Pain. Back, neck, shoulder, head, hip, couldn't move, hurts—why?—hurts, a face above, blurry, confusion, fear, no breath in lungs to call out, no strength. Everything wrong, wrong, hurts, it wasn't fair.

Wei Ying pushed the energy back and out, returning it to the blood; look this was your source, stay. Ugh. He hated the disorienting feeling it left him with. The fall had knocked the breath from the victim's lungs, maybe even left him with broken ribs, and injured him in multiple places. There wasn't any recognition though, no clear feeling toward the person who pushed him. It couldn't have been an accident. Not with the energy up there as well as down here, but it was a puzzle as to what could have done it.

Perhaps Lan Zhan had more luck.

"Anything?" he asked, stepping back onto solid ground. There was a small furrow between Lan Zhan's brows and that didn't indicate anything good.

"Mm," Lan Zhan hummed—a negative. "The spirit is present and aware, but insists that he was alone out here before he was pushed to his death."

"And he specifically said pushed?"

"Yes." The sounds of Inquiry faded away as Lan Zhan lifted his hand from the strings. "He thought he saw a face when he fell, but it was too poor of an angle to make out details. The pusher had long hair, however."

"Oh, well that narrows things down to, eh, half the residents," Wei Ying said sourly. "Was he part of a group or a solo visitor?"

"A group."

"Any women?"

"Yes."

"So potentially one of them could be the murderer."

Lan Zhan hummed, neither agreeing nor disagreeing; considering.

"I mean murder can be really, like, personal and all." When it was the living doing the killing at any rate. The dead were a lot less choosy about who they took their anger out on.

"We should see the body."

Ugh, more blood. Well, if he wanted to avoid corpses, being a cultivator was a poor career choice. Still, it never got any less gross. And annoying. …Okay, maybe his reactions to dead bodies weren't on par with the average person's. Most people would lead with screaming, not annoyance.

"Lead on," Wei Ying said with a heavy sigh.

He had a feeling he wasn't going to get any more research done for a while.

*o*o*

Conan had picked through his meal—or at least as much as he was willing to eat—when the bell started ringing. With the muffled silence of the dining hall only interrupted by the sounds of moving chopsticks, the sound carried through the whole room with an ominous, low reverberation.

Conan didn't have much time to wonder what it was before two people came through the door, white robes swaying behind them as they walked so fast it skimmed the rule against running.

They went straight for the head table.

Conan didn't like where this was going. A guest missing, an alarm bell ringing, and people on the edge of serious worry? Clearly something had gone wrong, and Conan was willing to bet it involved the missing person.

A low murmur broke out among the tables as the bell kept ringing. Conan craned his neck, but he couldn't see the expressions on the people at the head table. What he did see was two more people standing abruptly.

"Attention!" a woman in white robes said. She wasn't shouting, but her voice carried through the whole hall, smothering the muttering and easily heard above the bell. "There has been an incident and we must ask that all visitors return to their guest dormitories." It was said in English, followed by Mandarin, likely because it was aimed at the wide range of guests. "Please follow a disciple back to your rooms. If you have not finished your meal, you may request further sustenance to be eaten in your rooms."

"Well, this is really turning out to be a shit show," Mouri grumbled under his breath.

"Tou-san," Ran chided.

"What? There's a billion rules, the food is awful, the rooms are awful, and now we're going to be locked in them?"

"We're not going to be locked in, they want to make sure everyone is accounted for," Ran said reasonably.

"For a week getaway, it sure resembles a prison," Mouri said as they let themselves be herded into the line of people.

Some distance behind them, Conan could see the people he was watching earlier approaching one of the robed people, concern on their faces.

Clearly they also worried that their missing friend was related to the alarm. That, or they were worried he'd get separated. It was too far away to make out what was being said, never mind that it was probably in Mandarin.

"Please, follow me," one of the residents said, presumably to the group at large. Or maybe they were dividing out by groups or housing?

Conan didn't think too hard on that, eyes searching for clues on what might have happened. There were people everywhere, moving like an ant colony that had been poked with a stick and yet somehow still moving with calm purpose instead of running like one would expect in an emergency. The ones in white seemed to move in pairs, and that would make sense for a patrol of some sort looking for a potentially unknown threat. Everyone had backup.

There was so much movement, Conan almost missed a streak on the ground, almost lost in the footprints and dust. Blood. Not a lot of blood, but definitely blood that had been stepped in, moving toward… He squinted at the building in the distance. Not the kitchens or dining hall, naturally.

The compound's map was a vague picture in his head. Infirmary? He thought it was the right direction for it, and if someone was dead or injured, it would be the logical place to go.

Conan let himself drop back, distance widening between him and the Mouris. No one seemed to notice. They all had their tasks to carry out or were also guests moving toward different locations. He drifted back. Back more, in the direction of the probable infirmary. No one stopped him.

