Xuan Lang's expression stiffened. He looked like he wanted to say something but couldn't— after shooting Shen Jing a glance that he wasn't quick enough to catch, he folded his arms on the table. "Do you remember who was involved?"

The mother looked distracted for a long moment as she seemed to think back, but after a while she slowly shook her head. “I… It’s been so long, and I didn’t know who they were anyway, because we weren't allowed to get too close to them. All I know is that they were wealthy children. Otherwise, this matter… Thinking about it, maybe there could be a connection. I know the victims were all from the wealthy households, but I’m too busy to wonder about it. But how could it be that someone is committing murders over something that happened so long ago? Hardly anyone cared about what happened to Xiao-Ze, they don't even remember him now.”

In his heart, Shen Jing wondered, ‘you don’t pay attention to something so horrible?’ But after thinking about it some more, he understood. Growing up, he took part in keeping his own house running, and he missed a lot of big social 'events' at school. Scandals, rumors— who had time for that when he had to keep up with grades and what to get on the weekly grocery run when they had a limited budget? This town might appear small, but if Xiao-Jiang’s mother was a single mother trying to keep her family afloat, even serial murders that happened on the other part of town might not affect her daily life enough for it to truly matter.

But more importantly, the real tragedy was in her last sentence.

"Maybe some people were in a bind then just like you were, Auntie," he murmured. He had no idea if this was going to be soothing, but Shen Jing just wanted to say it. "Sometimes the world is…"

She laughed nervously. "Is it bad if I somewhat wish the two things are related? ...Ah, what am I saying. That's still awful. It's not a justice that would do anything…"

Biting his lips in awkward silence, Shen Jing stared at the table.

“Wu-jie, where is the cat now?”

<It caught wind of the fact that there are cultivators in town looking for it and is now laying low.>

In the novel, things unfolded a bit more slowly; Xuan Lang didn't try to comfort Xiao-Jiang and only took his cries as a clue. They collected a lot more testimonies from the wealthy families and had a construct in their minds about what had happened. After that, they lulled the yao into a false sense of security and startled it out of hiding whereupon Fang Xiaoxiao's speed proved to win the day. When the yao told its story, their perceptions were shattered…

This time they had a good idea what the creature was and a solid hint as to why they committed these murders, but not how to proceed.

Xuan Lang sighed as he rose. "Thank you again for your time."

They left. The night was chilly but still within the refreshing threshold. Rather than the physical coldness, Shen Jing was more preoccupied with how to inch this along— now that they've departed from the plot, there was little they could do other than waste a night, it seemed.

"Then what, Wu-jie?"

<Ask your Lang-ge, he calls the shots, no?>

But asking was a scary prospect. Talking was a scary prospect. Existing was a scary prospect? Shen Jing didn’t know how Xuan Lang would react if he asked a question. It might be benign, but the possibility wasn’t enough to calm him down. Thankfully, after some time, Xuan Lang looked up at the roof and turned to him.

“We’ll keep watch,” Xuan Lang said, voice low. Shen Jing gave him a terse nod. “We’re going up. Hold on.”

Wait, what?

It was a flurry of light fabric, two silhouettes and dappled moonlight: with a steady, almost practiced move, Xuan Lang pulled Shen Jing into a secure hold before jumping onto the rooftops. It wasn’t that it happened so fast it caught him off guard. It was… The jolt in his stomach and the phantom of a limb pressing against his back, the ground disappearing from beneath his feet— when they landed, Shen Jing stumbled, feeling a bit pale. A firm grip on his upper arm prevented him from moving too far and too close to the edge.

“Careful,” Xuan Lang muttered. “People are still awake.”

“Wu-jie,” Shen Jing croaked, “please end my life.”

<Here let me steady you a bit.>

“Wu-jie, I’m sort of scared of heights.”

<Oh.>

The houses in this part of town weren’t tall, but it was still a considerable height. Shutting his eyes, Shen Jing backed away step by step from the edge, tensing every time the heel of his foot bumped against something. Xuan Lang noticed, of course. Instead of saying anything, though, he stepped around Shen Jing, now in the space between him and the edge, and turned him around. After a couple steps forward, Xuan Lang gestured at him to sit down.

