A/N: Hello. Glad to be back. Due to unexpected events that occured (moving, death of a loved one, quitting job) I had to postpone the chapters. But now I am back to schedule! Thank you for your patience and time :) Big chapter ahead!

Every lie is two lies — the lie we tell others and the lie we tell ourselves to justify it. - Robert Brault

The next day we started together with Alex and Daryl to go back to Suanhi. On the way I didn't feel much of my body. I had rested the day before, but my wounds were away from closing completely any time soon.

As for Des, she was running almost instead of walking. But she always made sure she didn't leave me behind. She may have been chubbier than I was, but she was a lot more fit than me.

When we arrived in the village, the locals welcomed us with joy. There was no more fog and the wooden houses looked spotless. When we asked them about the disciples who had disappeared, they didn't seem to know anything.

"We have not seen any of you here since you left and chased those monsters," said Su Ming, the village chief.

"Are you sure? Have you not seen anyone?" Daryl asked for the third time.

Su Ming played with his fingers and his eyes played right and left. He seemed to hesitate. People around us came and went in their jobs, but they had their ears on us. They were looking at us strangely. "The truth is that... there is one. We saved him. But what does it matter? He seems to have been lost for a long time."

Daryl grabbed him by the collar. His eyebrows furrowed and he brought his face close to Su Ming. "You lied to us from the beginning!"

"No, no!" Su Ming whispered. "I am telling the truth. The truth!"

"And why did you say in the beginning that you have not seen anyone? And now you admit it?" I have spoken.

Su Ming hesitated and tried to escape from Daryl's grip. Alex made a sign to him and Daryl took his hands off Su Ming. "I told you why! He has been lost for a long time. Ever since you left, the teacher's daughter, A-Si, found him on the street. She took him home and treated his wounds. But the boy seems to have lost his soul."

"His soul?" did Alex.

I returned to Des. "That is bad. Think he might be like a moving zombie," she explained immediately.

"Yes!" was immediately hastened Su Ming to confirm. "His spirit! But what can we do. We did not want to kill him or bury him. Nobody wanted to take him home. Except for the teacher's daughter. She had her father, the teacher who died, she has him now."

"Then why did you not call anyone? Tell us where the disciple is. We will take him back," Daryl said.

Su Ming stepped forward to show us the way. As we walked, the eyes of the people around us stared at us. For some reason, their smiles seemed scary to me.

"Why didn't they inform the Nie sect who is closer to them, to get him?" Alex whispered to us.

I put my hand on my chin. He was right. Didn't they want to get rid of him as he said? Why then?

Su Ming relatively quickly brought us to the door of a wooden house. "Here it is," he said and knocked on the door.

We waited outside for a few minutes. As we were about to go inside, a voice came from behind us.

"Hello. Who are you please?"

I turned back. Behind us stood a relatively beautiful girl. She seemed to be about my age and Des's more or less.

"They are cultivators, along with those who faced the monsters the other day. They came for their own," Su Ming replied.

"Ah!" did the girl. Then he smiled. "Wang."

"Who?" I did.

"Wang. A Yunmeng Jiang cultivator. I found him on the side of the road the day you left. I took care of him. I thought you would come for him. And here you are. Come in," said the girl in a benevolent voice.

Alex smiled when the girl opened the door and made a sign for us to follow her. "What a good and beautiful girl," he whispered.

I grimaced slightly. I looked at Des next to me. "Is ti my idea, or does it look like to you too that something stinks here? The girl is too nice. And you know that I don't like the excessiveness in things."

Des looked around the house. "I would tell you I don't agree, but the smell is suffocating. Doesn't it smell like mold, mixed with chlorine and a sweet and sour smell?"

I nodded.

Wait a minute. Sweet and sour smell? Yes. We had smelled this when we came to the village. But mold with chlorine? This smell...

This smell was like the smell of monsters.

"Why does it smell like this in here? This smell is everywhere in the village. Like an awful smell," commented Des.

The girl smiled. "Ah. It is the smell the air brings from a village near here. They have a lot of animals there that they raise."

Des didn't seem convinced by the answer. "Indeed," she did. "And since when do you use chlorine at this era?"

The girl stepped forward and led us to a room. "I do not know what you mean, Miss. Here he is. He is sleeping" she said and made her way towards a bed.

In the bed lay a young man whom we had with us on the journey to come here at the beginning.

Alex and Daryl looked at me.

"Yes. He is definitely one of ours" I grabbed my chin and caressed it. "But I'm sure he's not called Wang."

"His name is Wang."

I looked at the girl. She looked nervous. When she realized that everyone was looking at her, her gaze softened and she smiled ugly and wide. "He just did not have a name when I found him and he cannot speak. So I gave him the name."

What the hell? Who would go and name everyone they saw on the street? He was human.

Des went to the bed and sat down. The boy had his eyes closed. My friend put her fingers under his nose and then on his neck. "Did you say you look after him, right? It has been two days since he is gone. How exactly do you do it?"

