This chapter came out awhile back on another site, but I finally have the time to cross-post it over here too. Sorry for the delay, and thank you everyone for your continued interest in this fic, I'm glad so many people seem to enjoy it! :D (You can read some of my other fics over on ao3 as well, including a glossary of terms for this fic (which I hope to eventually post over here, but I update it by chapter so it'd just be easier to wait until the fic is mostly done/complete before bringing that over here due to how the doc system works on this site, since it's just easier to edit on ao3. The same info in the glossary fics I include in the end notes of chapters here though, so you shouldn't be missing out anything important.)). Thanks for reading, and I'd love to hear what you think! :D

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Chapter 18: Digging Up Bones

A/N: I dunno, I feel like the editing in this might be a bit rough cause I was a bit rushed? Idk. This uses up the rest of my prewritten chapters (if you don't count a couple of paragraphs in chapter 19) but I've got a lot of outlines and notes! Hoping you all are well, and thanks for reading! Let me know what you think! :D

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It was quiet, in Jin Wu Senlin.

His feet, treading over leaves, barely made a sound. It was vaguely misty. The type that isn't immediately obvious, but the sort that diffuses the light, and desaturates everything around you. Making you feel as though your eyes weren't quite working as they should. Blurring the distance before its natural tether. Making the air look grey and washed out on your horizon. The underside of the heavy ancient boughs a dark, inter-locking green in the leaves above. Heavy. With a few, transparent places, but the light never truly breaking through. Just dark-green-blacks, and the glimmering of grey-silver trunks. Over a dull, pale brown ground.

The canopy was close, and low to the ground. Giving the feeling of being in a vast low room.

There were no animals scurrying or birds chirping. No hint of a breeze.

Just the soft susurration of his cousin's robes, as Nie Zonghui walked behind him.

Nie Huaisang raised Nayong up to his eyes. Looking for all the world like he'd dressed for a casual tea rather than a night hunt, with his gossamer overrobe and its darker gray embroidery. However, a close observer might note the slightly narrower sleeves than normal, the carefully altered hem that was only ever a whisper above the ground. It truly must have been happenstance, that the pale grey-blue robes seemed to blend with their surroundings. Just another pale figure in the desaturated wood. Nie Zonghui a darker shadow behind him.

With a flick of his wrist, Nie Huaisang swept Nayong away from his face in a soft swish of air, it's golden guards gleaming. In front of them, the misting path between the opaque trees became a few touches clearer. Visibility increasing as the very air before them seemed to become a few shades richer and lighter. As if bending to the young master's whim.

Skirting around a circle of mushrooms, they wandered deeper into the forest. Young Master Nie's eyes flitting about the landscape like an escaped bird.

Nie Zonghui shuddered, his saber rattling in its sheathe slightly. Despite the apparently peaceful surroundings, there was something distant in the air. Like how a wary traveler just knows that there is something lurking beyond the rise of the next hill. Like the feeling he got whenever he walked by a slaughterhouse. The echoes of a story. That something happened here, and not a happy one.

Like a rumble of thunder on the horizon.

"a-Sang, what exactly are we looking for?"

Nie Huaisang hummed, waving Nayong absentmindedly. Its guards glimmering every now and then, in the artificial twilight.

His cousin paused, snapping Nayong shut and letting it balance on an extended finger. It began to topple towards the side, and Nie Huaisang snatched it up once more, before spinning on his heel and walking in that direction, lethargically fanning himself again as if nothing had happened.

Nie Huaisang gave a glance over his shoulder, barely there then gone. Eyes flitting about once more.

"The opposite of our fellows." He replied.

Nie Zonghui nodded. Though he stayed on the alert for any Malignant Beings, since the nighthunt had been called because of a yao disturbance, but, he extended his senses for any spiritual energy that they might detect, rather than a resentful one. Which he hadn't previously been searching for.

Opposite indeed.

They walked along in silence once more. Alone.

So far, all he could feel was the intermittent dancing of the feather soft brush of Nayong in front of him. And only then because he knew where to look.