“It’s not all heights,” Shen Jing weakly clarified as he got down to his knees before sitting back. “But when it looks close enough like it would…”

A hand rubbed his shoulder before gripping it and letting go. “Breathe.”

“Okay.”

It was a blessing that nothing much happened after. Xuan Lang had decided on keeping a watch, especially on Xiao-Jiang’s house— after all, the yao was likely to be related to this family, and it might return for one reason or another. As the minutes passed, nothing happened, Shen Jing’s fears abated. The moon was bright and the sky a dome of quiet stars; in the tranquil night, the passing breeze brought the sighs and calls of insects and birds.

“Do you believe her story?”

Xuan Lang’s voice broke the silence like a cotton wad pressed upon a wound— even when done with a steady certainty and a light hand, Shen Jing jolted in surprise. Thankfully, he retained his clarity, this time. Though he was startled, Shen Jing didn’t spiral into a panic. “Yes… What reason would she have to lie?”

Xuan Lang slowly shook his head. “In general, many. Considering everything else, though, I suppose she doesn’t, not really.”

If this was a story she made up to gain something, then she wouldn’t have waited for the off-chance two young cultivators to pass by and take the initiative to calm her crying child down, then go to work anyway without first retelling her fabrications. She would’ve gone up earlier, paid more attention to the ongoing murders. Instead, she was just trying to make a living. Being a single mother with a young son was hard regardless of era— knowing full well what it entailed, Shen Jing had nothing but respect for her.

Shen Jing turned to Xuan Lang, fiddling with the hem of his robes. “By the way… Da-shixiong, will you tell the others about the tortoiseshell cat?”

“If you’re tasked to stay together, you have to stay together,” Xuan Lang said. Crossing his arms, he walked to the other end of the rooftops. His qinggong was always notable, in the novel, and he hardly made a sound— out of the main cast, Xuan Lang was the best at sneaking around. It might not be such a high bar to clear, though, given He Jiangshan's and Fang Xiaoxiao's personality. After scanning the small backyard of the houses, it seemed that he didn't spot anything. He returned to where Shen Jing was, once more not sitting down. Shen Jing stared up at him.

"Wu-jie, this is really going to be a stakeout isn't it?" It had only been days since Shen Jing transmigrated, but his 14-years-old body wasn't used to staying up late the same way his older body was. Cognitively speaking Shen Jing was ready to stay up until maybe 3 AM, but at age 14 his bedtime was at nine...

<Don't you miss pulling one-nighters to catch up on reviews for Biochemistry finals? The sensation of caffeine coursing through your veins, along with that sugar rush from the energy drink… Feeling the onset of that cold sweat where you're trying to determine if this is because you drank too much or if it's because you're stressed chasing a deadline due at 9 in the morning. What a magical time.>

Shen Jing, "......" Mother, I'm scared.

<Anyway, do you need help staying up? We can do some reviewing done.>

"...Of biochemistry?" It wasn't his best subject. Shen Jing was more partial to Biology than Chemistry, and general human biology at that. He wasn't as interested in all the nitty-gritty details of lipid rafts and how the 5 nucleotides were aromatic.

<No, please. It's been so long since I took that class I stopped counting the decades.>

Then why did you bring up biochem and traumatize us both… Ah, whatever. After some consideration, Shen Jing decided to go through the journal notes on the world to start, then review the things in the books Bai Nian had him read. After doing this for some days, he was getting used to reviewing things in his head, imagining it like a laptop; his hand itched for a pen, but seen from outside, it only looked as though he was deep in thought.

Xuan Lang glanced at him before turning his gaze to the sky, scanning the treeline before darting back to the ground.

 

____

 

Time stretched dawn across the sky— the sun was not visible yet, but dark red had infiltrated the indigo of the night, and here and there the birds had started to stir. It had been a cold night, but a quiet one, too. Rubbing the exhaustion out of his eyes, Xuan Lang let out a sigh and shook the person curled up awake.

A moment of silence, a physiological shudder, then Shen Jing violently swung upright. “Da-shixiong! I’m sorry! I—”

“Don’t panic,” Xuan Lang shushed, eyebrows furrowing. “Everyone’s still asleep. We’re heading back.”

