The most irritating matter about this was that E'ming had a personality. Just like he – Wuming – had awoken to a consciousness at the moment he manifested the weapon, the same must've happened to the scimitar at the same time. But how could a single eye annoy someone so much?

„Why can you not stay in my hand? Disregard that I'm your master but I can wield you best." If anyone had told him he'd be talking to a blade in his past life (lives? He wasn't sure), he would've shaken so much from laughter the tremor might've caused a regional earthquake. Wielding spiritual weapons was something Heavenly Officials were doing so Wuming had no interest in it at all. Cursed be the entire Heavenly Court. However, E'ming hardly classified as spiritual weapon. Not with this attitude.

Right now, it was jumping up and down in the air, its eye in a crescent shape, the pupil watching Wuming closely. No doubt, it was mocking him.

„What use will you have if I die?" He crossed his arms in front of his chest, following the scimitar's erratic movements as it sliced through the air by itself. There were no living enemies in close proximity anymore, all of them subconsciously fleeing this ghost's presence. The rest was defeated. Except Wuming wasn't sure if he shouldn't classify E'ming as enemy too. "You suck."

E'ming halted mid-air. It slowly turned around its hilt, the red eye narrowing to a slit. Wuming lifted his arms and shrugged. "What have you done so great that you behave like this?"

He pressed his hands against his sides, narrowing his eye as well when E'ming slowly leaned back, its blade threateningly pointing at Wuming's head. "Try it. I dare you. I will personally dismantle you again. You think I couldn't do it? You're my weapon."

E'ming charged and missed his face by a finger's breadth, might've left a cut on the cheek if Wuming hadn't dodged in the last moment. Not because he had been afraid of the attack connecting but to make use of the scimitar's momentum and grab for the hilt. Just, E'ming didn't slow down to turn back and strike again as expected, instead flew on and buried its tip in the ashes, turned vertically and landed on its hilt as if it did a somersault, somewhat gracefully evading getting captured. Judging by how it swayed from side to side and its eyes' crescent shape this had been planned.

"You –!" Wuming lunged forward, engaging in this play of catch with his scimitar, throwing aside all pride that had stopped him from doing so ever since this cursed weapon had developed a sense on its own. E'ming never aimed for deadly injuries during their sparring, probably fearing that Wuming might've been correct about their connection and since it was no spiritual weapon it would disappear along with him, at the very least become useless without his spiritual powers – but the longer the fight dragged on, the more cuts Wuming counted on his forearms. If weapons could mock him, so could these cuts.

Bleeding, out of breath, a great distance away from the Kiln again, they stopped, eye burning into the other eye hatefully. Wuming put his hands against his knees and considered another round of chase when he noticed a foreign movement from the corner of his eyes. More through pure instinct he fell forward and still felt the arrow's heat from speed missing his head just barely, grazing the hairs of his skin, then he threw his head around and saw the enemy stand among the trees that guarded Tonglu Mountain, already lifting the bow with another arrow.

"E'ming!" Wuming reached out and E'ming, which had been flatly lying on the ground, weakly fell into direction of his hand, the blade meeting fingers so that the ghost could finally get a grip on his own weapon. His fingers closed around the flat side of the blade itself, used the movement and flipped the blade to grab the hilt with his other hand, just in time to deflect the second arrow that would've pierced his belly cleanly.

"Do you think what I think?" Wuming felt his scimitar vibrate from hilt on to its very tip and Wuming didn't need to look at the eye to know that it was wide open in rage. Who dared disturb them …?!

-o

-o

Night and day were practically the same at Tonglu Mountain. Especially in this cave Wuming had claimed for himself. Right now, he sat on the ground, forming the last piece of steel he had randomly picked up into shape. Once he was content with the initial success, he walked on deeper into the cave, listening into the silence besides his own footsteps. Not that he expected anyone to be here. Every sane ghost fled the feeling of his might.

His destination was a stream of lava underground that he used to melt the steel parts together until he was content with the handicraaft. It was ungrateful work, almost burnt away Wuming's hand when he didn't anticipate a minor hissing explosion from the stream he worked with. With a set of curses too wild for human ears to be heard he then put his arms through the steel and tightened the still hot metal around his wrists on top of the pieces of fabric he had used as bandages, maintaining safe distance from the hot lava stream that made the air too heavy to breathe.

