Mei Hua was placed on her bed and meticulously tucked under the covers by Jin. Once he had finished getting her comfortable, he very gently spread his qi across her body. First he did a gentle cleanse, getting rid of the worst of the grim and blood. Next, he searched for obvious injuries. But the Fairy Doctor was as good as he claimed, and Jin found none. After finding nothing, he sat on the bed next to her and stroked her face with the back of his fingers.

“When will you wake up, Beloved?” He asked her in quiet apprehension.

The poison was isolated, but the effects of it still remained. He sensed a stillness within her spirit that made his stomach feel heavy. She was asleep but not a normal kind rest. It was as if a large portion of her being simply… stopped.

He stayed there for a bit, just watching her shallow breathing. Finally he ran his fingers through his hair, gave a troubled sigh, and stood up. He wanted to talk to the Fairy Doctor about this poison, but he also needed to deal with the trash. He couldn’t just leave Shi Ji with it indefinitely. If it woke up suddenly, who knew what would happen?

Though he was still uneasy about his wife’s condition, she was still alive. Alive meant she could be healed. Even if it took time, she could be healed.

Forcing himself to focus on that singular fact, he managed to calm himself down. As he calmed down, his rational mind began to function fully once more. And with its return, so too came back his sense of responsibility.

He was not alone in the room. Yan Li was there, and Lu Shao had arrived with Ye just then. (It took them longer to catch up since Lu Shao was slower.) They were huddled at a distance from the bed, looking at Mei with strained faces. They were suffering. They’d been hurting from the moment they’d found out what happened till now. Even the sons that weren’t here, were likely feeling the same.

But he’d not treated them like a Father should. He’d lost his temper and lashed out at his youngest and been too enraged to think sensibly, which forced his bratty older son to take charge. There’d been no comfort or leadership from him. He rubbed his tired face with his hands as he thought of his behavior, depressed.

Mei would have been so terribly disappointed in him if she’d seen how he’d behaved first hand. After she wakes and finds out what he’d done to Lu Shao, she was sure to be furious. She gave him a lot of slack in his behavior, but when it came to her children, she was firm and unmoving.

But he’d willingly take her anger. Even if she kicked him in the shins, he wouldn’t complain. Because that would mean she was awake.

Acknowledging his sons with a nod, Jin finally spoke, “I’ve other things to take care of, you three stay and watch over Mei.”

Both boys nodded enthusiastically and immediately clustered around the bed. Lu Shao crawled up on the big bed and looked into his Mother’s face anxiously. Seeing his Mother wasn’t waking he lay down next to her, his little body curled up close.

As Jin turned to leave, he felt Ye jump up on his shoulder.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“Coming with you.”

“I don’t need your help. Watch Lu Shao, he needs you more than I do.”

“Yan Li is here, and he’s got his Fairy Nanny in a pinch. He will be fine without me for now.” Ye leaned close to his ear and whispered, “And you think this is about helping? This about revenge, Jin. Revenge. That trash isn’t going die at your hands alone.”

The little Fairy’s eyes gleamed with a deadly light.

Hearing this, Jin nodded slightly. In truth, having a fairy around to mess with the trash wouldn’t be a bad idea. It’s not like that trash could see Ye, so anything the fairy did would be twice as terrifying.

———

Shi Ji had dragged the unconscious man in black to a high mountain peak. There, it was cold and barren, devoid of life. There was also very little oxygen, which should naturally help keep the man from waking.

Jin found his son and the trash easily. When he saw the trash lying there, he had to refrain from slaughtering him on the spot. This… thing… had dared to touch his wife with its filthy hands. Every time he looked at this trash it infuriated him to the point of making him want to lose all control of himself.

But he needed information. He needed to remain calm. Why did they target his wife? What had they hoped to gain? And, most importantly, how had they done it? His defensive capabilities were pretty much non-existent against anything out of the ordinary, if he knew nothing about this new threat he was at even more of a disadvantage.

Placing a hand on the side of the mountain, he concentrated. The mountain’s internal landscape changed in an instant, creating a deep labyrinth and the very first dungeon in Jin’s territory.

