[Editor: Rain, Author]

“Have I ever mentioned how much I hate the living dead?”

“Many times.”

“Soooooo many times…!”

Yan Li was currently hacking away at several aggressive skeletons with a long, sharp sword. To his left and right, his sixth and seventh brothers were also fighting against the same creatures.

They were surrounded, practically overwhelmed, by a swarm of angry skeletons. Humans, horses, pigs, dogs and cats… big to small, they were all attacking the three princes relentlessly.

The skeletons had no meat on them, not even a single tendon dangling from a knee. They were a bright white, as if they’d been bleached by the sun. Yet somehow they were standing, moving, and scrapping, gnawing at whatever part of the princes they could get their boney hands on.

“When is Third Brother going to figure out how to kill these things?” De Taihua asked loudly, ripping apart the skeleton in front of him and scattering the bones. Another immediately took its place to give him trouble. Soon after, the skeleton he’d torn apart had reformed and attacked him again.

“You think these things—” Yan Li was hit from the back by a horse and stumbled slightly. Annoyed, he grabbed the horse by it’s eye sockets and threw it. It sailed far into the air and to the edges of the skeleton pile. “—can be killed off with just an array? After seeing Shi Ji bath them in fire like that?”

De Weishan kicked a nearby child-skeleton and responded with a fierce frown, “But Second Bro is so powerful and it’s been hours—!”

“It hasn’t even been four hours yet.” Yan Li swung his sword low, sweeping skeletons to the side into a giant heep, but unfortunately not breaking any bones. Every time he saw their bones still intact, he felt depressed. “And Shi Ji may be powerful, but even he has his limits.”

Though they were pressed on every side, they weren’t in danger of dying. They were just tired. If they could have run away to Lanhua, a place these monsters couldn’t step into, they would have… but they’d learned the hard way what happened when the monster skeletons couldn’t get to them: they attacked ordinary people, even animals.

Those killed by these monsters turned into monsters themselves. The process repeated. The reason there were so many of these monsters was because they’d realized this fact too late. Several towns and even a large city had been almost completely destroyed thanks to this process.

All in less than six hours.

As long as the princes stayed within reach of these living dead, they would swarm them and leave the ordinary people alone. Until someone could figure out how to kill them, they were running around and attracting the monsters’ attention to keep everyone else safe.

The fourth, eighth, and ninth Princes, Lu Shao, De Tongran and De Zhou, were out searching to see how far these monsters had spread and trying to find the source. But they didn’t dare go too close to a city or town, lest they attract the undead to the living and create more monsters. It was an awkward situation.

De Ming Yu had sent out the Imperial Army to set up barricades near where they knew for sure these monsters were located, trying to corral them into one location. Beyond that, there wasn’t much he could do. Without knowing who started this problem, it was impossible to stop it...

———

Shi Ji was standing in the center of a large array. Surrounding the array was a thin sheet of ice, and trapped in the ice were skeletons and rotting corpses, all stretching out their limbs towards him. Some of the corpses still had vocal cords and were making low, groaning noises.

“How long can it hold them?”

“Peak of the day, perhaps two hours. At night, up to six hours.”

Fu Jing scratched the side of his head and sat down with a thump, exhausted. He’d been keeping these monsters away from his nephew for hours.

“That’s something at least.”

“En,” Shi Ji had several pieces of paper out and was scribbling on them in a hurry, “Temporary measure though.” He then asked sarcastically to no one in particular, “Why won’t these things just die already?”

“Technically they’re already dead.”

Shi Ji hand paused before continuing his scribble, a slight scowl on his face, “Now is not the time to joke, Uncle Fu.”

“My apologies.” Fu Jing had been slashing away at these disgusting creatures for hours now and was just happy to take a break.

Shi Ji finished his writing and gave a loud whistle.

An eagle flew down and landed in front of him. Shi Ji folded the paper into tubs and stuck them on the containers on the bird's legs. He told the eagle, “Get these to my brothers, tell them to slap a few down and give themselves a rest.”