Conan tucked into the shadow of a building and moved as fast as he could without outright running because running would probably make him noticed instantly.

Nothing to see here, just an insignificant child…

There was more blood, drops really, a smudge here or there, but this was Conan's element. As two residents hurried by, he kept in the bushes until he was close to the infirmary door. There; a smudge of blood at the opening where someone had touched it with bloodied hands.

Conan slid the door open just enough to slip inside.

The front room was empty, just a counter and a few seats and a wall full of tiny drawers with handwritten labels on them. There was a door behind the counter, and another hallway branching off from the reception room. Down the hallway were voices, serious-toned.

He crept closer.

There wasn't anywhere to hide in the building, definitely not in the minimalistic hallway, but if the people talking were too busy with the victim, then they wouldn't have any reason to look out and see him. Conan crept to the doorway of some sort of exam room, the door just open a crack.

The voices were clear here, but of course Conan couldn't make head or tails of what was being said. He knew maybe twenty Mandarin phrases at most, and they might not even be the same dialect as what people here used.

He let a silent breath filter through his teeth, annoyed. He couldn't see the victim from here, and he couldn't get anything from the conversation beyond that no one in that room sounded happy. There had to be some way for him to get a better vantage point…

Up toward the top of the rooms was a lattice work, enough to ensure a level of privacy but also let air flow through the building. A quick glance, and yes, no one in the room next door. Conan heaved a chair on top of the cot near the adjoining wall. It wasn't exactly a steady situation, but needs must.

Conan clambered to the top and found himself still just a bit too short to see to the other side.

With a mental deluge of swearing, he had the brilliant idea of jumping the last few centimeters to hook his fingers through the lattice and drag himself up enough to view.

Ow. Both uncomfortable, and was going to be difficult to get down from, but he could see into the other room. There were three men standing around a male corpse, the body laid out on an exam table. The man looked like he died from a head wound, between the amount of blood congealing around his head and the fact that the back of his clothes seemed to be drenched in it. Head wounds bled a lot, quickly. There were other injuries too. Blood on his fingers, leg, maybe more on the man's back, but impossible to see without close examination.

A head wound and scraped hands. That could easily be from fighting someone off, but it was a lot more likely to be from a fall. A fall didn't rule out murder. With Conan's luck it was pretty much guaranteed to be murder, but he could hope that it wasn't.

His focus was drawn back to the room at large when someone pulled a stringed instrument from… somewhere. It was some kind of qin. How had he missed such a large instrument? Why was there such a large instrument? As he watched, the men grew silent as the musician began to play. It almost… it almost looked like some of the notes were playing by themselves.

Conan squinted, trying to figure out the trick, but as he tried to pull himself up just a bit closer to the lattice—a few centimeters could make all the difference—his foot braced against the wall slipped.

"Sh—" He cut himself off, clinging with his fingertips as his hands suddenly took his full weight. Ow! The floor was a lot further away when hanging near the ceiling from a bit of carved wood. If he was any heavier, the lattice probably would have broken already.

Okay. Okay, he could do this. He just. Had to get a bit away to a clear patch of floor and drop. Or drop on the cot and hope it didn't collapse or send the chair flying. …He knew he should have brought his suspenders. Those would be really useful right now.

By some shred of luck, the people on the other side of the wall didn't seem to have noticed him slipping. The music kept playing with the weird serious intensity about it. If Conan could just get down, no one would be the wiser…

Slowly, he moved his hands a bit to the right. His arms were already aching, but this was fine. Conan still had the situation under control. Just half a meter more…

He slipped. Of course he slipped, he was in an annoying child body with a child's annoying limitations, and Conan hated this situation so freaking much.

Conan clenched his eyes closed as his fingers lost their battle with the lattice, bracing for a crash, pain, the inevitable of everyone in the next room finding him and tossing him out of the compound before he could even get into solving the case.

Instead, two hands caught his middle.

"Kid, you are definitely not supposed to be here."

Conan opened his eyes and looked up to see the man from the library. Despite the censure of his words, he didn't actually look upset about finding

Conan scaling the walls to spy on people. The person behind him, on the other hand, had a scowl that could peel paint.

"Eavesdropping is not allowed," the second man said in clipped English.

"Lan Zhan. Chill, he's like, eight tops."

Conan really hated how being physically a kid made absolutely no one take him seriously. But then again, he was less likely to get in trouble if he played the little kid card. He let his eyes go wide and repentant. "I'm almost seven," he said.

"See, practically a baby."

Okay that was a little too demeaning. "I'm not a baby!"

Lan Zhan said something in Mandarin. The man still holding Conan by his armpits responded in English. "Okay but the baby Lans are exceptions to the rule. Except for Lan Jingyi. He gets what it's like to be a child."

"Wei Ying," Lan Zhan said in a tone of someone long-suffering but fond.

"Right, right." Wei Ying swung Conan around and set him on the table so fast that Conan felt dizzy. "So. What made a kid like you spy on a bunch of old guys in a medical room?"