With Ye on his shoulder, Jin guided Shi Ji into the newly created entrance and down, down, down, deep into the core of the mountain. They entered a room, which had no door, and Shi Ji threw the trash on the floor. There was no light, but none of them needed it to see. The mountains sustained them and they could never get lost or confused simply by being in one, even if it was shaped like a light-less maze.

Finally free of his burden, Shi Ji looked around.

“Why didn’t you make a door?” He asked curiously.

“Because this room isn’t the prison, the prison is the labyrinth. And should it somehow figure out how to escape the labyrinth, the door will still not be accessible to it. Only you, your brothers, the fairies, and I will be allowed in or out. Perhaps if it was stronger it could force its way out but… that won’t be a problem. In fact…”

Jin’s eyes suddenly glowed sharply gold. He reached out and gingerly touched the trash before him. This trash’s soul was putrid, emanating a rot so strong that even without harming his wife, Jin would have been itching to kill it. It was evil, even worse than that army Jin had slaughtered with his Sister long ago. Such things were better off not existing in the world, as far as he was concerned.

The urge to destroy something so wicked was strong, but Jin controlled himself. He’d get rid of this stain on the world eventually, but right now there was a need to keep it somewhat alive.

He forced himself to focus past the malaise. Despite the disgusting shape the trash’s soul was in, it was still a human soul (technically). All human souls had the same basic form: qi (spiritual energy), three dantians (nerve centers of the soul where qi was made and stored), and meridians (channels for qi to travel between dantians and within the body).

Clever humans had figured out how to control their own qi, and then moved onto manipulating energy from the outside (elemental energy). From there, they could absorb the elemental energy and turn it into something usable within their bodies. Thus, they gained a great deal more power than their own qi could naturally produce.

Outside the mountain, all the martial arts that dealt with qi neglected two of the three dantians. They focused on only one, guiding qi into it and continually refining it there. After a time, the qi would look something like a marble, becoming a ball of pure, condensed energy. Otherwise known as a ‘core’. As they added layers to this ‘core’, it would get steadily stronger and more robust. Once they reached a certain point they could draw out qi fast and in great quantities. Amazing feats of reality defying attacks and martial arts moves were then extremely easy for them to perform.

Or so Jin had been told when he’d asked a mercenary about the peculiarity. The oddness had not stopped there, but Jin had stopped listening to further explanation when he’d decided the whole thing was stupid. Why focus on one dantian if there were three? The fact that no one seemed bothered by the discrepancy was enough for him to dismiss the whole method as half-baked. He’d almost forgotten the information, his opinion of it was so low, but the knowledge proved useful to him now.

This trash had used the same faulty teaching to make himself strong. He had two shriveled dantians and one bloated oversized dantian. Jin would simply break the bloated dantian, immediately nullifying the trash’s power, but still keep the trash alive via the two weak dantians left over.

Jin’s spirit, the Fairy Emperor, shuddered as it crawled through the mire of the trash’s soul to get to the bloated dantian. He felt like it would take days to purify himself of the trash’s ‘soul stench’. He clasped the dantian with the marble shaped qi inside it and almost destroyed it before pausing.

A thought came to him and he acted on it immediately: with his physical hand also moving, he yanked out the core. The trash’s body gave a violent convulsion before going limp, blood dribbling out its mouth, nose, and ears.

Holding up the dantian, he pulled out the core and examined it with a thoughtful expression on his face. Perhaps the Fairy Doctor could find some use for this trash’s core? It was a piece of a human soul, so the Doctor could learn something from it through experimentation. With that in mind, Jin stuffed the core into his inner shirt.

Though it started on a whim, this would not be the last time Jin destroyed a Cultivator by stealing their core. While he only took cores from his enemies, that didn’t stop rumors of his torture method spreading far to the East, even to the Jianghu Islands. There cultivating sects, righteous or evil, could only think of such a man as a threat and be deeply unsettled by his very existence. But that was a problem for the far future.

At the moment, Jin was carefully examining the trash. Totally unaware of the future implications his current actions would cause.

