The Nine-tailed Fox witnesses a carnage

tw: blood, gore, mutilation 

Min Guifen turns around slowly, his eyes wide as bowls. He visibly recoils when he sees Min Fengyi standing next to him like a vengeful ghost.

"F-Fengyi?" he asks, his voice wavers. He tries to reach for her but she steps away from his touch.

Min Fengyi says nothing, she only looks down at Min Guifen with a cold assessing gaze.

"Fengyi, he didn't die then. I swear to you that I didn't know it was poison," he says, slurring his words and trying to cling to the hem of her dirty robes.

"He's dead now, and killed by your hand," she says finally. Her dark eyes shine with all the hatred that has been brewing inside her for the past years. Six years dead and she only knows anguish and anger.

"It was an accident! I didn't mean to kill him, please believe me," he shouts, walking on his knees towards her.

Min Fengyi lowers herself and runs her fingers over his smooth cheek, almost tenderly. Except, she swings her hand back once he closes his eyes and strikes him with all the strength of the fury inside her.

The sound of the slap echoes in the room like a copper bell.

She gets back up to her feet. "Intentions matter far less than consequences. You've never learned to take responsibility for your actions."

He looks up at her in despair. "I only wanted to be with you, like when you were young. I never meant for any of this to happen."

"I didn't want to be with you, I was happy with my marriage to Jiang Yilong. He was a great husband, and a great father, something you would never be."

Something changes in Min Guifen's face at the mention of Jiang Yilong. The look of pathetic agony is gone from his eyes, replaced with a cold, harsh glare.

"You never loved Jiang Yilong, you only married him because your father ordered you to!"

Min Fengyi smiles as if she has a knife pressed against his throat. "And what makes you think that I loved you?"

Even from a distance Wu Yun can she the smile of pleasure that stretches her lips at Min Guifen's broken moan.

She moves suddenly grasping his jaw between fer fingers, her nails dig into his skin like claws. "I can forgive you, though. If you do a few simple things for me, all will be forgotten, and we can be together."

Min Guifen nods his head, trying to nuzzle into Min Fengyi's vicious grip on his face.

"Anything, I'll do anything."

"Then pick up one of your swords, and cut off your tongue." 

His hopeful smile slips. "What?"

"You heard me." Min Fengyi caresses his cheek in a parody of tenderness. "This is the only way I can be sure that you regret your actions."

Min Guifen swallows dryly, the apple of his throat bobbing frantically up and down. He gets up to his feet. "I'll do it for you. I would do anything for you."

He walks towards the north wall, where a few decorative swords are mounted on a stand.

He picks up one and takes it out of its sheath, he tests the blade's edge with the pad of his thumb, pressing down hard until it draws blood.

When his eyes next meet Min Fengyi's he has the sword raised next to his face.

He takes a deep breath and closes his eyes. He opens his mouth and draws the sword across his tongue in one single movement.

Blood sprays from his lips in a perfect arch, following along with the blade's downwards curve. His tongue falls to the ground with a soft thump, bloodied and still. No more than a piece of meat at the market.

Min Guifen covers his mouth with both hands, trying to stop the river of blood running down his chin and neck.

He looks up at Min Fengyi, waiting for her approval. 

"Good, now your clever tongue won't be able to tell any more lies."

She looks at his tongue lying on the ground in disgust, and turns to him, a manic glint in her eyes. "But, you're not done yet."

Min Guifen moans brokenly, still holding on to his jaw, incapable to making a coherent sound.

Min Fengyi picks up the sword from the floor where it fell, and hands it to him. "Now your eyes. I want you to take them out, so you can no longer look at what doesn't belong to you."

He shakes his head, looking up at her as tears stream down his face unbidden.

Min Fengyi is unrelenting, and continues to hold the sword in front of his face.

He picks it up with both hands, allowing the river of blood from his mouth to run freely down his chin.

He grips the sword by the handle, and turns it until the sharp rounded tip is facing towards him.

He rams the sword straight through his right eye, and lets out an anguished shout, opening his mouth in a bloody gurgled scream.

Without giving himself time to think, he does the same to the other eye, making tears of blood run down his cheeks to join the mess already on his jaw and neck.

Min Fengyi runs his fingers through his smooth, long, hair. Min Guifen leans into the caress. She tightens her fingers on the silky strands and pulls his head, lowering her face so she can whisper in his ear. "Now the ears, you have only ever heard what you wanted, so you don't need them either."

---

Wu Yun watches the bloody ruin that remains of Min Guifen cowering in a corner, squirming on the floor as he hugs his knees to his chest.

"Maybe we went a little overboard," he says, watching the pool of blood under him spread with each movement.

"It was your idea," Xue Zhuan says.

"Yes, for Min Fengyi to approach and immobilize him, not to maim him into nonrecognition." 

Xue Zhuan shrugs. "It's so rare that I get to watch someone who actually deserves it be tortured, let me enjoy it. Besides, everything will be healed by tomorrow."

Lan Tian clicks his tongue in distaste. "Not much of a torture if you can only do it once."

Xue Zhuan flicks his fingers at him. "Precisely. Welcome to the Underworld." 

Wu Yun turns his back on Min Guifen, and walks towards Jiang Tanmei, sparing a look towards Lu Meng, and Min Fengyi standing at his side. "Well, just one more soul to go."

