Chapter Text
Night lay heavy upon the forest. The air thick with the sweet reek of decay and the sharp metallic sting of blood. Corpses littered the forest floor in uneven heaps, blackened talismans still sparking weakly against rotting flesh. Spiritual energy crackled through the air sharp enough to sting the skin.
Night mist clung low between the trees, thin and silver beneath the moonlight.
In the center of it stood a lone cultivator.
His robes were torn nearly beyond recognition, deep purple fabric darkened further by blood and dirt. One sleeve hung half-shredded near the shoulder. His breathing was controlled but exhaustion was beginning to show after days of prolonged fighting.
Yet, his sword remained steady, spiritual energy crackled faintly along its edge.
Torn robes dragged through the mud. Broken fingers clawed at the earth. Dead eyes gleamed faintly beneath burial talismans half-rotted from their foreheads. They didn’t seem to stop, coming in dense hordes. Hundreds, perhaps. Enough that the ground itself seemed to move. The dead kept coming.
Another corpse lunged. He stepped aside automatically, movement precise and efficient, and severed its head in one clean stroke before pivoting into the next attack. His body knew exactly what to do. Every stance flowed into another instinctively, without hesitation, without wasted movement. Like he had done this before. Done them extensively. Every turn a part of his skin, his sword an extension of his being.
A warm drop struck against his temple and slid into his eye.
Blood.
For one fractured second—
Blood dissolved in water.
Purple lightning.
Water stained red.
A woman’s furious voice.
More blood.
So much blood—
Pain exploded behind his eyes. He stumbled backward with a sharp inhale.
Another undead shrieked and threw itself toward him.
His blade flashed silver through the dark, clean and efficient, severing the corpse at the neck before it could touch him. Spiritual power burst outward violently enough to shake the surrounding trees.
He did not flinch this time when blood sprayed across his face. He supposed what remained of his robes now were long past salvage.
There were too many.
Even he knew that. The realization settled somewhere distant and unimportant in his mind as he stepped backward, sword still raised. More shapes moved between the trees. At least a few dozens remained. Their movements jerky, unnatural. Someone had driven them here, he thought.
His grip tightened on his sword. His right hand ached strangely. Something cold circled his finger beneath the blood and dirt. It was the ring. He had woken up wearing it. Silver-purple.
Important somehow. He did not know why.
The corpses surged again. He exhaled once, steadying himself, and stepped onto clearer ground, feet apart, body already anticipating the next wave of the creatures of death. Three corpses leapt simultaneously.
The forest halted with a melody.
A singular, clear note cut through the resentful energy like moonlight through storm clouds. Spiritual power flooded the clearing.
Bright enough to split directly through the chaos in his mind.
The corpses halted mid-motion. And then, before his unfocused gaze, their bodies dissolved soundlessly into ash beneath the moonlight.
The sharp pain behind his eyes faded slowly, leaving only dull disorientation behind. He blinked hard once as he spun toward the sound, sword raised.
A man stood several paces away beneath the trees, robes white as untouched snow despite the mud and death surrounding them. They stirred softly in the night wind. Spiritual energy lingered around the strings of the instrument, faint as moonlight woven into threads, suspended between the lacquered curves.
Elegant.
Unhurried.
Powerful.
More powerful than anyone he had encountered since awakening in this cursed forest months ago.
The newcomer’s guqin rested beneath elegant fingers, spiritual energy humming quietly around him. Moonlight caught on pale robes embroidered with clouds, against the white forehead ribbon lying perfectly straight across his forehead. It too held the same cloud motifs. Was that some sort of indication? he wondered briefly.
He was staring, he realised.
The cultivator before him was beautiful in the distant, untouchable way of dawn breaking over a jade mountain peak. His features were refined almost to severity, softened only by the calm in his eyes and the gentleness lingering at the corners of his mouth.
The newcomer’s gaze swept once across the clearing, and for a suspended instant, something unreadable flickered in his eyes. It vanished quickly enough for him to account to his exhaustion.
Still, he found himself straightening beneath that gaze. It was not hostility, he realised. Rather, he simply did not wish to disappoint this man.
So he lowered his sword and bowed solemnly despite the blood soaking through his sleeve. He only hoped the man would not take offence at his appearance.
His robes had been ruined for the better part of his journey. He had encountered a small group of cultivators , roughly a few weeks ago, who had given him some of their extra robes in exchange for saving their lives. He had accepted the inner robes, but kept his own outer ones. His were torn and frayed, and scorched and stiff. It was more blood and grime than purple anymore, yet he still could not bring himself to take them off.
“Thank you, Senior, for your assistance,” he said politely, hoping the words might draw the man’s attention away from his state of disrepair, because the stranger’s gaze seemed fixed upon his outer robes at that very moment.
For the briefest instant, surprise crossed the cultivator’s face. Then it disappeared once more behind perfect composure.
“You are welcome,” the white robed cultivator replied gently.
His voice was calm and refined, soothing just to listen to, though the reasons he could not define, and his gaze moved over him slowly—it wasn’t rude, nor suspicious, merely observant.
Perhaps it was the absence of resentful energy in the air, or the lack of any sudden flare of hostility, that finally allowed him to relax. Now that no immediate danger surrounded him, he felt the tendrils of exhaustion weight from all directions. His sword felt heavier than it had since he woke. Even so, its weight remained comforting in his hand.
Sandu, the name engraved upon the blade read.
The Three Poisons.
The wind moved cool and unrestrained once more, no longer twisted by dark energy. It swept across the clearing and over the cut along his ribs, setting the wound aflame with pain. He had not properly cleaned it in nearly two days. The last time, he had merely crushed a handful of herbs beside a stream and pressed them against the injury.
