The Spirit Village

It had been four days of walking, but upon coming to a six splitted crossroads, Shu Zhijing chose none of the normally trotted paths. He followed the grass-less tracks from the wooden wheels of a wagon being repeatedly trafficked through the area. He founds his way to a lesser path in a dove-tree forest. The large white blooms looked like little doves, little plant symbols of fidelity and longevity that made Shu Zhijing's heart ache. He had been wrong for so long, he had been a heretic hiding behind the power of his sect. All he wanted was to love, and help people, and his brother condemned him, just as the others would if they knew. Just as Qiandan would do if he learned just how selfish he had been to hide him away, to tell him to leave. He should have grabbed his lover and dragged him on this adventure, but he hadn't. He didn't want to bring more turmoil to his family, he was a sinner, not a monster -- he couldn't abandon his brother when he would need him, nor his nephew and father no matter the pain he endured because of it.

The fact that this dove-tree forest was infested with a worrying amount of cats. There was little for the cats to hunt, especially in such large quantities. He had to step over their lounging bodies, sprawled under the sun that peeked from between the leaves of the trees, to get across the area. The cats dispersed as he came to an arch with the town name that he was entering: BEILING. He had no idea where Beiling was, but it was a four day walk, once off the beaten path at the crossroad, from the Wood Sect village. He entered the village and a wave of frost hit him, causing him to shiver bodily.

Shrugging off the odd sensation, he continued into the town. There were people outside, although they mostly wore stained white clothes. Were they wearing mourning clothes all day? At least long enough for them to get dirty and stained. There were people selling things, mostly food items to one another, and people were loading carts up with yams to take elsewhere, likely to sell to a larger group of people. He stopped by a humble stall that was a breeze away from blowing away.

"Excuse me, xiaojie, do you perhaps know where I can find an inn? I have been travelling for quite some time…"

"You plan to stay here?" she asked, surprising tinting her high-pitched voice.

"Just for the night," he said with a nod. The sky had gotten dark awfully quickly. The young girl looked around, before she leaned over her table.

"Don't stay here," she whispered to him. "Go back the way you came and never look back."

"Why do you say that?"

"This was once the home to the Diyu Lord," she whispered again. Shu Zhijing had heard of the Diyu Lord but only in passing. His ancestor had a part in culling that demon herself, but he had never believed much more of the legend. There weren't nearly enough people for him to have killed so many back then, it was over a thousand years prior of course. He wondered if the cats were placed outside the city limits on purpose then, to protect the village from spirits. It was a trick used by non cultivators to solve problems that would otherwise require one.

She continued, "Outside the city at night is dangerous, outside the village limits is even worse."

"I won't be able to make it to safety in time," he said, although he could certainly leave the area in time if he tried hard enough. "Is there an inn I could stay at for the meantime? For my safety, of course." The girl frowned. She would have been about the age that Shu Xiaolin would be, eight -- nearly nine years old. He hoped that Shu Xiaolin hadn't also found this place. He would wait to see what happened in the night. Perhaps he could help these people as he passed through.

"Up the street there is a house that takes the unfortunate souls that wander in," the girl said before she turned back to her yams, returning to her place behind the counter. She didn't bother to look at him again, almost like she was frustrated with his insistence to stay. He bowed to her.

"Thank you."

She just waved him off, a yam in her hand. For a moment, Shu Zhijing thinks she might just throw it at him before she sets it back down on the counter. He heads down the street only to see that there is an inn, although it was well worn and clearly not kept up like the ones he was used to. He entered the rickety establishment and was greeted by a saggy faced man with an incredibly pale pallor. If Shu Zhijing wasn't aware of what a ghost looked like, having fought them before, he would be convinced this man was one.

"Would the young master like a room?" the man asked. Shu Zhijing nodded his head. "Follow me."

He followed the man up a set of stairs that seemed to buckle beneath their weight, before he opened an unmarked door and stepped to the side for Shu Zhijing to enter.

"I hope this pleases the young master," the man said again. "We don't serve food here. Please, accept the apologies of this old man."

"It's quite alright," he insisted. He stepped into the room, and another wave of that horrid energy assaulted him. He staggered back this time, catching himself upright. He rolled his shoulders back. There was definitely something very wrong with Beiling, he just had no idea what besides the fact the energy in this area felt alive and very angry.

"Is everything alright?" the man asked at the door.

"I'm fine," he said, before he turned to look at the man again. "I was warned of the dangers outside at night. I'm unfamiliar with the tales, but is there some sort of information you can offer me? Someone mentioned the Diyu Lord, but I'm woefully uninformed about such a character."

The man reached up to stroke his graying and frazzled hair that brushed his shoulders like a broom. He offered nothing for a very long time, but Shu Zhijing remained patient.

"Forgive my slowness. It's been a long time since someone came here without this knowledge. I thought, since you are wearing those robes with that sword, you came here to try and exorcise the mountain."