The woman looked at Des with malice, as if she had been told she was unworthy to take care of her child. "I feed him and water him every day. I take care of him, I read to him, I talk to him, I dress him. "

I shivered. For some reason this all seemed terribly wrong. It seemed to me that she was behaving to him like he was a doll.

Des nodded. Then she turned to me. "Charlie, find me Charlie please a high pillow."

I listened to her and went to the place that looked like the kitchen. I found a pillow on a chair and gave it to her. Des carefully pulled the pillow under the boy's head, and together with the pillow I gave her, she put it under his feet. Then she lifted his legs high and rested them on the pillows so that his legs were above his head.

The boy's eyelids moved slightly.

"He was not sleeping. The boy had obviously fainted. I wonder how and why," said Des.

Alex and Daryl looked at each other. Then they looked at us. Something was wrong here. And we had all got it right.

"Really? But he was sleeping..." the girl seemed worried.

Su Ming scoffed. "If he is yours, take him and leave."

At the end of his sentence he got a look full of hatred from A-Si.

The boy opened his eyes, but beyond that, he didn't move.

"What's the matter with him?" Alex asked Des.

Des checked him here and there. "He doesn't seem to have anything. Everything is normal. I have to undress him to look for wounds. I cannot understand something. But I'm not an expert either" she got up when she fell on the bed again.

I ran to her. "What happened? Are you ok?" I worried.

"Yes" Des raised her eyebrows. "I just stumbled." Then she got up and looked where she had fallen. She was sitting on the boy's feet.

"Strange" my friend murmured and tried to take off his boots.

"No!" A-Si ran. But Daryl was quick and caught her before going near Des.

"What 'no'?" did Alex.

A-Si looked at us once and at Su Ming. "It is your fault! You!" said in the final.

Su Ming seemed to be sweating. His lips trembled. "No, it is not my fault. I'm telling the truth! They came here! They suggested it! And you accepted!" he said the last sentence with hatred. "You just wanted to keep your father here!"

Alex cleverly moved behind Su Ming to keep him from leaving. He realized it and his shoulders fell. He began to tremble.

I looked at Des. "What is it?"

Des looked at the boy's shoes and then at the boy. He still had his eyes open and was looking at the ceiling. "I sat on the floor. Literally."

"That is?"

Des grabbed the boy's boots and took them off.

I felt the blood running down my face and the strong tendency to vomit. I took deep breaths.

Alex pulled out his sword and pointed it at the leader and A-Si. "You cut off his feet!"

"We had no choice! It was for the village!" did the leader.

Alex gripped his sword so hard that his hand turned white. And then he punched Su Ming hard.

Su Ming fell down. "We are telling the truth. We had no choice," he whined and grabbed his cheek.

Des respectfully put the shoes back on the boy's feet. "You cut off his feet and treated his wounds so that he would not bleed. He must have been shocked. Plus he must have lost a lot of blood."

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Why? Why would anyone do that? Where the hell did we live, my God?

"Where are they?" Daryl barked.

A-Si was struggling to escape his grip. "What?" she said in her sharp breaths.

"His feet."

A-Si did not speak. She was only trying to escape.

"There is a gap behind the closet. A door. There they are!" Su Ming suddenly exclaimed.

"Stop it! Stop you fucking old geezer! You idiot! Fuck your bastard mother who gave birth to you!" shouted A-Si.

Without a second word, I moved to the closet on the other side of the room. Then I pushed it with all my might.

He was right. Behind it, a wooden and ragged door was closed.

I looked at my company on the journey behind me. They made a sign to me to open the door.

I swallowed hard and grabbed the handle.

And then I opened it abruptly.

Sunlight shone into the dark tiny room. Right in the middle, a figure on his knees was chained to the floor. Around it were various talismans stuck to the chains and to the wall. "What in..." I did. The figure raised it's eyes. The disgusting white eyes looked at me.

Suddenly the memory struck me. I shook my head to get rid of it, but it came abruptly and loudly. It got tangled in my mind and I saw the scene unfold again in front of my eyes. I saw the white eyes looking at me, the awful smell of saliva and blood soiling my face, and a hand slipping into my stomach.

"...arlie."

What?

"Charlie!"

"Eh?" I did. I'm turned to my right. Des was standing next to me now.

"Are you okay?"

I bit my gums and nodded.

Des turned to the others. "It's a corpse."

"He is not a corpse! He is alive. And he is my father!" A-Si shouted in despair. Her eyes were almost out of her skull and her mouth spewed saliva here and there as she screamed.

"The teacher?" did Alex. "And what job does he have there? Why are you holding him like that? What do you intend to do? Obviously he is a corpse," he pointed his sword at Su Ming's neck. He crawled on the floor even further back.

"I will tell you, I will tell you!" he made. He seemed ready to cry.

"Do not dare! Do not... You never thought of my father! He was your friend!" A-Si said.

"Stop it!" he did. "Stop..." his voice went out and he looked at the floor. Then, as if mustering all his courage, he looked at Alex.

