“You have no idea how close I was to dying!” Complained Mengjun, feeling guilty lying to Yuelong. “But thank goodness, you guys arrived at the end…”

“We arrived at a very nice time too,” Yuelong said sarcastically. “You guys seemed to be having fun.

“...”

“I’m just kidding,” Yuelong explained. “Don’t take it too seriously.”

Sifei butted in,“Well if I were to say something, it seemed to me that Huang gong-zi here was fully capable of defending himself. Remember his stance when we walked in?”

Sifei put on foot against the wall of the tunnel and leaned on his knee, loosely imitating Mengjun’s pose. 

Sifei exclaimed, “Wahh, just look at the bossiness of that pose!”

Mengjun crossed his arms. “You don’t know a thing! It’s called the Beauty Tribulation, alright? Using my handsome face to protect my life!”

Sifei laughed. “You? Beauty? Have you looked in the mirror? You look like a ghost with that white face, red eyeliner and velvet robes.”

“You!”

“And besides, what kind of human seduces a fish?” Sifei made a disgusted face.

Yuelong and Murong Zi chuckled on the side.

After suppressing the effects of the toxins in Murong Zi’s body, the group had exited out of the chambers of the He Luo King and made their way back to the main cavern. 

Unable to find his original clothing, Mengjun had to continue to wear his red gown. But he felt extreme relief seeing the other people joking around. To him, it meant that danger had passed and they didn’t suspect a thing. 

He walked right behind Yuelong and just from examining Yuelong’s back, he thought to himself, “I too, once had happy memories like this with my friends and my family. Until they came…” He quickly shook off the feelings of nostalgia as they approached the light from the main cavern.

Yuelong held out his arm and stopped the group from advancing.

Murong Zi asked, “What’s wrong?”

“Don’t you hear it?”

Sifei and Murong Zi looked at each other with a puzzled look. “No, I don’t hear anything.”

“That’s the problem, if there’s no sound, where did everyone go?” Yuelong explained.

The group of four immediately became alerted to everything around them: dark shadows at every corner, the smell of rot and filth, a sound of trickling water and the taste of death in the air.

With a flick of his wrist, Cangming appeared in Yuelong’s hands. He gripped the familiar hilt and held the sword in an offensive stance. He silently crept into the main cavern. 

At first, the room was very bright compared to the dimly lit tunnels that he was in a couple seconds ago. But after his eyes had adjusted, he lowered Cangming from his offensive pose. He was utterly speechless.

Apart from the piles of demon corpses that were lying in random places across the cavern, there was a bloody pile of Lishui disciples in the center of the cavern. The pungent smell of filth and iron stung at his nostrils to the brink of tears.

Yuelong stood silent for a few moments. Never had he seen so many of his fellow cultivators dead. It was almost the same seeing his own brothers and sisters die. He gritted his teeth in anger. “Who could have done this…”

“Fan gong-zi, what happen—”

Not knowing what had happened to Yuelong, Murong Zi stepped into the main cavern. At the monstrous sight, she clasped her hands to her mouth. 

“No…” She muttered, barely audible.

“Shi-jie, what’s wrong—”

A loud clang echoed through the hollow, lifeless cave. With his mouth agape, Sifei stared at the corpses of his fellow peers in the middle of the cavern. 

Hearing the clang of metal against stone, Mengjun rushed into the cavern. He stared wide-eyed at the corpses and then at Yuelong.

“Father!” Murong Zi screamed. She ran towards the dead bodies of the Lishui disciples.

Sifei cried, “Master! Shi-xiong! Shi-jie!”

Murong Zi flipped a face-down body over with her shaking hands, revealing the identity of a woman.

“No!” she wailed, her trembling hands hovering aimlessly above the corpse’s wound in her abdomen. “Shi-mei…”

Large beads of sorrow streaked down her face as she looked at the woman’s young face. “No… please, come back! Please!!!”

Yuelong slowly treaded his way to Murong Zi and the corpses. He simply couldn’t believe such a tragedy that happened within such a short time while they were gone. “Who did this…” He clenched his fists in anger.

Sifei collapsed next to Murong Zi. Together, the two remaining disciples of Lishui looked blankly at the dead bodies around them. Murong Zi’s slender figure trembled immensely while Sifei was expressionless and staring into space. 

“Ah Zi…” A voice croaked.

Murong Zi immediately turned her head towards the source of the noise. Under the bodies of two disciples was a wrinkled hand reaching upwards towards the ceiling, calling them to come over.

“Father?” Murong Zi stood up. Without hesitation, she ran towards the hand. “Father!”

With shaking hands, she held the wrinkled hand of her father and knelt down on the ground. “F—father…” Her words broke down into cries of sorrow.

After hearing Murong Zi’s cries, Sifei came back to reality and ran to the body of his master. “Master!!!”

Yuelong and Mengjun quietly followed behind.

Gently, Sifei lifted the two bodies of his fellow peers off of Murong Teng. Like the body of Murong Zi’s shi-mei, Murong Teng also had a wound on his abdomen along with another deep wound in his chest.

“Ah-Zi… you’ve come back,” Murong Teng said in a weak voice.

Murong Zi replied through sobs, “F—father, your daughter wasn’t filial, I didn’t come back in time, if I did—”

“No, no,” Murong Teng said weakly. “If you had come, you too would have died.”