He glanced over at the sect heir again, where Nie Huaisang had stopped and was balancing Nayong on his finger once more, before making an about turn in whatever direction it chose to fall. A feat that would be impossible with a Nie Saber - which were forged to be in-tuned with the source of any resentful energy – letting them know where to strike. The resentment forged into the saber's core letting the saber spirit find and best its own kind at the command of a Nie blade-master.

This was the inverse of that technique, disguised as an inane hand gesture.

It reminded him of the peasant's divining rod.

Nie Zonghui raised his eyebrows slightly but didn't comment. If he'd ever fully believed the dunderhead comments about a-Sang, he wouldn't have followed his seemingly weaponless younger cousin into what was clearly a haunted wood.

The fact that they seemingly stumbled upon a path that appeared out of nowhere amongst the shadowed trees proved that point.

A branch cracked off to his right breaking the deafening silence. Followed by the sound of an animal's screaming wail. He glared in that direction. Shengrong rattled in its sheathe in anticipation as it sensed the resentful energy of a Monster drawing closer. Long familiarity with his Saber's reaction cluing him in as to what Malignant Being to expect.

Nie Huaisang glanced over towards the approaching thrashing noise, flaring his fan irritably at the intrusion as Nie Zonghui drew his saber, settling into a guard position. Stepping slightly between it and his younger cousin.

The surrounding brush gave a final rattle before a 3-foot grayish-brown blur leaped out at them and onto the trail with a rabbit-like bound. Barking repeatedly in alarm before it swung its head around and saw them. Whereupon it released an angry clicking sound. It's fangs going from a relaxed backwards slant to pointing aggressively straight down. Eyes glowing. Mouth foaming. Black smoke seeming to billow from a fresh rent in its side that was already spreading. A contaminating rot that quickly turned to decomposing flesh.

Too quickly.

Nie Zonghui frowned at the water deer.

The beast's shoulders came to just under 2 feet, with it's head reaching about mid-thigh on the Nie Cultivators. The perverse feel of resentful energy skittered across his bones like a thousand needle pricks of ice-cold air, making Shengrong hum in his hands. The water deer walked stiffly towards them, patches of sickly black earth falling off its gouged flank, blackening the earth where it touched, spreading like droplets of ink on wet paper. Contaminating.

At about ten yards away it paused in its stiff walk. Before turning parallel to them, circling. The fog around it also grew darker, as if the mere touch of the resentful energy streaming off the beast was contaminating it. The clicking noise growing ever louder. Its eyes milky-white and glaring.

Nie Zonghui noted absently as he turned with the beast, that there were fresh footprints further down the path behind it. In the opposite direction from where he and his cousin had come. But he did not take his eyes off the circling water deer, eying the sharp fangs that were almost three-cun in length. Though water deer weren't native to Qinghe, he'd seen some before near the rivers of Yunmeng, and they were very fast.

"Strange. There is no stench, and I can see it breathing. So, it cannot be dead. So, it cannot be a Monster," whispered Nie Huaisang, having noted Shengrong's reaction.

"Yet that is how it responds. I feel its Personal Energy, which is what is normally consumed first by resentment in a Yao. It feels more like a corrupted Spiritual Beast or a Demon, something that has been corrupted through its spiritual energy first. But even a prize spiritual hound like those bred by the Jin cannot gather this much Spiritual Energy in a lifetime. Strange."

Nie Zonghui took another step, keeping his eyes on the corrupted water deer, putting himself between a-Sang and it once more. "This forest must hold much resentment." But he was frowning as well.

Nie Zonghui heard a familiar flutter of cloth that he knew from much exposure was a-Sang shrugging.

"Doesn't matter, there are plenty of cultivators here to deal with it." Nie Huaisang started grumbling, "This is just our problem because it is in our way."

The water deer gave another growling-bark, its clicking growing in volume and frequency, before suddenly charging at Nie Zonghui, causing the two cousins to dance apart from each other to dodge the blow. The deer swung its head in a downward sideways arc, that would have stabbed and rent into Nie Zonghui's hip had it hit.

Nie Zonghui spun on his heel as the water deer charged again.

