Yuan didn’t know the Jaw Dropping Technique, but if he had his jaw would have dropped through the floor, then kept going.

Transmigrators?!

So he wasn’t the only one in this world? There were others? And the people here knew about them? Why wasn’t this mentioned in The Return of Xian Xinyue?

So far, he'd been proceeding under the assumption that - like all people isekaied into their favourite novel - he was alone in the world he now inhabited (or, rather, alone in being a transmigrator). It occurred to him only now that he may have been slightly naive in this assumption.

There was no real reason for him to have inferred that he was the only transmigrator floating about; and quite to the contrary, if he could transmigrate then logic indicated others could do likewise. Plus, the sheer existence of transmigration literature implied that others had already done it, so why not here? Did there have to be one transmigrator per world only?

If anything, he thought, internally kicking himself, it would have saved him an awful lot of problems if he had known - then he could simply have told Xian that he wasn't the real Yuan. Baddaboom, baddabing - all problems ring a dinged.

Mu spit some pebbles out from his mouth and repeated his oath, his viciousness giving Yuan pause. Maybe there were reasons people didn't talk about transmigrators or being a transmigrator.

“How many do you reckon are out there?” Hong asked, as if Mu’s remark was normal and his behaviour expected.

The Young Master of Jarnvidr Eastern Branch sniffed the air, eyes dilating as he started the hunt. His body tensed, holding the form of a dog that had just caught the trail of its prey.

“Six, by the smell of things. Four with Cheat Skills, two with Systems.”

And they knew about Cheat Skills and Systems?! They could even detect them? Wait - why didn’t he, Yuan Shi, have any of those? He was a transmigrator too, darn it! All he got was the crummy body of a villain with pisspoor cultivation and a fiancée who wanted him dead.

Yuan calmed himself. This was a revelation, yes, but it changed everything in a good way. If they had in-depth knowledge on transmigrators here then there must be resources on the subject - all he had to do was find and study them. When he got out of here, that is. Or, as he continued to walk down the endless tunnels dug into the earth, if.

In the interim, however, it would do him no good to panic here. His time would be far better served listening to Hong and Mu, and learning as much about transmigrators and attitudes to transmigrators as he could. He put his hands together and slowly breathed out, earning a very strange stare from Xian.

Hong’s eyes flashed yellow, a formation briefly appearing over his pupils as he examined the yawning cavern ahead of them, peering into its depths. Beyond the edge of the cavern numerous tunnels trailed off, lightless and churning. The ghosts and apparitions that had so plagued them were nowhere to be seen, nor was the shadowy mist. Yuan almost missed them, as he stared into that fathomless black.

“Hmm. Six looks about right. Can you tell if any of them are flesh wearers, or if they’re all transversers? Hopefully it’s the latter; flesh wearers give me the creeps, casually walking around in other people’s bodies.”

There was tittering in the darkness, strange forms of qi touching Yuan’s senses as the transmigrator hunters prowled about in the tunnels, drawing ever closer. Yuan stayed silent as the surreal conversation beside him continued, desperately hoping they wouldn’t realise there was a flesh wearer nearby.

“Same, honestly,” Mu murmured, assuming a fighting stance. “And the worst part is you can’t kill the monsters - you need to capture them, alive and unharmed, so they can be exorcised.”

Yuan quailed as Mu continued to rage.

“But these, thank Boynton, are transversers - I can smell by the stench of their magically formed bodies. Who do you think sent them?”

“No clue; I have too many enemies, and none worth wasting my time on,” Hong replied. “Can I have you take point on this? Jarnvidr has better anti-transmigrator techniques than the Noodle Shop Repair Sect.”

Mu nodded. “Of course - it would be my honour. Our skill in the art of transmigrator combat was why we were first invited to the Great Xuan, after all: I was born for this.”

Yuan had grown increasingly lost as the conversation progressed - conundrum piling on top of mystery, mystery on top of revelation - but followed behind obediently as the four of them made a diamond formation, walking down the broadest and least adumbral of the tunnels.

Mu went first, blade held out before him, eyes darting back and forth across the path as he scanned for traps. Yuan and Xian came next, neither saying anything to each other as they went - Yuan because he was still digesting the news of the last ten minutes, Xian because she was still too flushed to speak. What was with Yuan’s behaviour towards her recently?

Hong came last, hands tucked in his sleeves, lethargically scanning the pathway behind them every now and then. His face was impassive as they walked down into the dark, the twisting, poorly hewn passages giving them no clue as to where they were going.

The giggles and mocking laughter grew in volume as they went, eventually transforming themselves into discernible voices. They shrieked and gabbled, insulting the party as it proceeded.

“‘Will you walk into my parlour?’ said a spider to a fly, ‘'Tis the prettiest little parlour that ever you did spy,’” came the first mocking titter from somewhere down a tunnel to their left, a high-pitched squeal that grated against their ears.

An answering baritone echoed down from the path ahead, booming off the cavern walls. “‘The way into my parlour is up a winding stair, and I have many pretty things to shew when you are there.’”

And the voices laughed, hovering invisibly in the black. Yuan shivered involuntarily.

Mu, however, barked a laugh in challenge, his voice vibrating with qi as he responded. “Up a winding stair, away over there? Better not to build a castle on the air: the Itsy Bitsy Spider may climb up the waterspout, but down will come the rain, and wash the spider out.”

Silence from the voices, before a rising shriek met him, gibbering out a reply. “Out or in, without or within? ‘Dear friend, what shall I do, to prove the warm affection I've always felt for you?’”

Came again the baritone, soaring with the night, “‘I have, within my pantry, good store of all that's nice; I'm sure you're very welcome – will you please to take a slice?’”

“Bah humbug,” Hong snorted nonchalantly from his place at the back of the group, “who hasn’t heard the legend of the humble Miss Muffet, and knows that spiders care nothing for curds and whey?”

The voices had nothing to say in reply. Mu chuckled, talking to Hong without taking his eyes off the twisting abyss. “See? You do know how to smack talk.”

Hong only grumbled. “Nonsense. I have no patience for those who would disrespect the Dao of the Nursery Rhyme. Carroll had it aright when he said in reply to such pseudo-poetic frippery, ‘Then turn not pale, beloved snail, but come and join the dance.’”

Mu nodded, and continued to insult his hidden enemies, hoping by means of mockery to draw them into the light. “Indeed. To dance is inevitable, as the scriptures of Boynton state: ‘Again she will call them, to dance by the moon. But no one knows when - I hope it is soon.’ It would be better not to hide in the night, cowering away and out of sight, and to ‘bow to the horse, bow to the cow. Twirl with the pig if you know how.’ But these cowards confront us in a dark under the moon, fearing the dance; and they likely know nothing of twirling with the pig.” 

There was a cry of rage and anger, a pulse of qi washing over the party. The floor buckled underneath them, the fury of the transmigrators manifesting in savage attacks upon the landscape. Mu smiled; he’d got them. They’d broken in the battle of words, and next they’d break in the battle of weapons.

Mu went to mock them some more, but he paused as he sensed the ripple of a technique in the fathomless black. The rage of the transmigrators had transformed itself from mere emotional fury into something far more pointed and intentional. He cursed and, with a cry, reversed his sword in his grip. He slammed it into the ground, activating a technique - but too late.

There was a loud rumbling underneath Mu, a veritable upheaval, and before he or anyone else could react the ground gave way under his feet. With nary a cry Mu vanished from his companions’ sight, falling down below.