Yi City was dark and still and gave nothing away.