Nie Huaisang flicked out his wrist, sending a wave of air that was too soft to reach Nie Zonghui but cleared the air a few degrees. Where the water deer's fur had been masked by a shifting increasing cloud of resentment, blurring the edges of its form blend into the background, the creature was now made clearly visible. Providing Nie Zonghui with a target, where previously its only stable feature was the tiny and quickly moving whites of its eyes.

Pressing the advantage Nie Zonghui swung Shengrong, cleaving into the water deer's neck. What followed was a wet thump and the creature's death throws. Nie Zonghui held ready until the crying movement faded away, leaving only a deathly silence.

Nie Zonghui frowned as most of the resentful energy connected to the creature also dissipated. Normally only spiritual energy dissipated on its own at the ending of a life, whereas resentful energy usually had to be cleansed. Weird.

He looked up at Nie Huaisang who was already further down the path from whence the corrupted water deer had came. His baby cousin was looking back at him with his head cocked. "Well? That's small enough it should clear up on its own." He jerked his head impatiently back in the direction they'd been walking.

Nie Zonghui watched as Nie Huaisang flipped the fan along his finger again, letting it balance, before it rolled forward over his fingertip this time. Causing his cousin to walk straight forward.

Glancing at the water deer again, Nie Zonghui sheated his saber once more and followed.

Again and again the fan rolled, leading them straight down the path that seemed so old it might as well be an animal track, that had appeared suddenly from the mists as if newly created by a god rather than only recently hidden.

Nie Zonghui following after his cousin.

…

Nie Huaisang carefully flicked Nayong over his fingers. Letting the spiritual fan guide him deeper and deeper into the maze array. Since Shèngkāi de Yángguāng was ostensibly the last large pocket of a once spiritual forest, if the hints in the local tales were to be believed, then the concentration of spiritual energy within the clearing's herbs would act as a true north to Nayong's senses. All he had to do was follow it.

He grit his teeth at the human footprints along the untended path – which was akin more to an animal trail. Someone had been here recently.

They were at least a day old. Too old for a member of the hunt to have stumbled into this area. They were also predominantly one way. Which meant that whoever they were, he was thinking at least two people, had either taken another route out or was still waiting somewhere up ahead.

Lazily waving Nayong in front of his face, sometimes flicking it in carefully random patterns, he flashed a hand signal behind his back at Nie Zonghui.

Nie Huaisang had studied hand signals out of necessity during the war, and though he wasn't as adept as some, this in particular was one of his brother's favorites. And thus, known throughout the sect. Roughly translated it meant, 'be on your guard or I swear I will kick your ass when we get home'. He was fairly certain it had been adapted from an old official combat signal combined with an even older rude gesture. But he wasn't altogether interested in the etymology of the subject.

Judging from the surprised cough behind him, the message was received regardless.

A few minutes later, covering his mouth and nose with his sleeve, Nie Huaisang daintily skirted over the trail the water deer had crashed through the underbrush when it crossed their path. He fanned Nayong more quickly, cleansing the immediate air in front of them, as he gazed up the poor creature's trail from whence it came, catching a glimpse of blackened grasses, looking as if they'd been burnt. Yet in patterns that seemed more reminiscent of frostbite on flesh. He quickly looked away, that could be someone else's' problem. They were a couple li from the village now, it couldn't hurt any civilians, and every second counted.

When dealing with Qi Deviation, a minute could mean the difference between life and death. He needed to get those medicinal herbs to his brother yesterday.

Unfortunately, the blackened ground continued to be not not their problem as Nayong's continued directions caused them to travel parallel alongside it. Though they were careful to keep several trees between them and it. Nie Zonghui kept giving it side eye behind him – Nie Huaisang could tell, honestly, he wanted to side-eye it too but now was not the time. Before they finally came up to a shimmering field of air that was marked out by a regular pattern of stacked stones. Beyond it, the bright sunlight streamed so vividly that it made their eyes smart and water, and Nie Huaisang quickly blocked his with Nayong. Analyzing the patterns of light as they shown through arrays hidden on its interspersed translucent leaves. (He'd only needed to ask Wei-xiong's advice once when making it).

One second, they'd been wandering through semi-darkness, and the next without warning they were at the edge of a clearing. There'd been no gradation of light in-between. No indication that they'd been approaching their final destination until they were already there.