"They came the day you left. The evening! Yes, at night! And they said they wanted a deal. In order not to attack us again, they wanted ... to convey a message to you. The message was the boy they had with them. They said... they said they wanted our help. Tell them how to control the corpses. And if we tell them that, they will help us bring the teacher back. A-Si's father."

Daryl threw A-Si to the floor. "It is not possible to bring a corpse back to life."

"Wei Wuxian did it! With Ghost General! But after him, he never did it again! We would not sit down to please him! And they have knowledge! Much more than ours! I saw it and I know it! They did strange things... They would bring A-Si's father back. As long as we taught them to control some corpses. And for that, we wanted to bring Wei Wuxian here. Alone."

"In return for what? What would he gain if he came here? And who said he would come?" did Des.

"They offered us an agreement to bring this kid to you," Su Ming continued. "That they will stop attacking the villages, only if we teach them how to control the corpses. They controlled the monsters that had attacked before. And they will bring back A-Si's father. "

"Ha!" did Alex. "And you believed them?"

I thought for a moment. Did they offer them a deal?

"Who?" I did in the final. "Who offered an agreement? Monsters don't know how to speak, but only to scream."

Su Ming seemed to tremble all over. "They weren't those monsters you faced before. They looked like humans. They were talking. They had logic and knowledge beyond ours. They were creatures that your mind can not comprehend. Alternative higher beings."

What the hell was he saying? Things our minds could not comprehend?

"And the boy's legs? What happened to his feet? I do not see them anywhere," said Des. She was right. I had completely forgotten about that.

"That's how they brought him to us," A-Si spat at the words. "They said it was a warning. For the event in case you decide to run away from the deal. That's why his feet were cut off. It was a message that we would all become like this. Alive, but dead."

I looked at Des. I didn't believe in such bullshit. There would be some logical explanation.

My friend, as if catching my eye, spoke in a low voice. "The disciple seems to have been shocked. I don't know what really happened."

Daryl kicked the girl on the floor. She groaned loudly. "You are lying!"

Su Ming gathered himself. It seemed that he didn't want to suffer such a strong kick. "We cut his legs off! But they told us to do it. They made us to cut them off. And then give them to the teacher. "

"To the corpse?" I did.

"Yes!" he continued. "We gave it to him. And we saw an improvement! He could stand on his knees. Before he could not even stand. He could heal."

I clenched my fists. My stomach churned. I wanted to vomit all over the place.

"They brought the boy back to you, told you to cut off his feet and feed them to the corpse you already had, to bring him back to life. In this way they showed you that they know how. They also told you that they would stop attacking the villages if you showed them how to check the corpses. And you thought of Wei Wuxian. If you brought him here for the boy who belonged to his clan, you might persuade him to show you how to control corpses. That's why you did not want us to take the boy back and were constantly making us wait and be late. You wanted him to come. But if you did not manage to bring him here, they would destroy your village again and the teacher would stay like that forever" I said my thought out loud.

"Exactly!" Su Ming tried to stand up, but Alex reminded him that his sword was on his neck.

"We will take the boy back. And we will kill the corpse" said Daryl.

"No!" A-Si screamed and started screaming on the floor. "No, please! Get the boy. But do not touch my father! Do not dare!"

I looked at the corpse. He didn't seem capable of moving. The talismans were quite useless.

"Leave it. I don't think it will ever get out of there," I said.

Des went a few steps closer to A-Si. "You cut off the boy's feet and gave them to the corpse and it improved from what you say. Why didn't you give him all? Wouldn't the corpse be completely healed then?"

A-Si shook her head left and right. "No. They had done something to his feet. Spells. I do not know. His feet had some yellow lines like veins. And then we were told to cut them off. Without these spells, my father would not eat them and he would not be well."

Alex seemed to be thinking. "It is true. Corpses kill, but do not eat human flesh. Only if the one who controls them forces them. But those "humans" you said could not control it. Otherwise they would not ask for help on how to control corpses. But what were they doing? "

For a few minutes we were all silent.

"We will not kill him. But we will take him back," Daryl said.

"No!" A-Si screamed again. "Please do not!" she started crying loudly.

"We will tell Wei Wuxian to take a look at him."

A-Si looked at Daryl. Her eyes rolled. Tears reappeared at their edges.

"He will at least check it out," Daryl replied.

"He can come here to check on him if he wants to," the girl spat down on the floor. I grimaced.

"We will take him." said Alex ignoring A-Si.

The thought struck me. "You said they brought him here. What about the other? Did they bring anyone else back? There are more desciples missing."

"No. Only him," A-Si replied.

"And how did they know that Wei Wuxian was from Yunmeng? Did you tell them before they brought the disciple?" I asked.

Everyone looked at me. Probably they thought about it now.

"No. I do not know. I do not know."

We looked at each other. We had already got it.

A traitor was among us. And he knew about these monsters or higher beings better than any of us.