"Uh." No matter how many times he got put on the spot, it never really got easier to come up with things on the fly. And it's not like he could say he heard about this on TV. "I saw people going this direction when the alarm happened," he said, stretching truth into his story because it always helped to give it a bit of backbone. "And there was blood on the ground and people at dinner were worried about their friend, and I thought I could find out if it was him so they'd worry less."

Wei Ying gave him a skeptical once-over. "And you jumped from a few drops of blood to deciding that it had to be from their missing friend and that the people in this direction were, what, covering it up? Kid, that would be really weird."

"That sort of thing happens a lot," Conan said truthfully.

"People covering up dead bodies?"

"Yes. Or making dead bodies."

Wei Ying stared, eyebrows going up, before glancing over his shoulder like his friend might have some sort of insight. Lan Zhan's face was still set in a cold, judgmental stare, so Conan wasn't sure if there was any actual communication going on there, or if Wei Ying was doing an equivalent of 'do you see this?' at him.

"Hey Lan Zhan," Wei Ying said, "I think this kid might be cursed. Because none of that is normal. Do you know how many dead bodies a person outside of hospitals and funeral homes run into in a year? Because the answer is none. Little kids in particular should not be running into corpses on the regular."

"I live with a detective," Conan said.

"He takes you with him to investigate homicides?" Wei Ying said, looking horrified.

"Er." Conan made his eyes go wider and tried to channel cute, child-y vibes. "He doesn't try to, but a lot of the time people just… die."

"On cases."

Conan nodded.

Wei Ying said something to Lan Zhan in Mandarin. Conan couldn't parse the words, but the tone made it clear he was still stuck on the whole cursed thing. People were so superstitious. First the police back home, now some random people at a Chinese temple-resort? (Conan still wasn't sure how to refer to this place and its oddities.) Yes, he ran into a lot of bodies, but it wasn't that weird. Running into violent crimes was part of why it had been important to live with Mouri in the first place…

"Right," Wei Ying said, making Conan's attention snap back to him. "So you're going to leave the people in the next room to do their thing, and we're going to get you back to your family."

"But I didn't get a chance to check on how the man was d—"

"He is dead," Lan Zhan said, blunt and clipped and a bit different in accent than Wei Ying speaking English. His face was expressionless.

"You're sure?"

"Ah, very sure," Wei Ying said. "No one's losing that much blood and living. Maybe hold off on telling his friends that though. There's an investigation going on."

Conan caught the implications. "You think they had something to do with it?"

"Eh? Well, maybe? But honestly, we don't need people panicking over a death before we have all the facts."

Conan grimaced, knowing exactly the level of chaos several dozen panicking people could produce. "Someone has to talk to them about something though. The longer their friend is missing, the more they're going to get scared. And to know if they did it."

"You're stuck on one of them doing it, huh?"

"Well," Conan shrugged, "most murders are done by people close to the victim. Unless it's an assassin or a stalker."

Wei Ying pinched the bridge of his nose. "Mm, really want to talk to your guardian, kiddo. Do they even know where you are? Didn't think so." Wei Ying sighed. "Lan Zhan."

"Mm, time to return to the guest rooms," Lan Zhan said.

"Wait!" Conan said. He scrambled off the table. "I don't even know how he died yet!"

"Look, I'm only telling you this so you stop snooping," Wei Ying said squatting to be closer to Conan's eye level. While he appreciated the chance to look someone in the eye without craning his neck, it also felt demeaning. Conan frowned at him. Behind them, Lan Zhan made an unhappy sound. "Lan Zhan, he was in the library with me when this guy would have died. Anyway. That guy? Died falling from a cliff. So there, curiosity satisfied, go find your designated adult."

"I'm not helpless," Conan protested automatically, though he let himself be pushed toward the door. His mind whirled over the new information, matching the injuries he'd made out on the corpse to the cause of death. Very probable that it was the truth. Next door, the music stopped and

Wei Ying all but herded him and Lan Zhan out of the room.

"I'll handle things here, take the kiddo to his people."

"I have a name!" Conan protested.

"That's nice."

Conan wrinkled his nose as Wei Ying leaned in quick to press a kiss against Lan Zhan's face. PDA? Really? And kissing openly in China? Apparently with all those rules, somehow public displays of affection and homosexuality weren't included. Nice to know.

"Bye-bye," Wei Ying said with a cheery wave.

Then Lan Zhan's hand closed over Conan's shoulder and pushed him firmly toward the exit, leaving Conan no choice but to walk away from this particular mystery.

*o*

He half expected to get a lecture the moment Wei Ying was gone, but instead Lan Zhan remained intimidatingly silent. Conan shot him a few uncertain glances, not quite sure what to make of him. If his boyfriend(?) was dressed casually, Lan Zhan was the exact opposite. He looked like one of those people who rarely had a hair out of place. Even his clothing was neat and stain-free despite being white robes and being in the middle of nowhere up a mountain. Add to that the eerie lack of expression now that he was no longer scowling, he could easily pass for a model or something. Someone intimidating and unapproachable.