He glanced back at Nie Zonghui, who'd been following him blindly the whole way there. Even used to maze arrays as the two of them were due to the defenses of their own family's ancestral temple, even he looked disoriented at their sudden arrival. Frankly, Nie Huaisang knew that without Nayong he would have spent days if not weeks trying to find this clearing, if he ever found it at all. (Though he liked to think he would of, eventually). The array was certainly powerful, and with a subtly of age that made it feel even older than the Nie's. As if part of the forest had grownup within and around it. As if becoming a living embodiment of the array itself. Like a tree, growing around a wire fence.

He was really glad that he hadn't come here for a normal night hunt.

Looking closely, he could see that the entire clearing was filled with a singular plant, aside from some water rushes in the far corner that likely denoted a small pond. There were also some weathered ancient stone foundations of what may have been that ancient medicinal cultivator's homestead. And at the edges of the clearing, he could see the remnants of a low crumbling wall, sticking out of random pieces of dirt and partly overgrown by trees. The clearing a impossibly perfect circle, that aligned with the remnants of that ancient wall. Encroached only by that burned black earth, which was held at bay by the far newer looking stacked stones.

The herbs were beautiful. Velvety soft and intricate, even viewed from the distance of the clearing's edge, each stalk seemed perfectly balanced and symmetrical. Almost mathematical. A contrived and yet perfect creation. It sort of reminded him of the color of the pale-translucent flesh of a peeled lychee. But also like the soft moonlight of a warm summer's night. He could faintly smell it from here, unlike anything he had quite smelt before. But it had a fresh, rejuvenating quality that made him want to stand taller. Releasing some tense quality in his shoulders he hadn't even realized he'd been carrying.

It was far cleaner air than what they'd been breathing, following parallel to the path of the blight. The smell also had a faint bitter quality that one would associate with good medicine.

There were also no glowing flowers in sight.

Nie Huaisang sucked in a breath.

Half the qualities for what the clearing was named for, the reason that he'd come here, was missing.

Nie Zonghui glanced over at him from where he'd been studying the surrounding area for a sign of potential enemies, having noticed the footprints earlier the same time as Nie Huaisang. "What is it? I thought it empty, did you see something?"

Nie Huaisang shook his head. He could see the indentation across the field that led from this path out to the other side. Whoever had been here was already long gone.

Nie Zonghui hummed, "That, blight, had pressed into here too".

Nie Huaisang glanced over.

And indeed, it had. A blacked bulge had swept into the clearing from the forest, leaving a swath of withered husks in its wake, which had almost all crumbled to dust. The withering resentful energy seemed to only have been stopped due to the erected barrier, the one held aloft by the stacked stones.

He shivered. What if he had come too late, only to find an ash blackened field, rather than the promised lifesaving medicine? And that barrier was likely new, shaped around the blight as if a caretaker had discovered the problem and took preventative measures. This place was still maintained, by people unknown. And they could be back.

To keep such a thing a secret was difficult, even when one was willing. That's why rumours already existed about the clearing. And why they were still told.

And with this array, and now the barrier, the place was obviously maintained by cultivators. It wasn't just his own speculation anymore. Lists of possible people and groups scurried across his mind even as he turned to a-Jue's second in command.

"Quickly now, take as many flowering herbs as you can find and a few rooted plants to transplant. But whatever you do, don't harm that barrier." Nie Zonghui nodded.

Nie Huaisang knelt in the dirt, unheeding of the dirt staining his robes as he began making his own cuttings. Passing a small spade from his qiankun pouch to his cousin. The barrier had let them in no problem, it seemed more designed to keep out resentment and malevolent intent rather than people. And the even older ward stones at the edge of the clearing seemed aimed more towards animals, invasive plants, and other such pests. Whoever maintained this place obviously thought the maze array would do more than enough to protect it. Or maybe they didn't want to block access outright.

Hopefully they could grow their own cuttings in the healer's greenhouse in Qinghe. But either way they might need more in the future. He was careful not to knock any of the carefully stacked cairns.