Lan Tian turns to Xue Zhuan. "You're certain he won't be able to tell whoever helped him that he saw us here? "

Xue Zhuan points towards Min Guifen's general state. "That's what 'going overboard' is supposed to handle. You can't kill the dead again, but you can incapacitate them. In any case, I'm going to ask Yu Songdi to to punish him in his court, I'm sure we can come up with something."

Lan Tian as always isn't so easily reassured, nor so optimistic. "Won't whoever helped Min Guifen know that Yu Sondgi is involved, then?"

Xue Zhuan dismisses his concerns with a flick of his billowy sleeve. "Songdi sees danger everywhere, he's nothing if not prepared."

Wu Yun is only half listening to their conversation, his attention is focused on Jiang Tanmei, still reliving the moment of his death.

"It's not working, he doesn't hear us," Lu Meng says, turning to Wu Yun with panicked eyes.

"Meng-er, don't cry," Jiang Tanmei is saying again. "We'll meet each other in the next life."

"Tell him you're already there!" Wu Yun says, running his fingers through his hair, pulling a little at the roots to relieve some of the tension. 

He's feeling the weight of all the day's struggles. They haven't been in the Underworld a single day, yet he feels like an eternity has passed.

Lu Meng lowers his face next to Jiang Tanmei's. "A-Tan, I've found you. We can be together again in this life."

Jiang Tanmei turns his face to the side, as if he's looking for the source of the voice.

"A-Tan, we can all be together, me, you and your mother," Lu Meng says.

"Mother? Meng-er?" Jiang Tanmei, asks, trying to see them.

Lu Meng moves towards his face, and tries to grasp Jiang Tanmei's hand when he raises it to stroke his cheek.

Min Fengyi takes the other side, and Jiang Tanmei raises his hand to touch her face as well.

"I'm so happy to see you." There's nothing of the haughty young master in Jiang Tanmei's smile. He's just a young man, happy to see the people who mean the most to him again.

"Let's give them some privacy," Wu Yun's says, pulling on Lan Tian's sleeve to draw his attention.

He walks towards Lu Meng and places the mirror next to his hand, where he can reach it easily, before joining Lan Tian and Xue Zhuan outside the room.

"So you'll be leaving soon," Xue Zhuan says, watching as Wu Yun bumps his head against Lan Tian's shoulder with a sigh.

"I'll miss Youdu," Wu Yun says, meaning it. Of all the places he's been he doesn't think there's another he feels as at home in as Youdu.

"I'll find a way to make it possible for you to visit from time to time, both of you," Xue Zhuan says, winking at Lan Tian when he rolls his eyes at him.

Watching Xue Zhuan's carefree smile Wu Yun remembers that he has decided to trust him. He had in the past when he was Ling Yan, so why not now?

"Xue Zhuan, how do we kill a god?" he asks, figuring it's best not to beat around the bush.

Lan Tian turns his face so quickly to look at him that Wu Yun fears it will give him whiplash.

Xue Zhuan looks just as astonished. "I'm sorry, what?"

Wu Yun thinks he made himself plenty clear, but he likes Xue Zhuan, so he doesn't mind spelling it out. "I want to kill the Jade Emperor."

Xue Zhuan whistles. "You must really like Youdu, uh? You know it's not going to work right, you're a Beast now, you won't be able to come down here when you die."

He exchanges a sideways look with Lan Tian, wanting to check that he heard the same thing as him, and that he isn't hallucinating Wu Yun admitting to having a death wish.

Lan Tian smiles privately to himself. Xue Zhuan might have been close with Ling Yan, but no one knows Wu Yun like Lan Tian does. 

"He is determined to kill the Jade Emperor ever since I met him," Lan Tian says, smiling fondly at Wu Yun.

At this point 'killing the Jade Emperor' has become just another of Wu Yun's idiosyncrasies to Lan Tian. He doesn't like cold water, he's a clingy sleeper, a loudmouth, and he wants to kill the Jade Emperor.

"Well, it's not like I like him, or anything, so I'm not opposed to it but..." Xue Zhuan starts, rubbing the back of his neck. "You would need a smiting weapon."

"Anything easier to get than that?" Wu Yun asks. It's going to be hard enough to get into the Heavens, let alone steal a weapon while he's there.

"I wouldn't call it easier, but there's the demon swords." Xue Zhuan looks a little worried at the manic glint in Wu Yun's eyes.

"Where can we find them?" Lan Tian asks.

"Neither of you is strong enough to yield them, you have to advance your cultivation by leaps and bounds before you can even get close to them." 

"So you're saying there's a chance?" Wu Yun asks, ignoring most of what Xue Zhuan said.

"A minuscule one. The swords used to be hidden in the Underworld, but the Gods decided to take them away. I don't actually know much about it, but Yu Songdi fought in that battle, it's how he lost sight in his left eye."

Wu Yun deflates. "So they were taken to the Heavens?"

"No. The Heavens and the Underworld don't mix, the sword's nature would have become unstable there. They have likely been hidden in neutral territory."

"So, in the mortal world," Lan Tian says, inferring the only logical conclusion.

"Before you ask, I have no idea where. I just know that the God who took them was Siming, Master of Fate."