bgm: fear

Before Nan Wuyue could decide on what to do, a soft light emitted from Mo Yixuan’s hand. He looked down and saw a white jade ring glowing faintly on his master’s right index finger. It wasn’t the first time he’d noticed it—Mo Yixuan had flashed the accessory plenty of times during training sessions or solo swordplay—but this was the only time it was showing any abnormalities.

Nan Wuyue was surprised. Obviously this wasn’t an ordinary ring, but he hadn’t sensed anything unusual from it. Neither did he remember this item from Mo Yixuan’s usual arsenal of weapons and treasures. Maybe his current shizun dug it up from the original Mo Yixuan’s stores?

The ring only glowed for a few moments. By the time Nan Wuyue sorted out his thoughts, it had faded back to its usual jade luster, clean and ordinary. However, Mo Yixuan breathed easier than before and was much cooler to the touch. Nan Wuyue exhaled in relief as he wasn’t sure how he’d help his master otherwise.

“Shizun, I’ll get us out of here,” he murmured. So hurry and wake up soon.

Then he turned and sped off in the direction of the illusion anchor he’d sensed earlier.

—

Mo Yixuan had been single once until he made the mistake of falling for his co-worker. It seemed harmless enough, especially when the other even admitted liking him back. It wasn’t until his car flew over the cliff that Mo Yixuan realized what Shangguan Yin liked wasn’t so much himself as the pleasure he derived from building him up and tearing him down. He was like a little boy let loose with a box of blocks, stacking up beautiful castles and bridges all for the joy of kicking them to pieces beneath his shoe.

Shangguan Yin was lying on the carpet, his glasses askew and sporting a split lip as he bared his teeth in a bloody grin. Mo Yixuan sat on top of him, hands wrapped firmly around his throat. Hundreds of peonies had torn themselves off the wall to encase them both, reducing the hallway to a small, isolated clearing. There were no other sounds; the dark space held only enough room to amplify the volume of Mo Yixuan’s heavy breaths and Shangguan Yin’s scattered, hoarse voice.

“Hurry...up…” Shangguan Yin rasped at him, his eyes mocking. Weren’t you going to kill me?

“Shut up,” Mo Yixuan snarled back, his fingers tightening reflexively. The peonies rustled and crowded closer at the motion like eager spectators at a show.

Shangguan Yin made a wheezing, gurgling sound that might have been a laugh. “W...e...ak…”

Mo Yixuan’s hands twitched. His head was swimming too, drowning in a heavy fog of emotions that seemed to burn him red hot. When Shangguan Yin’s face distorted into a sneer at his hesitation, Mo Yixuan’s last rational thought went flying out the window.

His fingers closed completely around Shangguan Yin’s throat, ignoring the man’s spasms as he gasped for air that wouldn’t come. More peonies stirred around him at the action, their petals unfurling into celebratory blooms like rounds of miniature fireworks. Their perfume was sweet but weighed on his senses, making his limbs feel curiously sluggish. 

When the body beneath him finally stopped moving, Mo Yixuan fell back with a lurch. A cold thrill ran through his heart as the world shifted again—

Ba-dum.

“Pleased to meet you,” Shangguan Yin said on a sunny afternoon as he extended his arm for a handshake. 

Mo Yixuan noticed the bruises on his neck and accepted the hand with a grim smile. The next second he twisted the man’s wrist, breaking the bones with a clean snap. Cultivator strength was no joke. Shangguan Yin’s face distorted in pain, but it wasn’t until Mo Yixuan ripped his arm out of his socket that those ink-gray irises contracted in shock. Good. It was about time he got what he deserv—

Ba-dum.

“So? Since you accepted my dinner invite, can I say we’re dating now?” Shangguan Yin held up his glass of wine, smiling blandly as his right arm rested at an unnatural angle to one side from where Mo Yixuan had twisted it last.

Lunging across the restaurant table with a steak knife in hand, Mo Yixuan stabbed him in the stomach. Shangguan Yin spilled his drink, the red wine mixing with blood to stain his beautiful white shirt—

Ba-dum.

“Of course it’s fine, I reviewed your calculations myself. There's plenty of load bearing walls to support the building,” Shangguan Yin tapped the blueprints with his one good hand. “You should turn it in before lunch since the client is meeting with the construction team this afternoon.”

“Yes, but this is the first time we’re using this design,” Mo Yixuan rattled off the same words as before. “You did specify which alloy, right? Let me check your files again.”

“They have other people checking things along the way,” Shangguan Yin expertly moved his tablet out of Mo Yixuan’s grasp. “It’s no good reviewing anything on an empty stomach, Yi-ge.”

He patted his own for emphasis, getting a palmful of blood from his still-bleeding knife wound. Mo Yixuan stared at it while blood rushed past his ears. 

Ba-dum. 