It would also be somewhat disappointing if they were the ones to inadvertently wipe such a thing from existence (though he feared he might do it if pressed, if it would protect his own). Nie Huaisang eyed the blight warily from across the clearing before deciding to ignore it and making another cut. Da-ge was more important. He was what he needed to be investigating right now.

…

By the time they'd finished scouring the clearing for viable plants, the sun had shifted a few degrees higher in the sky. Making it just past noon.

Nie Huaisang paused where he was kneeling, using his embroidered sleeve to carelessly wipe at his brow. It had been cool beneath the trees, and where the sects had gathered at the forest's edge earlier that morn, at least there'd been a breeze. But here there was nothing but the sun beating down.

Everything within the field was perfectly still except for their own movements, with the clearing's edge blocking any potential of moving air. Even the small pond didn't ripple from the stray touch of an errant insect or carp.

It was a bit eerie.

Where they two, and the plants, were the only living things present. Humid and still like the interior of a greenhouse. The ancient wards humming beneath their skin, a sound just barely too distant to hear. Which may have been the point.

Everything quiet.

He suddenly got the strongest feeling of having stepped into a frozen fragment of a forgotten time. Like he was digging up someone else's bones or legacy. Like stepping on a grave.

Nie Huaisang pushed the thought aside. They had combed through the entirety of Shèngkāi de Yángguāng, carefully examining each individual plant, and yet had only found three blooming stalks. Two- hidden amongst the water rushes at the pond's edge, and One- a low growing specimen that had been hidden amongst its taller brethren where the ground had divot-ed near the old foundations.

"…I wonder who used to live here…"

Nie Huaisang glanced over to Nie Zonghui, who had stopped to take a sip from his canteen. Staring at the ruins of the long-dead homestead.

Nie Huaisang shrugged, going back to carefully digging up one of the plants.

"The locals have a legend. About a clearing deep in the woods. Hidden in the center of the forest. The 'only place where sunlight blooms'. As the story goes, once the entirety of Jin Wu Senlin had been a vast spiritual forest, full of blessings and miracles, where no one had to fear any danger lurking in the dark."

Nie Huaisang paused, carefully tracing a root through the soil. Unfortunately, the plants seemed to share a root system and he was afraid of damaging it. Sometimes spiritual plants could be fickle, and he didn't want to risk permanent harm in case they needed to come back here. They'd found one that had grown separate near the clearing's edge, but it had looked rather sickly, and not from the blight, which wasn't very promising. He was starting to think they might just have to attempt propagation from cuttings only.

Nie Huaisang wasn't sure which part of the plant was the most beneficial, though the flower buds glowing with spiritual energy seemed to be a strong indicator. And they'd only found twelve blooms.

He glanced up at Nie Zonghui.

"They, say the way the forest's mists light during the golden hour is the last remnants of this. The locals won't go into the forest except during this time. And even then, they won't go deep. Supposedly, the entire wood is cursed, with only this clearing," he gestured around, "being safe. Though it's also supposed to be impossible to find."

Nie Zonghui raised an eyebrow.

"And you just stumbled upon knowledge of this place?"

Nie Huaisang shrugged. Not looking at him.

"As the story goes, a fairy once lived at the center of the wood. Some say it was an 'old-man Cānglù' who could turn into a crane. Others that it was a half-human woman with a beauty so bewitching that she convinced a young lord's son of the town to fall in love with her, only to feed him to dark spirits – though a few say that he was double-crossed by a yao that he'd made ill advised dealings with as he tried to match her power and that's how he died. Though there's also another alternate version where the 'yao' was actually a human confidence trickster who fancied himself a 'master of magicks' and would hold such dealings like passing off mere marshgrass as medicinal wormwood. Which is something he's supposedly known for in the story. And that's how the lover is led to his death. Or falls from grace, is left to fall, whatever."

"Despicable." Nie Zonghui growled, as he picked through the rubble. He spat to the side.

Nie Huaisang had confiscated his cousin's spade a shichen into their collecting, citing him as a 'butcher of plants' and regulating him to searching and inspecting duties. Nie Zonghui toed at another rock.

Nie Huaisang nodded. Though the problems of their family were kept secret, they couldn't completely hide the effects, just the source. And people had eyes and noticed when members of the same family repeatedly died from Qi deviation. They'd had to deal with their fair share of charlatans knocking at their door and trying to pass off rubbish as a miracle cure.