Not that Wuming needed to breathe anymore.

Once finished, Wuming inspected his hands, clenched his hands into fists and hit his knuckles against each other, making sure that his vembraces stayed in place. All this time, E'ming had been watching from the ground, its wide eye sparkling with interest. Wuming paid it no mind, turned and walked away, back the way he had come. E'ming ascended at head-level using spiritual powers and followed, flew closer to Wuming and waved its hilt hands to get his attention, to no avail.

Confused, the scimitar stopped mid-air, waiting that the ghost would say anything. It waited. Wuming disappeared from sight. E'ming waited.

Waited.

Waited.

And waited.

With dejected spirits, it returned to the ground and hopped on, deciding to follow Wuming after all and see what it could do with him then. Just … when the scimitar reached the cave's entrance, the ghost was nowhere to be seen. Had he left the cave completely? Why would he do that? What was wrong, was he still sulking because of the fight earlier?

E'ming left the shadows of the cave in sudden panic that it might've been left behind forever and felt an invisible pull in its core after just one jump into the wrong direction, halting. It turned around anxiously, its eye shifting around the environment. Was Wuming … still inside? Could he be hiding?

Even though it was exhausting, E'ming used the spiritual power it still had left from the last time Wuming had wielded it and flew back deeper into the cave, down the path back to the magma stream and back once more, but … the surroundings seemed different now. The scimitar couldn't detect any imminent threat or killing intent around itself but still proceeded with caution, unable to understand how the path had changed. After a couple of turns it decided to conserve its spiritual power and lowered itself to the ground, moving along carefully.

This had to be the reason why E'ming fell down the opening in the ground – the floor simply stopped existing in the next hop and the scimitar started falling with panic in its eye, fell, caught itself with the rest of its spiritual energy and still landed heavily on the ground somewhere deep below. It shook with the pain of landing, its eye firmly shut. Since it was lying on some sort of rock, its rattling filled the silence and the sound reverberated from all sides.

"E'ming?", a voice called out. E'ming's eye snapped wide open and spun around, and oh wonder, it was Wuming! Wuming was hanging in … spider webs on the wall, his limbs effectively tied up. He could lift his head though. Unfortunately, he didn't look very relieved or caring. One could hardly believe that he was the one in need for help. "Don't be pathetic. Can you help me out?"

For a moment, the scimitar considered doing nothing. But thinking about the anxious feeling that Wuming might've left it behind and not wanting that experience again, E'ming rolled off the stone and tried to get up onto its hilt, struggled, fell down flatly again. It had no spiritual power left. It moved its eye from left to right and right to left. Wuming sighed.

"I don't think anything dangerous lives in these webs. But the mountain is alive. It breathes." Wuming snorted condescendingly. "Am I not lucky?"

E'ming vibrated its blade in response. To be honest, it felt relieved even when Wuming didn't. Being left behind alone was a great fear of this scimitar, it had discovered. And even though it was basically useless at the moment, there was no imminent threat and Wuming was right there. His shape felt familiar. Soothing. It would be okay.

Wuming let his head sink forward, his black hair hanging down the sides of his head. The more he moved, the tighter these threads wound around him so it was best if he didn't move at all. But he had to get out of here. He couldn't stay here forever. He still needed to see his beloved again, make sure that he was safe.

He needed a plan.

Wuming wondered if His Highness had been able to deal with White No-Face after Wuming's sacrifice. That he had the power to do so was no question. However, who knew what the ashes of this insane ghost were …

No, he needed a plan. Not the resurfacing memories. A plan.

E'ming tried getting up again. It crawled closer over the ground, every movement sounding like the scrapping of nails over rough surface.

"You're damaging yourself. Give it a rest." Wuming didn't know how to interpret the vibration that went through the scimitar's blade and exhaled hard through his nose. "It's not that you're useless. It's me, I can't pick you up like this. What use would it have that you get to me? You only hurt yourself."

Hurt yourself. As if the blade could do that.