Their surroundings swam before his vision, but didn’t shift. Instead, Mo Yixuan narrowed his eyes and focused on the tablet in his co-worker’s hands. Right. They’d had this conversation before he submitted the doomed blueprints to their client, who built the apartment complex exactly to his specifications.

Only to see it collapse catastrophically in a fire less than a year later.

“No, it’s not going to work.”

“What do you mean—”

“Give me the tablet.”

Shangguan Yin expertly stepped back as Mo Yixuan swiped at his device, chuckling. “Yi-ge, what’s gotten into you?”

His smiling face was too much. This time, Mo Yixuan reached for the closest object he could find—a potted plant—and smashed it into the man’s head. He dropped to the ground like a stone, the tablet clattering out of his hands. Mo Yixuan was on it in an instant, unlocking the home screen to review its contents—but all he found was a curious blank, as if someone had deleted all the apps and left a plain white screen in its place.

Furious, he turned back to the source of his grief, only to see Shangguan Yin’s glassy, unblinking eyes staring at him next to the bloody gash on the side of his head. Mo Yixuan threw aside the tablet in disgust.

“So this time you stay dead just to spite me?” he spat. Mo Yixuan went over and dragged the unresponsive man up by his collar. “Don’t think I won’t—” He stopped.

A single leaf was working its way out of the gash on Shangguan Yin’s head. As Mo Yixuan watched, it dragged out green stems that branched out to encircle the dead man’s face. Tiny buds appeared on the end that quickly blossomed into a profusion of peonies that spewed their fragrance in his face.

Mo Yixuan dropped the corpse like he’d been burned. Shangguan Yin landed with a rustle against the ground. He looked down to see the potted plant he’d thrown was actually a pot of peonies as well, which had taken root through the carpet and was now spreading all around the office at a rapid pace. Before long, they had scampered past the windows and up the walls, covering the room in a carpet of petals and greens.

Ba-dum. Ba-dum.

“Wait,” Mo Yixuan took a step back, heart hammering rapidly in his chest. “What—”

Abruptly, the peonies all burst into flames. The flash of heat sent Mo Yixuan to his knees by Shangguan Yin’s body. Or the remnants of it, anyways. More flowers had started blossoming from the man’s wounded stomach and the stump that was his left arm. A fine circlet of leaves had crept around the ugly bruises around his neck. Every place that Mo Yixuan had maimed in his previous attempts to kill the man were all replaced with fresh, fertile growth, the only sign of life in an otherwise burning building.

Ba-dum badUM bADUMbADUMBADUM—

For the first time since falling into this strange world, Mo Yixuan realized that something was terribly wrong. He scrambled back from the corpse as flames licked around it—why wasn’t it burning like everything else?—and looked around for an exit. 

But the room had no door. 

Disoriented, Mo Yixuan stumbled towards the windows, thinking to break one open. Yet as he drew closer, he realized that they were blocked on the outside by a solid brick wall. He was effectively trapped in an oven with temperatures rising every second. Not willing to give up, he pulled open the latch and pushed against the wall, but it didn’t budge. Sweat dripped past his brows and stung his eyes, forcing him to blink. The sight of his hands blurred before he saw a glint on his right hand. He stared at it in confusion, but the digits were plain and unadorned. He blinked again and the glint returned as a flash of light at the base of his right index finger. A sluggish thought rose to his mind.

What's that…?

A cool breeze seemed to brush past his temples and the next thing he knew, a white jade ring had materialized on his finger. From it pulsed a clear stream of energy like melted frost that spread through his hand and up his arm, clearing the fog from Mo Yixuan’s thoughts as he gathered his wits. 

This is a dream. An illusion.

At the same time, Shangguan Yin’s voice called out behind him, garbled and soft. 

“Yi-ge.”

But already Mo Yixuan could tell that it didn’t sound right. The voice was too high for the man he knew. He turned back, bracing himself for the sight of the mangled, plant-grown corpse and saw…

Huh.

...a distorted cloud of darkness where his co-worker lay. Like wisps of shadow, it rested amongst a bed of untouched peonies in their burning hellscape, but there was nothing substantial about it at all. 

“Yi-ge, shall we end it here together?” The wisp extended a tendril towards him—perhaps it was meant to be a hand—but now it was only smoke. As more of the ring’s cooling sensation spread through his body, Mo Yixuan felt himself relax, the vestiges of his resentment and rage melting away.

Yes, he hated Shangguan Yin for what he’d done, but what was the use of avenging himself against a shade? It was pointless venting that led nowhere. And as Mo Yixuan’s thoughts cemented into certainty, the ring on his hand glowed even brighter.

“You.” He raised his hand and pointed at the offending specter. “Get out of my head.”

The shadows surged in alarm, finally rising to tower above him before blustering, “Wh aT aRE y Oou tALkinG a  bout?”