The eagle gave a single bob of the head and immediately flew off to do as ordered.

“Can’t you freeze them all?”

“Ah, isn’t that the problem?” Shi Ji looked frustrated. “When we fight them one on one they’re mindless, but in terms of overall movement they’re really clever. Otherwise, wouldn’t they all be skeletons after I roasted them with fire? But new ones are added every hour, proving not all are staying here with us. A portion of them must be out creating more.”

“That’s true… by the way... I’ve never seen purple fire before, that was amazing.”

“How was it amazing? All we got for it was a bunch of squeaky clean skeletons.” He frowned. “Honestly that fire should have killed them, incinerating even the bones. But they survived…” Shi Ji scratched his arm, feeling baffled, “And freezing them is a temporary solution. We don’t know who created them to begin with, so more could pop up at any time in any location… they could be popping up in some random place far from here for all we know…”

“Let’s try not to borrow trouble.” Fu Jing said and then looked out at the sea of creepy monsters that surrounded them, frozen to the ground, and sighed, “No wonder everyone in the west isn’t eager to come out this direction. With this kind of craziness happening, I wouldn’t want to come either.”

“This isn’t normal, not in the east, and not in Dalu as a whole,” Shi Ji brow furrowed, face tense, “But in Jianghu it’s not uncommon… people there have a whole cultivation technique for manipulating the dead...”

“Jianghu… I wanted to visit there but now I wonder if I should…” Fi Jing grimaced, “What do those guys have against you that they’re causing all these problems?”

“It’s not all of Jianghu, just the Evil Faction,” Shi Ji shrugged helplessly and began drawing more symbols on his ground array, “There’s so many things the Evil Faction has against us, I don’t even know where to begin.”

“Well, what would be their top reason?”

“Hmmmmm.” Shi Ji looked thoughtful, “Shan Hui disappeared and they decided to get revenge?”

“Shan Hui… the oldest, the First Prince?”

“Yep. He goes over to Jianghu regularly and stirs up trouble.”

“I thought he was over there hunting Devils and demons and whatnot?”

“Absolutely. That’s the definition of stirring up trouble. Especially anything related to a Devil. That b*****rd has his fingers in every group within the Evil Faction, they’re just too busy fighting each other to notice.” Shi Ji gnawed on the inside of his cheek, thinking about the Devil and muttering his thoughts out loud, “Definitely Evil Faction related. Aunt Shuya was right then… everything was unnatural... Mmmm…. Undead that don’t die from fire, bones that don’t break… massive hordes of them… definitely the Devil Sect… unbelievable, they actually sent a Demon cultivator...”

“Demon? Why not that Devil you guys have been hunting?”

“It could be the Devil, but it’s just unlikely... “ Shi Ji shrugged. “From what big bro said, the Devil rarely does anything directly, always using other people to get or do what he wants. If anyone from the Devil Sect comes to Dalu it’s initiates and disciples, never anyone high ranking…. This is the first time they’ve sent anyone high ranking.”

“And that “high ranking” individual is the Demon?”

“Mmm hm…” Shi Ji touched recently added part of the array, causing it to light up. The trapped undead completely froze over, turning into grotesque ice statues. “It’s just that I don’t know how to find a Demon without being close to them. Yan Li hates the undead but it’s the same for him. It’s only the Old Man and Shan Hui who can sense them from a distance. Big bro says they’ve got a stink that sticks to everything they touch, he just follows their stench trail. All I can do is use logical deduction.”

“And what have you deduced?”

“They are somewhere…” He opened his arms wide, indicating the large stretch of land around them, “....around here.”

They both knew that wasn’t very helpful. The first sightings of the undead happened in three separate locations that were miles apart from each other. They didn’t have much chance to investigate before realizing the undead were targeting the princes.

Fu Jing thought for a moment, “Is it possible that because the two people in the family who could find those from the Devil Sect are currently incapacited, the Devil Sect came over to cause our family problems?”