He watched how E'ming robbed closer still. A stubborn weapon. After what felt like a very long time, it had reached a place close to his legs and stopped, but the sounds of nails screeching didn't break -

Wuming lifted his head in time to see another ghost fall down the nets, with such speed that he tore down the threads close to Wuming. They collided and Wuming's body stopped the other ghost's fall, and somehow the threads thinned out quite enough that both ghosts fell to the ground on top of each other in heavy weight. Immediately, Wuming's fingers closed around E'ming underneath himself, and he threw the other body off, rolling around and lifting his scimitar, ready to attack.

The other ghost, an ashen one covered with a myriad of wounds, stumbled to his feet and evaded backwards, hand lifted against him defensively, the other hand pressed against his stomach. He had no weapon in hands. There was too much blood running down from behind his hand. He wouldn't survive long.

Wuming felt E'ming's hesitation. Maybe it was his own. And technically he had saved Wuming from the webs … accidentally or not.

Wuming straightened up, lowered E'ming, turned around and walked away, starting a search for a way out instead. No need to bother with the ghost. He took that as enough repayment. (Things would've definitely turned out differently had this ghost not escaped his pursuers and accidentally fallen into this changed pathing and into this cave and fallen down all the way into the webs, freeing our involuntary prisoner. Things would've turned out differently had Wuming killed him, but considering Wuming's luck, maybe everything was exactly as it had to be.)

For some reason, E'ming was so happy that it didn't mind being used for cutting spiderwebs. It was beneath its outstanding quality, it was forged to drink the blood of his enemies, but at least it wasn't alone anymore. And at the end of their walk, they found – what did they find?

"What is that?" Wuming let go of E'ming, which floated mid-air again now that it was full of fresh spiritual power, and knelt down in front of sturdy cocoons on the ground. Contrary to the webs that seemed to come from everywhere around the mountain the cocoons were plastered over the walls and emanated life, no threat. Overzealous E'ming moved forward and planned to slice one of the cocoons, unexpectedly facing resistance instead, and it found its sharp blade get reflected off metal with a soundy cling!

"What are you doing?!" Wuming got up, arms extended, the part of vembraces E'ming had struck now bearing a light imprint on them of where its edge had cut into the steel. "Did I allow you to attack?"

E'ming trembled. Wuming lifted a finger. "Don't give me that look. I just told you – the mountain is alive. Who knows what", he got interrupted when the cocoon in his back sprung open and out poured … butterflies?

Wuming couldn't react in time, stood in the wave of glowing butterflies that swarmed him and E'ming rushed forward again, hacking at the fluttering shiny things that filled the surroundings with translucent light only to be deflected by the vembraces again before it could effect much.

"They're not dangerous." Wuming grabbed E'ming by the sharp side of the blade, pressing it down so that he'd be eye to eye with it. "Look." He lifted his hand and indeed – what E'ming had taken as threat was just butterflies trying to find a spot on Wuming's body so that they could settle on him.

E'ming squinted. Even when Wuming let go of the blade and looked closer at the butterflies, the feeling that got hold of the sword held it tightly in its grip. When one errant butterfly made its way to E'ming, the scimitar made a tiny movement and threatened to cut it in half, chasing the butterfly back to Wuming.

"I can hear something." He gasped. The butterflies collectively disappeared and melted into the vembraces! "E'ming!" The scimitar immediately lashed out, confused about what it had to do since there were no butterflies visible anymore, but Wuming pointed at the next cocoon, excited: "Slice it open!"

-o

-o

A lot of cocoons later, Wuming discovered that there was an entire underground system in the mountain leading up to the Kiln's entrance. Judging by his own feeling though the time to rest was long overdue so exploring it all could wait. Unfortunately, he couldn't find the way back to the cave entrance he had stayed at for some time, but fortunately, the butterflies he could make escape from his vembraces were good sources of light – as long as E'ming didn't randomly lash out at them and kill them off.

"Stop it." Wuming sat leaned against a wall and closed his eye again after he'd seen E'ming kill another one. "Stop being jealous of them. Come here."

He could hear that E'ming didn't listen because the cursed blade dropped at noticeable distance to the ground, probably sulking again. Imagine not being on good terms with your own weapon. Or your head, at that rate.