It wouldn't be odd to picture him leading a meditation circle or something…

Conan wasn't going to get away from him though, not when Lan Zhan kept one hand on his shoulder the entire time like he was just waiting for Conan to try and run off again. Which was fair. Conan would absolutely hare off after anything that popped up that looked like a clue.

The rush of people from earlier were gone, just two pairs of white-robed people patrolling the main roadway between the buildings.

They had swords.

Conan would have zeroed in on that more except there was a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye. Kudo Shinichi's face was there, clear as day under the edge of one of the guest quarters' buildings. Conan stopped dead, barely feeling Lan Zhan's fingers tighten their grip. "You!" he said, too loud in the silent courtyard.

'Shinichi' looked up, saw Conan, and paled before pasting over the self-assured confidence that Conan used to have before everything fell apart.

"Yo! If it isn't the little detective," he said cheerfully.

Conan wiggled free from Lan Zhan, ignoring the sound of disapproval behind him as he stormed forward. "What the hell are you doing here?" he hissed in Japanese. "And with that face! I told you not to wear that face!" It wasn't even as good a job as usual. Kid—because this could only be Kaitou Kid—looked like a Shinichi who'd been given a noogie while wearing hair gel. "Are you stalking me?"

"I had no idea you were here, Tantei-kun, but that does explain why everything's gone bellies up. Your poor karma strikes again." Kid snorted as Conan scowled.

Conan didn't even have his soccer ball belt on right now, but he could probably wipe the grin off Kid's face if he kicked him in the shin.

"Mr. Kuroba," Lan Zhan said behind Conan—Conan caught a flinch Kid couldn't quite hold in—recapturing Conan's shoulder firmly. "You should not be out of your room. It is not safe for guests to wander at the moment."

Kuroba, huh? Where did Conan know that name from…?

"Ah, sorry Mr. Lan," Kid said with a little bob that barely counted as a bow. "I thought perhaps I could offer my assistance."

"None that you could provide are currently needed."

What help? Stealing something? Well, no, Kid wasn't useless at a murder investigation, but he was no detective. Some flashy sleight of hand wasn't going to be much use in finding out who pushed a man from a cliff though. Wait. Sleight of hand… "Are you a Kuroba Toichi fanboy?" Conan blurted in Japanese, remembering the hours his mother had gushed about his skills and abused the disguise skills the man had taught her.

Actually, the more he thought about it, the more sense it made. Kid's style had a lot similar to what Conan remembered from the couple of performances he'd been dragged to. "You are, aren't you? You're even copying his stage presence."

Kid flushed, paled, flushed again, like he couldn't decide if he was mortified, angry, or who knew what behind that grit-toothed smile.

"Mr. Kuroba Kaito?" Lan Zhan cut in, clearly not amused by being ignored, but Conan could care less.

"Wow. That's an awful pun. What happened to Doito Katsuki?" Conan could almost forget to be angry about Kid wearing his face with all this joke fodder to hold over him. "You really chose to have a play on 'thief' for your first name?"

"Please shut up."

Lan Zhan huffed. "I see you both know each other and are equally bad at doing what you are told," he said coldly.

"Ahaaaa." Kid rubbed the back of his head. It made the hair even more of a mess. "Sorry, sorry, I really was going to offer my help. And I didn't even know my…cousin…was here."

Cousin. Well, they did look related for obvious reasons. Of course 'Conan' looked like 'Shinichi'. "I thought Shinichi-nii-san was still busy with a case in Japan!" Conan chirped in English.

Too brightly, because both men side-eyed him.

"Well, Conan-kun, I was following a lead." Lan Zhan frowned like something in that explanation didn't match what reason Kid had given to be there. Kid turned to Lan Zhan. "Sorry my cousin is being a nosy brat. He can't help it."

Conan pointedly kicked him in the shin, feeling a prick of satisfaction as Kid cut off a hiss of pain. "You're just as nosy," Conan said with his innocent-little-kid smile on.

"I am going to flirt with Mouri-chan for that," Kid hissed in Japanese.

"Try it. I can kick rocks with just as much accuracy as a ball, and you don't have to have a big target for me to hit you where it hurts most," Conan shot back, still smiling. Also in Japanese because he wasn't stupid.

Lan Zhan looked between them before visibly deciding he didn't want to have anything to do with whatever tension was going on between them.

"Mr. Kuroba, please return to you room. I am taking…"

"Edogawa Conan," Conan said because he realized he never gave them his name.

"Mr. Edogawa back to his guardians."

"Ah, maybe I'll go stay with them," Kid said.

Lan Zhan sighed, done with both of them. "Wherever you go, please stay there until someone comes by to inform you it is safe to leave your rooms."