Shi Ji raised his eyebrows.

“It’s just a little odd why they don’t attack Lanhua directly. If a Demon can make a horde of the undead, why not just use their power to go after Lanhua? Why be so roundabout?”

“Can’t.”

“...can’t?”

“Can’t come on the mountains, into Lanhua. First, the Old Man is a natural repellant and purifying agent against evil. The more evil something is, the more repulsed they are by the Old Man’s presence. My guess is these undead things just swarm at the border because they’re basically pure evil and can’t stand his aura. If the Old Man was awake the purifying portion would happen but since he’s not...”

“How would the Old Ma— I mean, brother-in-law, how would he purify them?”

Shi Ji took his thumb and made a straight line motion across his neck.

“Ah.”

“Also, if they stepped onto the mountains, all us sons could sense them. Aunty Shuya too, I think. They can’t hide. Even if we can’t kill them, we could do something else like…” Shi Ji tilted his head, “Bury them?” He suddenly brightened, “Oh, let’s try that instead.”

Before Fu Jing could ask what that meant, Shi Ji stood up and walked to an empty area. Stomping his foot, he shattered the ice and then brushed it away with a strong gust of wind. He then began drawing a large array on the ground.

The first time he tried to kill these monsters, he thought using a large amount of fire would work. Unlike with his Old Man’s earthquakes, there were no pre-drawn arrays for him to work with, he had to make everything on the spot. But this was difficult because the undead would swarm him whenever he tried.

He had Uncle Fu Jing keep them off him while Yan Li, De Taihua, and De Weishan ran around distracting portions of the undead hordes. The fire array had worked perfectly… except that no matter how hot Shi Ji made the fire, the undead… didn’t disintegrate. They just turned into very white skeletons.

While being dumbfounded that his flames hadn’t worked, more of the living dead joined the already massive hoard. It became a chaotic free for all for an hour until Yan Li managed to split the hoard in half by acting as bait. That reduced the numbers enough for him and Fu Jing to get another array, this time of ice.

For freezing just a few of the living dead, Shi Ji didn’t need a large array. He could use his tattoos. He had vainly thought that perhaps after being put under such high heat, the extreme cold would cause their bones to break but…. That didn’t work either.

The ice did stop them from moving though. Thinking along those lines, he made a large ice array. The ice froze all the nearby undead to the ground and any new undead that touched the ice were also immobilized. Even as they sat there, they could see the edges turn into a wall of frozen undead.

What he’d sent his brothers had been smaller versions of this freezing array. The area of effect was smaller, which was why he’d made so many of them.

Whether freezing them to the ground or turning them into chunks of ice, it wasn’t a long term solution. He’d have to continually channel his power into the arrays to keep the ice from melting. He needed to find the puppet master… only after finding that person would he have a chance of permanently stopping this horde.

But he needed to stop the undead long enough to find the puppet master.

Since ice wouldn’t work…. burying them underground… he didn’t need to put power into that….

As he was drawing his giant array, he mumbled, “Let’s just use the earth... make their feet sink… yeah… mmm… like this…. Can’t move, oh, that’s much better… crack in the ground? Like a giant mouth... hehehehehe… stay buried like the good undead that you are...”

Fu Jing watched as his nephew talked to himself like a madman and shook his head. Walking over to an undead who wasn’t an ice cube he hesitated and then… tried to sniff it.

He almost gagged.

There was a stink, but it was just rotting flesh. How could the First Prince even tell the difference?

———

Shan Hui woke up feeling enraged, then confused, and finally he calmed down.

He was enraged because his Old Man caused trouble… again. His Mother said not to worry, but how could not worry? That old fart had such a strong emotional reaction to… something... Shan Hui was positive it’d caused the very mountains to shudder. An earthquake of that size was no small thing.

He was confused because he was home. He only remembered travelling to get home in a hurry. Then… nothing. Total darkness.