Quite a few of its bones were broken, most likely Shan Hui’s work (from what Yan Li had told him) and Jin’s action just then had created an ugly, seeping tear on the trash’s soul. It was important that the trash didn’t die, so if there was anything seriously wrong he’d need to fix it now.

After some thinking, he “cauterized” the meridians that were left dangling where the bloated dantian had been. With that, it wouldn’t die any time soon. The trash would be in agony of course, but that was obviously not something Jin was worried about.

Jin suddenly tilted his head.

“Hm? What’s this?”

“What do you see Father?”

Shi Ji wasn’t able to look into humans as Jin was able to. Jin was quiet for several more seconds before explaining further.

“It seems the trash has pockets of hidden poison in its body. There’s some in its teeth, finger nails, even its toes. Nothing as bad as what was used on me but... it will definitely kill this trash. And there’s a strange tattoo on its back too.”

“Tattoo? Father, can you show it to me?”

“Of course.”

Jin tore off the trash’s shirt like it was paper and then roughly turned the trash over to show its back.

Sure enough, right in the center of its back, was a tattoo. It was a circle with a five pointed star inside and strange writing scribbled along the line and curves.

Shi Ji growled in annoyance when he saw it. “Another one of those magic circles!”

“Ah, so this is what the circle Yan Li spoke about.” Jin stared at it curiously. “What does it do?”

“I don’t know, but it can’t be good. It seems like they’re used as weapons. So it could be for attacking an enemy or for suicide. The most I could tell you is what element it’s using, not what it does with that energy after it’s absorbed it.”

His son shook his head apologetically, “Sorry I can’t be more helpful.”

“It’s fine, it’s fine. But if it’s for suicide, that’d be… inconvenient.” Jin rubbed his chin as he looked at the tattoo, wondering what to do.

“What if you take off the tattoo? You know, skin him?” Ye suggested in gleeful malice. “Would that nullify it?”

“Doing that might set it off Uncle Ye. The magic circle right outside the kidnapper’s lair was like that, just trying to get close set it off… If this is a circle like that one, then trying to mess with it will do the same. And, this is just my guess, but I think that’s very likely what will happen.”

Ye looked thoroughly disappointed at Shi Ji’s explanation.

“Ah… we can’t risk that.” Jin ‘tsked’ in annoyance. “Unless Shan Hui brings back more information, this trash is all we’ve got as a source.”

“We’ve got that little girl Yan Li brought back.” Shi Ji reminded his Old Man.

“Hm… but that’s a… whatsit… human sacrifice. I doubt the girl knows as much as this trash heap.”

Ye’s eyebrow scrunched together, “Maybe we should get Zufu involved.”

“The Fairy Doctor? Why him?”

“He probably knows the human body better than you do at this point, Jin.” Ye continued. “He’s got all kinds of crazy potions too. You’ve got no idea the weird stuff that Grandpa thinks up in his spare time. He once told me to study how to heal someone, you gotta know how they break. That lovable grumpy face hides a dark, dark mind on the inside. He could probably figure a way around this circle thing. So if you need to keep this guy alive but make him suffer, Zufu is definitely the fairy for the job. "

“Is the Fairy Doctor really like that? I thought he valued life?" Shi Ji asked, a bit shocked. Indeed, from the outside, Doctor Zufu didn't look at all the type do such nasty sounding research.

Ye grinned maliciously. “Never under estimate a fairy's ability to rationalize to get and do what they want.”

While Jin nodded in agreement, Shi Ji raised his eyebrows slightly. It's not as though his Mother hadn't warned her sons of how conniving and black bellied fairies could be. His Uncle Ye was a perfect example of this. It's just that, as fairies were loyal to his family and had always favored him, he'd never been witness to that dark nature spoken of by his Mother. It had been a theoretical thing and to suddenly have it brought up had surprised him a little.

But only a little.

For Shi Ji himself was not quite human. Regardless of his Mother’s teachings, his nature was a little bit fairy-ish too. And since he’d seen with his own two eyes what this person had intended on doing to his dearest Mother, he didn’t mind indulging in the darker side of his nature.