“Leader Murong, please relax, I will help you recover,” Yuelong suggested, kneeling down next to Murong Teng. He had just raised his hand when Murong Teng spoke.

“No need, Fan gong-zi, I’m afraid you can’t heal me anymore.” Murong Teng replied.

“Father, why? Why can’t we heal you?” Murong Zi panicked. “Fan gong-zi has recovered his powers, he can heal you. If he’s not enough then I will help too! And Sifei as well!”

Murong Teng coughed weakly. With an even weaker voice, he said to his daughter, “The demon has stolen our dan, I am nothing but a regular old man now and I cannot handle the immense energy that you will use.”

“Master…” Sifei sobbed.

“What demon attacked you?” Yuelong questioned. 

Murong Teng answered, “One that is not from this world! Fan gong-zi you must alert the other sects!” The leader of the Lishui Sect coughed up blood.

“Not from this world?”

Murong Teng mustered up his remaining energy and begged, “Please, Fan gong-zi, I leave my daughter and Sifei in your care! Take care of them in my stead!” His eyes filled with determination.

“Father!” Murong Zi cried, pressing Murong Teng’s hand against her face. 

Without any choice, Yuelong nodded, promising the leader of the Lishui Sect.

Murong Teng’s eyes softened. “Then I can go in peace…” He looked at Murong Zi and Sifei, trying to engrave his daughter and disciple’s looks in his memories before he left the world. “Forgive me, Ah-Zi, Sifei. I cannot fulfill my duties any more as your father…”

With a shudder, he breathed out his last breath and his soul departed from his body. 

“No…no!!!” Murong Zi cried in despair. She hugged her father’s hand. “Come back, please… you said you would take care of us, come back!”

“Master!!!” Sifei kowtowed to the deceased. His body violently trembled like Murong Zi’s. 

“Father!!!” Murong Zi’s sorrowful sobs echoed through the cavern. She felt as if her guts were being torn apart by the emptiness inside of her. The thought that she would never hear her father’s voice again made her cry even harder. 

“Who will call me Ah-Zi from now on? Who will I go to when I feel down? Who?! Tell me, who!?”

“Mother had left, auntie had left, and now you too? Why is my life total crap!? Who will accompany me from now on? Who will teach me from now on?”

Yuelong knelt down and rested a hand on Murong Zi’s shoulder. He knew the feeling of losing someone you loved and cared for. Wordlessly, Yuelong comforted Murong Zi. 

In autumn, it was the time for leaves to fall and wither. But in due time, the buds will bloom once again. The epic performance of life continues, each one of us are but only actors in the play. When will the curtains of this world fall and the show of life end?

For the rest of the day, the four remained silent. Quietly digging graves for their fallen peers. Murong Zi and Sifei no longer cried from discovering another one of their dead friends because the worst had already come to pass. By nightfall of the same day, they had laid the bodies to rest.

Wooden planks were erected at each grave, each one carved with the name of the deceased. Together the four bowed and burned incense for the dead, honoring the legacies that they left behind.

Dressed in full white, Murong Zi knelt in front of her father’s tomb and observed the neat words that she had engraved. “Here lies my father, Murong Teng, the twenty-ninth Leader of the Lishui Sect. Signed, unfilial daughter, Murong Zi.” She could no longer shed tears for she had already cried herself dry.

“I am sorry for your loss, Murong gu-niang,” Yuelong condoled. 

Murong Zi tilted her head down in acceptance. She didn’t have the strength to reply nor did she want to. She was afraid that if she did reply, the insuppressible grief would gush out at once and she didn’t want to experience that anymore. It was too painful.

Yuelong turned at the sound of crunching soil. It was Sifei. Like Murong Zi, Sifei was also dressed in white. The youth’s usual cheerful look was no longer visible. Now it was replaced with an emotionless expression and lifeless eyes.

“Fan gong-zi,” Sifei said in a monotone voice. He held out his hand. “I found this in the cavern.”

Yuelong took the item from Sifei and examined it. 

“This is…!” 

Immediately, Yuelong reached into the hidden pocket in his robes and pulled out a black, cloud-shaped piece of wood.

“You have one too?” Sifei questioned, a bit of life returning to his voice.

Murong Zi also stood up and looked at the two items in Yuelong’s hands. Her face immediately went dark. 

“The black cloud badge,” She growled. Murong Zi felt her own nails digging painfully into her palm. Her blood boiled at the sight of the badges.

“Murong gu-niang, you recognize these?” Yuelong asked. The item that Sifei had brought to him was an exact replica of the cloud-shaped badge that he had found during the dual-cultivation incident.

“It is the badge used by Bi An Sect to command their underlings and weaker demons,” She explained, her voice full of hate.

Their conversation was suddenly interrupted by the sound of giggles.

“What are you guys discussing?” A familiar voice asked.

The three looked over their shoulders to see Mengjun returning from his trip to town. No longer dressed in red, he had changed into a dark attire with slender sleeve cuffs. In his hand was a large white bag with various shapes poking through. Following behind him was Xiao-Kai, who had recovered from the cold. Mengjun suddenly stopped when he saw the two badges in Yuelong’s hands. 

“We found one of these in the cavern,” Yuelong explained. “The other I found during a demonic ritual in the forest.”

“Oh… I see,” Mengjun replied.

“Do you recognize them?”

“Yeah, they were the ones who destroyed my family.”