"Right, right!" Kid said with a laidback grin that didn't fit quite right on 'Shinichi's face. Too wide, a bit too round in the cheeks. Kid's impersonations weren't always flawless it seemed. "We'll do our best to keep out of trouble."

Lan Zhan said something under his breath in Mandarin. Conan was willing to bet it was some variation of "I highly doubt that." Then, hand coming down on Conan's shoulder again, they were herded the rest of the way toward Conan's room.

Kid, now that his actions were decided on, strolled casually like he didn't have a care in the world. What was he here to steal? Or was there even anything to take? The place was so minimalistic. That didn't mean there couldn't be a relic of some sort set with a hefty gem; places with history often had objects with a lot of value. Still, it seemed like a lot to come all the way to China. Kid had almost exclusively stuck with Japan since his return from an eight-year hiatus.

"So," Kid said to Conan in Japanese, as casual as if they were just catching up, "what's the situation?"

"Why should I tell you?"

"Hmm, maybe because I've helped before in the past? I'm guessing it's a murder, since the only time I run into dead bodies seems to be when you're nearby."

Conan scowled. "If you start up about being cursed, I'm going to kick you where it hurts."

"Oh ho?" Kid lifted an eyebrow, grinning. "Is that what you're doing here?"

"What?"

"Seeking a cure for a curse?"

Conan frowned, squinting up at Kid's ever-masked face. "Curses aren't real. I'm here because Mouri won a sketchy trip to China from a shop by the race tracks."

Kid nodded slowly. "Huh. I could see someone thinking it was Mouri Kogoro who was cursed, not you, since most people don't know how often you run into bodies even when he isn't around."

"I'm not cursed! I just—"

"Attract murderers and corpses," Kid finished. "I never ran into dead people before you. Now there's murderers and corpses all over these days."

"Oh, and none of that is related to you being a criminal," Conan said scathingly.

"For your information, the number of times a person pointed a gun at me before I met you could be counted on one hand."

"Really?" That didn't feel like it was right. Somehow it seemed like Kid surely had to have had police aim at him, if not a criminal.

"Yes," Kid said emphatically. "Because having guns pointed at you isn't normal. The average person in Japan neither runs into murder victims nor rogue gunmen. You're just a statistical outlier."

Conan kicked at Kid's ankles, but was rudely dodged. Lan Zhan's hand on his shoulder kept him from following. Conan hated Kid sometimes. Bad enough he wore Shinichi's face, he had to mock him too.

"No fighting in the Cloud Recesses," Lan Zhan said in a firm tone.

"It's play fighting," Conan lied.

"Tell that to my bruises," Kid muttered under his breath.

"We are here," Lan Zhan said as they reached one of the guest buildings. Conan had missed their arrival with how the few guest housing buildings looked identical. "Return to your room and stay there, please." He pushed Conan firmly toward the door. "You as well, Mr. Kuroba."

"Of course," Kid said with a smile, catching Conan's shoulder before he could squirm away. "Good luck with your investigation." With a little half-bow, Kid pushed Conan through the door and shut it behind them.

A frowning resident of the Cloud Recesses stood just to the side of the door.

Kid gave her a reassuring grin, still shoving Conan along.

"Stop pushing!"

"Start walking then," Kid said lightly. "Which door is yours?"

"Toward the end," Conan said unhappily. "But I don't want you wearing that face. How are you going to explain Kudo Shinichi being here in China?"

"Maybe he won a mysterious prize like your snoozing detective," Kid said. They ducked into a side hallway, all the doors closed, and no one in view. "So, is there a body?"

"Yes," Conan said sourly. "One body."

"Mm, one so far, got it."

"You're going to jinx us."

"I thought you didn't believe in superstition?" Kid tilted his head to the side, a smirk that was too wide for Shinichi's face on his lips.

Smug asshole, Conan thought. "Your face," he said demandingly.

"I could change it," Kid said, "but—" He held up a finger to stop Conan's protest before it could even start. "But, this is the current face that people here are aware of me as, and I would rather not have a twitchy, paranoid disciple attacking me just because I'm the one face that isn't on the guest list."

Conan rolled his eyes. "There's dozens of people here. They're not going to notice one—"

"Tantei-kun. They'll notice." Kid was dead serious. Conan had seen him serious before, even if it seemed like Kid's first instinct at any given moment was to deflect or charm anyone before him. "It may not seem like it, but they are very serious about security here, and they keep track of who is and isn't allowed to be here at any given moment to an obsessive degree. I am not getting attacked or kicked out just to make you feel better."

Yet again, Conan wondered what the hell sort of place this was. "They're an ascetic resort," he grumbled. "What do they need that level of security? Is there some kind of cover-up going on here?" Actually, that was entirely probable. That library could have held who knew what sort of information and valuables. Let alone the myriad of other buildings and kilometers of mountain land.

Kid snorted. "There's nothing illegal going on, but they do like their secrets. It's closer to a religious cult than anything else."