It would need to be cleansed properly soon.
The cultivator must have said something, he was looking expectant for a reply. The confusion must have shown in his face, for the white robed cultivator looked at his side now.
“You appear injured,” he said gently.
“It is manageable,” he replied before the white robed cultivator had finished speaking. It surprised both of them.
Another corpse twitched weakly nearby. The white robed cultivator kept his gaze on him as he flicked his wrist. There was no weapon in his hand, and no music had played, and yet, the corpse lay nothing but gray ash slowly settling in the soil.
His eyes widened slightly as thoughts began racing in his mind. The movement had been effortlessly refined. Familiar.
“…You are very skilled,” he admitted after a moment. “I have never seen spiritual power used like that before.”
For reasons the man could not understand, something like confusion flashed briefly across the cultivator’s face before he could hide it.
Ah… he had disappointed him already.
Dark eyes studied him carefully. “I have rarely seen someone fight such a number alone,” the cultivator said in lieu of answering, “May I ask why you are here?”
He hesitated. He didn’t know how to answer without further being unworthy of his attention.
“I woke up in these mountains three months ago,” he admitted after a moment. “There were beasts nearby that I could eliminate, so I remained.”
The cultivator's grip on his instrument tightened. Was he in pain?
“You do not remember how you arrived?”
He lowered his gaze briefly.
“No, senior.”
The answering silence stood heavy, his breath deepening in her enveloping caress. The white robed cultivator was still waiting patiently, as if accompanying his confusion. It felt increasingly impolite to continue addressing him so vaguely after receiving assistance twice in a single night, even if it was in his own head.
He hesitated briefly, but his defences were slowly faltering under exhaustion and pain alike. Why was it stinging so much now?
“I have yet to ask for Senior’s name.”
There was a stillness in his gaze.
Sadness, he thought suddenly.
The impression vanished almost immediately. Surely he had imagined it. Why would someone react sadly to being asked their name?
The white-robed cultivator inclined his head, the gesture graceful and exact. Not the casual courtesy of wandering cultivators met along roadside inns, but something more disciplined. Refined.
Sect-trained, he concluded.
“This one is Lan Xichen,” the cultivator said at last.
His tone remained gentle, though his gaze rested upon him with quiet attentiveness, as though waiting for something.
Recognition, perhaps.
Unfortunately, he could offer none.
Still, the name lingered oddly in his chest.
Lan.
His eyes drifted once more toward the cloud embroidery and the white ribbon across the man’s forehead.
A sect cultivator indeed.
The cloud patterns embroidered along Lan Xichen’s sleeves stirred softly in the wind. For a moment, Lan Xichen regarded him in silence before speaking.
“May I ask how this one should address you?”
The question settled heavily between them.
He opened his mouth.
Nothing came.
A name should have been a simple thing.
He had heard the question countless times over the past months from wandering cultivators, merchants, villagers rescued from resentful corpses. Each time, he had answered somehow. Different names. Temporary names. Whatever came to mind quickly enough to avoid the pause that always followed.
But now—
Before Lan Xichen’s calm gaze, his thoughts drew an abruptly blank. The harder he searched, the more distant the answer seemed, like reaching into dark water and finding no bottom beneath his feet.
At last, he lowered his eyes slightly.
“I…” His voice caught briefly. “I do not know.”
Silence followed.
The night wind moved quietly through the trees. Somewhere in the distance, water fell steadily against stone.
Then, for the first time since arriving, something in Lan Xichen’s composure seemed to falter.
It was small. So small another person might never have noticed it. But the forest had sharpened his awareness sharply over these past months. A slight stillness in his expression. A faint tightening around the eyes. And he could have sworn the man’s fingers tightened against his instrument.
The heaviness in the air deepened immediately.
Understanding arrived at once.
Ah.
He had caused offense somehow.
The realization sat heavily in his chest. He should have known better than to wander blindly into the forest, especially in his condition. The ruined robes, the blood, the lack of identification—he must look suspicious at best.
“I apologize if I caused trouble,” he said quietly, because the words felt correct somehow, “I did not intend to enter another sect’s territory.”
Wind moved softly through the trees around them. Somewhere deeper within the forest came the distant rustle of corpses stirring once more beneath the soil.
Lan Xichen glanced briefly toward the sound before returning his attention to him.
“The wound along your side requires proper care. Infection may already be beginning.” His gaze shifted briefly toward the blood staining the torn robes. “This place is unsafe to remain in tonight. My sect is nearby. You should rest and allow your injuries to be treated properly.”
“I would not wish to impose,” he replied immediately.
“You would not be imposing,” Lan Xichen answered with quiet certainty.
“There are still dangerous creatures within these mountains,” he continued gently. “And you have also exhausted a considerable amount of spiritual energy tonight. Remaining here alone while injured would be unwise.”
He could not argue with that.
His every instinct told him to remain cautious.
He knew nothing about this man beyond a name, a sect, and the frightening depth of spiritual power resting beneath that gentle composure. Trusting others so readily should have felt reckless.
And yet—
The man before him was clearly no ordinary cultivator. His posture was refined, his control impeccable, and even the guqin resting at his side carried spiritual energy powerful enough to cleanse an entire clearing of resentful corpses with a single note.
A respected cultivator, then.
And kind besides.
Standing beneath the cold moonlight with resentful energy accumulating again in the air and Lan Xichen’s steady presence before him, he felt something unfamiliar loosen quietly within his chest.
Safety.
He lowered his gaze briefly before bowing once more.
“Then… I will trouble Senior.”
For the first time since their meeting, something openly softened in Lan Xichen’s expression.
The heaviness lingering in the air eased so suddenly that he nearly believed he had imagined it from the beginning.
***