The ring on Mo Yixuan’s hand glowed even brighter. Instead of erasing the shadow, it seemed to bring it into high definition, clearly outlining every wisp and tendril thrashing in the room. It looked so solid that Mo Yixuan felt that he could grasp it with his bare hands. 

So he did.

The shadow screeched when Mo Yixuan succeeded. Before it could slip away, the peak lord had already grabbed two ends and wrenched to rip through its formless torso. That was the last straw. The thing began to dissolve into dark smoke from the point of its tear, filling Mo Yixuan’s nostrils with a familiar earthy, slightly metallic scent strong enough to drown out any semblance of flowers.

It was the final proof to Mo Yixuan that none of this was real at all. The ring on his finger glowed one more time and he marveled at it while the world around him was swallowed up by light...

—

When Nan Wuyue felt the person on his shoulders shift, he glanced back. “Shizun, you’re awake?”

Mo Yixuan blinked groggily and looked around. They were now in the back courtyard behind the front hall reserved for receiving guests, finally free from the incomprehensibly endless hallway. Nan Wuyue had slung one of his arms around his shoulders as support while half-dragging him along.

“I found the anchor for the illusion and shattered it,” his disciple babbled while Mo Yixuan regained awareness. “It wasn’t hard, just complicated. I’m guessing they wanted to delay us as long as they could. Shizun, how do you feel?”

“As if I've been sleeping for a hundred years,” Mo Yixuan said drolly.

Nan Wuyue noted Mo Yixuan’s distracted gaze but didn’t push it. Instead he mused, “It might have been fox magic. They can enchant people with their yao qi. But that shouldn’t have affected shizun unless there was direct contact with the internal energy—did Sir Su do anything?”

“No, he barely moved from his chair,” Mo Yixuan said, slowly straightening up. He was too busy thinking to notice how Nan Wuyue kept one hand against his waist to steady him. “I spent more time with Su Shimeng and Bai Tingyao, all things considered—” He paused, eyes narrowing.

The high-pitched voice. The presence of peonies. Had the scent of them around the estate influenced their appearance in his dreams? No, he felt like there was more to it. Besides, he’d just learned that Ting’er was a flower yao and there was Su Shiyu’s inexplicable qi deviation. Of all these pieces, the one in the center of the puzzle was—

“Aaargghh!”

A scream interrupted their thoughts. Alarmed, both master and disciple sprinted towards the building situated at the very rear of the house: the main living quarters of its master and mistress. The door was locked, but Nan Wuyue simply kicked it open and stepped in with his sword drawn.

“What’s going on?!” he demanded, then stopped.

Before him was a study, its floor strewn with books and upturned furniture. Su Shimeng was standing on one side, shielding Bai Tingyao behind him. Across from him stood Su Shiyu, straining against the chains of Equanimty wrapped around his torso as he struggled to break free. The lanterns by the door gave a clear sight of his newly-formed claws, wickedly sharp and dripping with blood. Between them both laid Ting’er on the ground, her pupils glassy as she cradled a bundle in her arms. Deep slash marks riddled her torso from shoulder to hip, evidence of a violent confrontation. She didn’t appear to be breathing. 

Su Shimeng was the first to notice the two newcomers. His stricken expression quickly hardened into bitterness as he raised his weapon. “Dammit!”

Nan Wuyue realized what he was doing a second too late. “No, wait—!”

As an inner disciple of Iridescent Radiance Sect, Su Shimeng had been trained to be absolutely decisive in a crisis. By the time Nan Wuyue reacted, Su Shimeng had already stabbed his sword halfway through the center of Su Shiyu’s chest.

Mo Yixuan saw the blade slide in as if piercing butter and felt a wave of queasiness rise up in his throat.

“What are you doing?!” Nan Wuyue exclaimed.

“He killed Ting’er!” Su Shimeng cried.

“Ting’er’s not even human!” Nan Wuyue shot back.

Su Shimeng faltered, but didn’t lose his grip. “He’s not, either!”

Before him, Su Shiyu gave a shuddering sigh as blood flowed down his chest. “You…”

His head snapped up, eyes focusing on Su Shimeng with sudden, sharp intensity. 

“You should've never entered this household.”

Su Shimeng flinched. 

—

{extra}

Mo Yixuan: Shouldn't the line be "You should've never been born?"
Nan Wuyue: Shizun, you don't have to rub it in. (= _ =)
Mo Yixuan: But-—
Su Shimeng: I'm still armed, you know *waves sword around* (ಠ_ಠ)
Nan Wuyue: We should be worrying about Ting'er first—
Mo Yixuan: I still think—
Nan Wuyue: Every reader's been thinking up details for the past four months, I think it's time we just act and continue the story!
Mo Yixuan: The impulsiveness of youth, tsk...

—