"Rule worshippers?" Conan joked even as he turned the thought over in his head. Some sort of religious group would make sense with the remote location, the whole robe thing, the focus on practically monastic living, and even the large collection of old books. It fit, but it wasn't a pleasant concept. If it was a cult, then who knew what sort of things they did behind the scenes? They could even be responsible for the death. Perhaps not though, with how they were reacting…

Kid laughed. "Ugh, yeah there are way too many rules. It makes me want to break as many as possible in a spectacular manner before they boot me out of this place."

"Such a pity you have to behave or you won't get what you came here for."

"Exactly."

"That was sarcasm."

"And I'm being entirely serious," Kid retorted. His expressions were a lot more fluid than usual, Conan noted. More fluid than Shinichi's generally were, almost like he'd only taken Shinichi's face as a template and added a few changes for personal taste.

Conan still hated it. "I'm not backing down about your face."

Kid rolled his eyes so hard his head practically moved with them. "I'm not changing it. I don't even look that much like Kudo Shinichi at the moment. This face is clearly far more handsome."

"Excuse me?" Conan's eyes narrowed. A bit rounder face, a wider smile and eyes that smiled a bit easier were not huge differences. Nor was hair with permanent bedhead. Perhaps the eye color was a bit darker, but perfectly matching eye color was hard; Kid probably used contacts and the shade of his natural eye color would affect the end result. Even with those small differences, Conan couldn't say that Kid was more attractive than Shinichi's features. Also, he was kind of insulted that Kid would suggest otherwise.

"Not that Kudo Shinichi is bad for the eyes, but he's just not as charismatic," Kid continued, "and charisma adds to anyone's looks."

"Fuck you."

"You know, I'm pretty sure swearing is against the ru—ow."

Conan had no regrets kicking Kid once again. It finally wiped the damn smugness off his face.

"A little defensive of your 'cousin' there, Edogawa," Kid grumbled. He rubbed at his shin where there had to be quite a few bruises starting. "Look, I am not changing my face, but I won't use Kudo's name either. I'm just Kuroba Kaito, Japanese high school student visiting for a personal research project."

"Is that how you're spinning it."

Kid shrugged, stepping back out into the hall. Conan wanted to drag him back, but he really had been gone long enough that Ran was sure to be worried. "I am here for a personal research project. It's just not academic in the least."

"Because it's illegal."

"Research isn't."

Semantics. Conan would keep arguing, but they were at the correct door. Instead, he knocked before the door was yanked open from the inside like someone on the other end was just waiting to open it.

"Conan-kun!" Ran said, furious and worried as she yanked him into a hug. "I was so worried! Don't wander off like that!"

"Ah, I just wanted to know what was going on!" Conan said, wiggling in her grip. He liked her hugs. Really. But between Kid watching and the ever-present guilt being squashed to her chest brought, now was not one of the moments to enjoy it. "I didn't mean to get separated."

Ran pulled back, seeing right through him. She knew him too well, Conan and Shinichi both, to believe that he hadn't intentionally ran in a direction with trouble.

"Don't make excuses; you always end up right—in… the middle… Shinichi?" Ran stared over Conan at where Kid stood, his hands in his pockets, watching them interact like it was a mildly interesting TV show.

"Kudo?" Mouri's voice growled from inside the room. "If that brat is here-"

Conan flinched as Mouri appeared behind Ran, full angry-father mode.

Kid, being the asshole that he was, blinked at them like he'd never heard the name Kudo Shinichi in his life. "Who, me? Oh, no, I'm Kaito. Kuroba Kaito." He did a quick twist of his wrist, making a paper flower appear in his hand and offering it to Ran. "Amateur magic enthusiast. Pleasure to meet you. I was just escorting this guy home." He patted Conan on the head with his free hand and Conan swatted his touch away.

Mouri glowered as Ran accepted the flower hesitantly. Her eyes flicked across Kid's face, no doubt spotting all the little details that Conan had in how Kid's face differed from Shinichi's.

"Thank you?" Ran said, more of a question than an actual thanks.

"And you must be this child's family?" Kid said like this was a perfectly normal situation and meeting them for the first time.

"He's just a freeloader," Mouri said, looking Kid over like he was searching for a trick. Like Kid was a trap.

Honestly, it would have been admirable instinct except that Conan knew it was only motivated by dislike for Shinichi.

"A doppelganger?" Ran said with a frown at her flower.

"He's never met Shinichi-nii-san," Conan piped up in his 'little-kid' voice. "It's so funny that they look alike!"

"Funny," Mouri said flatly. "Right. Well, thanks for bringing back the troublemaker. Better get back to being stuck in a room with absolutely nothing to do."

"Ah." Kid somehow made himself look believably abashed and apologetic, and just a bit shy. It was such a weird look on him that Conan couldn't help staring. "I was hoping… Ah, I was told not to go back out, and I was hoping I might be able to have some company until we're allowed out. I have a pack of cards?" he offered, pulling one from his pocket. "It would give us something to do?"