Whenever Wuming closed his eyes, he could clearly remember His Highness, but everything before that was a swirl of emotions that he couldn't quite place. Memories, broken pieces, pain, suffering … an umbrella that seemed important, but it was cold. And then His Highness, not with the half crying, half smiling mask but Xie Lian's face, sad, so sad.

Wuming's hand clenched into a fist. He hated seeing him this sad. He deserved all happiness of the world … why? Why?

E'ming touched his side and made Wuming open his eye again. He looked down and saw that the blade lay flat next to him. Through the shine of newly escaping butterflies he could see the scratches on the blade's surface. Oh.

He reached out, picked the scimitar up and rested it on his legs, inspecting the damage. This must've happened in the cave earlier, when E'ming had been making his way to Wuming. Sliding over rocky surfaces ... what had it been thinking? But here at Tonglu Mountain Wuming barely had the means to tend after the wounds.

Wait, wounds?

Wuming slid his fingers over the cold surface of E'ming's blade, tracing the form of scratches, his lips forming sounds that something deep inside his mind remembered. First, he hummed, trying to grasp the memory more firmly, fish it from the depths of his mind. It was … warmth. Someone tracing his scars and singing to him, only for his ears. The memory overlapped with a strong embrace catching him in his fall, making him feel like he wasn't alone anymore, another warmth.

The words came naturally, a sentence here, a phrase there. Wuming wasn't confident in his singing skills, kept his voice low to avoid echoes filling the cave's otherwise silence. The words felt foreign on his tongue but the feeling it gave him was familiar. A shelter. A place to belong.

He thought that E'ming relaxed under the caress of his fingers (if a blade could relax) and both closed their respective eye, Wuming's voice lulling them into sleep.

The sleep was restless, disturbed by voices. Wuming didn't know how many of them were voices he'd seen in his past life and how many came from the surroundings – the mountain seemed to talk, to tell stories of dying souls, a volcano that burned humans and turned their remains into other beings, free but deadly beings, butterflies. He saw humans with more than one face. He heard screams, a melody, someone telling him that he was no monster. His Highness. Xie Lian.

With a start he woke up again, dizzy. He had His Highness' smiling face in front of his inner eye, stricken with panic that he might forget again. No, he had to … had to keep it. No matter what.

So, Wuming searched his clothes, found a hairpin he'd taken off some other ghost, and frantically got to work on the stone he'd slept against. The scratching sounds of the pin against stone woke E'ming too, but the scimitar quickly went back to sleep a safe distance away from the ghost that could not sleep, was half sleepwalking.

Only after Wuming was finished with the work he put the broken-in-half hairpin down, ignoring the pain in his hands, rolled together on the floor. Heclosed his eyes again. His dreams were lighter then too. He'd sleep a good part of the night and deep into the day (if it could be called day) before it was E'ming who woke him up again. Annoyed, Wuming grabbed the weapon at the hilt to stop it from jumping up and down his chest. He may not be feeling pain like someone who was alive but he could still get annoyed.

E'ming started swaying from side to side.

"What do you want?" Wuming opened his eye, contemplating throwing the scimitar across the cave. How much more sleeping time would that bring him? Then he followed with his gaze to where E'ming was looking and froze, a gigantic wave of embarrassment washing over him when he discovered how ugly the wall looked like. What ... was ... that ...? What had he done? To make matters worse E'ming, now free from Wuming's grip, flew up to the image he had carved into stone and wildly danced in front of it.

"Stop it!"

That sounded sharper than Wuming had intended, reflecting off the cave's walls. Yet, E'ming hovered in front of the image, its blinking significantly slower than usual, only averting its eye when it noticed that Wuming had bent over and picked up the broken hairpin, ready to destroy what he had made tonight. Quickly, E'ming threw itself in the way, eye wide open, almost glowing by itself.

"What. It's ugly." Wuming reached out and had to block a cut with his vembraces, getting pushed back forcefully by E'ming. The scimitar refused to distance itself too much from the crooked image of His Highness, immediately returned and directly pressed against the stone now, looking up to the angular face with admiration. Wuming lowered the hairpin in his hand.