The Nie had little mercy or patience for those who preyed upon the love for, and desperation of, the sick and injured.

Very little.

"Anyway, pretty much each story goes on to say that a 'fairy' in the 'magic' wood had the ability to cure the sick and injured. But they also go on to say that the healer was jealous of others and vain and covetous in their own power. So the valiant villagers confront the fairy of the clearing over the medicine. Angry that it wasn't as miraculous as they wanted or not as readily available as they wished. The details are a bit sketchy. There's a couple different versions, like I said."

Nie Huaisang looked up at him, "Of course they don't directly say that… since the fairy is the antagonist. But if you read between the lines, it's really the villagers who come off as the bad guys. But to the victors go the spoils and the telling of tales." He scoffed.

Nie Huaisang sighed, abandoning the roots he switched to cutting off the stem of the plant instead. He may be crazy – Wei-xiong might be starting to rub off on him – but…after digging around a bit…he was starting to think that parts of this root system was arrayed in well, an array pattern. Which could explain why that outlier stalks had seemed so sickly. Maybe they were overgrowth from spreading seed but weren't connected to whatever underlying structure that had grown the rest of it.

Hmmm, just like he wasn't about to pick up his saber, he wasn't about to stab a piece of metal into a centuries old living array – he didn't have a death wish. Really, that could only end badly. Even he knew that much. It wasn't worth it until they knew if any of this could help or not.

And he couldn't help Da-ge if he was dead.

He puffed some bangs out of the way, where'd they'd fallen in his face. He looked over at Nie Zonghui who was studying the rocks more closely.

"But all of them mention a fire. Sometimes the fairy dies in the flames, other times they make it out – sometimes with their 'wretched minions' at their side – sometimes the yao is a minion and sometimes he just lived nearby – but in every case they mention casualties."

Nie Zonghui knelt and picked up a piece of blackened crumbling masonry. He was standing at the center of the outline of the old house, likely where the people would have slept.

"These are scorch marked."

Nie Huaisang grimaced, nodding. "Yeah, well. When have you ever heard of an old happy fairy story?"

He finished his cutting and started packing his supplies away. Nie Zonghui shook his head as he made his way back to his cousin, dropping the stone.

"According to the story the fairy – usually the woman – curses the forest in revenge against the villagers. Leaving only the clearing as it was. All the sources of magic disappear, except for this clearing. Either to taunt them with its existence, or because they were 'vain' to the end and couldn't bear to destroy the creation of their life's work. But it lingers, as the only source of light in the dark wood. Forbidden to them. And the fairy is gone, and darkness and danger began to creep over the wood again. Remanded into legend."

Nie Zonghui looked over at Nie Huaisang.

"You think it was a cultivator. And once they disappeared, there was no one to keep the Malignant Beings at bay."

Nie Huaisang glanced up at the sky. It was getting into afternoon; they would need to be seen soon. Or people might ask questions.

"I don't know what I think. It's a sad story. Maybe people will learn from it, maybe they won't. Probably not since people generally suck, at least a little bit. But sometimes they surprise you."

"Well, that's depressing." Nie Zonghui took another swig from his canteen.

"Well, I am the poet and artist of the family."

"That's a stereotype".

Nie Huaisang grinned up at him. "Maybe I just don't look on the bright side of things." He nodded at a sole character that was carved into what might have once been the base of the compound's main gateway. Where one could barely see something inscribed. The word was worn almost smooth and almost indiscernible in the shadows of the clearing's edge. Whatever else might have been written there was long gone.

"Maybe that answers your question".

Nie Zonghui wandered over with an interested hum, bending forward to look, tracing his hands over the faded relief. "…Liang…"

He frowned backwards at Nie Huaisang. "That was a terrible pun."

Nie Huaisang opened Nayong and pretended to hide behind it, making his eyes wide and tremulous. Nie Zonghui snorted. Nie Huaisang snapped Nayong shut.