Mouri looked at the cards, looked at Kid's too-familiar face, and sighed. "Whatever. Better than staring at the walls."

Conan was sure he was the only one that saw the flicker of smugness in Kid's smile. Sadly, there wasn't a reason to add to Kid's shin bruises as Ran stepped back to let them inside. Conan resigned himself to having to put up with a phantom thief for the near future.

*O*O*

Wei Ying rubbed at his temples. So, they had something killing people, an unhappy dead guy, and a potentially cursed child in the mix. He'd thought the kid was a little weird in the library, but there was 'strange child' syndrome and there was 'well beyond the realm of normal' and they had to be pretty far past normal for a child under ten to be so calm after seeing a dead body. No, not just calm. Curious, driven, and intent. He had caught the kid literally climbing the walls after all.

Wei Ying didn't have a ton of experience with children. Just some visits with Shijie and adorably grumpy Jin Ling, who was pre-verbal, and every few months seeing Wen Yuan when he visited Wen Qing and Wen Ning. Wen Yuan was only three, ridiculously easygoing, and usually well behaved. And okay, Wei Ying had a bit of experience working with younger cultivators, both at Cloud Recesses and before with the Jiangs, but that was closer to pre-teen age, not barely-school-age.

Even without any real experience with that age group, he knew the kid definitely wasn't responding like a child should. Wei Ying would know how a kid responded to trauma. He'd lived trauma around that age.

Ugh.

Too many problems, not enough answers.

There'd been an energy for a moment back there, right before he caught the kid… Not quite resentful, not quite spiritual, something strange and yet not strange at all in a way he didn't have a definition for yet.

In the next room, the music was petering away. Wei Ying shook his head and moved toward the door.

The cultivators playing were people he should probably know the names of by now. Because he was terrible with names and not really allowed to go to sect meetings, Wei Ying had never really figured out who they were other than only one of them actually had the surname "Lan." He pasted on a smile as heads jerked in his direction. "Ah, looks like you've been busy here."

"Wei Ying," Lan Qiren said from the corner, looking like he wanted to jump right into a lecture, but didn't have a topic quite yet. He seemed to always think the worst of Wei Ying. It wasn't Wei Ying's fault that his nephew fell in love with the most morally dubious cultivator currently still active. (Xue Yang, stripped of his cultivation and in prison didn't count no matter how creepy he was.)

Because he was never going to get the man's approval, Wei Ying had long stopped bothering to try, preferring to be himself. Lan Zhan loved him; that was enough. Wei Ying ignored the whole group and strode over to the body.

It was pale, still stained with blood, eyes the awful glassy filmy look that the dead had, disconcertingly half open. The man had guest robes on, and clearly had a painful time of it as he died. Lots of injuries. Not a great way to go. "So, what does the corpse know?"

"For the last time," Lan Qiren said, "Inquiry speaks to spirits, not corpses—"

"Yeah, yeah, but this guy isn't whole. There were bits of spirit at the cliff too." Violent deaths and all. He would pull together eventually, either becoming a resentful ghost, or passing on, but for now he was a bit of a mess, physically and spiritually.

One of the Lan made an interested sound, but Lan Qiren shot him a frown. "We had gathered that some parts might be missing. He seems to be confused about why he was out there alone in the first place."

"Really?" The spirit hadn't felt confused. Maybe Wei Ying's side got the bits with that memory. "What about what pushed him? The scraps of him at the site mostly just remembered dying."

"What method did you—"

"We're looking into the potential murder of a guest; do my methods really matter that much at the moment?" Wei Ying said lightly. He looked at the corpse's hands. The nails were torn, and there was a cut on one wrist, probably where the blood at the top of the cliff came from. The resentment on the body was the same desperation-tinged feeling as the bottom of the cliff; he hadn't wanted to die and was unhappy about it.

Lan Qiren's lips thinned. "The man's name is Shen Ming, and he was part of a group of students here for a week of rest to purge their bodies of stress from their studies." Wei Wuxian took in the name and almost immediately forgot it. Murder victim a student here with friends, important info memorized. "He did not get a clear view of what killed him, but he is sure that he was pushed."

"Yeah, he's pretty firm about that." Wei Ying tried to find anything out of place on the body. Injuries aside, he was wearing one of the plain guest robes that the Cloud Recesses loaned to guests that stayed more than a weekend. Nothing stood out. Nothing on him that seemed like it would attract a vengeful ghost or any other sort of spirit. "He saw something while he was dying. A person with long hair up above, but it seems likely it was a ghost with the traces of resentment and the lack of physical evidence of its presence besides, well, the victim."

"Our wards should keep that sort of spirit out." Lan Qiren's frown had gone concerned. Wei Ying felt a twinge of sympathy, because if the wards weren't working right, they would have to go all around the mountain shoring up weak points. They had children here; they couldn't take chances with their lives.