He was calm because, for the first time in his whole life, he didn’t feel the gnawing fire eating away from inside and out. The lack of intense heat stripped away several layers of his usual temper and left him feeling… pleasant… towards the world.

Naturally he was curious what he was doing in his own palace and bed. He stretched out his senses. He could feel his Mother, perfectly healthy, which further relaxed him. His Old Man seemed to be sleeping peacefully. For once Shan Hui didn’t have the urge to powerbomb him and simply left him alone. There was his fifth brother… tenth brother… hm? Where was the ninth one? The other ones were always doing something, so he didn’t care much about their absence. But as one of the youngest, De Zhou shouldn’t be wandering far from the Palace…

Shan Hui reached further and further out, but no matter how far he reached he couldn’t sense Little Ninth in Lanhua. However near the eastern border he felt something so disgusting it made his stomach swim uneasily. He’d felt this kind of thing before in Jianghu, what was it doing here in Dalu?

His brain connected two facts simultaneously: Little Ninth was missing from Lanhua and a vile stench that had only existed in Jianghu had arrived at his doorstep.

Did the filth of Jianghu dare step foot into his territory and mess with one of his brothers?

The earlier calm vanished as rage instantly overwhelmed him.

He’d been lying on the bed and sat up suddenly, his long hair falling around his shoulders haphazardly. Reaching out his hand, he called his halberd to him.

It had been sitting in a corner peacefully when it heard the call of its master. The ji vibrated with excitement and flew right into Shan Hui’s open hand.

At the exact same moment, the doors burst open and two familiar fairies rushed in.

“Young Master!” Xiao Qing and Xiao Ling cried out in happy unison.

They took two steps into the room when Shan Hui said, “I’ll be back!” and flew out the door, leaving them behind.

The two fairies stood there, stunned for several moments.

“E… eh? Did he just… just leave?” Xiao Qing stood there, slightly befuddled.

Xiao Ling stomped her foot, “He did! We didn’t even have time to explain anything!”

“He… he had… he had his weapon…” She pointed in the direction he went, “Maybe he knows already?”

“How could he know anything? He’s just assuming who-knows-what and flew off in a temper!” Xiao Ling scowled. “I really thought, considering what the other Nursemaids said about their charges, our Young Master would… well, never mind. Let’s go find her Ladyship and Emperor De, tell them what we saw.”

Xiao Ling picked up her skirts and started running, Xiao Qing following close behind. Turning to her, Xiao Ling said, “You go to her Ladyship, I’ll go to Emperor De.”

“Okay!”

They seperated, heading in different directions.

By the time Xiao Ling got Hall of Serendipity, where the Emperor did most of his day-to-day government work, she found Emperor De, that is the fifth son De Ming Yu, walking out of the building.

He took one look at the approaching Xiao Ling and asked, “He woke up?”

“Yes, Emperor De!” Xiao Ling nodded, bowing in a formal manner while breathing heavily. “And flew off.”

“Flew off?”

“He knew something was wrong.”

“....ah.”

“But we didn’t have a chance to tell him any specifics, he just… left.”

At this De Ming Yu blinked and then smiled affiably. “Well… that should be fine too. I… I mean, We, We will inform Our brothers of their impending doom— salvation. Heh.”

Reaching up his sleeve he took out a square, thin piece of jade that included a thin writing device.

‘First is awake. Prepare.’ He wrote in large simple characters. The words were absorbed into the jade and for a moment nothing happened.

Then:

‘Prayers to the dead.’

‘Cavalry arrives!’

‘Big Bro is best!’
‘Big Bro is life!’

‘Get to see 1st in action!’

‘Stop clogging up the jade with nonsense!’

The last was a message sent by Shi Ji.

De Ming Yu chuckled as he read, but in truth he was extremely relieved. These living dead had definitely been the product of an evil cultivator, most likely from the Devil Sect. When it came to dealing with the Devil Sect, no one was better at it than Shan Hui.