Even if Shen Jing was panicking, he was too disoriented to panic in full. Pushing himself up, he swayed on his feet, sleep still dragging him down— in the end, to save time, Xuan Lang grabbed him and hopped onto Bishan, flying them back to the inn. The rooms were dark still, but the two of them bumped into He Jiangshan and Ji Hualiu in the hallways, all of them stumbling into their rooms.

“Hi Da-shixiong, bye Da-shixiong,” He Jiangshan greeted, almost walking straight into his half-opened door. His grin was dopey. He looked like he might’ve had a bit too much coffee.

Resolutely ignoring him, Xuan Lang slammed his own door shut.

When Shen Jing woke up a second time, it was nine in the morning. Even the morning chill of the altitude had dissipated under the sun by now; when he saw how bright the light was that streamed through the window, he almost had a heart attack.

“Wu-jie?”

<Good morning! You still have faint marks on your cheek from using the roof as a pillow. Just wanted to let you know, it’s been bothering me for the past few hours.>

Rubbing at his cheek absentmindedly, Shen Jing sat in bed in a daze for several minutes before his brain finally went online. “Shizun? Everyone?”

<The rest of the squirt squad are still asleep, but your shizun is downstairs, sitting there chilling and terrifying passersby, innkeepers and bootlickers. Wanna go get breakfast?>

Squirt squad…

There was a problem, though, with going downstairs now to eat. He’d have to be with Bai Nian alone, and Shen Jing fell asleep at, embarrassingly, 11 PM last night… Would he be disappointed? After all, Shen Jing was supposed to at least help Xuan Lang where he could. Yes he was only fourteen, but nineteen wasn’t much older and the gap shouldn’t be that big. Shen Jing was 19 too, after all.

In the end, though, he gave up. “I’m so hungry I want to cry,” he mumbled as he climbed off.

Getting breakfast was a more mortifying ordeal than it truly was, given the fact that nothing happened and yet Shen Jing was walking on random eggshells, but reprieve soon came. Before the brunch was delivered, Ji Hualiu came downstairs and ordered something, too. And like that, the meal passed in silence.

It was only at noon that the other three woke up, all at varying degrees of famished. Suddenly, the quiet of the late breakfast was broken by the noise of their late lunch— without skipping a beat, the conversation jumped straight into the matters at hand. Though a spread fit to be called a feast was laid out on their table, courtesy of the families hosting the Mount Song cultivators, half the people there weren't even paying attention to the taste anymore.

“So you’re saying this entire thing is related to a bullying gone wrong over a decade ago?” He Jiangshan asked, eyebrows furrowed. Reaching forward, he clipped himself some more chicken and vegetables. “Tortoiseshell cat, huh.”

“It’s just the most likely story so far,” Xuan Lang said.

“Yeah, sure,” Fang Xiaoxiao said, words rattling out in a rush, “but what do we do with that? We can’t possibly hunt down a cat in this entire town just like that with just the five of us. This isn’t a dumb, normal cat either.”

Bai Nian nodded. "Think it through."

"If they intend to strike again, their targets must be someone in the rich district," He Jiangshan replied, leaning back. Putting his chopsticks down, he crossed his arms. When Fang Xiaoxiao gestured at a dish as if to ask if he wanted more, he shook his head. With glee, she ate it. "But do they intend to? How many people were involved in that incident? Should we go ask?"

He looked at Shen Jing at that, but Shen Jing shook his head. "I'm… not sure if she knows. She wasn't there when it happened, and she only said that the victims so far had been rich children who used to harass them. I suppose we could still ask… Da-shixiong knows where…?"

Shen Jing trailed off before a full context could be drawn; it took a moment for Xuan Lang to understand what he was saying. "I know where she works, yes."

He Jiangshan, "......" So many ways to interpret Xiao-shidi's sentence, frankly that was not one that came to mind.

The sun was slipping off its highest point, the food was mostly gone. They were running out of ideas, too, though it might very well be post-meal sleepiness— everyone fell silent. When a server came back in with chilled desserts, Ji Hualiu straightened out the clothes of her lap. "I may have an idea… but it would be, ah."

Xuan Lang's eyebrows furrowed. "Hmm?"

"We might be able to get those involved to 'come out', so to speak. It's not guaranteed, though. What if we publicize that this matter was related to the death of Jiang Ze within the affluent families, and see if anyone comes forward for protection or tries to run away?"