He shifted from foot to foot. "You know, I could…with a few talismans…"

Lan Qiren held up a hand, frown etched deeper in his brow. "Not yet. If our methods fail, then you may try yours, but it would be preferable to rely on orthodox cultivation methods."

"Right." Wei Ying sighed. No one ever wanted to use his inventions, not even the ones that weren't actively using resentful energy. "I could at least add more wards to the guest quarters? All one hundred percent orthodox, Lan approved talismans, I swear."

"Hm. That would be appreciated," Lan Qiren said, looking like it was painful to express any kind of gratitude in Wei Ying's direction.

"Awesome, I'll get on that." While leaving Lan disciples to try and find a spirit that shouldn't have been able to get in here in the first place. Ugh. It would be so much easier if he could lay down some evil attracting talismans. While it wasn't a guarantee of luring the spirit out, it was a lot more likely to find it than combing through bushes in the woods around them. "One more thing; what are we telling the group he was with?"

He got a grimace in response and a weary pinch to the bridge of Lan Qiren's nose. "While it would be better for the investigation to withhold anything about what happened, for legal reasons, we're going to have to disclose that he's dead. Call it an accident for the moment."

"At least until we have a face to pin the attack on. Er, if the group is involved."

"They might be. And they might be this spirit's next victims if they weren't directing it to kill their companion. Now I need to go talk to the sect lawyer because this is going to be a mess when it gets out."

Wei Ying winced. Boy was he glad that it wasn't his job to do that. He also hoped that no one in the cultivation world would take this to be somehow his fault. Get blacklisted once, and everyone looked at you funny for anything that went wrong around you. "Good luck with that. I'll just…" Wei Ying motioned at the body.

"Don't do anything questionable to the body," Lan Qiren said wearily, but it was testament to how stressed he was that that was the only thing he said before leaving.

Which left Wei Ying, a corpse, and a couple higher ups in the sect. the cultivators eyed him like they were anticipating having to chuck him out of the room. Wei Ying ignored then because he tried to give judgmental assholes as little of his attention as possible. For his mental health.

The corpse was, well, very dead. And bloody. A congealing bloody mess going into rigor mortis. The worst stage of a corpse before the decomposition kicked in. (Okay, no, the failure of bodily functions was up there in worst stages and—actually maybe he wasn't going to think about all the grossness that happened when a person died.)

More for show than actually expecting to find anything, Wei Ying carefully shifted folds of cloth, looking for any objects that the man might have been carrying. Someone scoffed behind him, but Wei Ying ignored them. The resentment from a murdered body was pretty strong. An inactive object could hold resentment and be masked by the body's energy. He opened the front of the robes and, "Oh, hey." There was a necklace. A piece of heavy thread knotted at the back, and only a single wooden bead strung to it.

Traces of resentment clung to the bead.

Wei Ying maneuvered the thread over the victim's head. He let the bead dangle, not touching it just yet because he had some sense no matter what Jiang Cheng used to say. His brother was biased. "This is the sort of thing you guys were supposed to be looking for," Wei Ying said to the room at large.

"Oh, go do your heretical cultivation somewhere else," the person who scoffed before said.

Wei Ying rolled his eyes. "Sure. I'll go away right when you actually need me." The person started saying something else, but Wei Ying went back to ignoring them. The bead was about as big around as his thumbnail, smooth and glossy like it had been lacquered not too long ago. Nothing carved or written on it. No obvious reason to hold resentment. Well—besides the fact that a murder victim had been holding it. Wei Ying was sure that this resentment was a bit different from the corpse's though. He was sensitive to that kind of thing.

Anger, not fear and desperation. Something bitter mixed in. Regret, maybe, or betrayal. The bead wasn't cursed, but it might have been possessed at some point. He poked it with a cautious finger, barely brushing the surface before pulling his hand away. Nothing. "Well, that's disappointing."

Whatever it had been, it was drained now.

He looped the thread around the corpse's wrist. It was a bad idea to steal something from someone who died violently after all.

"What's happening to the body now?" Wei Ying asked one of the nearby disciples.

The woman frowned at him, but answered, which was nicer than some people managed around here. "It will be moved to cold storage until arrangements for a funeral are made and it can be transported back. There isn't much more we can get from the body after all."

Wei Ying nodded. "And his friends?"

"Can view the body, but it will likely upset them." The woman laid a cover over the corpse, giving it a bit of dignity in death that it otherwise hadn't been granted so far. "Hopefully the spirit that caused this is found soon and this whole thing can be put behind us."

"Yeah, random deaths are kind of bad for online reviews," Wei Ying joked. That got him annoyed looks all around. A tough crowd. He should have known better than to try and joke with a Lan that wasn't Lan Zhan. He sighed. "Well, guess I should break the news to his group." This was going to be a shit show.

He'd have to grab Lan Zhan for moral support.