"Exorcise the mountain? Is that where the Diyu Lord lived?"

"Yes, along with his ghost and corpse armies," the old man said with a shiver of his own. "He had created this town to host his allies. The dead. We keep the cats outside to keep any wandering souls from trying to take up residence. They are drawn here, something about that mountain. The Diyu Lord created a cave, you see, massive and winding in the mountain. Anyone who goes in, never comes out again. It's said the Diyu Lord still has loyal militants inside waiting to attack intruders and protect his secrets."

"I haven't come for that," he assures the man, who watched him warily. "I'm just looking for my nephew and stumbled here. I can help if there is a direct threat to anyone, however."

"We don't have money for that sort of help…" the man said with a sigh.

"I don't need your money. I will help because it's the righteous thing to do," he said. "What problems do you face here in Beiling?"

The man told him everything, but most notably, there was a single ghost that came through the town at night. Nobody knew where he came from, he just appeared, likely from the cave, and he wailed and he cried out, and he banged on doors pleading for someone to help him find his lost lover. It was a phenomenon that had been happening long enough that the inn keeper's great, great grandparents had warned about it to each generation, and every generation they warned had seen and experienced the ghost firsthand. Whoever that soul was, they were clearly trapped and in need of just as much help as the people suffering it.

While Shu Zhijing had paid for the room, he didn't pay for the meal that the old man plied him with, nearly forcing him to eat the yams that he made for their supper, although the outside cats were all hunters, and left them with no meat to eat, and nobody dared to hunt the cats for food lest they lose their protection from roaming spirits. Shu Zhijing enjoyed the quiet company of someone else, and ate his meal before he thanked the man once again. He stepped outside once the night was done, and waited outside the inn for the spirit to come.

The moon had settled high into the night by the time the first sobs could be heard, a horrible, heartbroken thing. A man dressed in funeral robes, his skin pale and his eyes were pure white, drifted down the center of the streets. He stopped to bang on a few doors before Shu Zhijing stepped into sight. The ghost stopped it's crying.

"You!" the ghost said before it flew at Shu Zhijing. The ghost had his arms out and his fingers curled into claws as it tried to attack Shu Zhijing, but he pulled a talisman from his pocket and flung it at the ghost. It hit the ghost, and the man dispersed. It wasn't that easily however, because he reappeared, the talisman turning to ash on the front of his white robes. That was strange. Shu Zhijing had never dealt with a ghost that could handle a banishing talisman. "You tried to send me to the afterlife!" the ghost accused. "I'm not ready. I'll never be ready. Not until I see my love!" The ghost let out a horrible shriek as a fresh wave of blood pooled in his eyes and rolled down his cheeks.

"Who is your love?" he asked. The ghost stopped shrieking to wipe his face.

"Nobody bothered to ask before," the ghost said. "Liu Tuzhe. He was like you. So beautiful, so confident, so proud." This ghost had loved a man. Perhaps that is why he died, and perhaps that is why he was being punished, trapped in the world. If the Diyu Lord was real, Shu Zhijing thought, would he shepherd this poor, dirty soul into the afterlife? The ghost was not a fighter, clearly not, he was too sensitive, emotional. He wasn't there for revenge, he was there for love. What an honest thing… which meant there was an object tying him to the place, and only cultivators knew how to tether spirits purposely.

"Did he do this? Did he keep you here?" he asked, just to confirm his suspicions.

"I never wanted to leave him, but he's gone. He's been gone for so long, yet I can't even comprehend the time. It feels like eternity," the ghost said.

"I want to help you," he said. The ghost's white eyes were stained red again as more blood spilled, tainting his snow white skin as he sobbed. The ghost rushed forward and touched Shu Zhijing. Ghosts in general were capable of contact with the living and the dead, but only once they had made a connection to the living. Inanimate objects were theirs to manipulate. As far as Shu Zhijing was aware, there had been no spiritual connection made between them. If his lover was a cultivator with the malicious will to tether his spirit, then perhaps he had given him more abilities. What sort of cultivator did such a thing? Which sort of cultivator would then leave their lover's spirit to suffer in such a way? What a cruel, cruel man this ghost's lover was.

"He kept me with him when he was alive. I can show you where," the ghost said. The ghost took his hand with the gentleness of a lover himself, once again confirming that this ghost was not caught or trapped from his need for revenge. "Please don't harm the others you might see. You can call me Wu Mi. Everyone does."

Wu Mi? Wu… It could just be a family name, there were many people with the family name Wu, but the Wu Clan of the famous Water Sect was notable. They may have had an ancestor, a cultivator, that had fallen in love with the wrong person, or perhaps a misguided one. He followed Wu Mi to the mountain, and above the dark mouth of the cave read: DEATH HALL, in four characters carved into the stone. While Shu Zhijing contemplated it being a trap, he knew that this Wu Mi needed him, too, so as the young man's ghost tugged on his hand at his pause, he descended into the darkness of the Death Hall behind him.