"Really though, we should probably leave. Whoever was here before," he gestured at the path through the clearing that was now crisscrossed by their own tracks. "Will probably be back to check on that." He flicked his hand over at the blight which they'd both been trying not to look at and had been very careful not to touch. Knowing well how badly such things can end.

"Call me lacking in initiative, but with the number of sects in this forest, plus who'sever the caretaker of this place – someone else knows about it and can take care of it." He shrugged, "That's not really my forte, and" he shuddered "after that water deer I don't really want Shengrong's beast core near it."

Nie Zonghui rested his hand on the pommel of his saber, instinctively reaching out to soothe the agitated saber-spirit.

Nie Zonghui frowned. "Normally sabers try to surge towards nearby resentment, but I could have swore Shengrong tried to lurch backwards in its sheathe when I got close earlier."

"Freaky. Case in point, and another reason I don't touch 'em. Now let's get the hell out of here before the owners come back and they attack us for poaching. I feel like I just robbed a shrine or something."

Nie Zonghui let out a low groan, sending a quick prayer to the heavens for good luck before following after his cousin. At the edge of the clearing he hesitated, before turning back and giving a brief respectful bow towards the clearing. Better to be cautious.

He sprinted after Nie Huaisang and they walked together in silence. Ironically using the blight to find the way away from the sun-soaked clearing. Leading them back the way they had come, until they had reached the corpse of the water deer once more.

As soon as they'd stepped back out under the trees, the darkness had been almost absolute once more. And he'd had to blink repeatedly to get the sunspots that were covering the entirety of his field of vision to vanish, so that he could see in the dark once more. The visibility was low, the mist seemed to have increased, and the silvery trunks would shift in and out of focus, playing tricks on your eyes. Making the shadows dance.

Next to the water deer's corpse, a young cultivator was kneeling with wide eyes. Barely visible even though he was dressed in white. A pair of silver vambraces barely glinting. Blurred and diffused by the rising mist.

Its resentful energy had almost completely dissipated by that point. It really didn't need any additional cleansing.

Nie Zonghui glanced at a-Sang before turning towards the other young man and called out, "Young Master! Are you alright?"

The young man looked up, almost as if rising from a bow. Around his eyes looked vaguely red and glistening – the mist was probably doing a weird effect to the glow of some reflected light and his eye makeup. Nie Huaisang blinked and it was gone.

"Yes, thank you." His voice came back slightly muffled by the mist, his voice sounding a little rough despite its polite tone, before turning away from them. He looked a bit shaken. Maybe he'd never seen a yao up close before.

Nie Huaisang shrugged, and they continued walking. Nie Zonghui glanced back at the young man in concern. He was old enough to be hunting on his own. But most sects worked in pairs. So would rogues when they could, and there would have been plenty opportunity at this hunt. And his clothes looked too nice for a rogue's, simple and tasteful though they were.

Strange.

The young man had pulled out a small spade and had begun to bury the water deer.

He glanced over at his cousin. Nie Huaisang shrugged again.

"To each his own. Maybe he's one of those sentimental types who loves animals."

"You love birds."

"Yeah, but I don't bury any carrion I come across in the woods."

With one last glance back, he shrugged as well. Within twenty paces the young man was gone from sight.

Nie Huaisang flipped Nayong back out onto his finger again. Letting it balance and watching it fall. Only this time he moved away from the direction it fell in. Leading them farther and farther from the 'true north', and closer towards the edge of the forest.

Nie Zonghui frowned, looking around. "The maze array is larger than expected. Bigger than I had realized."

Nie Huaisang nodded, also frowning. "Yeah, it's more obvious the closer to the clearing, but a lot subtler out here. Leading you in circles."

"Takes up much of the forest."

"Hmmm, so it does."

"…"

"…"

"This will probably effect the night hunt."

Nie Huaisang paused, Nayong mid-flip. He glanced around, eyes big.

"Oh, shit. They're probably fucked." He laughed, pressing Nayong to his lips.

Nie Zonghui grinned, though he also looked a touch concerned.

Nie Huaisang tapped his fan to his lips and shrugged. They were all trained professionals, and there were a lot of people here. How bad could it be, really?

"eh, they're probably fine." They kept walking.

...

A/N: Lol, the Jiang Cheng parallel...