This blade is an embarrassment. He looked at the image and cringed. This came nowhere close to His Highness' beautiful features. It was a shame to look at it. My skill level is an embarrassment too.

"Fine." He crossed his arms in front of his chest. "I will show you how His Highness really looks like. Not this. I need tools. We need to look around. Can you do that?"

E'ming seemed to have stars around itself, so happy it seemed. Excited. Interesting – how much of the weapon were its own feelings?

Scouting the area proved several things: there was an entire cave system in this mountain and part of it consisted of pits with butterfly cocoons that whispered and talked to Wuming (but he couldn't understand their language – yet.).

Then, the ghost that had accidentally helped him come free of the spider webs had disappeared without trace. Where to, Wuming didn't know. It didn't matter. If their paths never crossed again, good.

And of course there was no chisel anywhere to be seen, only some curious intruders that E'ming and Wuming quickly dealt with. This was their territory now.

Where there were no tools, Wuming had to experiment. He picked up fallen soldiers' blades, swords and the like, and every day (night?) he got to work, forming new statues next to the very first, some only faces and some more of His Highness. It was hard work, hard because the artist had the highest expectations for himself, he wanted to prove that his hands could replicate the only clear memories he had in his mind, he wanted to prove his devotion. Wuming also wanted to show E'ming the beauty of Xie Lian as best as he could, worked and worked and sometimes forgot the time, forgot that he got exhausted at some point. He barely slept. He didn't need it.

One statue wasn't enough, ten statues weren't enough. Hundred statues weren't enough. With three hundred, Wuming thought he finally made progress, could now trust his hands to work out the rough shapes by themselves – and that was when E'ming started competing with him. The scimitar had watched long enough, had memorized and understood what result Wuming was striving for even though he lacked the memories of the real face. And though its blade was too weak yet to cut stone without injuring itself, it worked with softer materials and made the first perfect image of His Highness the Crown Prince.

Just, it wasn't made by Wuming's hands. And Wuming simply took the scimitar by the hilt, dragged it away and threw it into the spider webs so that it wouldn't disturb him for a while, leaving E'ming to struggle among curious new-born butterflies that would not die from a blade's toxic gaze.

-o

-o

The memories were confusing, all-confusing, they came and left in waves. The stories about how Wuming got to learn an ancient language or slew armies of ghosts didn't matter, it were stories of growth, survival. What did matter was the first reunion.

The Kiln called. The Kiln called because the last strongest ghosts were left over and Wuming did not want to go. Wuming was burning up with love, with passion, but he had not made the perfect statue yet, he could not abandon this cave.

He

was

not

finished.

And in blind lust he created other works, naughty ones, before he ultimately succumbed to the temptation, grabbed E'ming and stormed to the Kiln so that it may close behind him.

There, a wild fight had already begun. There were no screams of pain in the volcano because to win the ghosts had to surrender feelings. And yet, a fury was raging among the last ones, an ashen one with long black hair, too thin to be healthily thin but stronger than all of them. He wielded his blade without grace, incredible force instead of tactics, raw emotion and hatred guiding his weapon, determination. He was fighting on the other side in the darkness but Wuming did not fear the darkness and unleashed his toxic butterflies, fought with E'ming, fought without it as it went off on its own, graceful where the other was raw, and then –

contact, they standing eye to eye. Recognition.

The ashen one lowered his weapon. This time, the blood dripping off his chest wasn't his own. He didn't say a word, only stepped backwards and dropped to the ground into a sitting position in some distance away. There he started eating the bodies of the fallen around him. Filling the silence with these sounds.

Wuming exchanged glances with E'ming. He wondered if that was it. He didn't know that future Ship-Sinking Black Water had remembered and thought about how his life was spared in a cave when he had been dying, not having expected any help in the first place because nobody had ever helped him. So he felt he was indebted to this ghost and that had been his repayment. Black Water in return didn't know that future Crimson Rain Sought Flower had thought their debts repaid and them even since he had left the other ghost to die, though in close future there would be new debts following their questionable friendship.

And all there was left to do in the Kiln while waiting for it to open was to build one last statue of His Highness, using all of his skills … even if that meant making use of E'ming as chisel this time.